Which to bury, us or the hatchet (8/13)
So this has taken me a while to get around to posting, mainly due to RL being hectic and also because this part gave me a little trouble. Thanks to the lovely masja_17 for helping me through this section, your advice and fresh eyes were perfect! Anyway if you decided to stick around for more I hope you enjoy this section, and I promise you won't have to wait as long for more.
Find it on AO3 | Masterpost
Back (Part 7) | Part 8 | Next (Part 9)
"He's in love with you, you know?" Chris says out of the blue as they're relaxing on Jensen's sofa and Jensen nearly chokes on his beer.
"Jesus, warn a guy." Jensen splutters, not daring to acknowledge Chris' words.
"I am. I'm warning you that he's in love with you and that you need to get your head outta your ass." And Jensen's blocking it out, really he is, Chris did not just say that. Chris is not sat on his sofa, well sprawled across it, has Chris ever just sat, does he even have the ability, Jensen doubts it. But Chris is not sat or sprawled there, drinking all Jensen's damn beer and dropping bombs like love out of nowhere. Jensen really needs to get better at lying to himself. Or maybe just a new best friend.
"He doesn't." Jensen starts, it makes his heart beat fast and his blood run hot as he dares to really think about the idea. He shouldn't let himself indulge in it, but his brain isn't really giving him a choice right now. "I mean - he hasn't said anything."
Chris sighs in exasperation. "Oh really? Would you confess your love to the guy who full out told you, you were just having sex?"
Chris pauses waits for that thought to really sink in. That fucker. When Jensen swears, because really if he could take those stupid words back he would, Chris adds. "Didn't think so. You're a dick you know?" As if Jensen wasn't currently mentally calling himself that and another few choice insults.
"Love you too." Jensen spits back, but really Chris isn't telling him anything he doesn't already know, he's just voicing it aloud, which somehow seems to making him feel even shittier. He's really fucked this up, like majorly fucked this up. He'd spent so long pretending Jared just didn't exist, somewhere around two years, and then he'd fallen slap bang back into his life, because, well, fate is a cruel bitch that for some reason seems to have taken a great dislike to Jensen, and then all the feelings he'd been telling himself didn't exist just, came crashing down on him, like how he hadn't been able to get Jared out of his head since the first night they'd met. So then that night with Jared, when the questions had started, about what they were and what they were doing, he'd panicked, and his mouth had spouted words before he could even think about them, and really his mouth should not be able to ever talk again if that's what it comes up with and now it's fucked. He's feeling more, so much more than sex, but how does he tell Jared that. He just doesn't have the words. He wouldn't know where to begin.
"So, me and Mike decided you need to tell him straight." Chris' voice cuts into his current mental crisis.
"You and Mike?! Please stop talking about my sex life with Mike, please just stop talking about my sex life." Now Jensen's got this image of the two of them meeting, probably covertly, because that sounds like something Mike would do, because, well, it's Mike, to talk about him and Jared and that, is a mental image he really never needed.
"He's a little broken you know?" Chris' voice gentles and Jensen pauses mid-sip through his beer.
"Who Mike? Who doesn't know that." Jensen quips.
"No, Jared. You can't tell me you didn't notice him fucking breaking down on his own lawn the other day." And Jensen couldn't forget that, really who could forget that, the image of Jared sat alone in all that grass. It hadn't really been the tears that had got to Jensen, it was the way Jared had just broken down like that, the way he'd been sat right there and yet looked so far away. Jensen had been afraid to touch him, to get up and reach out, to offer a shoulder or support. And really that's something he should have done. He just hadn't known how to reach out like that. As Chris and his mind keep telling him, he's really a bit of a dick sometimes.
"He gets real quiet sometimes." Chris continues. "Which is so un-Jared, but I can't put my finger on what that's all about."
Jared's never out-right told Jensen what it's all about, what causes that little wistful look he gets in his eyes, but Jensen's fairly sure it's something to do with family. Whenever the topic comes up he's noticed that Jared always seems to veer away from it or make these non-committal answers, the kind that let people know they're not really welcome to pry any further. The worst, Jensen's come to think, is when people talk about their own families, about their traditions or plans because Jared gets that far away look, a happy smile will play at the corner of his mouth and Jensen can tell he's remembering but then he shakes himself out of it and Jared just looks haunted, a crinkle in his brow that makes Jensen want to smooth it all away, because no one, at twenty should have a look like that.
He finds it so disconcerting to see Jared like that. Everyone sees this guy who's so bubbly and full-of-life and Jensen thinks he's just managed to scratch beneath the surface of all that. And sure, that's a huge part of Jared, a part that Jensen loves and well, hates, and you can't really judge him for that unless you've dealt with a sugar high Jared, and anyone that has wouldn't dare judge. But below that happiness and openness and love Jensen's got a glimpse of the hurt that he thinks might just drive Jared. It shouldn't, but it makes him intrigued, it makes him want to know the details so he can maybe hurt the people that put that hurt there or just make it so Jared never has to think of them again.
"I'm just saying, if you don't do this right, you're gonna break him more." Chris says, no nonsense tone to show his seriousness. Maybe Jensen should be pissed about that, but he kind of really likes the fact that Chris has taken to Jared like that, that he'd defend him like that. And really, those words aren't anything he's already said to himself.
"I know." Jensen sighs. "I know." The only problem is that he isn't sure whether or not he'll break himself in the process too.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Instead of just talking to Jared though, like he knows he should, like a normal human being probably would, Jensen tries to subtly let Jared know what's going on, which ultimately doesn't work, of course.
After training that day Jensen asks. "You wanna hang out? Watch a game or something.?"
"Really? Dude, your lines suck you know." Jared replies, leaning against the side of Jensen's truck and doesn't catch the disappointment that flits across Jensen's face. He really sucks at this doesn't he, because well subtlety didn't work but then being damn serious and asking for more didn't seem to go down too well either did it?
"No I mean it. You wanna hang out?" Jensen twists his fingers together, a damn nervous habit that he really needs to quit, waiting for Jared's answer.
"Why?" Well that definitely not on the list of answers he expecting.
"Because I like hanging out with you, okay? And... This isn't just sex for me anymore." Well shit, he hadn't meant to say that, had he? Sure, he was getting round to bringing up the whole I want more than sex issue, but really just blurting it out like that hadn't been in his plan. It's just that when he gets within five feet of Jared his brain just melts. He has moves, not right now, but he's pretty sure he used to have moves. And really, he'd love it if they decided to grace him with their presence sometime soon because now he's standing, like an idiot his mind racing. What if Jared really did just want sex? What if Jared doesn't wanna hang out with him? What if he read this completely wrong? and dear god this thing is gonna give him a coronary. How do people do relationships, like really, how? And why?
He sees the cogs turning in Jared's mind can tell he's thinking it through but Jensen has no idea what he's thinking and that's damn infuriating, he feels like he just spilled his guts, when really he hasn't told Jared anything, he just doesn't do this kind of thing okay. The feelings or whatever. And he'd figured with two guys he'd need to do it even damn less.
"Okay." it's just one word and it's slightly awkward afterwards, the two of them climbing into the car. And Jensen should really say more, he should but he just doesn't know how to say how his heart gets big and heavy and like its gonna break out of his chest when he looks at Jared. But when he leans over and kisses him, slow and sweet, he hopes that somehow that says it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Over the next few days and that talk, where the two of them really didn't talk, Jared wonders when he became so afraid. He wonders it as he corners Jensen the next day at training, as the words just get clogged in his throat and he feels like he's choking on them, as Jensen just looks shamelessly at him, eyes full of promise, as if he's waiting for Jared to say something, before just walking away. He wonders about it as he lies awake that night, mind restlessly trying to fight the dread that's slowly been building inside of him all day. He wonders about it the next day as he's surrounded by the guys, plane ticket in hand, Vancouver and the Canucks waiting for him and he tells himself the words can wait another day, another week because for the moment he has this, and surely this is enough.
He's a coward, he can't hide that from himself, but he just keeps remembering that moment on the porch with Mike and Chris and Jensen, and he keeps feeling that lightness in his chest and he can't bring himself to say the words to Jensen. Can't say I want more than this or I can't keep doing this, because he's not ready for the consequences. He's not ready for Jensen to walk away and shatter the illusion he's holding onto.
What their previous fight, the one that kinda started this all, has taught him, is that Jensen is pretty much a package, one that includes Mike and Chris and nights on his porch and yeah sure, the guys wouldn't cut him off completely he knows that, they're not complete assholes. But without Jensen he doesn't get to have those quiet nights with the sun setting and the beer flowing and Jared's been starved of the feeling of belonging for so damn long that he just isn't ready to give that up. And maybe that's selfish, hell, he knows it's selfish, but for once he just wants to feel whole for a while. So he quiets that voice in the back of his mind, the one that tells him that he's being stupid, but he just doesn't want to break the status quo. And maybe, though he won't admit it, he's not ready for the possibility that he tells Jensen he wants more and Jensen actually stays.
The week is a blur of ice, drills, games and Jensen's lips, Jensen's bed, Jensen. He'd thought, stupidly, that having sex with Jensen would somehow lessen the need, but every time he loses himself with Jensen buried deep inside him he can only think of how badly he wants to do it again. Right away. Jensen calls him insatiable. Not that he protests. He's a guy after all, right? Jared just thinks he's going crazy.
