Final gift for montmorency
Title: Witching Hour
Author: Kiera Kingsley (queen_kiwi)
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2,887
Pairing: Jensen / Jared
Spoilers: Minor casting spoilers for 3.08
Disclaimers: No ownership, no monies, etc. etc.
Summary: What happens one night, on Hallowe’en and late in a cold September.
Author’s note: For spn_holidays, montmorency’s list included J2 first-time schmoop and wee!Sam and Dean trick-or-treating-so here’s two for the price of one. Hope you enjoyed it! ♥
*
It's late at night, and the crew's lit bonfires in barrels to keep warm; the light flickers in between them, casting black silhouettes, as shadows chase each other across the ground. Jared ran to the nearest convenience store to buy at least fifteen big packs of marshmallows, and someone's fished out a half-squashed box of graham crackers from food services, and now everyone's huddled around and roasting Hallowe'en candy over the fires, getting s'more goop all sticky over their fingers.
The mood's electric: giggles and uncontrollable laughter, shivery-excited, fizzling out and flaring up. The wind's raw and the snowflakes are blistering and Jensen can't feel his hands anymore.
"Where're your gloves?" Jared comes up, downing a cup of hot cider that Jensen could probably get both his hands around easily. He’s pretty certain he just saw Jared eat another triple-decker s'more with extra marshmallows before that, and he's wondering if science should start researching the mysteries of Jared Padalecki's stomach for mankind's greater benefit when there's a huge warm hand on the back of his neck, rubbing out the knot of tension there. It's all Jensen can do not to grab onto something to steady himself. "Do you even own any?"
"My mommy forgot to pin them to my coat today," he informs Jared.
"Right, because real men like having frostbite." Jared rolls his eyes and peels off his gloves with his teeth, and briskly sticks both gloves on Jensen's hands--ignoring a startled "whoa, hey, Jared what"--before grabbing another mug. "Get over to makeup already, Kim wants us on in ten."
Jensen blinks, and Jared's disappeared into the crowd. Lamps are flicking on as the camera crew sets up, crunching around in dead leaves and soggy snow, and there's light spilling out of the makeup trailer. Kim's already got his megaphone hooked up, blaring out garbled orders to the crew.
Jared's gloves are warm on his skin, from the coffee cup and Jared's hands. They're also about a size too big for him. He flexes his fingers and squeezes a fist, and his shiver has nothing to do with the cold.
Colin is sitting in the makeup trailer, slouched down on the couch as Ridge gets his face painted, itching at the back of his head. He's got a frayed red blanket tied around his neck and big, clumpy red boots over his jeans; he's grown about a foot since Jensen saw him last year. "Hey, how're your lines? You need any more help?"
"No thanks." Colin slumps down in his chair, looking sleepy and nervous and wound up, and Jensen's heart goes out to him. He wants to say: it doesn’t get any better or any more glamorous than this. It's all about sitting around waiting and flubbing your script and being bored off your ass, and staying up until two o'clock in the morning, and getting fiddled with and poked and constantly pushed around. And then you grow up, and the parties and money and drugs mess you up, and nobody ever takes a camera off you for a second.
But Colin plays with Jared’s dogs and talks about going to UT and being a veterinarian when he grows up, and Jensen can't help but smile back at this kid. "Well, then, you guys mind helping me out?" he says out loud. "The scene on page 43 where we're back in the car...
Soon Colin and Ridge are chasing each other around the makeup trailer, trying to kill each other, and Colin's blanket cape has fallen off and Jensen has to retie it quickly around his neck before the bell goes off. Colin and Ridge race out to front and center, squinting into the lights as the cameras re-focus, and Kim huddles his hands into his crossed arms as he gives them a pep talk.
"So I got the newest copy of Madden over at my trailer," Jared says, somewhere behind Jensen's shoulder.
"We're closing down at two o'clock, and you want to go home and play video games?" If science is going to figure out Jared Padalecki's stomach, Jensen thinks to himself, they'd better get started now on his brain, it'll give them something to work on for the next hundred years.
There's no noise from Jared but a little rustle; maybe he's shrugging or shuffling his feet. "Well, I, you know... if you wanted to stop by or anything."
Jensen turns around at that, looking up. "I kinda just wanna hang out tonight, if that's okay."
"Yeah, but..." Jared trails off, his cheeks going pink, and Jensen's trapped, can't look away for a long moment.
