RPS Fic: Waiting for My Real Life to Begin -- Jared/Jensen -- AU -- PG-13 -- 2/?
Title: Waiting for My Real Life to Begin 2/?
Fandom: CW RPS
Pairing: Jared/Jensen eventually
Rating: PG-13 so far
Summary: Jared had four bad roommates in one semester, but now he's finally got a roommate he likes.
Disclaimer: This is fiction, not real.
Notes/Warnings: This was written on a whim, unplanned and (as of yet) unfinished. The next chapter probably won't be up for at least a week.
Chapter One
Jensen's quiet and neat. He's usually got music playing, but it's soft and in the background. He doesn't even snore. There aren't even two weeks left in the semester, and Jared wonders how long it's going to take until he finds out what Jensen's problem is.
Then he feels guilty for assuming there's got to be something wrong with him. It's not Jensen's fault that Jared's had a string of lousy roommates.
Jensen does hang up a Mavericks poster and well, OK, Jared dislikes the Mavericks, but it's not like it's a Swastika. Plus, it nicely covers the hole Phil had punched in the wall months earlier.
If Jensen's only problem is that he has bad taste in sports teams, Jared's going to count himself lucky.
"Maybe he's a spy," says Adam, not looking up from his PSP.
Jared laughs and rolls his eyes.
"We're trying to figure out what's wrong with him, not things that would make him cool," Chad says. "And we know what's wrong with him. He's retarded."
"He's not retarded," Jared says, smacking Chad lightly on the side of the head.
"Watch the face!" Chad cries. "Jesus! I'm too pretty for bruises, all right?"
And that, of course, requires Jared to smack Chad in the face again. It's kind of a law that if one of your friends talks about how good-looking he is, you have to snap him down a few pegs.
"Ow, stop it, ow!" Chad cries, and he's being a huge baby because Jared's not even hitting him very hard. "You're gonna asphyxiate me with one of your paws, fucker."
Jared grabs Chad around the neck and tucks him under one arm and slaps one of his hands over Chad's nose and mouth, and that's what they're doing when Jensen comes back from class.
Jared removes his hand from Chad's face but keeps him in the headlock. "Hey," he says.
Jensen's mouth quirks into an almost-smile as he watches Chad flail and shove against Jared's side to no avail. Jared's pretty strong and it's not like holding a guy in a headlock is physically taxing or anything.
"A bunch of us are going to catch the Midnight Movie over at the Union if you wanna come along," Jared says.
Jensen shrugs and says, "Yeah, okay," before heading to their room.
"Re-tahr-dehd," Chad whispers, then yelps when Jared squeezes the headlock tighter.
They have a Midnight Movie every weekend on Friday and Saturday nights. It's usually pretty bad, but the movie's free and so is the popcorn. Jared can eat a lot of popcorn.
He's got two paper bags full of popcorn at his feet, Jensen on one side of him, Adam on the other. Chad's and Sophia are sitting in the back row doing God knows what.
The movie's a badly-dubbed kung fu movie from the early 80s, but for as terrible as it is, it's actually pretty good. There's this monk who has to find a virgin male born on the 15th of August to perform some ritual and then a lot of badass fighting moves, plus a Watermelon Monster that makes this screeching noise that's so annoying, Jared's laughing until he has tears rolling down his cheeks. He turns and presses his face against Jensen's shoulder, and Jensen's laughing, too, not quite as hard as Jared is, but still. He pats Jared on the top of the head and says, "Breathe, dude."
Jared's not quite sure what the movie's about even after it's over, and he's pretty sure everybody's just as confused as he is, though nobody really seems to mind. You can't complain much about a free movie with a lot of kung fu in it.
As they leave the Union's theatre, Adam's doing really bad martial arts moves and a really good impression of the chick with antenna-shaped hair and Jared's laughing like the huge dork that he is, so of course that's when he runs into Sandy.
"Um," says Jared as he stops about a foot short of running her over. "Hi!" Too enthusiastic. Way too enthusiastic. He forces himself to bring it down a notch. "Hey, Sandy."
"Hi," she says. There are four girls behind her, talking to each other in hushed tones and flicking their eyes towards him. "Jared, right?"
He nods. The fact that she remembers his name is a good sign. "Yeah. I haven't seen you since the coffee shop. I really am sorry about that, by the way. But, I've got a new roommate." He reaches out and pats Jensen's arm. "This is Jensen. Phil got expelled."
Sandy smiles. "I can't say I'm sorry."
Jensen keeps his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. He glances up at the girls, then glances back down. His shyness is so endearing that Jared has to fight the urge to pick him up and just squeeze him.
"I'm really glad I ran into you," Jared says. "I wanted to ask for your number before but, um, it's not like I made the best impression."
Sandy smiles at him. "It wasn't you that made the bad impression," she says. "Do you have your phone with you?"
They exchange phones and Jared's just finished putting his number into Sandy's address book when Chad shows up. "That monk needed to find a virgin, all he had to do was get our boy Jay here," he says, his hand clapping down on Jared's shoulder.
Jared's going to die. He's going to die and he's pretty sure he's not imagining the amusement on the girls' faces and, God, he hates it when girls laugh at him. Only one of Sandy's friends doesn't look like she's laughing at him, and that's because she's busy laughing at Adam's kung fu impressions.