Just sex he tries to remind himself, even if Jensen said it was more, Jared's still holding on to that, it might the only thing that's keeping him afloat and really, that's all it is. Unless you count the night that Jared had been too fucked out and fallen asleep with the weight of Jensen pressing him down in to the mattress. Or the way that that led to Jared staying the next night. And the next. And Jensen hadn't called him on it. They'd just fallen right into it just like the way they seem to take only Jensen's truck to practises, Jensen saying it's impractical to take two, saving the environment and all that. Or the way Jensen made Chris room with Mike after the Canucks match. And somehow they've become joined at the hip this week. Just sex he tries to tell himself even if it feels like anything but.
The bubble that he's been allowing himself to live in, the one where only Jensen really exists, and reality and all its problems are far away, bursts when they pull up to his place on Sunday, Jared ready to beg Jensen to put his hands all over him, to find Sandy's beat up little fiesta parked in front of them. The dread that he'd been holding back, the words that he'd been telling himself didn't exist come rushing back as he sees Sandy sat on his porch steps waving, a smile lighting up her face. He hears Jensen unbuckle his seat belt, get out of the car and he's still sitting there, frozen, unable to move.
Jared forces his mind to focus and his limbs to work when Jensen taps on the window and gives him a puzzled look and he pushes himself out of the truck. They stand awkwardly on the curb.
"Maybe I should..." Jensen says gesturing to the truck and Jared's just about to agree that that's a fucking fantastic idea when Sandy bounds up to them, pulling them both in and talking a mile a minute as she leads them both over to the house. No getting out of it that easy Jared thinks.
He'd thought for certain that Sandy would be pissed, that he'd be greeted with accusations and demands not friendly hugs and miles of questions. He hadn't phoned her since his freak out. He'd ignored the phone calls, let them go to voicemail, all of which he'd deleted. He'd ignored the texts that asked are you okay, did Jensen call, stop being a jerk and call me, and finally I'm getting worried Jare. It was just him being selfish again, not ready to explain the situation to her because he knew. He just knew she was going to call him on this. She was going to tell him how bad it was going to turn out. She was going to make him face up to it all.
So he can't quite understand how she's grinning at him, sitting with Jensen on the sofa. Jared has no clue what the hell is going on here. He's too shell-shocked by her to really take an interest in the conversation or form words until he hears her say.
"You should come! Unless you have plans?"
And suddenly Jared's voice is back in business.
"What?" He asks looking dumbly at the both of them.
"Thanksgiving. Were you even listening to a word I said?" She looks at him with something that's warmer than pity, that's maybe a touch of understanding or jealousy and Jared feels his head spin, what the hell is going on. But Sandy just shakes her head at him, oblivious of Jared's current melt-down. "Jensen should come right? To Thanksgiving? The one we're having on Thursday. Did you forget Jare? Just cos you're this up and coming hockey star doesn't mean you get to flake out of our traditions."
Jared just shrugs apologetically, was it really Thanksgiving already?
"You don't spend Thanksgiving with family?" Jensen asks turning to Jared and the words cut straight through to Jared's heart.
"Sure he does." Sandy explains smile still as wide, never missing a beat and Jared's thankful for that. "So are you in?" She barrels on.
Jensen doesn't shift his gaze from Jared as she asks the question, as they all wait for an answer and Jared's beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable. The whole situation is throwing him so off balance, he isn't sure he's going to be able to right himself, Jensen just needs to stop looking at him like that, like maybe he can see right inside Jared to those things that hurt too much to say aloud.
"I'd love to, but Mike and Chris and I sort of planned to hang out. Not enough time off for the three of us to make the trip home." Jared thinks he hears a trace of regret in Jensen's voice as he speaks, it isn't unfamiliar, that longing for home. Jared can understand that.
"So bring them. We have turkey, home-cooked turkey. And not by Jared." Sandy is like a Rottweiler going after a bone when she gets going and Jared wonders just why she wants this to happen so damn much.
"I'll talk to the guys. I'm sure neither of them can turn down a proper Thanksgiving meal." And then Jensen is standing and Jared really doesn't want him to go, but maybe it's a good idea so he can have a little chat with Sandy and talk about how she's apparently lost her mind. "I'll call you." Jensen adds as he walks over to the door and Jared hopes those words mean more than just about Thanksgiving, for a few minutes he lets himself believe they do.
As soon as the door shuts Sandy is on him, bursting his eardrums with squeals and tickling his side and it takes Jared a few minutes to disentangle her.
"I should be pissed." She starts before Jared can think of anything to say to explain the weirdness of today. "And I was going to be, until I saw you pulling up with Jensen and that just kinda took the wind right out of my sails because I get it."
He's pretty sure she's the only one that does. "You get what?"
"The two of you, you're in that phase where you only have eyes for each other right?" She looks at him for confirmation and he's still just looking at her like a fucking idiot. "I get it, you've got Jensen right now, and you didn't have time for me. But still you could've sent me one text to let me know the two of you finally worked things out."
Oh. Jared thinks. Oh shit. So apparently Sandy took two and two and got Jared and Jensen are in a relationship. How does he explain this one? Where does he even start?
"It's cool Jare. Really it is. And I'm sorry that I invited him to Thanksgiving but I thought you'd want him there. I can't believe you didn't ask him already. Plus it was kind of my pay back for ignoring me. You should have seen your face!" Sandy's still talking, still rattling on and Jared just gets up, walks upstairs and locks himself in his bedroom ignoring her calls from downstairs. His heart is beating too fast because she thinks they're a couple and they're not, sure, it's apparently more than sex now but that's not a relationship and that bubble that he was letting himself live in has burst, he hurts. Fuck he hurts.
He doesn't go down when Sandy tells him she'll make something to eat. He doesn't answer when she sits outside his door till the early hours of the morning, trying to coax him into talking to her, to tell her what's wrong. He just stares numbly at the ceiling and wonders when he last got a decent night's sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He avoids Sandy like the plague the next two days. Gets Jensen so worked up in the car after training that Jensen doesn't think twice about taking Jared back to his place and just, devouring him, Jared can't think of a better way to put it. Jared knows full well he's burying his head in the sand or well Jensen, but it's just that when Jensen is touching him, when he's lighting him up he forgets it all. He forgets that he shouldn't be doing this with Jensen, forgets that his best friend is pissed with him because he's not talking to her, he forgets that he's so scared of anything but Jensen's hands on him. So he goes after Jensen harder, pushes Jensen further and Jensen groans into his ear Jay you're gonna be the death of me and Jared thinks it wouldn't be a bad way to go.
There're enough t-shirts and jeans of his that somehow have ended up at Jensen's, which is pretty weird, that he doesn't need to go home. So he doesn't. And Jensen doesn't mention it until the second night as they lay in bed, Jensen's fingers tangled in Jared's hair, breath heaving and Jared's feeling fairly satisfied, Jensen just used that amazing mouth on him.
"So what's up with you and Sandy?" Jensen casually asks and Jared isn't able to stop himself from tensing against Jensen. Fucked out, like he feels right now, Jared always finds it the most difficult to keep the things he wants to lock deep within himself from Jensen. And that's the moment Jensen always seems to ask these questions, it's like he knows Jared just has no defences left when they're snuggled together like this.
"Nothing." Jared lies, telling himself to relax.
"Sure, that's why you haven't been home in the past two days. Come on Jay, what's going on?" Jensen, like Sandy, just doesn't know when to let things go. Jared pushes himself up off of Jensen and off the bed, fingers fumbling as he tries to find his clothes, pulse racing.
"I said it's nothing and if you didn't want me here you should have just said."
"I didn't say I didn't want you here. I just asked what's going on with you." And whilst Jared's voice is raised, Jensen's is quiet, patient and Jared thinks maybe a little hurt, but that's just him projecting what he wants from Jensen.
"And I said nothing." He feels like a child as he spits that back at Jensen, feels like a child as he leaves the room and Jensen doesn't stop him as he slams the door. He waits on the other side for a few minutes praying that door is gonna burst open and Jensen is going to come after him, but he doesn't and Jared can't really blame him.
He realises he doesn't have his car, because they've been doing that stupid car pool thing and it's raining and he's only got this stupid thin t-shirt on but he doesn't care, he just keeps putting one foot in front of the other and if the water on his face is more than just rain, well no one will really notice.
Jared's soaked when he finally makes it home, his teeth chattering as he swings the door open and Sandy's standing right there. He sees concern looking up at him and he thinks maybe now she is going to shout. He can see that controlled rage of hers just burning under the surface and he thinks he can take it, maybe he'd feel better if she took a shot at him, because right now he just feels lost. But she doesn't shout, she just takes one of his hands in hers and drags him fully inside.
"What's going on?" She asks gently and he feels so cracked open, because isn't that the question he's been asking himself from pretty much the moment Jensen walked back into his life.
He doesn't recognise the voice that whispers. "I don't know." But he realises it must be his, he's never sounded so far away before and when he manages to look at Sandy again all he sees is pity and it's suffocating him. This time when he pushes away she lets him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Get up sleepy head!" A voice shouts, and there must be an earthquake because his bed is definitely moving. Jared cracks open an eye to see Sandy jumping on his mattress, he rolls over groaning trying to snag a pillow to hide under. Sandy just grabs it out of his hands.
"It's pre-Thanksgiving day. And you know what that means?" She stops bouncing to tug the covers down and throws them on the floor out of his reach and Jared groans. He's a morning person, really he is, but when you haven't been sleeping for the past well forever and then get woken up at the crack of dawn, it just isn't fair.
