J2 fic: Did I fall in love (or did I find disaster)
Title: Did I fall in love (or did I find disaster)
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Word count: 10,000
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Prompt: Written for j2_everafter. Chicken Little
Summary: Jensen knows he tends to see the worst-case scenario in every situation. Jared would say that's a bit of an understatement. Jensen doesn't know why nobody ever takes him seriously. Jared thinks it's adorable. And as he says, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
Author's notes: AU only in the sense that Genevieve and Danneel are absent. In fact, I'm very fussy about my terms and I would call it an AR. I love Gen and Danneel a lot and didn't want to have to treat them badly or deal with them in some angsty, unpleasant way, so I just completely negated their very existence. Set sometime in the beginning of Season 6. I have no idea what episode they're shooting here. A generic Season 6 episode, apparently, but there are some vague spoilers for the first half of the season.
Title from JC Chasez's Build My World, following my recent trend of titles that consist of long-ass sentences, frequently penned by JC, or other members of NSYNC.
Thanks to topaz119 and Ashley, both of whom made suggestions that helped a whole lot.
When Jensen got home from set Monday night, he opened the door to the low murmur of voices and the artificial flicker of blue light coming from the three million-inch flat screen TV Jared insisted belonged in the living room. Other than that, the place was as silent as a tomb and almost as cold.
Peering around the corner, the sight that met Jensen's eyes was exactly the sight he'd expected to see when he realized what time it had gotten to be. Jared was home before Jensen because Dean and Castiel had a big scene to do that didn't include Sam poking his giant forehead into the action.
Jensen had known just what Jared was going to do with his time off.
Jared was sitting on the couch, enthralled. His mouth hung open slightly and he was leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He stared straight ahead, unblinking. The dogs lay unnoticed at his feet, Sadie looking resigned, Harley looking worried. To be fair, Harley always looked a little worried.
Jensen thought it was food-related.
By the expression on his face, Jensen knew instantly that Jared was watching Antiques Roadshow.
Jensen sighed, giving in to the inevitable. There was no way he was going to get Jared's attention until his favorite show was over. Toeing off his shoes, Jensen sat down on the couch next to Jared, stretched out and plunked his feet on the coffee table, crossing his legs at the ankles.
He wasn't sure if Jared even knew he was there.
They sat in silence while a white-haired old lady wearing enormous glasses nodded with polite interest as the peppy ceramics expert told her the hideous vase she'd brought in was worth somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand dollars. Jensen couldn’t tell if she was in shock or if she just hadn't heard what the girl told her.
"Really?" she said, smiling uncertainly. "That's nice."
Then a middle-aged man was brought to tears by the news that his precious collection of Civil War correspondence was worth a whopping eight hundred dollars. Jensen wasn't sure if they were tears of joy or disappointment.
Jensen shook his head but he knew better than to say anything. For Jared, this show was sacred. And to be fair, Jared didn't give Jensen a hard time about his obsession with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, so Jensen kept his uncharitable thoughts about antiques to himself.
After a Windsor chair that turned out to be counterfeit and a watercolor painting of birds that was apparently worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and almost caused the badly dressed woman who'd brought it in to have a coronary on the air, it was over.
Thank God.
"You know, your dogs could be dead and I could have packed up my shit and left you, and you'd never even realize," Jensen said.
"Huh?" Jared turned to look at him, his mouth finally closing as the credits played over various people proudly showing off the utterly worthless crap they'd hauled in for the show. "Why would my dogs be dead?"
Jensen gestured to Harley and Sadie, who were sitting patiently at Jared's feet. "They look like they're starving."
Jared smacked Jensen on the back of the head. "They're not starving. Your face is starving."
Jensen stared. "That makes no sense whatsoever, you do know that, don't you?"
Jared leaned over and planted a kiss on Jensen's mouth. "Hi. Did you want something, or are you just trying to annoy me?" he asked, standing up and moving over to where the dogs' leashes hung on a hook by the front door. He shook himself out of his antique-induced daze and stretched, his shirt riding up to expose a strip of flat, tanned belly. He couldn't quite hide the smirk that played around his lips.
"I want you to pay attention to your dogs, dude," Jensen said distractedly, enjoying the unexpected, yet very welcome view of Jared's stomach.