"Okay, you guys, everybody on set!" Kim backs out of shot, climbing up behind the camera. "Scene 7, take 1--lights ready..." The chattering bustling noise winds down to silence. "Cameras rolling... and... action!"
*
"Dean, you're so stupid!" Sam is struggling along, red in the face, as he trundles after Dean. Dean's racing ahead, stumbling over his feet, carrying a big smiling jack-o-lantern in both arms.
"Come on! Trick or treat, remember?"
"Everybody saw you stealing that guy's pumpkin! Now he's gonna call the cops and Dad's gonna kill us!"
"He was an assface, he deserved it! And you're the one who wanted to go trick-or-treating!" Dean yells over his shoulder.
"I hate you! You're stupid and you ruin everything!" Sam's near tears, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Jesus, Sammy, come on--it's fine, we'll just go to another street--" Dean stops. They've skidded past corners and through a couple of alleyways, and this part of the town doesn't look familiar; most of the windows are dark, and the houses are older, and the trees are thick and low-hanging here. It's shadowy-black and eerie.
"And we're lost now, right?" Sam's voice scratches roughly at him from behind; he can hear a little sniff. Aw, come on... "We're totally lost."
"Shut up." Dean turns around, grabs at Sammy's lootbag. "Stop it--I'm looking for the flashlight, you idiot! Where'd you put it?"
Suddenly there's the sound of a porch creaking, and a door clicking shut. Dean's head snaps up, with Sam's, and there's nobody anywhere at all. The whole street is completely still.
*
“Cut it-good, great job, you two.” Kim’s voice is tinny with feedback. “Jared, Jensen, filming in five...”
Jared slops through the wet slush, his boots mushing around, as Kim draws the kids aside for a talk. Jensen joins him, rubbing at his ears in the cold, and right in the middle of the bustle and clatter of the crew they’re quiet-a comfortable silence, just standing together, saying nothing.
When it feels like Jensen’s been performing all his life, for every single person around him, he thinks about Jared and how last Tuesday they just came in and crashed on Jared’s couch, exhausted from a late shoot, and drank the beer in Jared’s fridge and sat together in the quiet. How two months ago, he threw up all over Jared’s toilet and bathroom floor, sloshy-drunk, and Jared gave him the bed to sleep in and a clean shirt and scrubbed up the mess while he lay flat spread-eagled on his stomach, fast asleep. How Jared’s eyes grow soft when he wears his glasses in the morning.
It feels too easy. It feels like he blinked and now he’s looking up to the place where he fell, from a long, long ways off.
“Dude, the gloves,” Jared is saying.
“Huh?”
Jared nudges him in the side, points downwards. “The gloves, you’re still wearing them, you gotta get them off.”
Oh. Jensen quickly tugs them off, trying to stuff them awkwardly in his pocket before giving up. Jared wads them up and stashes them in his jacket, and grins up at Jensen-his crooked smile dimpling at the corners-and Jensen’s next breath vanishes just like that, without a sound.
“Lights...” The grips fix an extension cord, scurrying underneath the lamps. “Cameras rolling... and-action!”
*
“But we know what to do now, Dean, we can stop this.”
“Sam-come on, how do you even remember the block? The house? You were seven, it was dark, you probably were peeing your pants while you screamed your head off...
Sam?”
“It was the only time we ever went trick-or-treating. I remember.”
And in his memory, young Sam is staring up at his big brother, and the wind has suddenly dropped ten degrees. “What was that?”
“Shhh.” Dean is looking around, the freckles standing out in his pale face and his lower lip sucked in. There’s the sound of a door opening again, the hinges squeaking, and further down the block a porch creaks.
A boy is clinging to the porch railing.
It’s too dark to see his face, to see anything more than a shape. The kid’s wearing a oversized T-shirt that sits wrong on him, his arms bony-elbowed and gawky. His hair’s too long. Slowly he steps down to the first stair, flattening his sneaker against the wood boards, and he’s shaking all over.
He turns to look straight at Dean. Flickers just for a moment, nearly blinking out.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice is high-pitched. And in the same instant a man comes crashing through the door, unnaturally tall and looming to twice the size of a normal man, and hauls the kid up off his feet by his collar.
“Run. Run, now. Sammy, go!” Dean bellows. He’s grabbing Sam’s arm, they’re both panting as they sprint down the side street, their loot bags thud against their sides and Dean tastes iron in the back of his mouth. Behind them there’s the sound of shuffling, small pattering footsteps followed by bigger thudding ones.