"It means shopping." Sandy rambles on causing Jared to groan louder and try to bury himself beneath the remaining pillows. "Plus I phoned Jensen and he and the guys are coming so we need lots and lots of food.
"You phoned Jensen?" Jared says sitting bolt upright and eyeing Sandy suspiciously, his heart doing a slight tap dance in his chest.
"I may or may not have borrowed your phone." Sandy confesses, squealing and scrambling off the bed as Jared reaches out snags an arm around her waist and pulls her back fingers tickling down her sides. It only takes a few minutes for her to call uncle and they lie back, Sandy still giggling, Jared with a stupid grin across his face. So shopping, can't turn out that bad.
It turns out to be worse than bad, Sandy lumbers him with the trolley and Jared's lost track of the number of scowls he's received whilst trying to navigate the stupid thing around the store, he's pretty sure it's impossible and he just wants to crawl back into bed when they finally finish loading all the stuff she made him buy into the back of her car, but Jared's come to the conclusion that Sandy really is evil, because despite his klutz like fingers she makes him help with Thanksgiving preparations.
"I hate you, you know." He says as he tries not to cut off his finger for the umpteenth time.
"Come off it." Sandy laughs. "You love me."
Jared throws her a sceptical look and Sandy laughs a little louder. As the laughter dies in her throat the air becomes a little tenser and Jared knows that that conversation he's been avoiding since she got here is about to happen and he's still really not ready for it.
"So." She starts and leaves it hanging there, it's an in for him, he knows that, they've had conversations like this for too long for him to recognise the way she coaxes things out of him. The only trouble is that knowing it doesn't mean that he's ever able to really stop it.
"So..." He replies lamely and drops the knife to look at her. "Me and Jensen, we're not together."
There he's said it, and the thing is once he has, it's like he wasn't really saying it to her, he was saying it to himself.
"Didn't look like that to me." She questions and Jared feels his patience just about dry up.
"We're together, like we're... erm... we had sex, we're having sex." He's blushing, oh god, he's blushing, he hates having the sex talk with her, he pretty much hates having it with anyone, it's not anyone else's business but his own. "But we're not together, okay, we're just. We're just..." His words peter out and his arms make this flailing motion and he feels like that, like he's flailing, because he can't voice words he doesn't have, and he doesn't have a name for this thing between the two of them.
Sandy stands there staring and Jared thinks she closely resembles a goldfish when she opens her mouth to say something and then closes it pursing her lips, he could laugh at that image if he wasn't too anxious about her response.
"Right, okay." She says and Jared gapes at her because out of every response he's run through for the past few days, 'okay' just wasn't one of them. And the thing is, it makes everything worse, because it's not okay, it really isn't okay.
"I'm sorry I invited him for Thanksgiving then." When Jared looks over, Sandy's looking sheepish.
"It's okay Sands, we're friends you know, we hang out with the guys, we talk." How do you explain this to someone?
"It won't be awkward?" Sandy asks.
"No, it'll be fine." Jared says hastily before remembering the way he'd acted last night. "Well it might be a little awkward." Sandy raises an eyebrow at that. "We kinda had a fight, he... um he wanted to know what was going on with me the past few days and I kinda didn't tell him and walked out. I'm an idiot I know."
He expects her to pick up on the fight, to ask questions and want details because, well, that's what usually happens, he doesn't expect her to boost herself up on the work top, eye him curiously and then ask. "What has been going on with you the past few days?"
He stands there, floundering for a few minutes and she just lets him, she doesn't push just sits and watches, waits for him to cave and tell her everything, but he can't voice his fears yet, if he tells Sandy he wants more than what he's got with Jensen, but he's too afraid to ruin it all by getting more or losing it all completely, then she's going to tell him he has to make a decision. He isn't ready to make it.
"Just being stupid." He says and it's the truth really, he was being pretty damn stupid. "It doesn't matter now."
The sceptical look on Sandy's face tells Jared he isn't off the hook, but the fact that she doesn't say anything or call him on it tells him she's at least letting it slide for now. And maybe that's all he needs, a little time to figure it all out.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jared's feeling supremely grouchy when he wakes the next morning. Thanksgiving, he thinks and wishes really that he could just bury his head beneath the pillows and sleep the day away. But he knows Sandy will never let him get away with that and with everything else about this day he really doesn't need to be chastised by her or made to feel guilty. When he knows he can't get away with lying there any longer he grudgingly crawls out of bed and into the shower.
When he finally makes it downstairs, feeling somewhat more human, he finds Sandy already busy in the kitchen, he leans against the jamb and watches her, it's nice, he realises, to have someone in his kitchen, to have her in his kitchen.
He never really says it, at least not out loud, but he's so thankful for her, for the way she's always been there for him. He's not so sure he would have made it without her.
She's startled when he wraps his arms around her resting his chin on her head but she doesn't stop chopping. He sighs and settles into her and he feels himself settle a little.
"Thank you." Jared says quietly and he's sure his words get lost in her hair, hopes they do because his voice sounds kind of choked and he should really be embarrassed about that.
"Don't mention it." Sandy replies, she doesn't ask what for just accepts his thank you the same way she's always accepted him.
It's on days like this though that whilst he feels thankful for her he can't help feel guilty, for all the things she misses because of him. Like the fact that she's here with him instead of with her family. He'd told her that last year, when they'd had Thanksgiving in Vermont, and she's scolded him like a mother would a small child and said that he was her family too.
They stand like that a while, her preparing veg and him wrapped around her, if it was anyone else it might look sexual but for them it's simply intimate, companionable. With the veg done Sandy fusses him from her kitchen, well his kitchen, and tells him to go tidy up.
"The guys have seen the house before, don't need to impress them." He shouts back to her as he walks to the living room. There are bottles strewn across the coffee table, well he thinks there might be a coffee table below the bottles and plates and papers and yeah maybe she has a point, a little tidying up couldn't hurt, plus it'll keep his mind off things until the guys get here.
But then he's thinking of the guys which ultimately leads him to thinking about Jensen and that fight. He should probably apologise or maybe just let it go, what's one more thing they don't talk about right?
The time passes too quickly and suddenly there's a knock on the door and when Sandy hollers from the kitchen Jared swings it open to meet Mike, Chris and Jensen. Jensen and Chris hold out beer and he smiles as he invites them in, as Mike passes he holds out an oddly shaped and haphazardly wrapped present and Jared eyes it curiously.
"Do I even want to know?" Jared asks and when Mike opens his mouth to speak Jared holds up his hand to stop him. "Forget I asked. I really don't want to know."
Jared leads them over to the kitchen setting the beer down whilst the guys greet Sandy and then she's pushing them out of the kitchen telling them to put the game on and not disturb her.
"Shouldn't we help?" Jensen asks when they traipse into the living room.
"No, she has this kind of cooking Zen and if you try to help she just gets mad and shouts. A lot. Trust me." He adds when Jensen still looks unsure. "It's like this every Thanksgiving."
"Every Thanksgiving?" Jensen asks.
Jared would usually get defensive about that question, deflect or be non-committal but he just shrugs because he's tired of being defensive, he's tired of hiding. "It's kind of a tradition."
"That's pretty cool that you get out of the cooking like that, my mum always manages to rope me in if I'm at home." Chris says but Jensen's still looking at Jared as though if he just keeps looking he'll be able to piece Jared together. It makes Jared feel squirmy but then the guys descend into arguments over whose team is the best and which one is gonna whoop ass and Jensen gets drawn into the conversation.
He'd been dubious about having them all over, he wasn't really in the mood for company, at least so he thought, because it's nice to sit and laugh and argue over something as silly as a football match. And Sandy did it again, knew exactly what he needed before he did, she really needs a saint hood.
When he goes to the kitchen to get more beer he pulls her into another rub crushing hug and whispers thank you to her hair. She just smiles up at him, laughing, bats him away.
"I just want you to be happy Jare." She says and Jared thinks that despite the whole Jensen thing, and the pressure of the NHL this might be the first Thanksgiving he has been in a really long time.
"I am." he laughs back at her before she bustles him out of the kitchen again, beer in hand.
Mike's sulking when they finally sit down to eat, it seems his Miami Dolphins lost to Chris and Jensen's Dallas Cowboys and they've been ripping into him about it since the final whistle.
"Okay no more football talk at the table." Sandy scolds as she lays the final plates down and Jared can't contain his excitement for food as he bounces happily on his chair. There's been glorious smells wafting out of the kitchen since he got up and if he has to wait any longer he's going to starve. He needs food now.
Jared says a quick grace, being thankful for sharing food with good friends. None of them are overly religious so it's more of a habit than a necessity and then Sandy hands the carving knife to Jared.
"It's all on you handsome." She says with a wink and Jensen snorts in response.
"You sure we should trust him with sharp implements?" He adds. Jared should maybe take offense at that statement but he hasn't got the heart.
"That's what I said the first year she handed it to me, I haven't cut off any fingers yet though so I think we should be safe."
"I was more worried about blood on my turkey than your fingers to be honest." Jensen jokes and Jared cuffs him playfully on the ear before going to work on the turkey. He thankfully finishes carving with all fingers and thumbs attached and intact and Jensen lets out an overdramatic sigh of relief when he sets the knife down that has Sandy giggling.