"You're an unbelievable cock rag," says Sophia with a sigh.
"What?"
She shakes her head and grabs him by the ear. "Ow, ow!" he says, batting at her arm as she drags him away.
"Um, that was Chad," Jared says with a weak smile as he and Sandy switch phones back. "Another roommate."
"You just don't seem to have very good luck," Sandy says. Thank God she doesn't say anything about the fact that Jared's a virgin. He really is going to die of embarrassment any minute.
"No, Chad's cool," Jared says.
Jensen coughs pointedly.
Jared shrugs. "Usually."
"Give me a call some time," Sandy says before she and her friends walk away.
"I'm going to kill myself," Jared says, shaking his head as he and Jensen head back to the dorms. "Or maybe I'll just drop dead from mortification."
"What?" asks Adam. "Hey, what happened? You got that girl's number, right?"
"Yeah," Jensen says. "Right before Chad decided to tell everybody Jared's a virgin."
"Not so loud," Jared snaps.
"It's not a big deal," Jensen tells him.
"It is kinda weird," Adam says. "I mean, yeah, OK, so I'm sure you're not the only one, but it's not like you're deformed or anything. And you're eighteen. It's..." He stops when he catches Jensen's glare. "It's totally normal and one day, you'll find the right girl."
Jared huffs and sulks the rest of the way back to the dorm.
"It's really not a big deal," Jensen says as Jared flops onto his bed. He knows he's being childish but he doesn't care.
"Easy for you to say. You probably lost your cherry when you were sixteen."
"Fifteen."
Jared groans and pulls his pillow over his face. Maybe if he presses down hard enough he can asphyxiate himself and never have to face Sandy again.
Jensen tugs the pillow away from him. "Seriously. Not a big deal."
"Why did he have to say it in front of her?" Jared whines.
"I'm guessing because he's a jackass."
"He's not a jackass."
"He just told the girl you're crushing on that you're a virgin."
Jared sighs. OK. So Chad's a jackass. He's also Jared's friend. "I just don't get why he did it."
"Um, jackass?"
"I'm not calling her."
"She told you to call her."
"She was being nice." Jared pulls the pillow off his face. "Right now, she and her friends are laughing at how pathetic I am."
"Right now, I'm laughing at how pathetic you are."
"You said it wasn't a big deal!"
"It's not. You acting like this is what's pathetic. Come on. Get up."
Jared just looks at him.
"I mean it. We're going out."
"Where? It's almost two in the morning."
Jensen sighs and shakes his head. "You think you're the only friend I have? I'm taking you to a party."
"At two in the morning?"
"Their parties don't even start to get good until two and you're not pouting about this all night."
"I'm not pouting!"
Jensen raises one eyebrow.
"OK. I'm a pouting a little. Fine. Let's go."
"You got a car?" Jensen asks.
Jared shakes his head.
"Well, I'm parked in the C lot so it'll be a walk."
"I don't mind." Jared gets up and puts his coat back on. The winter's been pretty mild, in the 40s on average, but it's still colder than what he's used to in San Antonio.
The first ten minutes of the walk out to the far parking lot, Jared's silent and brooding about Sandy and what an idiot he is. After a while, though, it just starts to slip away. "Whose house are we going to?" he asks.
"One of my cousins."
"What's his name? Her name?"
"His. Chris." Jensen never really offers a lot of information.
"What's he do?"
"Plays in a band."
Jared stops. "He doesn't have a guitarist named Mark, does he?"
"Not that I'm aware of, no. Do I want to know why that would be bad?"
"Third roommate," Jared tells him. "He used to play Stairway to Heaven twenty times in a row. I'm not even exaggerating. Over and over and over again. Finally, Chad just threw his amp out the window."
Jensen laughs at that. "Maybe Chad's not all bad."
"He's not. He's really not. You just got off on the wrong foot, him thinking you were retarded and all."
Jensen glances over at him with an amused grin. "He thought I was retarded?"
"Um. Mentally challenged? He apparently couldn't tell that you were just shy."
"I'm not shy," Jensen says defensively.
This time it's Jared's turn to raise a skeptical eyebrow. "Right. You couldn't even look at those girls tonight, let alone talk to them."
Jensen stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Shut up."
"There's nothing wrong with being shy. It's pretty damn cute."
"Cute? I'm mentally challenge and cute. Fantastic."
"Oh," says Jared. "I'm allowed to call things cute. It's a perk of being six-five." He explains his theory of undentable masculinity to Jensen, how he's totally allowed to call things cute and dance with his arms above his head and wear whatever the hell he damn well pleases. By the time they get to Jensen's truck, Jared's demonstrating his dorkiest dance moves and Jensen's laughing so hard he has to lean against the truck to catch his breath.
"You're a weird one, Jay," Jensen tells him, but his voice is warm and his smile is kind.
Once he's in the passenger seat, Jared raises his hands above his head and does a little dance move just to hear Jensen laugh again
"I'm not sure you should be allowed to have any beer, man."
"I deserve beer," Jared says, tapping out a rhythm on the dashboard. "I have had a very traumatic evening."
Jensen laughs softly and shakes his head, but doesn't argue. He drives them to the south end of town and once they get on the right street, Jared doesn't even have to ask which house they're going to. There are cars everywhere, music blaring, paper lanterns strung along the front porch and in the backyard.
