Fic: Cold, Hard, Shiny Plastic [Part 1]
Title: Cold, hard, Shiny Plastic
Author: steph-hime
Movie Adapted: Mean Girls
Genre: CWRPF
Characters/Pairings: Jared/Chad leading to Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7558
Warnings: Boy kissing? Does that even count as a warning anymore?
Notes/Credits: Beta'd by miss_august. Written in British English for the most part.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not written for profit.
Butterflies seemed to be pounding his stomach as he stepped into homeroom, eyes scanning the room before settling on his teacher.
"Hi. I don't know if anyone told you about me. I'm Jensen, the new transfer student." Jensen mentally high-fived himself for keeping his voice steady.
"Talk to me again and I'll kick your ass." The girl pushed past him and sat in one of the front row desks. Okay, maybe it wasn't his teacher after all. Pink flushed his cheeks as Jensen decided on a seat to sit.
"That seat's taken." Jensen turned his head towards the voice, finding a dark haired girl wearing a tee shirt with the slogan 'Cheerleading = death' across it. "Kristin's boyfriend is gonna sit there." Sure enough a weedy looking guy sat down next to the wannabe teacher and started to make out with her.
"This one?" Jensen pointed to a second row desk.
The same girl shook her head. "He farts a lot."
Jensen pulled a face, backing up to get a better look at the seating arrangements. He turned quickly as he heard a voice, his balance wavering as he crashed into someone.
"Oh my God, I am so sorry." Jensen held up his hands in an apology, and turned to look at the dark haired girl, to find her laughing.
"It's not your fault, it's me, I'm bad luck." She dumped the carton of doughnuts on her desk before reaching to pull off her coffee damp sweater, her tee shirt pulling up with it.
"Ms Gamble?" Jensen glanced around his teacher, seeing Mr Kripke, the head teacher he met briefly before being ushered into his homeroom.
"My tee shirt’s stuck to my sweater, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Jensen moved quickly to help his teacher, pulling the tee shirt away from the sweater.
"How was your summer?" Mr Kripke smiled at Ms Gamble.
"I got divorced." She held up her left hand to show a wedding ring-less finger.
"Oh. Right." Mr Kripke quickly moved on, "Well, we have a new transfer student today. He moved all the way from Africa."
Ms Gamble smiled at one of the students she didn’t recognise. "Welcome."
"I'm from Michigan." He looked confused, his cell phone held in his hand partway between his desk and his ear.
"Great!"
"His name is Jensen, Jensen Ackles. Where are you Jensen?"
Jensen raised his hand, feeling himself blush as the class stared at him. Not the greatest start to the day.
Mr Kripke turned back to Ms Gamble. "If you ever need to talk, or anything, you know where I am."
"Thanks, maybe some time when my shirt isn't see through."
The rest of the day was a blur. Jensen felt totally overwhelmed with names and facts and rules. He ended up eating his lunch in the toilets, sat in a stall, which Jensen thought was probably not the most hygienic of places, but at least people weren't staring at him. He got in trouble for reading ahead, using the wrong colour pen, and even for moving about to get a better look at the whiteboard.
Jensen was glad to get to math class, away from the bitching and the competing. He was good at math class, nothing could mess him up.
"Do you have a pencil I could borrow?" A dark haired Adonis brought Jensen from his musings. The crush hit him like a big yellow school bus, and Jensen blinked a couple of times to check he wasn't dreaming.
"Sure." Jensen handed over his pencil, and Adonis smiled. Great, this was all Jensen needed.
Jensen was so busy trying to think of anything to distract him from Adonis that he almost missed Ms Gamble asking him a question.
Jensen got to homeroom early the next day, grabbing a seat close to dark haired girl (she was wearing a shirt stating her hate for Starbucks). He placed his books in a neat pile in exactly the centre of his desk (his mom would totally call him for being a perfectionist, but who really cares).
"I love your jacket, where did you get it?" the dark haired girl's friend leant over the desk, his hand rubbing over the jacket.
"I don't remember."
"See, this is the one I want, only in pink."
She turned to Jensen. "Sorry about that, he's Steve, almost too gay to function. I'm Sandy."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Jensen." Jensen smiled, glad he wore his nice jeans to school for once. "Do you guys know where room G14 is?"
Sandy turned to him. "I think that's in the back building." She shot Steve a look.
"Yeah, it's in the back building. We can show you."
"Thanks." Jensen beamed; maybe making friends wasn't too hard after all.
Jensen found himself following Sandy and Steve across the school fields. "Where's the back building?"
"It burnt down in 1987." Sandy smiled.
"Won't we get in some sort of trouble for this?" Jensen glanced between Sandy and Steve.
"We're your friends, why would we get you into trouble?" Sandy sat on the grass and pulled out a sketchpad.
"Okay." Jensen sat next to him, after all, they said they were his friends. Health class wouldn't be too important anyway.
"Oh My God would you check out Mike Rosenbaum's gym clothes?" Steve suddenly exclaimed, watching eagerly as a group of students walked out of the building.
"Of course all the Plastics are in the same gym class." Sandy rolled his eyes.
"The Plastics?" Jensen watched the group, noticing that three guys in short shorts and cropped tops seemed to be leading them.
"If the school was US Weekly the Plastics would always be on the cover." Steve said. "That tall one is Tommy Welling. He knows everything about everyone, and thinks he's famous because his dad invented toaster strudel." Steve pointed at him.
"The one on the end is Mike Rosenbaum. He's a total slut and totally dumb." Sandy explained.
"He once asked me how to spell orange." Steve added for emphasis. Jensen giggled.
"In the middle is Chad Murray. He may look like your regular slut-faced ho-bag, but in reality, he's that and so much more."
"What do you mean?" Jensen asked. Chad didn't look too bad as he blew a kiss to one of the jocks.
"This one time in eighth grade he-"
"Steve! Shall we not?" Sandy glared at Steve, whose cheeks flushed a little. Sandy ripped a sheet out of her sketchbook and passed it to Jensen. "This will be your guide to North Shore. On there you have AV nerds, jocks, cool Asians, unfriendly black hotties, sexually-active band geeks, the best people you will ever meet, aka us, and the worst. Beware of the Plastics." Jensen glanced down at the sheet, a mock-up of the cafeteria sketched out and labelled, filled with warnings about each table.