"Okay so another tradition, and you all have to join in, is that we go around and say what we're thankful for this year." Sandy tells them as they all start digging into the mountains of food. "And Jared you're not allowed to say me again. That's pretty much standard these days. And let's be honest, pretty lame."
She gives them a few minutes to think and scoff a few bites before she rambles on with her thanks. "I'm thankful for all those frequent flyer miles this year, seems like I'm forever cashing them in to visit your ass."
"It's a good job you like my ass then eh?" Jared teases.
"Gotta say I'm not opposed to it." She smirks.
"Neither am I." Mike mutters through a mouthful of potatoes and they all turn to stare at him. "What a man can't look?" Laughter bubbles up out of Jared and spreads steadily around the table.
"Man you're weird." Jared says when he manages to catch his breath and Mike just shrugs as if it's nothing he didn't already know and Jared guesses it probably isn't.
"So Jare, what are you thankful for this year?" Sandy asks when the conversation lulls.
There's a lot of things Jared's thankful for, his spot on the Bruins, Mike and Chris and Jensen, and sex with Jensen, his house, and even though she won't let him say it, Sandy. He's thankful for the fact that for the first time since he left home he feels like he has a home again and that isn't just because he found this house, it's because of each and every one of them sat in it. But that's kinda sappy and too damn deep and he can't bring himself to say it.
"The fake ID Mike got me last week." He smirks instead because he likes the light-hearted feel of the day and he really really wants to keep it that way.
"You leading my boy astray?" Sandy says in what Jared terms her best 'mum voice'.
"Wouldn't dream of it ma'am." Mike replies innocently which only leads to a snort from Chris and a shake of Jared's head, after that the things they're thankful for just get crazier and crazier until Mike says he's thankful for oranges and Jared has no idea where that even came from, but he's pretty sure it makes sense somewhere in Mike's brain, which is a scary thought.
Sandy lets them help clear the table before bringing out dessert, homemade apple pie and Jared licks his lips in anticipation.
"Dude you cannot still be hungry?" Jensen asks incredulously.
"Hello, have you met Jared aka the bottom-less pit?" Sandy puts in and Jared just grins, he likes food and he can get away with eating a lot of it, it's a win-win.
"So when are you gonna get that dog Jare?" Sandy questions as she hands him a generous portion of apple pie.
"You're getting a dog?" "Oooh is it a puppy?" "Can you even be responsible for yourself?" The guys chime in at once, Jared's not sure whether to be surprised or offended that that last comment comes from Jensen, but decides to let it go. For now.
"I'm not getting a dog." He concedes and sees the faces fall around him. "I mean not yet. I just haven't had the time, you know, with moving up here and then into the house."
It's true, so many times the past few weeks he's been meaning to stop by the rescue place and see if there's one there for him, he's pretty sure there will be, it's just, he'd wanted to find someone to walk the dog and look after it when he's not around and then he'd wanted to get all the bits and pieces, oh, and build that kennel and between hockey and Sandy and Jensen he just hasn't had the time to do those things.
"You should do it man." Jensen tells him. "You'll never have the time."
"Ain't that the truth." Chris agrees.
"Don't put off what you really want, you just have to make time for it, otherwise you'll be putting it off forever." Jensen says and Jared gets the feeling they're somehow talking about more than just him getting a dog.
"You're such a sap." Chris laughs.
"Asshole." Jensen retorts.
"Pussy."
And Jared realises the moment and whatever it was Jensen was trying to say to him is gone, the banter between Chris and Jensen only grows and Jared can't help but watch the way Jensen lights up when he laughs, the way he gets these little crinkles in the corner of his eyes, the way he throws his head back like he can't contain it and Jared feels his this pressure in his chest, like it's too full, like it's going to burst. It's too much to see Jensen in his house like this and it's not enough because he realises he kind of wants to keep Jensen here, he doesn't want it to be his anymore he wants it to be theirs and just like that his world turns upside down and suddenly it clicks into place. He loves Jensen.
It doesn't breed panic, because Jared realises he's been building to this since the very moment he met Jensen. At first it had been lust and then, though he doesn't like to admit it, infatuation and now, now it feels so different because he knows Jensen, he knows more than the fact that he's just a pretty face, he know he's stubborn and bull-headed, he knows he's cautious but loyal, he knows he's the best friend he's ever had and it just makes those feelings so much more real.
He knows he should panic, sat there at the table, he should feel it curdle his gut but he's still stuck in that moment and he can't let it go yet. He's happy, it's Thanksgiving and he's happy and he knows there'll be time for panic tomorrow.
After the sun sets and the day draws to a close, Jared finds himself sat on the back porch in the cooling air. He can hear Chris' gentle snores from the sofa and he wonders, really, why he even decided to get a house with more than one bedroom because it's not like anyone ever seems to use them. It's nice though, to have people around, it'll be strange when Sandy leaves at the weekend, he almost doesn't want it to happen.
His mind's so far away that he misses Sandy joining him, but her words jolt him out of his thoughts.
"How long?" She asks him and he looks at her in puzzlement, because really, is he supposed to know what she's talking about. When he just stares blankly at her she huffs out a sigh as though it's obvious and continues. "How long have you been in love with him?"
And just like that, that's when the panic slowly rises, his gut roils and he swears he can taste bile in his mouth, his palms feel clammy and his tongue, he just get it to work, can't get it to say; No way Sandy it's not even like that.
Is he that transparent? He wonders. Who else knows, Chris, Mike, oh God, Jensen? But Jensen can't know, right? He wouldn't still be here and also Jared only really realised he was in love with Jensen, like, today, how could anyone else have cottoned on that quickly.
Somehow he manages to dampen the panic in his chest enough to get out a few words. "It's not... I'm not in - in love with him." Jared thinks it's funny that he's denying he's in love with Jensen, when obviously he is, but neither of them have actually said Jensen's name. Maybe he should have played it cool and simply asked Sandy 'in love with who', but he's pretty sure she'd just have called him dense and hit him. To be honest the way she's looking at him now, she might just do that anyway.
Instead she just sighs. "I'm not stupid Jare, but if you need to lie to yourself I get that." She stands up from the seat to head back inside and Jared wonders how she's just letting this go, he's coming to the conclusion he's really shitty at predicting Sandy's actions, but then she stands with the door ajar, looks back at him with a sad smile, and he feels shitty he put it there, but before he can apologise she's speaking again. "You're gonna have to face it sooner or later though."
And then she's gone, leaving the echo of the door hitting the jamb and then the quiet unease of the night. Jared isn't sure how long he sits there, the panic curling in his stomach, but he doesn't head for bed until he sees the first rays of the morning and when he does sleep, he dreams of Jensen and he's always just out of reach.
The lack of sleep, the restless nights and the thoughts that are eating at Jared make him groggy and lethargic when he wakes and hell that isn't fair, because he was good last night, stuck to two beers, well three, so he shouldn't feel like he's got a hangover. The feeling hasn't left him as he heads out of the locker room, everything just feels like it's weighing down on him today.
Jared knows he's going home to an empty house, Sandy's little Fiesta will be halfway home by the time the game is finished, she's on her way to spend some quality time with her real family. It shouldn't make him jealous to think about that, but he can't help it, he does, just one more thing to feel guilty about. Like how he's feeling pretty bad about that fight with Jensen earlier in the week, they haven't spoken about it still, and why should they really, they don't talk about anything, well, not anything that matters anyway. What the hell is he doing? And why, when he felt so happy yesterday, why does he feel like everything's lost today?
It takes him a while to realise there's something a little different about sitting on the bench in TD Garden today. There's a different buzz he realises as Kripke's words wash over him, forgotten as soon as they're heard. It's like maybe this isn't just a game. The crowd are louder than usual and they haven't even started to play, and Jared wonders just how loud it will get. And the guys, his team mates, their faces are all set a little harder, determination evident. Huh, so this is personal.
The past few weeks, hell, maybe even the past few months, he's been so wrapped up in the Jensen drama, that he's forgotten what this feels like, he's forgotten what he's managed to achieve. He's living his dream and it only takes this new excitement of the rivalry between Bruins and Rangers to jolt him right back there. That excitement is infectious and he feels like a damn kid again, raring to get out there.
As soon as he takes that first glide across the ice he feels better, more centered, each puck he passes, each check he makes, just lifts the worry from his shoulders until all he can see is the ice and his opponent and all he can feel is the determination to win. Jared's forgotten how much he needs this, how much he revels in it, how much he loves it. This, right here, is his escape from everything, it's the thing he loves most and when everything falls apart around him, it doesn't really matter because he still has this.
Once he leaves the ice though, it doesn't matter that they won, that they've come out on top of that rivalry, the worries come floating right back in. He turns down the offers for drinks, even if Mike says he needs to try out his new ID, he just, he isn't in the right place to get drunk right now, it'll lead to awkward confessions and embarrassing blubbering.
A quiet night he thinks, that's all he needs, but Jensen's sat on the hood of his car when he leaves so maybe not a night alone, or quiet either.
"Your place or mine?" Jensen drawls, and Jared loves the way he uses that Texas accent just for him.
Jared stands there for a few moments contemplating, why am I doing this he thinks, we should just go home alone, what's the point in all this, but then Jensen tilts his head in question and plasters one of those dazzling smiles across his face, the one that reaches his eyes and Jared thinks Oh, that, that's why, and he can't help the words that roll off his tongue, doesn't even regret them once they're said. "Your place, it's closer."