There are so many people inside the small house that it almost seems alive.
"I'd introduce you around," Jensen shouts over the music and the noise, "but I think I've only met eight of these people before in my life."
"Don't worry about it," Jared tells him. "I know how to mingle." And he does. "Where's the beer?"
"Keg's tapped," says a guy in a tight t-shirt and a straw cowboy hat. He slings one arm around Jensen's shoulders. "Look at you, out on a school night."
"It's Friday," Jensen tells him.
The guy rolls his eyes. "You're so literal. That's your problem."
"My problem is that I'm sober and I just had to watch a movie where the monster was a watermelon. If the keg's tapped, what's plan B?"
"Jungle juice," the guy says with a smile. He flicks his eyes over to Jared. "Who's your friend?"
"Oh. Chris, my roommate, Jared. Jared, my cousin, Chris. My man Jay here is having woman troubles."
Chris sighs and shakes his head, moves to sling his other arm around Jared's shoulder. "Oblivion is this way, my friends." He leads them to the kitchen where there are huge plastic barrels full of a vaguely purple drink full of floating slices of fruit.
The first sip is terrible and burns most of the way down. Jared makes a face and Jensen laughs, claps him on the shoulder.
"What's in this?" Jared asks.
"I've never had the nerve to ask," Jensen admits. "You don't notice it after the second cup or so."
Jensen's right. By the second cup, the jungle juice tastes pretty good and Jared's having a fine time working the crowd, chatting with people he knows from classes, striking up conversations with complete strangers. By the third cup he's feeling no pain and is more than willing to join everybody else on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the living room. After the fourth cup, he thinks maybe he has to throw up.
There are people gathered on the back patio, clustered around tall space heaters. Jared wanders around the side of the house where there's no one, finds a suitable bush, and throws up pretty much everything in his system. Afterwards, he feels much better.
"You all right?" Jensen's sitting on the back porch steps.
Jared nods.
Jensen hands him a plastic cup. "Drink this."
Jared does, then makes another face. "That was water."
"Yeah. I think you're gonna needs some more."
"I don't like water," Jared tells him.
"So that wasn't you I just heard puking his guts up a minute ago?"
Jared waves his hand dismissively. "Whatever. I'm fine." He sits on the steps next to Jensen, slumps against his shoulder. "This is a really fun party."
"Mmm-hmm."
"I didn't see you mingling."
"I don't mingle."
"You're so shy," Jared says with a smile, poking at Jensen's thigh.
"No, I just don't mingle."
"Shy," Jared says. "We make a good team."
"Oh, do we?"
"Yes. We're like, what's that word? Complementary. You should have been my roommate from the start. This year would have been a lot more fun."
"Your breath smells like puke," Jensen tells him.
Jared laughs and leans the other way, slumping against the stair railing. That's pretty much the last thing he remembers before waking up with his face pressed hard against linoleum, a pair of cowboy boots nudging at his shoulder.
"I thought we got rid of all the strays," says a voice from far above him.
"We did. That's Jensen's boy." He thinks he recognizes Jensen's cousin's voice even though he's hearing it through a long tunnel.
"Really."
"No, not...it's his roommate."
"Huh. This one better than the last?"
"Guess so."
Jared grunts and lifts his head. He's lying face-down on the kitchen floor.
"Don't puke on my floor," says the owner of the cowboy boots.
"'kay," says Jared. He lays his head back down and goes to sleep.
The next time he wakes up, Jensen's squatting down beside him. "Dude. Why are you on the floor?"
"'s comfortable," Jared mutters.
Jensen laughs softly. "You think you can get up? You in good enough shape to get home?"
"I'm fine," Jared says. He sits up and the world tilts, spins, tilts again. His entire brain is throbbing. "Oh, God," he moans.
"Told you you should have had more water."
"I'm gonna die," Jared groans.
"Come on." Jensen helps him up, puts his coat on him, helps him out to the truck. "You wanna sit in the front or lie down in the bed?"
"Lie down," Jared says. He climbs into the truck bed and lays his head on Jensen's spare tire. He lies there for a while, wonders where Jensen is. Then Jensen comes back and tucks a sleeping bag around him, says, "Try to puke over the edge if you have to."
"OK," says Jared. He doesn't puke, but he does feel every single turn and bump in the road. The cold air feels nice on his face, though, and he's nearly asleep again by the time Jensen pulls up in front of the dorm.
"You can't park here," Jared says as Jensen helps him out of the truck bed.
"I know."
"You're parked here. They'll tow you."
"I'm gonna move it as soon as I get you upstairs."
Jared smiles. Jensen parked illegally just for him. "You could have made me walk back from the lot with you."
"Not really," says Jensen. He grunts and shifts Jared's arm over his shoulder to get a better grip. "Come on, now. Lift your feet. You're too big for me to carry up these stairs."
Jared concentrates on lifting his feet for what seems like a very, very long time. Finally they make it up to the suite.
"You're a really good roommate," Jared says as Jensen rolls him into bed.
"Uh-huh." Jensen takes off his shoes, pulls him up to help him off with his coat.
"Way better than Phil or Randal or Mark or, um, the Nazi guy. I never learned his name. Is that bad of me? What if he was a nice guy?"