The morning passed quickly and Jensen was soon in the middle of the cafeteria, tray in hands, and one of the jocks stood in front of him.
"We're doing a lunchtime survey of new students. Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Has your cherry popped?" The jock glanced at his friends, who laughed.
"Excuse me?" Jensen looked confused, what cherry?
"Would you like someone to pop your cherry?"
"My what?"
"Is he bothering you?" Jensen turned to see who was talking to him. It was Chad. "Jason, you do not come to a party at my house with Tommy just to scam on some poor innocent guy in front of us two days later. He is not interested." He turned to Jensen. "Do you wanna have sex with him?"
"No, thank you."
Chad turned his attention back to Jason the jock. "That's settled. You can go shave your back now."
"Thanks." Jensen mumbled, as Jason walked off swearing.
"Wait, sit down." Chad smiled, indicating to a seat in front of him.
Jensen glanced at Steve and Sandy.
"Seriously." Chad smiled, so Jensen sat. "Why don't I know you?"
"I just moved here from Africa."
"What?"
"I was home schooled." Jensen looked up at Chad, hoping that he didn’t think he was too much of a freak.
"Wait, what?"
"My mom taught-"
"I know what home school is, I'm not retarded. So you've never been to an actual school before?" Jensen shook his head. "Shut up. Shut up!"
"I didn't say anything." Jensen looked between the three guys and wondered if he was ever going to get the hang of the various slang phrases floating around.
"Africa. That's really interesting. But you're like really pretty." Chad smiled.
"Thank you."
"So you agree? You think you're really pretty?" Chad tilted his head to one side, studying Jensen as though he was one of those lab rats about to be dissected.
"I don't know-"
"Oh my God, I love your bracelet, where did you get it?" Chad changed the subject, grabbing hold of Jensen's wrist.
"My mom made it for me." Jensen flushed, twisting the leather band around his wrist.
"So adorable."
"So fetch." Tommy glanced at Chad, glitter on his lips reflecting as his head moved.
"What is fetch?" Chad turned to look at Tommy.
"It's like slang, from England."
Mike tilted his head, noticing Jensen for the first time. "If you're from Africa, then why are you white?"
"Oh my God Mike, you can't just ask people why they are white!" Tommy said, poking a finger into Mike's shoulder.
Chad shrugged, "can you excuse us for like two seconds?" He held his hands up, whispering to Mike and Tommy, and glancing at Jensen every so often.
Jensen glanced at Steve and Sandy, who looked confused. He shrugged his shoulders, before turning back to the three males in front of him.
"Okay, you should know that we don't do this very often, but we want to invite you to have lunch with us everyday for the rest of the week." Tommy looked pleased, wearing a smug look on his face as if he had just invited Jensen to have lunch with the Queen of England.
Jensen glanced over at Steve and Sandy, "Oh, I don't know-"
"Coolness." Chad said quickly.
"On Wednesdays we wear pink." Mike added.
Jensen stood in the bathroom, Steve and Sandy by his sides. "You have to do it, then you can tell us all the evil things he does." Sandy looked ecstatic, pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail.
"Chad seems sweet." Jensen said, checking his hair in the mirror.
"Chad Murray is not sweet, he's a scum-sucking rodent-whore." Sandy said, the jubilant look replaced with one much darker.
"Why do you hate him?"
"What?"
"Chad. You seem to really hate him."
"In eighth grade he sent around a petition saying-"
Sandy hit Steve. "Don't."
Jensen looked between the two. "Do you guys have anything pink?"
Sandy gave Jensen a pained look, as Steve clapped his hands together. "Yes!"
"Don't worry." Sandy said, placing an arm around Jensen's shoulders. "It'll be our little secret."
"So, have you seen any guys you might like?" Tommy asked, his fingers tapping on a can of Diet Coke in their free period.
"There's this one guy in my math class."
"It's a senior?" Mike suddenly seemed interested.
"I think his name is Jared?"
"No!" Tommy said quickly. "You can't like Jared. Jared is Chad's ex boyfriend; they were together for like a year. Chad was devastated when they broke up this summer."
"I thought Chad dumped him for Shane?"
"Whatever, it's like the rules." Tommy sighed dramatically. "Don't worry, I wont tell Chad what you said. It'll be our secret."
Jensen had barely taken two steps inside his room when his phone rang. "Hello?"
"I know your secret." It was Chad.
Jensen froze, should he play it cool, or start crying and apologising. "Secret? What are you saying about?" Jensen cringed, his ability to speak failing when put on the spot.
"Tommy told me that you like Jared Padalecki. Whatever, it's no big deal, but you should know something. All Jared cares about is sports, his family and his car."
"That's a bad thing?"
"But if you like him you should go for it."
"Okay." Jensen smiled.
"But wait, aren't you so mad at Tommy telling me?"
"No."
"It was a really bitchy thing for him to do." Chad continued.
"Yeah, it was kinda bitchy, but maybe he likes the attention."
"I can't believe you think I like attention!" Jensen's eyes widened as Tommy's voice rang loud and clear through the phone.
"Anyway, gotta go, love ya!" Chad said, voice full of cheer before he disconnected the call.
Jensen's mouth hung open as he stared at the phone. He had survived his first three way calling attack. He quickly pressed the end call button, and made a mental note to tell Sandy and Steve first thing the next day.
Jensen survived the few days without much of a hitch. He continued to sit with Chad and the Plastics at lunch (much to Sandy's pleasure), and spent time with Sandy and Steve at night, talking about Chad and the so called 'evil' things he had done. It was a complete surprise when Chad invited Jensen to his house.
"This is your house?" Jensen looked up at the large white detached in front of him.
"Isn't it awesome?" Tommy said, climbing out of Chad's silver Lexus convertible.
"Whatever." Chad opened the front door and stepped into the large reception room. "I'm home." He called, before starting to climb the stairs, Tommy and Mike following closely.
Jensen's eyes widened as he set foot in Chad's bedroom. "Your room is amazing!" He breathed, almost afraid to take a step further on the plush white carpet.