And then Sammy skids on a patch of ice and tumbles down, over and over.
*
“Cut!” Kim bolts out of his chair as everyone dashes over to Colin; Ridge is there, grabbing his arm and freaking out, as Lucy the assistant brushes back his hair and checks his forehead.
“I’m okay, I just bumped my head, I’m okay,” Colin repeats over and over, blinking and following the finger Lucy waves in front of his eyes, and gets deposited in his seat with an ice pack while Jared lends his cellphone.
They end up cutting the shoot short-there’s only an hour left anyways, which is spent looking after Colin and making sure he’s okay while Jensen takes Ridge over to a corner.
“It was an accident, I didn’t mean to trip him,” Ridge keeps saying in a wobbly voice.
“Hey, it’s cool, okay, it’s going to be okay, Colin’s going to be fine...” Jensen pats his shoulder and nudges him with his own, staying close until his aunt comes to pick him up, watching him gulp and look after Colin with big scared eyes. When Colin looks back at him he hunches over, and stares at the ground.
Jared waits for Jensen in the parking lot. They drive in silence, Jensen rubbing at his face and staring at the buildings passing by. He’s cold and hungry and close to flatlining with exhaustion, and he dozes off with his head against the window; Jared’s touch on his knee wakes him up. There’s warmth in Jared’s eyes when he starts guiltily, and the abrupt knot in his stomach melts away.
They get into Jared’s apartment. Jared shucks off his jacket and shoes and stretches out his arms, swinging them to and fro, and nods to the fridge. “I’m gonna get a shower,” he says in a soft tired slur of Texas accent, with a quick apologetic smile. Jensen’s got the door to the fridge open when Jared pulls his shirt off up over his head.
He’s seen Jared without his shirt on plenty of times. He’s seen Jared walking around in nothing but a towel on set. It’s just a guy thing, a best friends thing, it’s nothing. Except suddenly, right now, in this moment, it’s everything.
Jared’s staring back at him across the apartment, and there’s a new silence between them.
Jensen lets the fridge door fall shut behind him as he crosses the living room floor. He sees Jared swallowing hard and then he sees the moment of realization in his eyes, and then they’re kissing; his fingers crushed in Jared’s hair and Jared’s arm tight around his shoulders, Jared sucking on his tongue and Jensen bumping their teeth by accident, gasping for air, Jensen licking into Jared’s mouth and Jared’s jaw working underneath his fingers.
“The shower,” Jared manages, “the shower, come on,” and pulls at the zipper of Jensen’s jeans.
In the shower Jensen pins Jared against the wall, spreading him out with fingers and mouth and tongue, keeping him laid out in place as he bites and sucks and strokes. He’s drunk on the sensation of it, sprawling his body up against his and leaning up for sloppy messy kisses. They’re flushed and hot and slippery, struggling to keep their balance in the bathtub, and Jared is huffing out breaths against him as he fists their cocks together in one hand. Jensen makes an ungodly noise that he’ll deny for the rest of his life and all but straddles Jared, rocking into that hand and sliding up against him, his hands groping everywhere. When he comes he dribbles down Jared’s thighs and legs in warm spurts, and he shudders with it and Jared’s fingers dig into his back.
They keep kissing each other under the water, wet sticky bodies pressed flush together; Jared traces the bumps of Jensen’s spine, and Jensen clutches onto Jared’s shoulders and curves his hands around Jared’s jaw. Long slow kisses, lingering kisses, half-asleep drowsy kisses that stretch into smiles.
Jensen never felt the impact, never knew one moment when he decided: this is it. He has to wonder if he’s still falling.
*
“What was that?” Sam demanded, his cape fisted in one hand-it had fallen off and there’d been a mad frantic scramble to grab it; Sam’s knee is still scraped and his jeans are muddy.
Dean can’t answer. He’s breathing hard, leaning against a signpost, and he can’t stop his lower lip from trembling. Now Sammy’s gonna be all freaked out and having nightmares, and he’s gonna have to drag him home and get yelled at by Dad and go on another hunt, when Dad’s all tired and bandaged up, and Sammy’s definitely gonna cry and they’re gonna miss out on Hallowe’en and it’s not fair.
“Dean?” Sam’s staring up at him, his wet loot bag drooping forlornly behind him, his cape trailing in the slush. His eyes are huge in the lamplight. “What was that?”