"The Nazi?" Jensen asks.
"You're right," Jared says. "Nazis are never nice. Hey, Jensen? I think I'm gonna puke."
Jensen dumps out the wastebasket and hands it to him, and Jared's throwing up again while Jensen goes out to move his truck.
Jared doesn't feel human again until Sunday morning. Even then, though, he can't eat much of a breakfast. He has cereal and toast but decides against eggs or meat even though he loves the omelets they make for Sunday brunch.
He sees Sandy on the way back from the dining hall. "Hi, Sandy," he says.
She looks over at him, shrugs, says, "Hey," and keeps walking.
When Jared gets back to the suite, he walks into Adam and Chad's room, carefully tugs the pillow from beneath Sophia's head and presses it over Chad's face.
"I think he has gills," Sophia mutters. "I've tried it before. It never works."
Chad wakes up after a moment, limbs flailing. "The fuck?" he asks when Jared pulls the pillow back. "I was sleeping."
"Next time you feel like telling a girl something--anything at all--about me. Don't."
"Does that mean you're not gonna be able to hook me up with Sandy's hot friend?" Adam asks from beneath the covers on the top bunk.
"Oh, my God," says Sophia. "Were you here the whole time?"
"I'm always here the whole time," Adam mumbles. "I've become immune to the porny sounds issuing from below. Also, I can't quite look Chad in the eye anymore after that whole tapered candle thing."
Sophia punches Chad in the arm. "You told me he sleeps over at his girlfriend's every night!"
"I did?" Chad asks.
"Yeah. No," says Adam. "I actually don't have a girlfriend." He flips the covers up off his head. "And I like to get a good eight, nine hours of sleep, it's good for your skin, so I'm generally already in bed by the time the two of you start your amateur porn hour."
"You are a dickwad," Sophia says, getting out of Chad's bed. She's not wearing anything but underwear and Jared swallows hard. He kind of forgets how to think whenever he sees breasts.
"What?" asks Chad. "Like you didn't know he was there. He snores!"
"Do not!"
"Like a chainsaw," Chad says.
Sophia pulls her sweater on and Jared's kind of disappointed. "That's me," she snaps. "I have a deviated septum."
"You snore like a chainsaw," Chad tells her.
"You're never fucking me again," Sophia says, snatching up her jeans and stalking out of the suite with her pants in one hand and her shoes in the other.
"I love that girl," says Chad.
Jared rolls his eyes. He still wants to kill Chad a little bit, but he figures if he waits long enough, somebody else will just do it for him.
Jensen's awake when Jared gets back to their room, though he's still in bed. He's got his laptop open and he yawns and says, "Morning," when Jared walks in.
"So, Sandy blew me off this morning," Jared says as he stretches out on his bed. He tucks his arms behind his head and stares up at the springs on the bottom of Jensen's bunk.
"You called her?"
"No. I saw her on the way back from breakfast. She couldn't get away from me fast enough. So then I came back and just tried to smother Chad, but it didn't work. That's probably for the best since I don't really want to go to jail. Anyway, it turns out that for the entire semester, Chad's been telling Sophia that Adam's not in the room while they're having sex, and you know how much Adam sleeps. Well, maybe you don't, but Adam sleeps a lot. He's usually in bed by ten-thirty or eleven, so he's been asleep by the time Chad and Sophia got back to the room. Sophia found out that Chad's been lying to her and she just...dude. She wasn't even wearing a shirt at first, and I kind of lost track of what she was saying after that. I know I shouldn't be perving on my friend's girlfriend, or maybe ex-girlfriend, now, but come on. It's not like I see half-naked women on a regular basis. Obviously. She has really nice breasts."
Jensen chuckles and Jared hears the soft snick of his laptop closing.
"She totally ignored me," he says with a sigh.
"Sophia?"
"No. Sandy. I said hi and she barely acknowledged me. How am I supposed to ever lose my virginity if the fact that I still have it makes girls treat me like a leper?"
"Christ. You're not a leper and you're hardly the only guy who hasn't had sex, yet. So you didn't bang skanky girls in high school and get warts on your dick, so what?"
"Then why did she blow me off?"
"I don't know. She seemed interested Friday night. Maybe she was in a hurry to get somewhere and couldn't stop to talk."
Jared sighs. "You and your logic. I don't know why I'm even worried about it because even if she is interested, which she's not, we're leaving in, like, a week. Which reminds me that I have to call my parents and see if they can pick me up or if I have to take the bus."
"You're parents are driving all the way up from San Antonio?"
"I hate to ask them, but I hate the bus more, and plane tickets are ridiculous over Christmas."
"I can take you as far as Dallas," Jensen tells him.
"Really?"
"I'm going there, anyway. It'd be stupid for us not to ride together."
Jared can't help the stupid grin that spreads over his face. He lifts his leg up and nudges the underside of Jensen's mattress with his foot. "You really are the best roommate ever."
"Are you going to start singing Kum Ba Yah? Because I'm not down with that."
"I was thinking of a couple verses of Dionne Warwick's That's What Friends are For," Jared teases.
"Oh. Well, that's all right then."
And just because he knows it's dorky and will make Jensen laugh, Jared takes a deep breath and begins to sing, Keep smilin', keep shinin', knowing you can always count on me for sure, that's what friends are for...