"It was my parent's, but I made them trade me." Chad grinned, before toeing his shoes off.
"Oh my God! I remember this!" Mike suddenly declared, pulling a pink photo album from Chad's bookcase.
"Check it out, Jensen, it's our burn book." Tommy said, moving to join Mike on Chad's bed. "We take photo's of the people in our grade and write things about them."
Jensen moved closer, looking at the book in Tommy's hands, a picture of Steve and Sandy taking up the page.
"Who's that?" Chad pointed to Steve.
"I think it's that guy Steve." Tommy said, looking to Chad for approval.
"Yeah, he's almost too gay to function." Jensen muttered under his breath.
"I like that. Put it in." Chad said, grabbing a Sharpie from his desk and passing it to Tommy, who started to write.
Jensen was horrified, what if it was only okay for Sandy to say that? Chad, Mike and Tom didn't notice Jensen's mini panic attack - they were too engrossed in picking fault with the people in their grade.
The next few weeks went without a major hitch, and Jensen was talking to Jared more and more, which was why he was currently stood in his mom's bedroom, her bridal gown on and a tube of fake blood in his hands after being invited to Jared's friend's Halloween party.
Halloween for Jensen meant dressing up in scary outfits and little kids trick or treating. However for Chad, Mike and Tom it was an excuse to be as slutty as possible as no one could say anything.
"Why are you dressed so scary?" Mike exclaimed, as Jensen found him and Tom at the party.
"It's Halloween." Jensen struggle to say around his fake teeth, wishing he'd stayed with Steve and Sandy for their scary movie marathon. He glanced around the room looking for Jared (to thank him for inviting him of course) when he spotted Chad in a tiny French maid outfit, feather duster being used to tickle people, talking to a guy. Jensen didn't need him to turn around, instantly knowing that it was Jared (having memorised his head in math). Jensen grinned, Chad was such a good friend, taking time out to talk to Jared for him. Jensen almost got caught up in his thoughts about walking down the aisle with Jared, when he noticed Chad kissing Jared. What a slut! Jensen blinked, gulped in air. He couldn't breathe, the music suddenly too loud in his ears, so he ran, towards the exit, towards Sandy' house.
Jensen wiped at his eyes, pushing open the door to Sandy' room. "I hate him." He said, ignoring the fact that Sandy and Steve were covered in popcorn. "Why does he have to be so mean?"
"That's what he is, he's a life ruiner." Sandy said, putting an arm around Jensen and pulling him down to sit on the couch between her and Steve. "Chad Michael Murray is an evil dictator, and need to be over thrown. He would be nothing without his technically good physique, band of loyal lackeys and high status man candy. For the plan to work, you need to hang out with them as though nothing happened. Can you do that?"
"I think so." Jensen nodded, the plan formulating in front of his eyes.
The next day Jensen acted as though nothing was wrong. Tommy had hugged him, saying that Chad was really sorry, and that he was trying to get Jared to hook up with Jensen, but Jared was only interested in getting back with him. Jensen just rolled his eyes, and tried to act as normal as possible.
Lunch was nothing spectacular either. Chad invited Jared to sit with them, fussing with his hair and shirt, dangling him in front of Jensen. Jensen took it in his stride, playing it cool, only talking to the Plastics when he needed to. The plan of attack was to get the Burn Book, to publish it and show everyone what Chad was really like, thus getting rid of his followers. Getting Jared and Chad to break up was harder, without proof that Chad was doing anything wrong, Jared would stay with him, and flirting could only get Jensen so far.
"I'm doing the South Beach Fat Flush, all you drink for 72 hours is cranberry juice." Chad explained to the table.
"That's not cranberry juice, it's cranberry juice cocktail, it's all sugar." Jared said, glancing at the bottle in Chad's hand.
"I really wanna lose three pounds." Chad pursed his lips.
"You totally don't need to!" Mike gushed. "You're so skinny!"
"Whatever."
Jensen, Sandy and Steve met at Jensen's place, after another unsuccessful attempt at taking the Burn Book.
"This is ass, why did we think we can do this?" Sandy exclaimed, banging her fist on the table for emphasis. "Chad isn't going to be overthrown this easily."
"If we could crack Tommy then we crack the vault on Chad's whole dirty history." Jensen mused.
Steve pulled a face. "I have to deliver those lame candy cane grams tomorrow." He sighed.
"That's it! We send candy canes to Mike and Jensen from Chad, and Tommy will get jealous and start thinking that Chad doesn't like him anymore."
"Won't Chad find out?" Jensen glanced between Steve and Sandy.
"Chad never sends them out, it's one of his rules." Steve explained. "He got like 40 last year, which he didn't eat, he saved the tags and threw the candy in the bin."
"Then we'll do that, tomorrow." Jensen said, "Tommy and I are in the same English class, if they're delivered then it'll make Tommy really suspicious of Chad."
"We just need to get him fat." Sandy said, "get the ball rolling."
"It's a shame I'm not still in Africa." Jensen said. "My mom used to give out these weird Swedish health bars to the kids to help them gain weight. They have a tonne of calories in."
"You need to get some. Chad wouldn't know if they were to help him gain weight or lose weight."
"I'll ask my mom if she still has some."
"Alright, lets rock this bitch!" Sandy exclaimed, punching the air triumphantly.
Jensen grinned as he saw Steve enter the English class, dressed as Santa and holding the candy canes triumphantly in the air. "Candy cane rounds!" He called, disguising his voice as best he could.
"Oh Okay." The teacher groaned, placing the book on her desk.
Steve read through the names, handing out the candy to the relevant people before coming to Jensen. "Finally, Jensen Ackles?"
Jensen raised his hand, as Tommy stretched to see who it was from.
Steve left the room, and Jensen read his message. "'Thanks for being such a great friend, love, Chad'. Isn't that sweet?" Jensen turned to see Tommy, who had flushed red and pursed his lips into a tight line.
Tommy was quiet around Chad for the rest of the day, only speaking to him when spoken to, making the rehearsal for the winter talent contest awkward, Jensen struggling to learn the moves to the dance Chad was trying to teach.