He's already deep enough right? He might as well fall a little further.
Find it on AO3 | Masterpost
Back (Part 7) | Part 8 | Next (Part 9)
Find it on AO3 | Masterpost
Back (Part 7) | Part 8 | Next (Part 9)
"He's in love with you, you know?" Chris says out of the blue as they're relaxing on Jensen's sofa and Jensen nearly chokes on his beer.
"Jesus, warn a guy." Jensen splutters, not daring to acknowledge Chris' words.
"I am. I'm warning you that he's in love with you and that you need to get your head outta your ass." And Jensen's blocking it out, really he is, Chris did not just say that. Chris is not sat on his sofa, well sprawled across it, has Chris ever just sat, does he even have the ability, Jensen doubts it. But Chris is not sat or sprawled there, drinking all Jensen's damn beer and dropping bombs like love out of nowhere. Jensen really needs to get better at lying to himself. Or maybe just a new best friend.
"He doesn't." Jensen starts, it makes his heart beat fast and his blood run hot as he dares to really think about the idea. He shouldn't let himself indulge in it, but his brain isn't really giving him a choice right now. "I mean - he hasn't said anything."
Chris sighs in exasperation. "Oh really? Would you confess your love to the guy who full out told you, you were just having sex?"
Chris pauses waits for that thought to really sink in. That fucker. When Jensen swears, because really if he could take those stupid words back he would, Chris adds. "Didn't think so. You're a dick you know?" As if Jensen wasn't currently mentally calling himself that and another few choice insults.
"Love you too." Jensen spits back, but really Chris isn't telling him anything he doesn't already know, he's just voicing it aloud, which somehow seems to making him feel even shittier. He's really fucked this up, like majorly fucked this up. He'd spent so long pretending Jared just didn't exist, somewhere around two years, and then he'd fallen slap bang back into his life, because, well, fate is a cruel bitch that for some reason seems to have taken a great dislike to Jensen, and then all the feelings he'd been telling himself didn't exist just, came crashing down on him, like how he hadn't been able to get Jared out of his head since the first night they'd met. So then that night with Jared, when the questions had started, about what they were and what they were doing, he'd panicked, and his mouth had spouted words before he could even think about them, and really his mouth should not be able to ever talk again if that's what it comes up with and now it's fucked. He's feeling more, so much more than sex, but how does he tell Jared that. He just doesn't have the words. He wouldn't know where to begin.
"So, me and Mike decided you need to tell him straight." Chris' voice cuts into his current mental crisis.
"You and Mike?! Please stop talking about my sex life with Mike, please just stop talking about my sex life." Now Jensen's got this image of the two of them meeting, probably covertly, because that sounds like something Mike would do, because, well, it's Mike, to talk about him and Jared and that, is a mental image he really never needed.
"He's a little broken you know?" Chris' voice gentles and Jensen pauses mid-sip through his beer.
"Who Mike? Who doesn't know that." Jensen quips.
"No, Jared. You can't tell me you didn't notice him fucking breaking down on his own lawn the other day." And Jensen couldn't forget that, really who could forget that, the image of Jared sat alone in all that grass. It hadn't really been the tears that had got to Jensen, it was the way Jared had just broken down like that, the way he'd been sat right there and yet looked so far away. Jensen had been afraid to touch him, to get up and reach out, to offer a shoulder or support. And really that's something he should have done. He just hadn't known how to reach out like that. As Chris and his mind keep telling him, he's really a bit of a dick sometimes.
"He gets real quiet sometimes." Chris continues. "Which is so un-Jared, but I can't put my finger on what that's all about."
Jared's never out-right told Jensen what it's all about, what causes that little wistful look he gets in his eyes, but Jensen's fairly sure it's something to do with family. Whenever the topic comes up he's noticed that Jared always seems to veer away from it or make these non-committal answers, the kind that let people know they're not really welcome to pry any further. The worst, Jensen's come to think, is when people talk about their own families, about their traditions or plans because Jared gets that far away look, a happy smile will play at the corner of his mouth and Jensen can tell he's remembering but then he shakes himself out of it and Jared just looks haunted, a crinkle in his brow that makes Jensen want to smooth it all away, because no one, at twenty should have a look like that.
He finds it so disconcerting to see Jared like that. Everyone sees this guy who's so bubbly and full-of-life and Jensen thinks he's just managed to scratch beneath the surface of all that. And sure, that's a huge part of Jared, a part that Jensen loves and well, hates, and you can't really judge him for that unless you've dealt with a sugar high Jared, and anyone that has wouldn't dare judge. But below that happiness and openness and love Jensen's got a glimpse of the hurt that he thinks might just drive Jared. It shouldn't, but it makes him intrigued, it makes him want to know the details so he can maybe hurt the people that put that hurt there or just make it so Jared never has to think of them again.
"I'm just saying, if you don't do this right, you're gonna break him more." Chris says, no nonsense tone to show his seriousness. Maybe Jensen should be pissed about that, but he kind of really likes the fact that Chris has taken to Jared like that, that he'd defend him like that. And really, those words aren't anything he's already said to himself.
"I know." Jensen sighs. "I know." The only problem is that he isn't sure whether or not he'll break himself in the process too.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Instead of just talking to Jared though, like he knows he should, like a normal human being probably would, Jensen tries to subtly let Jared know what's going on, which ultimately doesn't work, of course.
After training that day Jensen asks. "You wanna hang out? Watch a game or something.?"
"Really? Dude, your lines suck you know." Jared replies, leaning against the side of Jensen's truck and doesn't catch the disappointment that flits across Jensen's face. He really sucks at this doesn't he, because well subtlety didn't work but then being damn serious and asking for more didn't seem to go down too well either did it?
"No I mean it. You wanna hang out?" Jensen twists his fingers together, a damn nervous habit that he really needs to quit, waiting for Jared's answer.
"Why?" Well that definitely not on the list of answers he expecting.
"Because I like hanging out with you, okay? And... This isn't just sex for me anymore." Well shit, he hadn't meant to say that, had he? Sure, he was getting round to bringing up the whole I want more than sex issue, but really just blurting it out like that hadn't been in his plan. It's just that when he gets within five feet of Jared his brain just melts. He has moves, not right now, but he's pretty sure he used to have moves. And really, he'd love it if they decided to grace him with their presence sometime soon because now he's standing, like an idiot his mind racing. What if Jared really did just want sex? What if Jared doesn't wanna hang out with him? What if he read this completely wrong? and dear god this thing is gonna give him a coronary. How do people do relationships, like really, how? And why?
He sees the cogs turning in Jared's mind can tell he's thinking it through but Jensen has no idea what he's thinking and that's damn infuriating, he feels like he just spilled his guts, when really he hasn't told Jared anything, he just doesn't do this kind of thing okay. The feelings or whatever. And he'd figured with two guys he'd need to do it even damn less.
"Okay." it's just one word and it's slightly awkward afterwards, the two of them climbing into the car. And Jensen should really say more, he should but he just doesn't know how to say how his heart gets big and heavy and like its gonna break out of his chest when he looks at Jared. But when he leans over and kisses him, slow and sweet, he hopes that somehow that says it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Over the next few days and that talk, where the two of them really didn't talk, Jared wonders when he became so afraid. He wonders it as he corners Jensen the next day at training, as the words just get clogged in his throat and he feels like he's choking on them, as Jensen just looks shamelessly at him, eyes full of promise, as if he's waiting for Jared to say something, before just walking away. He wonders about it as he lies awake that night, mind restlessly trying to fight the dread that's slowly been building inside of him all day. He wonders about it the next day as he's surrounded by the guys, plane ticket in hand, Vancouver and the Canucks waiting for him and he tells himself the words can wait another day, another week because for the moment he has this, and surely this is enough.
He's a coward, he can't hide that from himself, but he just keeps remembering that moment on the porch with Mike and Chris and Jensen, and he keeps feeling that lightness in his chest and he can't bring himself to say the words to Jensen. Can't say I want more than this or I can't keep doing this, because he's not ready for the consequences. He's not ready for Jensen to walk away and shatter the illusion he's holding onto.
What their previous fight, the one that kinda started this all, has taught him, is that Jensen is pretty much a package, one that includes Mike and Chris and nights on his porch and yeah sure, the guys wouldn't cut him off completely he knows that, they're not complete assholes. But without Jensen he doesn't get to have those quiet nights with the sun setting and the beer flowing and Jared's been starved of the feeling of belonging for so damn long that he just isn't ready to give that up. And maybe that's selfish, hell, he knows it's selfish, but for once he just wants to feel whole for a while. So he quiets that voice in the back of his mind, the one that tells him that he's being stupid, but he just doesn't want to break the status quo. And maybe, though he won't admit it, he's not ready for the possibility that he tells Jensen he wants more and Jensen actually stays.
The week is a blur of ice, drills, games and Jensen's lips, Jensen's bed, Jensen. He'd thought, stupidly, that having sex with Jensen would somehow lessen the need, but every time he loses himself with Jensen buried deep inside him he can only think of how badly he wants to do it again. Right away. Jensen calls him insatiable. Not that he protests. He's a guy after all, right? Jared just thinks he's going crazy.