"You're an annoying bastard, have I mentioned that recently?" Jared asked, whistling Harley and Sadie over. They clamored around him, sniffing and woofing in anticipation.
"About a million times, give or take. If I didn't know better, I'd think you didn't love me. Get out of here," Jensen said and Jared smiled his brilliant, happy smile. Jensen's stomach gave that same little flutter it did every time Jared sent a smile directly at him. Sometimes he wondered if that would ever change, or if he would be spending the rest of his life in thrall to those dimples.
If that were the case, he thought he could probably deal.
Jared and his dogs were gone for over half an hour. To take his mind off the possibility of them having been run over by a car or gotten lost on the way back from the park, Jensen used the time to call his mother for advice on what he should buy his siblings for Christmas.
"I don't know, Jensen. They're your brother and sister, not mine. Are you saying you don't know them well enough anymore to be able to pick out a simple Christmas present for them?" Two sentences in and the conversation was already a minefield. It was Donna Ackles's most remarkable talent and Jensen secretly wished he'd inherited that instead of her freckles.
His mother's voice was a mix of sweet and sarcastic, the one that always made him want to defend himself, although he often didn't know against what. He just wanted to buy Josh and McKenzie something they might actually want and now here his mother was trying to turn it into some kind of moratorium on his relationship with them, with no doubt a sidebar or two about the ratio between how long he'd been living in Vancouver compared to how often he called the various members of his family.
She probably had spreadsheets at the ready.
"Mom," Jensen tried to interrupt. "Is Dad there?" Conversations with his father were much easier than those with his mother, consisting mostly of the verbal equivalent of thumping each other manfully on the shoulder.
"He's recording right now, Jensen. I can't disturb him, you know how he gets." She sniffed, and Jensen could see the look of exasperated affection that appeared on her face every time the topic of Jensen's dad still working came up.
She thought Alan should have retired already and be relaxing on a tropical island somewhere. As if doing voice-overs in his home recording studio was such strenuous work. She just wanted to sit on a beach and have someone bring her Pina Coladas.
"Mom, hey, Mom," Jensen said, trying to stem the tide before she really got going. "I gotta go. Jared's just coming in with the dogs."
That wasn't technically true, but Jared and the dogs would be coming home eventually, so it wasn't technically a lie, either.
"Well, you tell that boy I said hi. As a matter of fact, Jensen, just put him on the phone right now so I can tell him myself." Jensen hated to use the word smug in regards to his momma, but there was no point in lying to himself as well as to her. She was very close to being smug here.
"Mom -"
"I knew it. Jared's no more about to walk through your front door than I am," was the answer he got. Jensen shot a panicked look out the window to the street below before he could stop himself, just in case his mother had actually managed to find her way to Vancouver in order to torment him further.
This time he decided the word smug was unavoidable. "You looked to see if I was really there, didn't you, baby?"
"Mom, I just want to get Josh and Mac a present they'll like," Jensen said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if that would ward off a headache. He would say he had no idea how he'd been suckered into this surreal conversation, but that would be a lie. It happened every time he talked to his mother on the phone.
"Of course, dear. Why didn't you just say so?" Jensen didn't even bother to protest, just waited for the pearls of wisdom to drop into his ear. "Mac wants a new Mac," which made Jensen roll his eyes at how lame his mother was. "A MacBook Pro, to be exact. And Josh wants a camera. Make sure it's an expensive one."
"You couldn't have just said that in the first place?" Jensen asked.
"Well, no, sweetie. What fun would that have been? I need to go, Jensen, I have a beep."
Jensen could have gotten all indignant about his mother hanging up on her son who she never saw just so she could talk to someone else who she probably saw all the time, but he didn't waste his energy. She was his mother and she was never wrong.
"Bye, Mom, I love you."
"I love you, too, baby."
As Jensen struggled to get his phone back into its holster, he heard the front door open and the skittering of eight doggie feet coming across the foyer.
"Goddamn piece of shit," he muttered as he gave up on the holster and just tossed his phone onto the coffee table. It made him look like a tool anyway, walking around with his phone on his hip. Who did that?