Chad sighed. "Let's just leave it for today, Tommy your timing is way out." He moved over to Jensen. "You have such good hair recently." Chad smiled.
"Thanks." Jensen said, easily accepting the compliment. Tommy glared.
"Didn’t I see you talking to Sandra McCoy earlier?" Tommy said, throwing a glare in Jensen’s direction.
"What did she want?" Chad asked, stopping his hands.
"I don’t know." Jensen said, thinking back to what had happened. "She just came up to me and started talking to me about crack." Jensen lied.
"Let me tell you something about Sandra McCoy." Chad started, his hands going back to Jensen’s hair. "Sandra and I were best friends in middle school, it was so retarded, I don’t even know what I was thinking. But anyway, I started to date my first boyfriend Kyle, who was totally cute but then he moved to Indiana, and she would get weirdly jealous if I blew her off to hang out with him. So for my thirteenth birthday I was having a costume party and I was like 'Sandy, I can’t invite you because you’ll clash with my décor', so her mom rang my mom and she shaved off all her hair and left to be home schooled. When she came back in the fall she dressed all in black, but not in the weird Goth way, and now I guess she’s on crack."
Jensen looked at Chad, mouth slightly open in shock. That was why Sandy hated Chad so much. Fair enough, Chad had been a totally bitch, but it wasn’t worth going bald for.
"This doesn’t leave this room. I would die if anyone found out." Chad said, pushing his hair out of his face.
"Agreed." Jensen said, feeling closer to Chad than ever.
"Are we making progress on the fat bars" Sandy asked, twisting her hair around a pencil, sat at Jensen’s kitchen table.
"My mom got a shipment today, she thinks it’s great I want to help out the anorexic girls in our school." Jensen smiled.
"Awesome." Sandy high fived Jensen."We set the ball rolling tomorrow."
When Jensen found Chad the next day, he was sat picking at a salad, looking longingly at the fries Jared was eating. "I feel like such a heifer." Chad said, stuffing a lettuce leaf into his mouth. "I swear I gained like 5 pounds just from looking at the cake my mom bought last night."
"Whatever babe, you look hot." Jared said, standing and taking his empty plate with him. "I got football practice, see you later." Jared kissed Chad on the cheek, before departing.
"You are so skinny." Mike said. "I totally wish I was as skinny as you, Chad."
"Shut up."
"You should try these," Jensen said, opening a Kalteen bar.
"What are they?" Chad said, eyeing the bar.
"They're these weird Swedish nutrition bars my mom uses to loose weight." Jensen said. "They burn all your carbs, and leave your body running on water."
Chad grabbed the bar, taking a bite of it. "It tastes like shit."
"My mom lost like ten pounds in a week once, and got to eat as many carbs as she wanted. The more carbs you eat, the more weight you lose."
"You need to get me some." Chad said.
"I can get you a box." Jensen said. "My mom won’t notice."
"I totally love you Jensen." Chad said, taking another huge bite of the bar.
Jensen groaned, the dress rehearsal of the Christmas pageant hadn’t gone well, and Chad had stomped off in a mood, leaving him with Tommy and Mike, who were busy applying mascara.
"So what’s up with Chad? He’s been acting really weird lately." Jensen said, leaning to Tommy.
"Well, his parent’s totally don’t sleep in the same bed anymore." Tommy said, searching through a bag of make up for lip-gloss. "Oh my God, don’t tell Chad I told you that."
"I wont." Jensen said quickly.
"I totally don’t get why he sent you guys candy canes. Maybe he feel’s weird around me 'cause I’m the only one that knows about his nose job." Tommy stopped mid sentence. "Forget I said that."
Chad suddenly burst into the room, a Kalteen bar in his hand. "Right bitches, lets get this thing over with." He led Mike to the backstage area, whilst Tommy shot Jensen a desperate look.
Jensen got into position, to the left of Chad. "Tommy, change position with Jensen."
"But I’m always on your right!" Tommy protested.
"And right now you’re getting on my last nerve. Switch." Chad said, putting on his best authoritarian voice.
Tommy obediently moved, switching position before the curtain went up and they started to dance.
"That was the best it ever went" Mike exclaimed jumping up and down after they had finished their performance.
"So fetch!" Tommy said.
"Tommy, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen, it’s not going to happen." Chad snapped, glaring at Tommy.
Tommy’s mouth snapped shut, pursing into a thin line.
"I gotta go bitches, have a good night." Chad said, ignoring Tommy and walking to Jared’s waiting arms.
"If you even knew how mean he really is, you wouldn’t be friends with him." Tommy said, pulling Jensen aside into the toilets between periods the next day. "You know I’m not allowed to wear diamante studs right?" Tommy pointed to his ears. "Chad said they were his 'thing' and I wasn’t allowed to wear them if I wanted to be friends with him. And you know he cheats on Jared? Every Tuesday Jared thinks Chad’s doing SAT prep, but he’s really hooking up with Shane in the projection room. I never told anyone because I’m such a good friend!" Tommy burst into tears, his head falling to Jensen’s shoulder.
Tommy’s confession had put the plan back in motion. Jensen, Sandy and Steve tried every Tuesday to get Jared to the projection room to catch Chad and Shane in the act, but had been foiled every time so far. Steve had also come up with a clever plan to rig the Spring Fling king votes, adding extra ballots to Tommy’s pile to make Chad think that his grip on the student population was slipping.
Jensen was also working hard on failing math to get closer to Jared, asking him to tutor him when he failed his latest test.
"The first time I did it I got zero." Jared said, during one of their sessions. "But then I did it again and got one."
"I got one too." Jensen said, leaning into Jared, enjoying the smell of him.
"Yeah, sometimes you have to check it, because the product of two negative integers is a positive."
"You’re such a good tutor." Jensen breathed, leaning in to touch his lips to Jared’s, his hand moving to Jared’s broad chest.
Jared pulled back. "I can’t do this to Chad."
"Why do you like him?" Jensen asked.
"Why do you?" Jared retorted.
Jensen‘s mouth opened and closed.
"I know he can seem mean but-"
"Then why do you like him?"
"He’s just a bit more up front about things."
"He’s cheating on you!" Jensen blurted out, clapping his hand over his mouth.