Chapter Three
Fandom: CW RPS
Pairing: Jared/Jensen eventually
Rating: PG-13 so far
Summary: Jared had four bad roommates in one semester, but now he's finally got a roommate he likes.
Disclaimer: This is fiction, not real.
Notes/Warnings: This was written on a whim, unplanned and (as of yet) unfinished. The next chapter probably won't be up for at least a week.
Chapter One
Jensen's quiet and neat. He's usually got music playing, but it's soft and in the background. He doesn't even snore. There aren't even two weeks left in the semester, and Jared wonders how long it's going to take until he finds out what Jensen's problem is.
Then he feels guilty for assuming there's got to be something wrong with him. It's not Jensen's fault that Jared's had a string of lousy roommates.
Jensen does hang up a Mavericks poster and well, OK, Jared dislikes the Mavericks, but it's not like it's a Swastika. Plus, it nicely covers the hole Phil had punched in the wall months earlier.
If Jensen's only problem is that he has bad taste in sports teams, Jared's going to count himself lucky.
"Maybe he's a spy," says Adam, not looking up from his PSP.
Jared laughs and rolls his eyes.
"We're trying to figure out what's wrong with him, not things that would make him cool," Chad says. "And we know what's wrong with him. He's retarded."
"He's not retarded," Jared says, smacking Chad lightly on the side of the head.
"Watch the face!" Chad cries. "Jesus! I'm too pretty for bruises, all right?"
And that, of course, requires Jared to smack Chad in the face again. It's kind of a law that if one of your friends talks about how good-looking he is, you have to snap him down a few pegs.
"Ow, stop it, ow!" Chad cries, and he's being a huge baby because Jared's not even hitting him very hard. "You're gonna asphyxiate me with one of your paws, fucker."
Jared grabs Chad around the neck and tucks him under one arm and slaps one of his hands over Chad's nose and mouth, and that's what they're doing when Jensen comes back from class.
Jared removes his hand from Chad's face but keeps him in the headlock. "Hey," he says.
Jensen's mouth quirks into an almost-smile as he watches Chad flail and shove against Jared's side to no avail. Jared's pretty strong and it's not like holding a guy in a headlock is physically taxing or anything.
"A bunch of us are going to catch the Midnight Movie over at the Union if you wanna come along," Jared says.
Jensen shrugs and says, "Yeah, okay," before heading to their room.
"Re-tahr-dehd," Chad whispers, then yelps when Jared squeezes the headlock tighter.
They have a Midnight Movie every weekend on Friday and Saturday nights. It's usually pretty bad, but the movie's free and so is the popcorn. Jared can eat a lot of popcorn.
He's got two paper bags full of popcorn at his feet, Jensen on one side of him, Adam on the other. Chad's and Sophia are sitting in the back row doing God knows what.
The movie's a badly-dubbed kung fu movie from the early 80s, but for as terrible as it is, it's actually pretty good. There's this monk who has to find a virgin male born on the 15th of August to perform some ritual and then a lot of badass fighting moves, plus a Watermelon Monster that makes this screeching noise that's so annoying, Jared's laughing until he has tears rolling down his cheeks. He turns and presses his face against Jensen's shoulder, and Jensen's laughing, too, not quite as hard as Jared is, but still. He pats Jared on the top of the head and says, "Breathe, dude."
Jared's not quite sure what the movie's about even after it's over, and he's pretty sure everybody's just as confused as he is, though nobody really seems to mind. You can't complain much about a free movie with a lot of kung fu in it.
As they leave the Union's theatre, Adam's doing really bad martial arts moves and a really good impression of the chick with antenna-shaped hair and Jared's laughing like the huge dork that he is, so of course that's when he runs into Sandy.
"Um," says Jared as he stops about a foot short of running her over. "Hi!" Too enthusiastic. Way too enthusiastic. He forces himself to bring it down a notch. "Hey, Sandy."
"Hi," she says. There are four girls behind her, talking to each other in hushed tones and flicking their eyes towards him. "Jared, right?"
He nods. The fact that she remembers his name is a good sign. "Yeah. I haven't seen you since the coffee shop. I really am sorry about that, by the way. But, I've got a new roommate." He reaches out and pats Jensen's arm. "This is Jensen. Phil got expelled."
Sandy smiles. "I can't say I'm sorry."
Jensen keeps his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. He glances up at the girls, then glances back down. His shyness is so endearing that Jared has to fight the urge to pick him up and just squeeze him.
"I'm really glad I ran into you," Jared says. "I wanted to ask for your number before but, um, it's not like I made the best impression."
Sandy smiles at him. "It wasn't you that made the bad impression," she says. "Do you have your phone with you?"
They exchange phones and Jared's just finished putting his number into Sandy's address book when Chad shows up. "That monk needed to find a virgin, all he had to do was get our boy Jay here," he says, his hand clapping down on Jared's shoulder.
Jared's going to die. He's going to die and he's pretty sure he's not imagining the amusement on the girls' faces and, God, he hates it when girls laugh at him. Only one of Sandy's friends doesn't look like she's laughing at him, and that's because she's busy laughing at Adam's kung fu impressions.
"You're an unbelievable cock rag," says Sophia with a sigh.