Jared did, for one, although Jensen had to admit, as he studied his boyfriend, that Jared didn't look quite as dorky as Jensen did with a phone holster. It was hard to look dorky with that body. Those shoulders screamed a lot of things. Dork was definitely not one of them.
Of course, Jared was a total dork, even if he didn't look like one. Not that Jensen would ever admit that, not under any kind of torture that even Alistair could come up with.
"Did you eat?" Jared asked as he hung the dog's leashes on their hooks and headed for the kitchen.
"I had something before we did the last scene," Jensen told him, trailing along in his wake.
Jared sent him a look. Okay, more like a glare.
"What?" Jensen shrugged defensively. "I did."
"I'll bet. A stale donut and some dried up carrot sticks, maybe." Jared had already pulled a container of leftover chili out of the refrigerator. Dumping its contents into a pot and turning the burner on with the smooth, efficient movements Jensen had never thought to associate with Jared in the kitchen until he'd actually started living with him, Jared said, "Jensen. You heard what the doctor said."
"You know, I already have a mother. One whom I talked to just a little bit ago, and seriously, dude, she is more than enough." Jensen was less irritated than he probably sounded. He had heard what the doctor said and had fully intended to eat when he got home. He wasn't stupid, not by a long shot. Those antibiotics on an empty stomach made him feel gross. But if Jared wanted to fuss Jensen would be more than happy to eat the results.
"How did the shoot go?" Jared asked, ignoring Jensen's fake pissiness. "Did Phil go with your version?"
Jensen brightened. "He did. He changed a couple of the shots the way I suggested, said I was right and they worked better that way. We saved a ton of time, since we didn't have to do the extra setup." Phil had seen right away what Jensen had been trying to say, which made Jensen think maybe he'd gotten a handle on this directing thing after all.
Maybe he could avoid an ulcer next time if they ever let him direct another one.
Jared had a big block of cheddar cheese out now and was grating it into a bowl. Jensen watched him with a kind of horrified fascination, waiting for Jared's knuckles to disappear in messy spurts of blood and skin, but miraculously, there was no flesh lost to the grater, and Jensen had a nice pile of finger-less cheese for his chili.
Wrapping the block of cheddar back up again, Jared pulled open the refrigerator door, shoved the cheese back in and emerged with a cold beer, which he held out in Jensen's general direction.
Jensen looked at it doubtfully as he settled his ass on the stool at the counter. "I don't know if I should," he said. "Not with those drugs I'm on."
"Jensen," Jared said, and Jensen could almost see his eyes sprain as he worked hard not to roll them, "They're not drugs. They're only antibiotics. You won't die if you have a beer."
"Jared, the patient package insert said mixing them with alcohol could cause brain failure. Brain failure," Jensen repeated, just in case Jared didn't grasp the seriousness of the warning the first time.
"I think your brain failed a long time ago, Jen," Jared said solemnly. Jensen glared at him, but really, he guessed he'd walked right into that one and had no one to blame but himself.
"Very funny, Jared. Anybody ever tell you you have amazing comic timing? You should go on TV," Jensen retorted as he gave in and popped the cap off the beer. One probably wouldn't hurt.
"Aw, don't be that way, baby." Jared made kissy faces at Jensen and he looked so ridiculous, what with his gigantic forehead and his floppy hair and his dimples, that Jensen couldn't have stopped the smile that broke out on his face if you paid him.
"Is that chili ready yet?" he asked, mostly to distract Jared from being adorable. He cringed inwardly at his use of the word adorable. Nobody here was adorable, except for maybe Sadie.
In lieu of an answer, Jared turned and heaped chili high into two bowls, sprinkled a few handfuls of grated cheese on top, and slid one of them in front of Jensen with a spoon and a command to "Eat."
"So, how's your mom doing?" Jared asked just as Jensen shoveled a very large spoonful of really hot chili into his mouth. He gasped, choking a little, and reached for his beer.
"Dude, you suck!" Jensen said after he'd swirled beer around in his mouth in an effort to prevent fifth degree burns on his tongue.
Jared smirked. "Let me guess, she gave you a hard time just for breathing and then caught you in a lie." His chili was almost gone already. How he did that without aspirating or combusting was a mystery to Jensen.