"He’s what?"
( Part 2 )
Author: steph-hime
Movie Adapted: Mean Girls
Genre: CWRPF
Characters/Pairings: Jared/Chad leading to Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7558
Warnings: Boy kissing? Does that even count as a warning anymore?
Notes/Credits: Beta'd by miss_august. Written in British English for the most part.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not written for profit.
Butterflies seemed to be pounding his stomach as he stepped into homeroom, eyes scanning the room before settling on his teacher.
"Hi. I don't know if anyone told you about me. I'm Jensen, the new transfer student." Jensen mentally high-fived himself for keeping his voice steady.
"Talk to me again and I'll kick your ass." The girl pushed past him and sat in one of the front row desks. Okay, maybe it wasn't his teacher after all. Pink flushed his cheeks as Jensen decided on a seat to sit.
"That seat's taken." Jensen turned his head towards the voice, finding a dark haired girl wearing a tee shirt with the slogan 'Cheerleading = death' across it. "Kristin's boyfriend is gonna sit there." Sure enough a weedy looking guy sat down next to the wannabe teacher and started to make out with her.
"This one?" Jensen pointed to a second row desk.
The same girl shook her head. "He farts a lot."
Jensen pulled a face, backing up to get a better look at the seating arrangements. He turned quickly as he heard a voice, his balance wavering as he crashed into someone.
"Oh my God, I am so sorry." Jensen held up his hands in an apology, and turned to look at the dark haired girl, to find her laughing.
"It's not your fault, it's me, I'm bad luck." She dumped the carton of doughnuts on her desk before reaching to pull off her coffee damp sweater, her tee shirt pulling up with it.
"Ms Gamble?" Jensen glanced around his teacher, seeing Mr Kripke, the head teacher he met briefly before being ushered into his homeroom.
"My tee shirt’s stuck to my sweater, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Jensen moved quickly to help his teacher, pulling the tee shirt away from the sweater.
"How was your summer?" Mr Kripke smiled at Ms Gamble.
"I got divorced." She held up her left hand to show a wedding ring-less finger.
"Oh. Right." Mr Kripke quickly moved on, "Well, we have a new transfer student today. He moved all the way from Africa."
Ms Gamble smiled at one of the students she didn’t recognise. "Welcome."
"I'm from Michigan." He looked confused, his cell phone held in his hand partway between his desk and his ear.
"Great!"
"His name is Jensen, Jensen Ackles. Where are you Jensen?"
Jensen raised his hand, feeling himself blush as the class stared at him. Not the greatest start to the day.
Mr Kripke turned back to Ms Gamble. "If you ever need to talk, or anything, you know where I am."
"Thanks, maybe some time when my shirt isn't see through."
The rest of the day was a blur. Jensen felt totally overwhelmed with names and facts and rules. He ended up eating his lunch in the toilets, sat in a stall, which Jensen thought was probably not the most hygienic of places, but at least people weren't staring at him. He got in trouble for reading ahead, using the wrong colour pen, and even for moving about to get a better look at the whiteboard.
Jensen was glad to get to math class, away from the bitching and the competing. He was good at math class, nothing could mess him up.
"Do you have a pencil I could borrow?" A dark haired Adonis brought Jensen from his musings. The crush hit him like a big yellow school bus, and Jensen blinked a couple of times to check he wasn't dreaming.
"Sure." Jensen handed over his pencil, and Adonis smiled. Great, this was all Jensen needed.
Jensen was so busy trying to think of anything to distract him from Adonis that he almost missed Ms Gamble asking him a question.
Jensen got to homeroom early the next day, grabbing a seat close to dark haired girl (she was wearing a shirt stating her hate for Starbucks). He placed his books in a neat pile in exactly the centre of his desk (his mom would totally call him for being a perfectionist, but who really cares).
"I love your jacket, where did you get it?" the dark haired girl's friend leant over the desk, his hand rubbing over the jacket.
"I don't remember."
"See, this is the one I want, only in pink."
She turned to Jensen. "Sorry about that, he's Steve, almost too gay to function. I'm Sandy."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Jensen." Jensen smiled, glad he wore his nice jeans to school for once. "Do you guys know where room G14 is?"
Sandy turned to him. "I think that's in the back building." She shot Steve a look.
"Yeah, it's in the back building. We can show you."
"Thanks." Jensen beamed; maybe making friends wasn't too hard after all.
Jensen found himself following Sandy and Steve across the school fields. "Where's the back building?"
"It burnt down in 1987." Sandy smiled.
"Won't we get in some sort of trouble for this?" Jensen glanced between Sandy and Steve.
"We're your friends, why would we get you into trouble?" Sandy sat on the grass and pulled out a sketchpad.
"Okay." Jensen sat next to him, after all, they said they were his friends. Health class wouldn't be too important anyway.
"Oh My God would you check out Mike Rosenbaum's gym clothes?" Steve suddenly exclaimed, watching eagerly as a group of students walked out of the building.
"Of course all the Plastics are in the same gym class." Sandy rolled his eyes.
"The Plastics?" Jensen watched the group, noticing that three guys in short shorts and cropped tops seemed to be leading them.
"If the school was US Weekly the Plastics would always be on the cover." Steve said. "That tall one is Tommy Welling. He knows everything about everyone, and thinks he's famous because his dad invented toaster strudel." Steve pointed at him.
"The one on the end is Mike Rosenbaum. He's a total slut and totally dumb." Sandy explained.
"He once asked me how to spell orange." Steve added for emphasis. Jensen giggled.
"In the middle is Chad Murray. He may look like your regular slut-faced ho-bag, but in reality, he's that and so much more."
"What do you mean?" Jensen asked. Chad didn't look too bad as he blew a kiss to one of the jocks.
"This one time in eighth grade he-"
"Steve! Shall we not?" Sandy glared at Steve, whose cheeks flushed a little. Sandy ripped a sheet out of her sketchbook and passed it to Jensen. "This will be your guide to North Shore. On there you have AV nerds, jocks, cool Asians, unfriendly black hotties, sexually-active band geeks, the best people you will ever meet, aka us, and the worst. Beware of the Plastics." Jensen glanced down at the sheet, a mock-up of the cafeteria sketched out and labelled, filled with warnings about each table.