Just sex he tries to remind himself, even if Jensen said it was more, Jared's still holding on to that, it might the only thing that's keeping him afloat and really, that's all it is. Unless you count the night that Jared had been too fucked out and fallen asleep with the weight of Jensen pressing him down in to the mattress. Or the way that that led to Jared staying the next night. And the next. And Jensen hadn't called him on it. They'd just fallen right into it just like the way they seem to take only Jensen's truck to practises, Jensen saying it's impractical to take two, saving the environment and all that. Or the way Jensen made Chris room with Mike after the Canucks match. And somehow they've become joined at the hip this week. Just sex he tries to tell himself even if it feels like anything but.
The bubble that he's been allowing himself to live in, the one where only Jensen really exists, and reality and all its problems are far away, bursts when they pull up to his place on Sunday, Jared ready to beg Jensen to put his hands all over him, to find Sandy's beat up little fiesta parked in front of them. The dread that he'd been holding back, the words that he'd been telling himself didn't exist come rushing back as he sees Sandy sat on his porch steps waving, a smile lighting up her face. He hears Jensen unbuckle his seat belt, get out of the car and he's still sitting there, frozen, unable to move.
Jared forces his mind to focus and his limbs to work when Jensen taps on the window and gives him a puzzled look and he pushes himself out of the truck. They stand awkwardly on the curb.
"Maybe I should..." Jensen says gesturing to the truck and Jared's just about to agree that that's a fucking fantastic idea when Sandy bounds up to them, pulling them both in and talking a mile a minute as she leads them both over to the house. No getting out of it that easy Jared thinks.
He'd thought for certain that Sandy would be pissed, that he'd be greeted with accusations and demands not friendly hugs and miles of questions. He hadn't phoned her since his freak out. He'd ignored the phone calls, let them go to voicemail, all of which he'd deleted. He'd ignored the texts that asked are you okay, did Jensen call, stop being a jerk and call me, and finally I'm getting worried Jare. It was just him being selfish again, not ready to explain the situation to her because he knew. He just knew she was going to call him on this. She was going to tell him how bad it was going to turn out. She was going to make him face up to it all.
So he can't quite understand how she's grinning at him, sitting with Jensen on the sofa. Jared has no clue what the hell is going on here. He's too shell-shocked by her to really take an interest in the conversation or form words until he hears her say.
"You should come! Unless you have plans?"
And suddenly Jared's voice is back in business.
"What?" He asks looking dumbly at the both of them.
"Thanksgiving. Were you even listening to a word I said?" She looks at him with something that's warmer than pity, that's maybe a touch of understanding or jealousy and Jared feels his head spin, what the hell is going on. But Sandy just shakes her head at him, oblivious of Jared's current melt-down. "Jensen should come right? To Thanksgiving? The one we're having on Thursday. Did you forget Jare? Just cos you're this up and coming hockey star doesn't mean you get to flake out of our traditions."
Jared just shrugs apologetically, was it really Thanksgiving already?
"You don't spend Thanksgiving with family?" Jensen asks turning to Jared and the words cut straight through to Jared's heart.
"Sure he does." Sandy explains smile still as wide, never missing a beat and Jared's thankful for that. "So are you in?" She barrels on.
Jensen doesn't shift his gaze from Jared as she asks the question, as they all wait for an answer and Jared's beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable. The whole situation is throwing him so off balance, he isn't sure he's going to be able to right himself, Jensen just needs to stop looking at him like that, like maybe he can see right inside Jared to those things that hurt too much to say aloud.
"I'd love to, but Mike and Chris and I sort of planned to hang out. Not enough time off for the three of us to make the trip home." Jared thinks he hears a trace of regret in Jensen's voice as he speaks, it isn't unfamiliar, that longing for home. Jared can understand that.
"So bring them. We have turkey, home-cooked turkey. And not by Jared." Sandy is like a Rottweiler going after a bone when she gets going and Jared wonders just why she wants this to happen so damn much.
"I'll talk to the guys. I'm sure neither of them can turn down a proper Thanksgiving meal." And then Jensen is standing and Jared really doesn't want him to go, but maybe it's a good idea so he can have a little chat with Sandy and talk about how she's apparently lost her mind. "I'll call you." Jensen adds as he walks over to the door and Jared hopes those words mean more than just about Thanksgiving, for a few minutes he lets himself believe they do.
As soon as the door shuts Sandy is on him, bursting his eardrums with squeals and tickling his side and it takes Jared a few minutes to disentangle her.
"I should be pissed." She starts before Jared can think of anything to say to explain the weirdness of today. "And I was going to be, until I saw you pulling up with Jensen and that just kinda took the wind right out of my sails because I get it."
He's pretty sure she's the only one that does. "You get what?"
"The two of you, you're in that phase where you only have eyes for each other right?" She looks at him for confirmation and he's still just looking at her like a fucking idiot. "I get it, you've got Jensen right now, and you didn't have time for me. But still you could've sent me one text to let me know the two of you finally worked things out."
Oh. Jared thinks. Oh shit. So apparently Sandy took two and two and got Jared and Jensen are in a relationship. How does he explain this one? Where does he even start?
"It's cool Jare. Really it is. And I'm sorry that I invited him to Thanksgiving but I thought you'd want him there. I can't believe you didn't ask him already. Plus it was kind of my pay back for ignoring me. You should have seen your face!" Sandy's still talking, still rattling on and Jared just gets up, walks upstairs and locks himself in his bedroom ignoring her calls from downstairs. His heart is beating too fast because she thinks they're a couple and they're not, sure, it's apparently more than sex now but that's not a relationship and that bubble that he was letting himself live in has burst, he hurts. Fuck he hurts.
He doesn't go down when Sandy tells him she'll make something to eat. He doesn't answer when she sits outside his door till the early hours of the morning, trying to coax him into talking to her, to tell her what's wrong. He just stares numbly at the ceiling and wonders when he last got a decent night's sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He avoids Sandy like the plague the next two days. Gets Jensen so worked up in the car after training that Jensen doesn't think twice about taking Jared back to his place and just, devouring him, Jared can't think of a better way to put it. Jared knows full well he's burying his head in the sand or well Jensen, but it's just that when Jensen is touching him, when he's lighting him up he forgets it all. He forgets that he shouldn't be doing this with Jensen, forgets that his best friend is pissed with him because he's not talking to her, he forgets that he's so scared of anything but Jensen's hands on him. So he goes after Jensen harder, pushes Jensen further and Jensen groans into his ear Jay you're gonna be the death of me and Jared thinks it wouldn't be a bad way to go.
There're enough t-shirts and jeans of his that somehow have ended up at Jensen's, which is pretty weird, that he doesn't need to go home. So he doesn't. And Jensen doesn't mention it until the second night as they lay in bed, Jensen's fingers tangled in Jared's hair, breath heaving and Jared's feeling fairly satisfied, Jensen just used that amazing mouth on him.
"So what's up with you and Sandy?" Jensen casually asks and Jared isn't able to stop himself from tensing against Jensen. Fucked out, like he feels right now, Jared always finds it the most difficult to keep the things he wants to lock deep within himself from Jensen. And that's the moment Jensen always seems to ask these questions, it's like he knows Jared just has no defences left when they're snuggled together like this.
"Nothing." Jared lies, telling himself to relax.
"Sure, that's why you haven't been home in the past two days. Come on Jay, what's going on?" Jensen, like Sandy, just doesn't know when to let things go. Jared pushes himself up off of Jensen and off the bed, fingers fumbling as he tries to find his clothes, pulse racing.
"I said it's nothing and if you didn't want me here you should have just said."
"I didn't say I didn't want you here. I just asked what's going on with you." And whilst Jared's voice is raised, Jensen's is quiet, patient and Jared thinks maybe a little hurt, but that's just him projecting what he wants from Jensen.
"And I said nothing." He feels like a child as he spits that back at Jensen, feels like a child as he leaves the room and Jensen doesn't stop him as he slams the door. He waits on the other side for a few minutes praying that door is gonna burst open and Jensen is going to come after him, but he doesn't and Jared can't really blame him.
He realises he doesn't have his car, because they've been doing that stupid car pool thing and it's raining and he's only got this stupid thin t-shirt on but he doesn't care, he just keeps putting one foot in front of the other and if the water on his face is more than just rain, well no one will really notice.
Jared's soaked when he finally makes it home, his teeth chattering as he swings the door open and Sandy's standing right there. He sees concern looking up at him and he thinks maybe now she is going to shout. He can see that controlled rage of hers just burning under the surface and he thinks he can take it, maybe he'd feel better if she took a shot at him, because right now he just feels lost. But she doesn't shout, she just takes one of his hands in hers and drags him fully inside.
"What's going on?" She asks gently and he feels so cracked open, because isn't that the question he's been asking himself from pretty much the moment Jensen walked back into his life.
He doesn't recognise the voice that whispers. "I don't know." But he realises it must be his, he's never sounded so far away before and when he manages to look at Sandy again all he sees is pity and it's suffocating him. This time when he pushes away she lets him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Get up sleepy head!" A voice shouts, and there must be an earthquake because his bed is definitely moving. Jared cracks open an eye to see Sandy jumping on his mattress, he rolls over groaning trying to snag a pillow to hide under. Sandy just grabs it out of his hands.
"It's pre-Thanksgiving day. And you know what that means?" She stops bouncing to tug the covers down and throws them on the floor out of his reach and Jared groans. He's a morning person, really he is, but when you haven't been sleeping for the past well forever and then get woken up at the crack of dawn, it just isn't fair.