"I ended up looking out the window because I was afraid she was coming up the walk!" Jensen was indignant all over again when he thought about the conversation with his mother.
Jared threw back his head and laughed. "Dude, your face. Someday she's going to show up here just to watch your head explode."
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Jay. Just wait, someday she's going to figure out what a jackwagon you are and then it'll be your turn to hide."
"Your mom loves me," Jared said complacently, and Jensen had to admit he was right, although he wasn't about to say it out loud.
Jared finished the last of his chili and Jensen waited a minute or two. Once it became clear that Jared wasn't going to lick the bowl, Jensen stood up and started to clear the dishes away, dumping them in the sink.
"Should we give the leftovers to the babies?" Jared asked, getting up and following Jensen over to the stove, peering over his shoulder into the pot.
"You can't feed chili to the dogs," Jensen said, scandalized. "What if it doesn't agree with them? What if it makes them sick and they barf all over the house? In the living room, on the rug? Then we'll have to have the carpets cleaned, which'll cost a fortune. Dude, what if they puke on the floor and one of us steps in it, slips and falls and breaks a leg? They'll have to shoot around us, or, or, what if you break your neck? They'll write you out of the show - Sam can't be paralyzed! You can't have a show about a paralyzed hunter, Jared, it just wouldn't work." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "What are you thinking, man?"
"Jesus, Jen, breathe, dude. I'm sorry I didn't realize the fate of the entire world hung in the balance here and that I could tip the scales in the wrong direction by letting Harley eat something that might give him indigestion," Jared said. "Someone should have alerted Lucifer. Sounds like a plan he could have gotten behind." There was nothing but affection in Jared's voice, but Jensen huffed anyway.
Jared planted a kiss on the top of Jensen's head. Jensen aimed an irritable smack at him and Jared ducked away, laughing.
"Is it safe for me to do the dishes, or will I be in danger of losing a limb in a tragic housekeeping accident it I do?" Jared stood momentarily poised with his hands over the sink, looking at Jensen with that mischievous smirk that never failed to disarm Jensen's defenses.
"Have I mentioned lately what a dick you are?" Jensen glared at Jared, but there was no real heat behind it. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch in amusement and quickly turned away before Jared could catch him.
"Not in the last five minutes," Jared replied. "You're slipping." He leaned forward and planted a chili-flavored kiss on Jensen's lips. Pulling back, his eyes searched Jensen's face. "Hey," he said, his voice serious. "Go to bed. Get some sleep, and don't forget to take your pills."
Jensen's lips quirked up in a smile. "Yes, Mom," he said. "Don't stay up too late," he added. I don't want you sleepy tomorrow and not paying attention to what you're doing. Dean doesn't need Sam tripping over his own feet and -"
"Jensen, I promise you, Sam won't trip over anything. Dean'll be perfectly safe." Jared's smile was wide and bright enough that Jensen had to blink a few times. "I'll be up soon, go on."
Jensen smiled back. Maybe he'd try to stay awake until Jared joined him. He felt sure it would be worth the effort.
He could admit he was tired, but really, he wasn't actually sick. It was just a cold, or rather, a really bad sinus infection. Jensen dutifully took the antibiotics his doctor had prescribed for him, although he had some rather strong opinions about people who insisted on taking antibiotics every time they sneezed. That way lay the development of mutant strains of bacteria and viruses that were resistant to every wonder drug known to man, with the capability of wiping out all life on the planet, if people weren't a little more careful, or more willing to suck it up and just blow their noses for a week or two without acting like they were dying.
Or if their boyfriend and co-star would just take a chill pill and let them hock up their mucus in peace.
But, no, Jared had decided that Jensen needed to take care of himself, which Jensen had actually been doing quite capably since he'd left home at the age of eighteen, so he wasn't sure what Jared was so worried about.
"How is it that you'll imagine a worse case scenario for every situation you encounter, including death and dismemberment if I don't load the dishwasher properly," and there were air quotes, which made Jensen crazy, "but you won't take care of yourself when you're sick?" Jared had fussed at him this morning. "Remember the first season when you had tonsillitis? If it hadn't been for Kim -"
Jared broke off in mid-sentence, which Jensen appreciated. He still had a hard time talking about Kim. The day he'd spent in Jensen's hotel room, watching Jensen suffer through the most excruciating sore throat he'd ever had, obviously not as stoically as he'd been trying to suffer, and then loading him in the car to take him to the hospital, was one of Jensen's most treasured memories.