The morning passed quickly and Jensen was soon in the middle of the cafeteria, tray in hands, and one of the jocks stood in front of him.
"We're doing a lunchtime survey of new students. Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Has your cherry popped?" The jock glanced at his friends, who laughed.
"Excuse me?" Jensen looked confused, what cherry?
"Would you like someone to pop your cherry?"
"My what?"
"Is he bothering you?" Jensen turned to see who was talking to him. It was Chad. "Jason, you do not come to a party at my house with Tommy just to scam on some poor innocent guy in front of us two days later. He is not interested." He turned to Jensen. "Do you wanna have sex with him?"
"No, thank you."
Chad turned his attention back to Jason the jock. "That's settled. You can go shave your back now."
"Thanks." Jensen mumbled, as Jason walked off swearing.
"Wait, sit down." Chad smiled, indicating to a seat in front of him.
Jensen glanced at Steve and Sandy.
"Seriously." Chad smiled, so Jensen sat. "Why don't I know you?"
"I just moved here from Africa."
"What?"
"I was home schooled." Jensen looked up at Chad, hoping that he didn’t think he was too much of a freak.
"Wait, what?"
"My mom taught-"
"I know what home school is, I'm not retarded. So you've never been to an actual school before?" Jensen shook his head. "Shut up. Shut up!"
"I didn't say anything." Jensen looked between the three guys and wondered if he was ever going to get the hang of the various slang phrases floating around.
"Africa. That's really interesting. But you're like really pretty." Chad smiled.
"Thank you."
"So you agree? You think you're really pretty?" Chad tilted his head to one side, studying Jensen as though he was one of those lab rats about to be dissected.
"I don't know-"
"Oh my God, I love your bracelet, where did you get it?" Chad changed the subject, grabbing hold of Jensen's wrist.
"My mom made it for me." Jensen flushed, twisting the leather band around his wrist.
"So adorable."
"So fetch." Tommy glanced at Chad, glitter on his lips reflecting as his head moved.
"What is fetch?" Chad turned to look at Tommy.
"It's like slang, from England."
Mike tilted his head, noticing Jensen for the first time. "If you're from Africa, then why are you white?"
"Oh my God Mike, you can't just ask people why they are white!" Tommy said, poking a finger into Mike's shoulder.
Chad shrugged, "can you excuse us for like two seconds?" He held his hands up, whispering to Mike and Tommy, and glancing at Jensen every so often.
Jensen glanced at Steve and Sandy, who looked confused. He shrugged his shoulders, before turning back to the three males in front of him.
"Okay, you should know that we don't do this very often, but we want to invite you to have lunch with us everyday for the rest of the week." Tommy looked pleased, wearing a smug look on his face as if he had just invited Jensen to have lunch with the Queen of England.
Jensen glanced over at Steve and Sandy, "Oh, I don't know-"
"Coolness." Chad said quickly.
"On Wednesdays we wear pink." Mike added.
Jensen stood in the bathroom, Steve and Sandy by his sides. "You have to do it, then you can tell us all the evil things he does." Sandy looked ecstatic, pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail.
"Chad seems sweet." Jensen said, checking his hair in the mirror.
"Chad Murray is not sweet, he's a scum-sucking rodent-whore." Sandy said, the jubilant look replaced with one much darker.
"Why do you hate him?"
"What?"
"Chad. You seem to really hate him."
"In eighth grade he sent around a petition saying-"
Sandy hit Steve. "Don't."
Jensen looked between the two. "Do you guys have anything pink?"
Sandy gave Jensen a pained look, as Steve clapped his hands together. "Yes!"
"Don't worry." Sandy said, placing an arm around Jensen's shoulders. "It'll be our little secret."
"So, have you seen any guys you might like?" Tommy asked, his fingers tapping on a can of Diet Coke in their free period.
"There's this one guy in my math class."
"It's a senior?" Mike suddenly seemed interested.
"I think his name is Jared?"
"No!" Tommy said quickly. "You can't like Jared. Jared is Chad's ex boyfriend; they were together for like a year. Chad was devastated when they broke up this summer."
"I thought Chad dumped him for Shane?"
"Whatever, it's like the rules." Tommy sighed dramatically. "Don't worry, I wont tell Chad what you said. It'll be our secret."
Jensen had barely taken two steps inside his room when his phone rang. "Hello?"
"I know your secret." It was Chad.
Jensen froze, should he play it cool, or start crying and apologising. "Secret? What are you saying about?" Jensen cringed, his ability to speak failing when put on the spot.
"Tommy told me that you like Jared Padalecki. Whatever, it's no big deal, but you should know something. All Jared cares about is sports, his family and his car."
"That's a bad thing?"
"But if you like him you should go for it."
"Okay." Jensen smiled.
"But wait, aren't you so mad at Tommy telling me?"
"No."
"It was a really bitchy thing for him to do." Chad continued.
"Yeah, it was kinda bitchy, but maybe he likes the attention."
"I can't believe you think I like attention!" Jensen's eyes widened as Tommy's voice rang loud and clear through the phone.
"Anyway, gotta go, love ya!" Chad said, voice full of cheer before he disconnected the call.
Jensen's mouth hung open as he stared at the phone. He had survived his first three way calling attack. He quickly pressed the end call button, and made a mental note to tell Sandy and Steve first thing the next day.
Jensen survived the few days without much of a hitch. He continued to sit with Chad and the Plastics at lunch (much to Sandy's pleasure), and spent time with Sandy and Steve at night, talking about Chad and the so called 'evil' things he had done. It was a complete surprise when Chad invited Jensen to his house.
"This is your house?" Jensen looked up at the large white detached in front of him.
"Isn't it awesome?" Tommy said, climbing out of Chad's silver Lexus convertible.
"Whatever." Chad opened the front door and stepped into the large reception room. "I'm home." He called, before starting to climb the stairs, Tommy and Mike following closely.
Jensen's eyes widened as he set foot in Chad's bedroom. "Your room is amazing!" He breathed, almost afraid to take a step further on the plush white carpet.