"It means shopping." Sandy rambles on causing Jared to groan louder and try to bury himself beneath the remaining pillows. "Plus I phoned Jensen and he and the guys are coming so we need lots and lots of food.
"You phoned Jensen?" Jared says sitting bolt upright and eyeing Sandy suspiciously, his heart doing a slight tap dance in his chest.
"I may or may not have borrowed your phone." Sandy confesses, squealing and scrambling off the bed as Jared reaches out snags an arm around her waist and pulls her back fingers tickling down her sides. It only takes a few minutes for her to call uncle and they lie back, Sandy still giggling, Jared with a stupid grin across his face. So shopping, can't turn out that bad.
It turns out to be worse than bad, Sandy lumbers him with the trolley and Jared's lost track of the number of scowls he's received whilst trying to navigate the stupid thing around the store, he's pretty sure it's impossible and he just wants to crawl back into bed when they finally finish loading all the stuff she made him buy into the back of her car, but Jared's come to the conclusion that Sandy really is evil, because despite his klutz like fingers she makes him help with Thanksgiving preparations.
"I hate you, you know." He says as he tries not to cut off his finger for the umpteenth time.
"Come off it." Sandy laughs. "You love me."
Jared throws her a sceptical look and Sandy laughs a little louder. As the laughter dies in her throat the air becomes a little tenser and Jared knows that that conversation he's been avoiding since she got here is about to happen and he's still really not ready for it.
"So." She starts and leaves it hanging there, it's an in for him, he knows that, they've had conversations like this for too long for him to recognise the way she coaxes things out of him. The only trouble is that knowing it doesn't mean that he's ever able to really stop it.
"So..." He replies lamely and drops the knife to look at her. "Me and Jensen, we're not together."
There he's said it, and the thing is once he has, it's like he wasn't really saying it to her, he was saying it to himself.
"Didn't look like that to me." She questions and Jared feels his patience just about dry up.
"We're together, like we're... erm... we had sex, we're having sex." He's blushing, oh god, he's blushing, he hates having the sex talk with her, he pretty much hates having it with anyone, it's not anyone else's business but his own. "But we're not together, okay, we're just. We're just..." His words peter out and his arms make this flailing motion and he feels like that, like he's flailing, because he can't voice words he doesn't have, and he doesn't have a name for this thing between the two of them.
Sandy stands there staring and Jared thinks she closely resembles a goldfish when she opens her mouth to say something and then closes it pursing her lips, he could laugh at that image if he wasn't too anxious about her response.
"Right, okay." She says and Jared gapes at her because out of every response he's run through for the past few days, 'okay' just wasn't one of them. And the thing is, it makes everything worse, because it's not okay, it really isn't okay.
"I'm sorry I invited him for Thanksgiving then." When Jared looks over, Sandy's looking sheepish.
"It's okay Sands, we're friends you know, we hang out with the guys, we talk." How do you explain this to someone?
"It won't be awkward?" Sandy asks.
"No, it'll be fine." Jared says hastily before remembering the way he'd acted last night. "Well it might be a little awkward." Sandy raises an eyebrow at that. "We kinda had a fight, he... um he wanted to know what was going on with me the past few days and I kinda didn't tell him and walked out. I'm an idiot I know."
He expects her to pick up on the fight, to ask questions and want details because, well, that's what usually happens, he doesn't expect her to boost herself up on the work top, eye him curiously and then ask. "What has been going on with you the past few days?"
He stands there, floundering for a few minutes and she just lets him, she doesn't push just sits and watches, waits for him to cave and tell her everything, but he can't voice his fears yet, if he tells Sandy he wants more than what he's got with Jensen, but he's too afraid to ruin it all by getting more or losing it all completely, then she's going to tell him he has to make a decision. He isn't ready to make it.
"Just being stupid." He says and it's the truth really, he was being pretty damn stupid. "It doesn't matter now."
The sceptical look on Sandy's face tells Jared he isn't off the hook, but the fact that she doesn't say anything or call him on it tells him she's at least letting it slide for now. And maybe that's all he needs, a little time to figure it all out.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jared's feeling supremely grouchy when he wakes the next morning. Thanksgiving, he thinks and wishes really that he could just bury his head beneath the pillows and sleep the day away. But he knows Sandy will never let him get away with that and with everything else about this day he really doesn't need to be chastised by her or made to feel guilty. When he knows he can't get away with lying there any longer he grudgingly crawls out of bed and into the shower.
When he finally makes it downstairs, feeling somewhat more human, he finds Sandy already busy in the kitchen, he leans against the jamb and watches her, it's nice, he realises, to have someone in his kitchen, to have her in his kitchen.
He never really says it, at least not out loud, but he's so thankful for her, for the way she's always been there for him. He's not so sure he would have made it without her.
She's startled when he wraps his arms around her resting his chin on her head but she doesn't stop chopping. He sighs and settles into her and he feels himself settle a little.
"Thank you." Jared says quietly and he's sure his words get lost in her hair, hopes they do because his voice sounds kind of choked and he should really be embarrassed about that.
"Don't mention it." Sandy replies, she doesn't ask what for just accepts his thank you the same way she's always accepted him.
It's on days like this though that whilst he feels thankful for her he can't help feel guilty, for all the things she misses because of him. Like the fact that she's here with him instead of with her family. He'd told her that last year, when they'd had Thanksgiving in Vermont, and she's scolded him like a mother would a small child and said that he was her family too.
They stand like that a while, her preparing veg and him wrapped around her, if it was anyone else it might look sexual but for them it's simply intimate, companionable. With the veg done Sandy fusses him from her kitchen, well his kitchen, and tells him to go tidy up.
"The guys have seen the house before, don't need to impress them." He shouts back to her as he walks to the living room. There are bottles strewn across the coffee table, well he thinks there might be a coffee table below the bottles and plates and papers and yeah maybe she has a point, a little tidying up couldn't hurt, plus it'll keep his mind off things until the guys get here.
But then he's thinking of the guys which ultimately leads him to thinking about Jensen and that fight. He should probably apologise or maybe just let it go, what's one more thing they don't talk about right?
The time passes too quickly and suddenly there's a knock on the door and when Sandy hollers from the kitchen Jared swings it open to meet Mike, Chris and Jensen. Jensen and Chris hold out beer and he smiles as he invites them in, as Mike passes he holds out an oddly shaped and haphazardly wrapped present and Jared eyes it curiously.
"Do I even want to know?" Jared asks and when Mike opens his mouth to speak Jared holds up his hand to stop him. "Forget I asked. I really don't want to know."
Jared leads them over to the kitchen setting the beer down whilst the guys greet Sandy and then she's pushing them out of the kitchen telling them to put the game on and not disturb her.
"Shouldn't we help?" Jensen asks when they traipse into the living room.
"No, she has this kind of cooking Zen and if you try to help she just gets mad and shouts. A lot. Trust me." He adds when Jensen still looks unsure. "It's like this every Thanksgiving."
"Every Thanksgiving?" Jensen asks.
Jared would usually get defensive about that question, deflect or be non-committal but he just shrugs because he's tired of being defensive, he's tired of hiding. "It's kind of a tradition."
"That's pretty cool that you get out of the cooking like that, my mum always manages to rope me in if I'm at home." Chris says but Jensen's still looking at Jared as though if he just keeps looking he'll be able to piece Jared together. It makes Jared feel squirmy but then the guys descend into arguments over whose team is the best and which one is gonna whoop ass and Jensen gets drawn into the conversation.
He'd been dubious about having them all over, he wasn't really in the mood for company, at least so he thought, because it's nice to sit and laugh and argue over something as silly as a football match. And Sandy did it again, knew exactly what he needed before he did, she really needs a saint hood.
When he goes to the kitchen to get more beer he pulls her into another rub crushing hug and whispers thank you to her hair. She just smiles up at him, laughing, bats him away.
"I just want you to be happy Jare." She says and Jared thinks that despite the whole Jensen thing, and the pressure of the NHL this might be the first Thanksgiving he has been in a really long time.
"I am." he laughs back at her before she bustles him out of the kitchen again, beer in hand.
Mike's sulking when they finally sit down to eat, it seems his Miami Dolphins lost to Chris and Jensen's Dallas Cowboys and they've been ripping into him about it since the final whistle.
"Okay no more football talk at the table." Sandy scolds as she lays the final plates down and Jared can't contain his excitement for food as he bounces happily on his chair. There's been glorious smells wafting out of the kitchen since he got up and if he has to wait any longer he's going to starve. He needs food now.
Jared says a quick grace, being thankful for sharing food with good friends. None of them are overly religious so it's more of a habit than a necessity and then Sandy hands the carving knife to Jared.
"It's all on you handsome." She says with a wink and Jensen snorts in response.
"You sure we should trust him with sharp implements?" He adds. Jared should maybe take offense at that statement but he hasn't got the heart.
"That's what I said the first year she handed it to me, I haven't cut off any fingers yet though so I think we should be safe."
"I was more worried about blood on my turkey than your fingers to be honest." Jensen jokes and Jared cuffs him playfully on the ear before going to work on the turkey. He thankfully finishes carving with all fingers and thumbs attached and intact and Jensen lets out an overdramatic sigh of relief when he sets the knife down that has Sandy giggling.
"Okay so another tradition, and you all have to join in, is that we go around and say what we're thankful for this year." Sandy tells them as they all start digging into the mountains of food. "And Jared you're not allowed to say me again. That's pretty much standard these days. And let's be honest, pretty lame."