He blinked and glanced at Jared, who was looking frustrated and more upset than Jensen thought the occasion called for.
"Okay, Jared, okay," Jensen said, smiling, trying to placate the big mother hen. He shook his bottle of pills in Jared's face, and Jared batted his hand away, laughing in spite of himself. "See, I'm taking my pills like a good boy. Happy?"
"I'll be happy when you're not sick anymore," Jared growled firmly, which filled Jensen with a ridiculous warm feeling. He felt his neck prickle with heat and he rubbed his hand over the back of it. He looked up to find Jared watching him with stern eyes.
"Okay," Jensen agreed, pinned and unable to look away and Jared nodded like he was finally satisfied. Jensen felt like he'd just run up several flights of stairs, flushed and out of breath. He didn't resist when Jared pulled him none-too-gently into his arms and kissed him even more breathless.
"You'll get my cold," he protested, half-heartedly trying to shove Jared away. "And then you'll give it to everyone on set and then -" Jensen's explanation of how dire the situation had the potential to get was lost against Jared's mouth, but that was okay. He'd explain it to him later.
Maybe in the car on the way to work.
And now, finding himself spread out on the bed under Jared, his wrists pinned above his head and his knees up around his ears, while Jared made it very clear that Jensen had better follow the doctor's instructions to the letter, Jensen sighed happily and was absolutely willing to let go of his fear of Jared catching his cold, at least for tonight.
No cold germs would dare infect Jared when he was in this kind of mood.
"Gngh," he gasped at a particularly masterful thrust of Jared's hips. He tilted his head up, reaching with his mouth and catching Jared behind his right ear, one of Jensen's favorite places to taste and ran his tongue over the soft skin there.
"Jesus," Jared breathed. "You -" he seemed to be having trouble finding his words. Jensen smiled against Jared's neck. Speechless was a good look on Jared.
Jensen kind of spread himself out under Jared's onslaught, open and willing and admittedly a bit wanton. It spurred Jared on to new heights and when Jensen came down from it all, it was at least five minutes before he regained the ability to breath.
Jared looked pretty pleased with himself as he wiped Jensen's come off his stomach with Jensen's discarded boxers and smiled at Jensen, his dimples having their usual effect.
"Don't come crying to me if you start sneezing tomorrow, man," Jensen said, snuggling contentedly down into his pillow.
"I wouldn't dream of it," Jared replied, his voice sleepy as he snuffled into Jensen's hair and arranged his arms and legs artfully around Jensen's, so that Jensen had no chance of going anywhere for the rest of the night.
"'Night, Jared," he yawned, but Jared was already asleep.
All of Jensen's sneezing and coughing meant that Jared hounded Jensen at every opportunity about his medication schedule, when he'd last eaten, how much sleep he was getting, and the state of his hydration. It was like living with his mother on speed.
And then Jensen blanched at the thought of his mother on speed. The very idea made him want to gather supplies and squirrel himself away in a cave until the inevitable nuclear winter had passed.
In spite of Jared's best efforts, the stupid sinus infection hung on like a motherfucker and Jensen found himself dragging his ass through the week like some kind of weakened kitten, which he tried, with limited success, to keep Jared from realizing.
It was also making him cranky.
Tuesday evening was Jared's turn to stay late, shooting a scene with Grandpa Campbell that required him to do a stunt that Jensen thought was one of the most dangerous things he'd ever heard of.
Jared just stared at him blankly. "Are you serious?" Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen could see Mitch smirking. Mitch was one tough son of a bitch, but Jensen didn't think AD Skinner had really seen a lot of action back in the day, so he didn't know where Mitch got off mocking Jensen's concern for Jared's safety.
"Yes, I'm serious," Jensen hissed irritably through all the snot clogging his nose. He thought maybe he sounded like a dying bullfrog. "What do you think is going to happen when that cable lets go, Jared?"