"It was my parent's, but I made them trade me." Chad grinned, before toeing his shoes off.
"Oh my God! I remember this!" Mike suddenly declared, pulling a pink photo album from Chad's bookcase.
"Check it out, Jensen, it's our burn book." Tommy said, moving to join Mike on Chad's bed. "We take photo's of the people in our grade and write things about them."
Jensen moved closer, looking at the book in Tommy's hands, a picture of Steve and Sandy taking up the page.
"Who's that?" Chad pointed to Steve.
"I think it's that guy Steve." Tommy said, looking to Chad for approval.
"Yeah, he's almost too gay to function." Jensen muttered under his breath.
"I like that. Put it in." Chad said, grabbing a Sharpie from his desk and passing it to Tommy, who started to write.
Jensen was horrified, what if it was only okay for Sandy to say that? Chad, Mike and Tom didn't notice Jensen's mini panic attack - they were too engrossed in picking fault with the people in their grade.
The next few weeks went without a major hitch, and Jensen was talking to Jared more and more, which was why he was currently stood in his mom's bedroom, her bridal gown on and a tube of fake blood in his hands after being invited to Jared's friend's Halloween party.
Halloween for Jensen meant dressing up in scary outfits and little kids trick or treating. However for Chad, Mike and Tom it was an excuse to be as slutty as possible as no one could say anything.
"Why are you dressed so scary?" Mike exclaimed, as Jensen found him and Tom at the party.
"It's Halloween." Jensen struggle to say around his fake teeth, wishing he'd stayed with Steve and Sandy for their scary movie marathon. He glanced around the room looking for Jared (to thank him for inviting him of course) when he spotted Chad in a tiny French maid outfit, feather duster being used to tickle people, talking to a guy. Jensen didn't need him to turn around, instantly knowing that it was Jared (having memorised his head in math). Jensen grinned, Chad was such a good friend, taking time out to talk to Jared for him. Jensen almost got caught up in his thoughts about walking down the aisle with Jared, when he noticed Chad kissing Jared. What a slut! Jensen blinked, gulped in air. He couldn't breathe, the music suddenly too loud in his ears, so he ran, towards the exit, towards Sandy' house.
Jensen wiped at his eyes, pushing open the door to Sandy' room. "I hate him." He said, ignoring the fact that Sandy and Steve were covered in popcorn. "Why does he have to be so mean?"
"That's what he is, he's a life ruiner." Sandy said, putting an arm around Jensen and pulling him down to sit on the couch between her and Steve. "Chad Michael Murray is an evil dictator, and need to be over thrown. He would be nothing without his technically good physique, band of loyal lackeys and high status man candy. For the plan to work, you need to hang out with them as though nothing happened. Can you do that?"
"I think so." Jensen nodded, the plan formulating in front of his eyes.
The next day Jensen acted as though nothing was wrong. Tommy had hugged him, saying that Chad was really sorry, and that he was trying to get Jared to hook up with Jensen, but Jared was only interested in getting back with him. Jensen just rolled his eyes, and tried to act as normal as possible.
Lunch was nothing spectacular either. Chad invited Jared to sit with them, fussing with his hair and shirt, dangling him in front of Jensen. Jensen took it in his stride, playing it cool, only talking to the Plastics when he needed to. The plan of attack was to get the Burn Book, to publish it and show everyone what Chad was really like, thus getting rid of his followers. Getting Jared and Chad to break up was harder, without proof that Chad was doing anything wrong, Jared would stay with him, and flirting could only get Jensen so far.
"I'm doing the South Beach Fat Flush, all you drink for 72 hours is cranberry juice." Chad explained to the table.
"That's not cranberry juice, it's cranberry juice cocktail, it's all sugar." Jared said, glancing at the bottle in Chad's hand.
"I really wanna lose three pounds." Chad pursed his lips.
"You totally don't need to!" Mike gushed. "You're so skinny!"
"Whatever."
Jensen, Sandy and Steve met at Jensen's place, after another unsuccessful attempt at taking the Burn Book.
"This is ass, why did we think we can do this?" Sandy exclaimed, banging her fist on the table for emphasis. "Chad isn't going to be overthrown this easily."
"If we could crack Tommy then we crack the vault on Chad's whole dirty history." Jensen mused.
Steve pulled a face. "I have to deliver those lame candy cane grams tomorrow." He sighed.
"That's it! We send candy canes to Mike and Jensen from Chad, and Tommy will get jealous and start thinking that Chad doesn't like him anymore."
"Won't Chad find out?" Jensen glanced between Steve and Sandy.
"Chad never sends them out, it's one of his rules." Steve explained. "He got like 40 last year, which he didn't eat, he saved the tags and threw the candy in the bin."
"Then we'll do that, tomorrow." Jensen said, "Tommy and I are in the same English class, if they're delivered then it'll make Tommy really suspicious of Chad."
"We just need to get him fat." Sandy said, "get the ball rolling."
"It's a shame I'm not still in Africa." Jensen said. "My mom used to give out these weird Swedish health bars to the kids to help them gain weight. They have a tonne of calories in."
"You need to get some. Chad wouldn't know if they were to help him gain weight or lose weight."
"I'll ask my mom if she still has some."
"Alright, lets rock this bitch!" Sandy exclaimed, punching the air triumphantly.
Jensen grinned as he saw Steve enter the English class, dressed as Santa and holding the candy canes triumphantly in the air. "Candy cane rounds!" He called, disguising his voice as best he could.
"Oh Okay." The teacher groaned, placing the book on her desk.
Steve read through the names, handing out the candy to the relevant people before coming to Jensen. "Finally, Jensen Ackles?"
Jensen raised his hand, as Tommy stretched to see who it was from.
Steve left the room, and Jensen read his message. "'Thanks for being such a great friend, love, Chad'. Isn't that sweet?" Jensen turned to see Tommy, who had flushed red and pursed his lips into a tight line.
Tommy was quiet around Chad for the rest of the day, only speaking to him when spoken to, making the rehearsal for the winter talent contest awkward, Jensen struggling to learn the moves to the dance Chad was trying to teach.
Chad sighed. "Let's just leave it for today, Tommy your timing is way out." He moved over to Jensen. "You have such good hair recently." Chad smiled.