She gives them a few minutes to think and scoff a few bites before she rambles on with her thanks. "I'm thankful for all those frequent flyer miles this year, seems like I'm forever cashing them in to visit your ass."
"It's a good job you like my ass then eh?" Jared teases.
"Gotta say I'm not opposed to it." She smirks.
"Neither am I." Mike mutters through a mouthful of potatoes and they all turn to stare at him. "What a man can't look?" Laughter bubbles up out of Jared and spreads steadily around the table.
"Man you're weird." Jared says when he manages to catch his breath and Mike just shrugs as if it's nothing he didn't already know and Jared guesses it probably isn't.
"So Jare, what are you thankful for this year?" Sandy asks when the conversation lulls.
There's a lot of things Jared's thankful for, his spot on the Bruins, Mike and Chris and Jensen, and sex with Jensen, his house, and even though she won't let him say it, Sandy. He's thankful for the fact that for the first time since he left home he feels like he has a home again and that isn't just because he found this house, it's because of each and every one of them sat in it. But that's kinda sappy and too damn deep and he can't bring himself to say it.
"The fake ID Mike got me last week." He smirks instead because he likes the light-hearted feel of the day and he really really wants to keep it that way.
"You leading my boy astray?" Sandy says in what Jared terms her best 'mum voice'.
"Wouldn't dream of it ma'am." Mike replies innocently which only leads to a snort from Chris and a shake of Jared's head, after that the things they're thankful for just get crazier and crazier until Mike says he's thankful for oranges and Jared has no idea where that even came from, but he's pretty sure it makes sense somewhere in Mike's brain, which is a scary thought.
Sandy lets them help clear the table before bringing out dessert, homemade apple pie and Jared licks his lips in anticipation.
"Dude you cannot still be hungry?" Jensen asks incredulously.
"Hello, have you met Jared aka the bottom-less pit?" Sandy puts in and Jared just grins, he likes food and he can get away with eating a lot of it, it's a win-win.
"So when are you gonna get that dog Jare?" Sandy questions as she hands him a generous portion of apple pie.
"You're getting a dog?" "Oooh is it a puppy?" "Can you even be responsible for yourself?" The guys chime in at once, Jared's not sure whether to be surprised or offended that that last comment comes from Jensen, but decides to let it go. For now.
"I'm not getting a dog." He concedes and sees the faces fall around him. "I mean not yet. I just haven't had the time, you know, with moving up here and then into the house."
It's true, so many times the past few weeks he's been meaning to stop by the rescue place and see if there's one there for him, he's pretty sure there will be, it's just, he'd wanted to find someone to walk the dog and look after it when he's not around and then he'd wanted to get all the bits and pieces, oh, and build that kennel and between hockey and Sandy and Jensen he just hasn't had the time to do those things.
"You should do it man." Jensen tells him. "You'll never have the time."
"Ain't that the truth." Chris agrees.
"Don't put off what you really want, you just have to make time for it, otherwise you'll be putting it off forever." Jensen says and Jared gets the feeling they're somehow talking about more than just him getting a dog.
"You're such a sap." Chris laughs.
"Asshole." Jensen retorts.
"Pussy."
And Jared realises the moment and whatever it was Jensen was trying to say to him is gone, the banter between Chris and Jensen only grows and Jared can't help but watch the way Jensen lights up when he laughs, the way he gets these little crinkles in the corner of his eyes, the way he throws his head back like he can't contain it and Jared feels his this pressure in his chest, like it's too full, like it's going to burst. It's too much to see Jensen in his house like this and it's not enough because he realises he kind of wants to keep Jensen here, he doesn't want it to be his anymore he wants it to be theirs and just like that his world turns upside down and suddenly it clicks into place. He loves Jensen.
It doesn't breed panic, because Jared realises he's been building to this since the very moment he met Jensen. At first it had been lust and then, though he doesn't like to admit it, infatuation and now, now it feels so different because he knows Jensen, he knows more than the fact that he's just a pretty face, he know he's stubborn and bull-headed, he knows he's cautious but loyal, he knows he's the best friend he's ever had and it just makes those feelings so much more real.
He knows he should panic, sat there at the table, he should feel it curdle his gut but he's still stuck in that moment and he can't let it go yet. He's happy, it's Thanksgiving and he's happy and he knows there'll be time for panic tomorrow.
After the sun sets and the day draws to a close, Jared finds himself sat on the back porch in the cooling air. He can hear Chris' gentle snores from the sofa and he wonders, really, why he even decided to get a house with more than one bedroom because it's not like anyone ever seems to use them. It's nice though, to have people around, it'll be strange when Sandy leaves at the weekend, he almost doesn't want it to happen.
His mind's so far away that he misses Sandy joining him, but her words jolt him out of his thoughts.
"How long?" She asks him and he looks at her in puzzlement, because really, is he supposed to know what she's talking about. When he just stares blankly at her she huffs out a sigh as though it's obvious and continues. "How long have you been in love with him?"
And just like that, that's when the panic slowly rises, his gut roils and he swears he can taste bile in his mouth, his palms feel clammy and his tongue, he just get it to work, can't get it to say; No way Sandy it's not even like that.
Is he that transparent? He wonders. Who else knows, Chris, Mike, oh God, Jensen? But Jensen can't know, right? He wouldn't still be here and also Jared only really realised he was in love with Jensen, like, today, how could anyone else have cottoned on that quickly.
Somehow he manages to dampen the panic in his chest enough to get out a few words. "It's not... I'm not in - in love with him." Jared thinks it's funny that he's denying he's in love with Jensen, when obviously he is, but neither of them have actually said Jensen's name. Maybe he should have played it cool and simply asked Sandy 'in love with who', but he's pretty sure she'd just have called him dense and hit him. To be honest the way she's looking at him now, she might just do that anyway.
Instead she just sighs. "I'm not stupid Jare, but if you need to lie to yourself I get that." She stands up from the seat to head back inside and Jared wonders how she's just letting this go, he's coming to the conclusion he's really shitty at predicting Sandy's actions, but then she stands with the door ajar, looks back at him with a sad smile, and he feels shitty he put it there, but before he can apologise she's speaking again. "You're gonna have to face it sooner or later though."
And then she's gone, leaving the echo of the door hitting the jamb and then the quiet unease of the night. Jared isn't sure how long he sits there, the panic curling in his stomach, but he doesn't head for bed until he sees the first rays of the morning and when he does sleep, he dreams of Jensen and he's always just out of reach.
The lack of sleep, the restless nights and the thoughts that are eating at Jared make him groggy and lethargic when he wakes and hell that isn't fair, because he was good last night, stuck to two beers, well three, so he shouldn't feel like he's got a hangover. The feeling hasn't left him as he heads out of the locker room, everything just feels like it's weighing down on him today.
Jared knows he's going home to an empty house, Sandy's little Fiesta will be halfway home by the time the game is finished, she's on her way to spend some quality time with her real family. It shouldn't make him jealous to think about that, but he can't help it, he does, just one more thing to feel guilty about. Like how he's feeling pretty bad about that fight with Jensen earlier in the week, they haven't spoken about it still, and why should they really, they don't talk about anything, well, not anything that matters anyway. What the hell is he doing? And why, when he felt so happy yesterday, why does he feel like everything's lost today?
It takes him a while to realise there's something a little different about sitting on the bench in TD Garden today. There's a different buzz he realises as Kripke's words wash over him, forgotten as soon as they're heard. It's like maybe this isn't just a game. The crowd are louder than usual and they haven't even started to play, and Jared wonders just how loud it will get. And the guys, his team mates, their faces are all set a little harder, determination evident. Huh, so this is personal.
The past few weeks, hell, maybe even the past few months, he's been so wrapped up in the Jensen drama, that he's forgotten what this feels like, he's forgotten what he's managed to achieve. He's living his dream and it only takes this new excitement of the rivalry between Bruins and Rangers to jolt him right back there. That excitement is infectious and he feels like a damn kid again, raring to get out there.
As soon as he takes that first glide across the ice he feels better, more centered, each puck he passes, each check he makes, just lifts the worry from his shoulders until all he can see is the ice and his opponent and all he can feel is the determination to win. Jared's forgotten how much he needs this, how much he revels in it, how much he loves it. This, right here, is his escape from everything, it's the thing he loves most and when everything falls apart around him, it doesn't really matter because he still has this.
Once he leaves the ice though, it doesn't matter that they won, that they've come out on top of that rivalry, the worries come floating right back in. He turns down the offers for drinks, even if Mike says he needs to try out his new ID, he just, he isn't in the right place to get drunk right now, it'll lead to awkward confessions and embarrassing blubbering.
A quiet night he thinks, that's all he needs, but Jensen's sat on the hood of his car when he leaves so maybe not a night alone, or quiet either.
"Your place or mine?" Jensen drawls, and Jared loves the way he uses that Texas accent just for him.
Jared stands there for a few moments contemplating, why am I doing this he thinks, we should just go home alone, what's the point in all this, but then Jensen tilts his head in question and plasters one of those dazzling smiles across his face, the one that reaches his eyes and Jared thinks Oh, that, that's why, and he can't help the words that roll off his tongue, doesn't even regret them once they're said. "Your place, it's closer."
He's already deep enough right? He might as well fall a little further.
Find it on AO3 | Masterpost
Back (Part 7) | Part 8 | Next (Part 9)