"Um, I'm going to get tossed into the wall like I'm supposed to?" Jared said, his tone implying that Jensen was being unreasonable. Jensen hated that tone. He was allowed to be as concerned about Jared's health and well being as Jared was about Jensen's stupid cold.
Jensen narrowed his eyes. "Jared -"
"If you ladies are finished dithering?" Phil said, waving his headset at Jensen. "Why are you still here? Go home, feed Jared's dogs or something." He took at good look at Jensen and added, shuddering, "And take your germs with you."
Jensen sneezed and Jared squeezed his arm. "Go on, Jensen, go home. It'll be fine. You trust the stunt guys, you know you do. And besides, we've done this sort of gag a thousand times before and it's always been fine."
And that was the thing. Jensen had total faith in the stunt guys' ability to rig what was in all actuality a simple enough stunt. He put his life in their hands everyday without a qualm. But when it was Jared's life…well, everything just seemed ten times as dangerous, was all.
Jensen sighed. Breathing that deeply brought on a bit of a coughing spell and when he could finally pull in air again, Phil and Jared were staring at him in concern. Well, Jared looked concerned. Phil just looked repulsed.
They were right. Jensen needed to go home, to leave before the stunt coordinator caught on that Jensen was worried. He didn't want to impugn anyone's professionalism here.
Sneezing again, Jensen made a show of trying to wipe his nose on Jared's, okay, on Sam's shirt, as a sort of half-ass apology. Jared smiled at him and shoved him in the direction of the door.
"Go."
Jensen gave him a sloppy salute and went.
Jensen was silent on the drive home, listening to Clif talk about his wife's new hairdo and about how excited he was to be getting some screen time again next month and the breathtaking color of the sunset. Jensen let the words wash over him without paying much attention to their actual content.
Clif eyed him knowingly as he got out of the car. "Have a good night, dude," was all he said, but Jensen clearly heard the unspoken and stop worrying, you big loser as Clif waved goodbye.
Jensen fed the dogs, found himself something to eat - Jared had labeled several containers in the refrigerator with the words EAT ME, JENSEN, so it wasn't too difficult - took his pills, and watched Sports Center for an hour or so, all without much awareness at all of what he was doing.
He was just waiting.
At eight o'clock, his phone beeped with a text. Still alive. Be home soon. Have food ready, bitch.
Jensen laughed and all the tension left his body at once, making him almost drop his phone. Harley looked up at him, his face conveying its usual worried expression. "He'll be home soon, boy," Jensen assured him, handing him a Milk Bone.
Harley crunched noisily for a while, then went back to sleep, his nose planted in the warm fur of Sadie's neck.
Jensen followed suit, the three of them huddled together on the couch in a big warm pile.
He was much too sick to put together a meal for Jared.
And what was Jared thinking, anyway, wanting Jensen to handle his food, inviting Jensen's germs to gang up on him like that?
One of these days, Jared's carefree approach to life was going to get him in real trouble.
Good thing I'm always going to be there to rescue him, Jensen thought as he drifted off, dimly aware that his clogged up, open-mouthed breathing was making him drool all over Sadie.
She wouldn't mind, he knew. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.
Wednesday brought more of the same. That is to say, more sneezing and a whole lot more snot. Jensen had an earlier call time than Jared, since Jared had worked later into the evening the day before.
He wouldn't have thought it possible but he was even crankier today than he had been yesterday. Maybe a little bit sensitive, too. Jensen was totally blaming the drugs.
By the time Jared arrived on set, Jensen and Misha were in the middle of an intense conversation.
"It's like the butterfly wing effect," Jensen was arguing. "Everything you do, everything you don't do, it all has consequences. You of all people should know that, you with your Twitter minions, or whatever you call them," he said, waving his hands to encompass the craziness of Twitter in general and Misha's in particular.
Misha glanced helplessly at Jared, who shrugged and said, "What did you do, man?"
Misha shook his head, looking both bewildered and beleaguered as he said defensively; "I sprinkled some salt on the steps of my trailer. There was a lot of ice -"
"Yes, and when that ice melts, the salt is going to end up soaking into the ground and poisoning the soil and the water table for miles arou -"
Jared hooked an arm around Jensen's neck and squeezed, effectively cutting off his air. Jensen's speech about the dangers of contaminating the water table sputtered to a halt.