Dean looks down at his little brother, still catching his breath. Then, “It was a stupid haunted house thing. I saw the two guys laughing about it when we went around the corner. If you ever mention that I got scared, ever, I’m gonna kill you.”
“But the boy-”
“It was just a trick, Sam. I saw the two of them laughing at us.” Dean scrubs at his face with one sleeve and bends down to fix up Sam’s cape, dusting the slush off Sam’s knee. “Look... let’s go down that way, okay? We can cut through the alleyway there and get in a couple more streets before we have to go back, they won’t be looking for us over there.”
“Are you sure?” Sam squinches up his face, but definitely looks more hopeful.
“Positive,” Dean says with a grin, and grabs Sam’s loot bag really quick, and takes off running as Sam yells and hollers all the way after him.
Later that night, after Sam has gone to sleep comatose with sugar overload, Dean hides the bags carefully underneath the motel bed along with the boots and cape. He wipes off his face paint in the sink, rubbing with the frayed old towel on the hook, and climbs into bed. Moments later, the door swings open and there’s the smell of ashes and whiskey and musky soap on the air.
“Did you boys go out tonight?” John murmurs as he tucks Dean back into bed, pulling up the covers around him.
Dean looks up into his face, at the bristles in the beard his dad’s started to grow. “No, sir.”
John ruffles his hair, awkwardly, and gets into the other bed with a creak of the springs. Dean rolls over on his side and stares out at the wall without sleeping.
*
“And cut!”
Colin and Ridge try to steal the candy back out from under the bed, but Kim makes them share it with the rest of the crew. Jared digs out at least fifteen pieces before Lucy starts smacking him on the wrist.
Jensen’s sitting off in a deserted hallway nearby, wearing his glasses as he reads through the script changes. He’s got a cup of coffee propped up by him and the script in his lap, flipping through the pages. He keeps his head down as his heart skitters up and down his ribs, like dragging a stick against a fence, when Jared sits down next to him, his own extra-huge-triple-venti coffee-whatever in hand.
They don’t say anything. Jared just leans in, and his mouth tastes like miniature Skor and Reese’s Pieces bars. Jensen smiles.
Author: Kiera Kingsley (queen_kiwi)
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2,887
Pairing: Jensen / Jared
Spoilers: Minor casting spoilers for 3.08
Disclaimers: No ownership, no monies, etc. etc.
Summary: What happens one night, on Hallowe’en and late in a cold September.
Author’s note: For spn_holidays, montmorency’s list included J2 first-time schmoop and wee!Sam and Dean trick-or-treating-so here’s two for the price of one. Hope you enjoyed it! ♥
*
It's late at night, and the crew's lit bonfires in barrels to keep warm; the light flickers in between them, casting black silhouettes, as shadows chase each other across the ground. Jared ran to the nearest convenience store to buy at least fifteen big packs of marshmallows, and someone's fished out a half-squashed box of graham crackers from food services, and now everyone's huddled around and roasting Hallowe'en candy over the fires, getting s'more goop all sticky over their fingers.
The mood's electric: giggles and uncontrollable laughter, shivery-excited, fizzling out and flaring up. The wind's raw and the snowflakes are blistering and Jensen can't feel his hands anymore.
"Where're your gloves?" Jared comes up, downing a cup of hot cider that Jensen could probably get both his hands around easily. He’s pretty certain he just saw Jared eat another triple-decker s'more with extra marshmallows before that, and he's wondering if science should start researching the mysteries of Jared Padalecki's stomach for mankind's greater benefit when there's a huge warm hand on the back of his neck, rubbing out the knot of tension there. It's all Jensen can do not to grab onto something to steady himself. "Do you even own any?"
"My mommy forgot to pin them to my coat today," he informs Jared.
"Right, because real men like having frostbite." Jared rolls his eyes and peels off his gloves with his teeth, and briskly sticks both gloves on Jensen's hands--ignoring a startled "whoa, hey, Jared what"--before grabbing another mug. "Get over to makeup already, Kim wants us on in ten."
Jensen blinks, and Jared's disappeared into the crowd. Lamps are flicking on as the camera crew sets up, crunching around in dead leaves and soggy snow, and there's light spilling out of the makeup trailer. Kim's already got his megaphone hooked up, blaring out garbled orders to the crew.