"What?"
She shakes her head and grabs him by the ear. "Ow, ow!" he says, batting at her arm as she drags him away.
"Um, that was Chad," Jared says with a weak smile as he and Sandy switch phones back. "Another roommate."
"You just don't seem to have very good luck," Sandy says. Thank God she doesn't say anything about the fact that Jared's a virgin. He really is going to die of embarrassment any minute.
"No, Chad's cool," Jared says.
Jensen coughs pointedly.
Jared shrugs. "Usually."
"Give me a call some time," Sandy says before she and her friends walk away.
"I'm going to kill myself," Jared says, shaking his head as he and Jensen head back to the dorms. "Or maybe I'll just drop dead from mortification."
"What?" asks Adam. "Hey, what happened? You got that girl's number, right?"
"Yeah," Jensen says. "Right before Chad decided to tell everybody Jared's a virgin."
"Not so loud," Jared snaps.
"It's not a big deal," Jensen tells him.
"It is kinda weird," Adam says. "I mean, yeah, OK, so I'm sure you're not the only one, but it's not like you're deformed or anything. And you're eighteen. It's..." He stops when he catches Jensen's glare. "It's totally normal and one day, you'll find the right girl."
Jared huffs and sulks the rest of the way back to the dorm.
"It's really not a big deal," Jensen says as Jared flops onto his bed. He knows he's being childish but he doesn't care.
"Easy for you to say. You probably lost your cherry when you were sixteen."
"Fifteen."
Jared groans and pulls his pillow over his face. Maybe if he presses down hard enough he can asphyxiate himself and never have to face Sandy again.
Jensen tugs the pillow away from him. "Seriously. Not a big deal."
"Why did he have to say it in front of her?" Jared whines.
"I'm guessing because he's a jackass."
"He's not a jackass."
"He just told the girl you're crushing on that you're a virgin."
Jared sighs. OK. So Chad's a jackass. He's also Jared's friend. "I just don't get why he did it."
"Um, jackass?"
"I'm not calling her."
"She told you to call her."
"She was being nice." Jared pulls the pillow off his face. "Right now, she and her friends are laughing at how pathetic I am."
"Right now, I'm laughing at how pathetic you are."
"You said it wasn't a big deal!"
"It's not. You acting like this is what's pathetic. Come on. Get up."
Jared just looks at him.
"I mean it. We're going out."
"Where? It's almost two in the morning."
Jensen sighs and shakes his head. "You think you're the only friend I have? I'm taking you to a party."
"At two in the morning?"
"Their parties don't even start to get good until two and you're not pouting about this all night."
"I'm not pouting!"
Jensen raises one eyebrow.
"OK. I'm a pouting a little. Fine. Let's go."
"You got a car?" Jensen asks.
Jared shakes his head.
"Well, I'm parked in the C lot so it'll be a walk."
"I don't mind." Jared gets up and puts his coat back on. The winter's been pretty mild, in the 40s on average, but it's still colder than what he's used to in San Antonio.
The first ten minutes of the walk out to the far parking lot, Jared's silent and brooding about Sandy and what an idiot he is. After a while, though, it just starts to slip away. "Whose house are we going to?" he asks.
"One of my cousins."
"What's his name? Her name?"
"His. Chris." Jensen never really offers a lot of information.
"What's he do?"
"Plays in a band."
Jared stops. "He doesn't have a guitarist named Mark, does he?"
"Not that I'm aware of, no. Do I want to know why that would be bad?"
"Third roommate," Jared tells him. "He used to play Stairway to Heaven twenty times in a row. I'm not even exaggerating. Over and over and over again. Finally, Chad just threw his amp out the window."
Jensen laughs at that. "Maybe Chad's not all bad."
"He's not. He's really not. You just got off on the wrong foot, him thinking you were retarded and all."
Jensen glances over at him with an amused grin. "He thought I was retarded?"
"Um. Mentally challenged? He apparently couldn't tell that you were just shy."
"I'm not shy," Jensen says defensively.
This time it's Jared's turn to raise a skeptical eyebrow. "Right. You couldn't even look at those girls tonight, let alone talk to them."
Jensen stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Shut up."
"There's nothing wrong with being shy. It's pretty damn cute."
"Cute? I'm mentally challenge and cute. Fantastic."
"Oh," says Jared. "I'm allowed to call things cute. It's a perk of being six-five." He explains his theory of undentable masculinity to Jensen, how he's totally allowed to call things cute and dance with his arms above his head and wear whatever the hell he damn well pleases. By the time they get to Jensen's truck, Jared's demonstrating his dorkiest dance moves and Jensen's laughing so hard he has to lean against the truck to catch his breath.
"You're a weird one, Jay," Jensen tells him, but his voice is warm and his smile is kind.
Once he's in the passenger seat, Jared raises his hands above his head and does a little dance move just to hear Jensen laugh again
"I'm not sure you should be allowed to have any beer, man."
"I deserve beer," Jared says, tapping out a rhythm on the dashboard. "I have had a very traumatic evening."
Jensen laughs softly and shakes his head, but doesn't argue. He drives them to the south end of town and once they get on the right street, Jared doesn't even have to ask which house they're going to. There are cars everywhere, music blaring, paper lanterns strung along the front porch and in the backyard.