"Thanks." Jensen said, easily accepting the compliment. Tommy glared.
"Didn’t I see you talking to Sandra McCoy earlier?" Tommy said, throwing a glare in Jensen’s direction.
"What did she want?" Chad asked, stopping his hands.
"I don’t know." Jensen said, thinking back to what had happened. "She just came up to me and started talking to me about crack." Jensen lied.
"Let me tell you something about Sandra McCoy." Chad started, his hands going back to Jensen’s hair. "Sandra and I were best friends in middle school, it was so retarded, I don’t even know what I was thinking. But anyway, I started to date my first boyfriend Kyle, who was totally cute but then he moved to Indiana, and she would get weirdly jealous if I blew her off to hang out with him. So for my thirteenth birthday I was having a costume party and I was like 'Sandy, I can’t invite you because you’ll clash with my décor', so her mom rang my mom and she shaved off all her hair and left to be home schooled. When she came back in the fall she dressed all in black, but not in the weird Goth way, and now I guess she’s on crack."
Jensen looked at Chad, mouth slightly open in shock. That was why Sandy hated Chad so much. Fair enough, Chad had been a totally bitch, but it wasn’t worth going bald for.
"This doesn’t leave this room. I would die if anyone found out." Chad said, pushing his hair out of his face.
"Agreed." Jensen said, feeling closer to Chad than ever.
"Are we making progress on the fat bars" Sandy asked, twisting her hair around a pencil, sat at Jensen’s kitchen table.
"My mom got a shipment today, she thinks it’s great I want to help out the anorexic girls in our school." Jensen smiled.
"Awesome." Sandy high fived Jensen."We set the ball rolling tomorrow."
When Jensen found Chad the next day, he was sat picking at a salad, looking longingly at the fries Jared was eating. "I feel like such a heifer." Chad said, stuffing a lettuce leaf into his mouth. "I swear I gained like 5 pounds just from looking at the cake my mom bought last night."
"Whatever babe, you look hot." Jared said, standing and taking his empty plate with him. "I got football practice, see you later." Jared kissed Chad on the cheek, before departing.
"You are so skinny." Mike said. "I totally wish I was as skinny as you, Chad."
"Shut up."
"You should try these," Jensen said, opening a Kalteen bar.
"What are they?" Chad said, eyeing the bar.
"They're these weird Swedish nutrition bars my mom uses to loose weight." Jensen said. "They burn all your carbs, and leave your body running on water."
Chad grabbed the bar, taking a bite of it. "It tastes like shit."
"My mom lost like ten pounds in a week once, and got to eat as many carbs as she wanted. The more carbs you eat, the more weight you lose."
"You need to get me some." Chad said.
"I can get you a box." Jensen said. "My mom won’t notice."
"I totally love you Jensen." Chad said, taking another huge bite of the bar.
Jensen groaned, the dress rehearsal of the Christmas pageant hadn’t gone well, and Chad had stomped off in a mood, leaving him with Tommy and Mike, who were busy applying mascara.
"So what’s up with Chad? He’s been acting really weird lately." Jensen said, leaning to Tommy.
"Well, his parent’s totally don’t sleep in the same bed anymore." Tommy said, searching through a bag of make up for lip-gloss. "Oh my God, don’t tell Chad I told you that."
"I wont." Jensen said quickly.
"I totally don’t get why he sent you guys candy canes. Maybe he feel’s weird around me 'cause I’m the only one that knows about his nose job." Tommy stopped mid sentence. "Forget I said that."
Chad suddenly burst into the room, a Kalteen bar in his hand. "Right bitches, lets get this thing over with." He led Mike to the backstage area, whilst Tommy shot Jensen a desperate look.
Jensen got into position, to the left of Chad. "Tommy, change position with Jensen."
"But I’m always on your right!" Tommy protested.
"And right now you’re getting on my last nerve. Switch." Chad said, putting on his best authoritarian voice.
Tommy obediently moved, switching position before the curtain went up and they started to dance.
"That was the best it ever went" Mike exclaimed jumping up and down after they had finished their performance.
"So fetch!" Tommy said.
"Tommy, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen, it’s not going to happen." Chad snapped, glaring at Tommy.
Tommy’s mouth snapped shut, pursing into a thin line.
"I gotta go bitches, have a good night." Chad said, ignoring Tommy and walking to Jared’s waiting arms.
"If you even knew how mean he really is, you wouldn’t be friends with him." Tommy said, pulling Jensen aside into the toilets between periods the next day. "You know I’m not allowed to wear diamante studs right?" Tommy pointed to his ears. "Chad said they were his 'thing' and I wasn’t allowed to wear them if I wanted to be friends with him. And you know he cheats on Jared? Every Tuesday Jared thinks Chad’s doing SAT prep, but he’s really hooking up with Shane in the projection room. I never told anyone because I’m such a good friend!" Tommy burst into tears, his head falling to Jensen’s shoulder.
Tommy’s confession had put the plan back in motion. Jensen, Sandy and Steve tried every Tuesday to get Jared to the projection room to catch Chad and Shane in the act, but had been foiled every time so far. Steve had also come up with a clever plan to rig the Spring Fling king votes, adding extra ballots to Tommy’s pile to make Chad think that his grip on the student population was slipping.
Jensen was also working hard on failing math to get closer to Jared, asking him to tutor him when he failed his latest test.
"The first time I did it I got zero." Jared said, during one of their sessions. "But then I did it again and got one."
"I got one too." Jensen said, leaning into Jared, enjoying the smell of him.
"Yeah, sometimes you have to check it, because the product of two negative integers is a positive."
"You’re such a good tutor." Jensen breathed, leaning in to touch his lips to Jared’s, his hand moving to Jared’s broad chest.
Jared pulled back. "I can’t do this to Chad."
"Why do you like him?" Jensen asked.
"Why do you?" Jared retorted.
Jensen‘s mouth opened and closed.
"I know he can seem mean but-"
"Then why do you like him?"
"He’s just a bit more up front about things."
"He’s cheating on you!" Jensen blurted out, clapping his hand over his mouth.
"He’s what?"
( Part 2 )