Jared's gloves are warm on his skin, from the coffee cup and Jared's hands. They're also about a size too big for him. He flexes his fingers and squeezes a fist, and his shiver has nothing to do with the cold.
Colin is sitting in the makeup trailer, slouched down on the couch as Ridge gets his face painted, itching at the back of his head. He's got a frayed red blanket tied around his neck and big, clumpy red boots over his jeans; he's grown about a foot since Jensen saw him last year. "Hey, how're your lines? You need any more help?"
"No thanks." Colin slumps down in his chair, looking sleepy and nervous and wound up, and Jensen's heart goes out to him. He wants to say: it doesn’t get any better or any more glamorous than this. It's all about sitting around waiting and flubbing your script and being bored off your ass, and staying up until two o'clock in the morning, and getting fiddled with and poked and constantly pushed around. And then you grow up, and the parties and money and drugs mess you up, and nobody ever takes a camera off you for a second.
But Colin plays with Jared’s dogs and talks about going to UT and being a veterinarian when he grows up, and Jensen can't help but smile back at this kid. "Well, then, you guys mind helping me out?" he says out loud. "The scene on page 43 where we're back in the car...
Soon Colin and Ridge are chasing each other around the makeup trailer, trying to kill each other, and Colin's blanket cape has fallen off and Jensen has to retie it quickly around his neck before the bell goes off. Colin and Ridge race out to front and center, squinting into the lights as the cameras re-focus, and Kim huddles his hands into his crossed arms as he gives them a pep talk.
"So I got the newest copy of Madden over at my trailer," Jared says, somewhere behind Jensen's shoulder.
"We're closing down at two o'clock, and you want to go home and play video games?" If science is going to figure out Jared Padalecki's stomach, Jensen thinks to himself, they'd better get started now on his brain, it'll give them something to work on for the next hundred years.
There's no noise from Jared but a little rustle; maybe he's shrugging or shuffling his feet. "Well, I, you know... if you wanted to stop by or anything."
Jensen turns around at that, looking up. "I kinda just wanna hang out tonight, if that's okay."
"Yeah, but..." Jared trails off, his cheeks going pink, and Jensen's trapped, can't look away for a long moment.
"Okay, you guys, everybody on set!" Kim backs out of shot, climbing up behind the camera. "Scene 7, take 1--lights ready..." The chattering bustling noise winds down to silence. "Cameras rolling... and... action!"
*
"Dean, you're so stupid!" Sam is struggling along, red in the face, as he trundles after Dean. Dean's racing ahead, stumbling over his feet, carrying a big smiling jack-o-lantern in both arms.
"Come on! Trick or treat, remember?"
"Everybody saw you stealing that guy's pumpkin! Now he's gonna call the cops and Dad's gonna kill us!"
"He was an assface, he deserved it! And you're the one who wanted to go trick-or-treating!" Dean yells over his shoulder.
"I hate you! You're stupid and you ruin everything!" Sam's near tears, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Jesus, Sammy, come on--it's fine, we'll just go to another street--" Dean stops. They've skidded past corners and through a couple of alleyways, and this part of the town doesn't look familiar; most of the windows are dark, and the houses are older, and the trees are thick and low-hanging here. It's shadowy-black and eerie.
"And we're lost now, right?" Sam's voice scratches roughly at him from behind; he can hear a little sniff. Aw, come on... "We're totally lost."
"Shut up." Dean turns around, grabs at Sammy's lootbag. "Stop it--I'm looking for the flashlight, you idiot! Where'd you put it?"
Suddenly there's the sound of a porch creaking, and a door clicking shut. Dean's head snaps up, with Sam's, and there's nobody anywhere at all. The whole street is completely still.
*
“Cut it-good, great job, you two.” Kim’s voice is tinny with feedback. “Jared, Jensen, filming in five...”
Jared slops through the wet slush, his boots mushing around, as Kim draws the kids aside for a talk. Jensen joins him, rubbing at his ears in the cold, and right in the middle of the bustle and clatter of the crew they’re quiet-a comfortable silence, just standing together, saying nothing.
When it feels like Jensen’s been performing all his life, for every single person around him, he thinks about Jared and how last Tuesday they just came in and crashed on Jared’s couch, exhausted from a late shoot, and drank the beer in Jared’s fridge and sat together in the quiet. How two months ago, he threw up all over Jared’s toilet and bathroom floor, sloshy-drunk, and Jared gave him the bed to sleep in and a clean shirt and scrubbed up the mess while he lay flat spread-eagled on his stomach, fast asleep. How Jared’s eyes grow soft when he wears his glasses in the morning.