There are so many people inside the small house that it almost seems alive.
"I'd introduce you around," Jensen shouts over the music and the noise, "but I think I've only met eight of these people before in my life."
"Don't worry about it," Jared tells him. "I know how to mingle." And he does. "Where's the beer?"
"Keg's tapped," says a guy in a tight t-shirt and a straw cowboy hat. He slings one arm around Jensen's shoulders. "Look at you, out on a school night."
"It's Friday," Jensen tells him.
The guy rolls his eyes. "You're so literal. That's your problem."
"My problem is that I'm sober and I just had to watch a movie where the monster was a watermelon. If the keg's tapped, what's plan B?"
"Jungle juice," the guy says with a smile. He flicks his eyes over to Jared. "Who's your friend?"
"Oh. Chris, my roommate, Jared. Jared, my cousin, Chris. My man Jay here is having woman troubles."
Chris sighs and shakes his head, moves to sling his other arm around Jared's shoulder. "Oblivion is this way, my friends." He leads them to the kitchen where there are huge plastic barrels full of a vaguely purple drink full of floating slices of fruit.
The first sip is terrible and burns most of the way down. Jared makes a face and Jensen laughs, claps him on the shoulder.
"What's in this?" Jared asks.
"I've never had the nerve to ask," Jensen admits. "You don't notice it after the second cup or so."
Jensen's right. By the second cup, the jungle juice tastes pretty good and Jared's having a fine time working the crowd, chatting with people he knows from classes, striking up conversations with complete strangers. By the third cup he's feeling no pain and is more than willing to join everybody else on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the living room. After the fourth cup, he thinks maybe he has to throw up.
There are people gathered on the back patio, clustered around tall space heaters. Jared wanders around the side of the house where there's no one, finds a suitable bush, and throws up pretty much everything in his system. Afterwards, he feels much better.
"You all right?" Jensen's sitting on the back porch steps.
Jared nods.
Jensen hands him a plastic cup. "Drink this."
Jared does, then makes another face. "That was water."
"Yeah. I think you're gonna needs some more."
"I don't like water," Jared tells him.
"So that wasn't you I just heard puking his guts up a minute ago?"
Jared waves his hand dismissively. "Whatever. I'm fine." He sits on the steps next to Jensen, slumps against his shoulder. "This is a really fun party."
"Mmm-hmm."
"I didn't see you mingling."
"I don't mingle."
"You're so shy," Jared says with a smile, poking at Jensen's thigh.
"No, I just don't mingle."
"Shy," Jared says. "We make a good team."
"Oh, do we?"
"Yes. We're like, what's that word? Complementary. You should have been my roommate from the start. This year would have been a lot more fun."
"Your breath smells like puke," Jensen tells him.
Jared laughs and leans the other way, slumping against the stair railing. That's pretty much the last thing he remembers before waking up with his face pressed hard against linoleum, a pair of cowboy boots nudging at his shoulder.
"I thought we got rid of all the strays," says a voice from far above him.
"We did. That's Jensen's boy." He thinks he recognizes Jensen's cousin's voice even though he's hearing it through a long tunnel.
"Really."
"No, not...it's his roommate."
"Huh. This one better than the last?"
"Guess so."
Jared grunts and lifts his head. He's lying face-down on the kitchen floor.
"Don't puke on my floor," says the owner of the cowboy boots.
"'kay," says Jared. He lays his head back down and goes to sleep.
The next time he wakes up, Jensen's squatting down beside him. "Dude. Why are you on the floor?"
"'s comfortable," Jared mutters.
Jensen laughs softly. "You think you can get up? You in good enough shape to get home?"
"I'm fine," Jared says. He sits up and the world tilts, spins, tilts again. His entire brain is throbbing. "Oh, God," he moans.
"Told you you should have had more water."
"I'm gonna die," Jared groans.
"Come on." Jensen helps him up, puts his coat on him, helps him out to the truck. "You wanna sit in the front or lie down in the bed?"
"Lie down," Jared says. He climbs into the truck bed and lays his head on Jensen's spare tire. He lies there for a while, wonders where Jensen is. Then Jensen comes back and tucks a sleeping bag around him, says, "Try to puke over the edge if you have to."
"OK," says Jared. He doesn't puke, but he does feel every single turn and bump in the road. The cold air feels nice on his face, though, and he's nearly asleep again by the time Jensen pulls up in front of the dorm.
"You can't park here," Jared says as Jensen helps him out of the truck bed.
"I know."
"You're parked here. They'll tow you."
"I'm gonna move it as soon as I get you upstairs."
Jared smiles. Jensen parked illegally just for him. "You could have made me walk back from the lot with you."
"Not really," says Jensen. He grunts and shifts Jared's arm over his shoulder to get a better grip. "Come on, now. Lift your feet. You're too big for me to carry up these stairs."
Jared concentrates on lifting his feet for what seems like a very, very long time. Finally they make it up to the suite.
"You're a really good roommate," Jared says as Jensen rolls him into bed.
"Uh-huh." Jensen takes off his shoes, pulls him up to help him off with his coat.
"Way better than Phil or Randal or Mark or, um, the Nazi guy. I never learned his name. Is that bad of me? What if he was a nice guy?"
"The Nazi?" Jensen asks.