It feels too easy. It feels like he blinked and now he’s looking up to the place where he fell, from a long, long ways off.
“Dude, the gloves,” Jared is saying.
“Huh?”
Jared nudges him in the side, points downwards. “The gloves, you’re still wearing them, you gotta get them off.”
Oh. Jensen quickly tugs them off, trying to stuff them awkwardly in his pocket before giving up. Jared wads them up and stashes them in his jacket, and grins up at Jensen-his crooked smile dimpling at the corners-and Jensen’s next breath vanishes just like that, without a sound.
“Lights...” The grips fix an extension cord, scurrying underneath the lamps. “Cameras rolling... and-action!”
*
“But we know what to do now, Dean, we can stop this.”
“Sam-come on, how do you even remember the block? The house? You were seven, it was dark, you probably were peeing your pants while you screamed your head off...
Sam?”
“It was the only time we ever went trick-or-treating. I remember.”
And in his memory, young Sam is staring up at his big brother, and the wind has suddenly dropped ten degrees. “What was that?”
“Shhh.” Dean is looking around, the freckles standing out in his pale face and his lower lip sucked in. There’s the sound of a door opening again, the hinges squeaking, and further down the block a porch creaks.
A boy is clinging to the porch railing.
It’s too dark to see his face, to see anything more than a shape. The kid’s wearing a oversized T-shirt that sits wrong on him, his arms bony-elbowed and gawky. His hair’s too long. Slowly he steps down to the first stair, flattening his sneaker against the wood boards, and he’s shaking all over.
He turns to look straight at Dean. Flickers just for a moment, nearly blinking out.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice is high-pitched. And in the same instant a man comes crashing through the door, unnaturally tall and looming to twice the size of a normal man, and hauls the kid up off his feet by his collar.
“Run. Run, now. Sammy, go!” Dean bellows. He’s grabbing Sam’s arm, they’re both panting as they sprint down the side street, their loot bags thud against their sides and Dean tastes iron in the back of his mouth. Behind them there’s the sound of shuffling, small pattering footsteps followed by bigger thudding ones.
And then Sammy skids on a patch of ice and tumbles down, over and over.
*
“Cut!” Kim bolts out of his chair as everyone dashes over to Colin; Ridge is there, grabbing his arm and freaking out, as Lucy the assistant brushes back his hair and checks his forehead.
“I’m okay, I just bumped my head, I’m okay,” Colin repeats over and over, blinking and following the finger Lucy waves in front of his eyes, and gets deposited in his seat with an ice pack while Jared lends his cellphone.
They end up cutting the shoot short-there’s only an hour left anyways, which is spent looking after Colin and making sure he’s okay while Jensen takes Ridge over to a corner.
“It was an accident, I didn’t mean to trip him,” Ridge keeps saying in a wobbly voice.
“Hey, it’s cool, okay, it’s going to be okay, Colin’s going to be fine...” Jensen pats his shoulder and nudges him with his own, staying close until his aunt comes to pick him up, watching him gulp and look after Colin with big scared eyes. When Colin looks back at him he hunches over, and stares at the ground.
Jared waits for Jensen in the parking lot. They drive in silence, Jensen rubbing at his face and staring at the buildings passing by. He’s cold and hungry and close to flatlining with exhaustion, and he dozes off with his head against the window; Jared’s touch on his knee wakes him up. There’s warmth in Jared’s eyes when he starts guiltily, and the abrupt knot in his stomach melts away.
They get into Jared’s apartment. Jared shucks off his jacket and shoes and stretches out his arms, swinging them to and fro, and nods to the fridge. “I’m gonna get a shower,” he says in a soft tired slur of Texas accent, with a quick apologetic smile. Jensen’s got the door to the fridge open when Jared pulls his shirt off up over his head.
He’s seen Jared without his shirt on plenty of times. He’s seen Jared walking around in nothing but a towel on set. It’s just a guy thing, a best friends thing, it’s nothing. Except suddenly, right now, in this moment, it’s everything.
Jared’s staring back at him across the apartment, and there’s a new silence between them.