"You're right," Jared says. "Nazis are never nice. Hey, Jensen? I think I'm gonna puke."
Jensen dumps out the wastebasket and hands it to him, and Jared's throwing up again while Jensen goes out to move his truck.
Jared doesn't feel human again until Sunday morning. Even then, though, he can't eat much of a breakfast. He has cereal and toast but decides against eggs or meat even though he loves the omelets they make for Sunday brunch.
He sees Sandy on the way back from the dining hall. "Hi, Sandy," he says.
She looks over at him, shrugs, says, "Hey," and keeps walking.
When Jared gets back to the suite, he walks into Adam and Chad's room, carefully tugs the pillow from beneath Sophia's head and presses it over Chad's face.
"I think he has gills," Sophia mutters. "I've tried it before. It never works."
Chad wakes up after a moment, limbs flailing. "The fuck?" he asks when Jared pulls the pillow back. "I was sleeping."
"Next time you feel like telling a girl something--anything at all--about me. Don't."
"Does that mean you're not gonna be able to hook me up with Sandy's hot friend?" Adam asks from beneath the covers on the top bunk.
"Oh, my God," says Sophia. "Were you here the whole time?"
"I'm always here the whole time," Adam mumbles. "I've become immune to the porny sounds issuing from below. Also, I can't quite look Chad in the eye anymore after that whole tapered candle thing."
Sophia punches Chad in the arm. "You told me he sleeps over at his girlfriend's every night!"
"I did?" Chad asks.
"Yeah. No," says Adam. "I actually don't have a girlfriend." He flips the covers up off his head. "And I like to get a good eight, nine hours of sleep, it's good for your skin, so I'm generally already in bed by the time the two of you start your amateur porn hour."
"You are a dickwad," Sophia says, getting out of Chad's bed. She's not wearing anything but underwear and Jared swallows hard. He kind of forgets how to think whenever he sees breasts.
"What?" asks Chad. "Like you didn't know he was there. He snores!"
"Do not!"
"Like a chainsaw," Chad says.
Sophia pulls her sweater on and Jared's kind of disappointed. "That's me," she snaps. "I have a deviated septum."
"You snore like a chainsaw," Chad tells her.
"You're never fucking me again," Sophia says, snatching up her jeans and stalking out of the suite with her pants in one hand and her shoes in the other.
"I love that girl," says Chad.
Jared rolls his eyes. He still wants to kill Chad a little bit, but he figures if he waits long enough, somebody else will just do it for him.
Jensen's awake when Jared gets back to their room, though he's still in bed. He's got his laptop open and he yawns and says, "Morning," when Jared walks in.
"So, Sandy blew me off this morning," Jared says as he stretches out on his bed. He tucks his arms behind his head and stares up at the springs on the bottom of Jensen's bunk.
"You called her?"
"No. I saw her on the way back from breakfast. She couldn't get away from me fast enough. So then I came back and just tried to smother Chad, but it didn't work. That's probably for the best since I don't really want to go to jail. Anyway, it turns out that for the entire semester, Chad's been telling Sophia that Adam's not in the room while they're having sex, and you know how much Adam sleeps. Well, maybe you don't, but Adam sleeps a lot. He's usually in bed by ten-thirty or eleven, so he's been asleep by the time Chad and Sophia got back to the room. Sophia found out that Chad's been lying to her and she just...dude. She wasn't even wearing a shirt at first, and I kind of lost track of what she was saying after that. I know I shouldn't be perving on my friend's girlfriend, or maybe ex-girlfriend, now, but come on. It's not like I see half-naked women on a regular basis. Obviously. She has really nice breasts."
Jensen chuckles and Jared hears the soft snick of his laptop closing.
"She totally ignored me," he says with a sigh.
"Sophia?"
"No. Sandy. I said hi and she barely acknowledged me. How am I supposed to ever lose my virginity if the fact that I still have it makes girls treat me like a leper?"
"Christ. You're not a leper and you're hardly the only guy who hasn't had sex, yet. So you didn't bang skanky girls in high school and get warts on your dick, so what?"
"Then why did she blow me off?"
"I don't know. She seemed interested Friday night. Maybe she was in a hurry to get somewhere and couldn't stop to talk."
Jared sighs. "You and your logic. I don't know why I'm even worried about it because even if she is interested, which she's not, we're leaving in, like, a week. Which reminds me that I have to call my parents and see if they can pick me up or if I have to take the bus."
"You're parents are driving all the way up from San Antonio?"
"I hate to ask them, but I hate the bus more, and plane tickets are ridiculous over Christmas."
"I can take you as far as Dallas," Jensen tells him.
"Really?"
"I'm going there, anyway. It'd be stupid for us not to ride together."
Jared can't help the stupid grin that spreads over his face. He lifts his leg up and nudges the underside of Jensen's mattress with his foot. "You really are the best roommate ever."
"Are you going to start singing Kum Ba Yah? Because I'm not down with that."
"I was thinking of a couple verses of Dionne Warwick's That's What Friends are For," Jared teases.
"Oh. Well, that's all right then."
And just because he knows it's dorky and will make Jensen laugh, Jared takes a deep breath and begins to sing, Keep smilin', keep shinin', knowing you can always count on me for sure, that's what friends are for...
Chapter Three