Jensen lets the fridge door fall shut behind him as he crosses the living room floor. He sees Jared swallowing hard and then he sees the moment of realization in his eyes, and then they’re kissing; his fingers crushed in Jared’s hair and Jared’s arm tight around his shoulders, Jared sucking on his tongue and Jensen bumping their teeth by accident, gasping for air, Jensen licking into Jared’s mouth and Jared’s jaw working underneath his fingers.
“The shower,” Jared manages, “the shower, come on,” and pulls at the zipper of Jensen’s jeans.
In the shower Jensen pins Jared against the wall, spreading him out with fingers and mouth and tongue, keeping him laid out in place as he bites and sucks and strokes. He’s drunk on the sensation of it, sprawling his body up against his and leaning up for sloppy messy kisses. They’re flushed and hot and slippery, struggling to keep their balance in the bathtub, and Jared is huffing out breaths against him as he fists their cocks together in one hand. Jensen makes an ungodly noise that he’ll deny for the rest of his life and all but straddles Jared, rocking into that hand and sliding up against him, his hands groping everywhere. When he comes he dribbles down Jared’s thighs and legs in warm spurts, and he shudders with it and Jared’s fingers dig into his back.
They keep kissing each other under the water, wet sticky bodies pressed flush together; Jared traces the bumps of Jensen’s spine, and Jensen clutches onto Jared’s shoulders and curves his hands around Jared’s jaw. Long slow kisses, lingering kisses, half-asleep drowsy kisses that stretch into smiles.
Jensen never felt the impact, never knew one moment when he decided: this is it. He has to wonder if he’s still falling.
*
“What was that?” Sam demanded, his cape fisted in one hand-it had fallen off and there’d been a mad frantic scramble to grab it; Sam’s knee is still scraped and his jeans are muddy.
Dean can’t answer. He’s breathing hard, leaning against a signpost, and he can’t stop his lower lip from trembling. Now Sammy’s gonna be all freaked out and having nightmares, and he’s gonna have to drag him home and get yelled at by Dad and go on another hunt, when Dad’s all tired and bandaged up, and Sammy’s definitely gonna cry and they’re gonna miss out on Hallowe’en and it’s not fair.
“Dean?” Sam’s staring up at him, his wet loot bag drooping forlornly behind him, his cape trailing in the slush. His eyes are huge in the lamplight. “What was that?”
Dean looks down at his little brother, still catching his breath. Then, “It was a stupid haunted house thing. I saw the two guys laughing about it when we went around the corner. If you ever mention that I got scared, ever, I’m gonna kill you.”
“But the boy-”
“It was just a trick, Sam. I saw the two of them laughing at us.” Dean scrubs at his face with one sleeve and bends down to fix up Sam’s cape, dusting the slush off Sam’s knee. “Look... let’s go down that way, okay? We can cut through the alleyway there and get in a couple more streets before we have to go back, they won’t be looking for us over there.”
“Are you sure?” Sam squinches up his face, but definitely looks more hopeful.
“Positive,” Dean says with a grin, and grabs Sam’s loot bag really quick, and takes off running as Sam yells and hollers all the way after him.
Later that night, after Sam has gone to sleep comatose with sugar overload, Dean hides the bags carefully underneath the motel bed along with the boots and cape. He wipes off his face paint in the sink, rubbing with the frayed old towel on the hook, and climbs into bed. Moments later, the door swings open and there’s the smell of ashes and whiskey and musky soap on the air.
“Did you boys go out tonight?” John murmurs as he tucks Dean back into bed, pulling up the covers around him.
Dean looks up into his face, at the bristles in the beard his dad’s started to grow. “No, sir.”
John ruffles his hair, awkwardly, and gets into the other bed with a creak of the springs. Dean rolls over on his side and stares out at the wall without sleeping.
*
“And cut!”
Colin and Ridge try to steal the candy back out from under the bed, but Kim makes them share it with the rest of the crew. Jared digs out at least fifteen pieces before Lucy starts smacking him on the wrist.
Jensen’s sitting off in a deserted hallway nearby, wearing his glasses as he reads through the script changes. He’s got a cup of coffee propped up by him and the script in his lap, flipping through the pages. He keeps his head down as his heart skitters up and down his ribs, like dragging a stick against a fence, when Jared sits down next to him, his own extra-huge-triple-venti coffee-whatever in hand.
They don’t say anything. Jared just leans in, and his mouth tastes like miniature Skor and Reese’s Pieces bars. Jensen smiles.