"Ignore Calamity Jensen, here, dude," Jared said to Misha. "Or better yet, just nod and smile. It's easier that way." He was smiling, but it looked a little forced.
"Hey," Jensen tried to say, stung. He knew he worried about things sometimes, actually he was sure a cadre of therapists would probably have a field day trying to analyze his psyche and figure out why he was such a Gloomy Gus, as his mother so lovingly phrased it. But he'd thought Jared - well, Jared almost never laughed at him, at least not in an unkind way. He smiled with what Jensen liked to think was affection, not condescension, and let Jensen extrapolate on the many dangers he saw in the world without it ever feeling patronizing.
This, this felt patronizing, and Jensen smiled tightly as he extricated himself from Jared's octopus arms.
"Sorry," he said shortly, not meaning it in the slightest. Jared had the decency to look guilty. Or maybe he was just gassy, Jensen couldn't really tell for sure.
Misha laughed nervously. He liked to claim he was extra-sensitive to any discord amongst his fellows, or as he liked to phrase it, any disturbance in the Force. Right now, he just looked like he wanted to bolt.
Jensen refused to meet Jared's eyes and stood there glaring at the Impala until Phil called them to order.
"If you're quite ready, gentlemen?" He glanced between Jensen and Jared and then hastily looked away, obviously not wanting to get caught in the middle of any conflict on his set. He liked to pretend that everything was just peachy at all times.
Jensen scowled as they found their marks.
Jared continued to look uneasy until Phil called "action," then his face smoothed out into soulless Sam's bland yet sinister expression.
Jensen felt Dean's usual irritation and fear that dealing with Sam provoked slip over him and that, combined with the betrayal he felt at Jared's amusement at his expense meant they got the scene in fewer takes than usual, since Jensen refused to react to Jared and Misha's antics every time one of them flubbed a line of dialogue.
They weren't twelve-year old boys and they weren't new to the acting profession, so Jensen couldn't understand why every time one of them fucked up a reading, the other one had to turn it into some kind of comedy routine.
No one else besides the two of them was amused in the slightest, Jensen thought bitterly, completely ignoring the fact that Phil was laughing so hard at Misha's dolphin impression that he was turning an alarming shade of red. Served him right if he popped a blood vessel in his brain, which could totally happen, either from laughing too hard, or from straining on the toilet, Jensen was sure of it.
Although if that were the case, surely Jared would have ruptured his whole brain by now. Jensen shook his head to clear it of those kinds of thoughts, even if they were definitely the kind of thoughts that would be in Dean's head, and he was supposed to be Dean right now.
Finally they finished the scene and it was time to break for lunch.
At that point, after sending one last look at both Jared and Jensen, Misha took off for his trailer like there were Hellhounds on his ass.
"Running scared like the little girl he is," Jensen muttered under his breath, staring after Misha with a contemptuous snort.
"Being kind of sexist there, aren't you, Jensen?" Jared asked. "Little boys run scared just as fast as little girls do. I'll bet when you were little -"
"Shut up, Jared," Jensen growled, and Jared just blinked at him, making Jensen feel like an ass. He sighed.
"Can we just go eat lunch?" He stood there and looked at Jared, trying not to sneeze, and Jared stood there and looked back, an unreadable expression on his face that was almost as empty as Sam's had been earlier.
Jensen hated that he'd put that look there. "I just, when you said - I mean, you usually - Misha -" he broke off, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He was the world's biggest idiot.
Comprehension dawned across Jared's face, and he looked contrite for a minute before his smile came back in full force.
"I'm sorry, man," he said, eyes serious despite his smile. "I didn't mean anything by it. Misha just looked so…confused." He laughed. "It's actually a good look on him." Jared held out a hand to Jensen, looking at him imploringly and Jensen folded like a cheap suit. He wouldn't have believed it possible, but Jared's smile got even wider as they headed in the direction of craft services, walking hand-in-hand like a couple of kids at the mall. "Come on, I'm fixin' to starve to death."
There was no way in the world Jensen could resist that smile and he knew that Jared knew it.
"Fine," he sighed as he extricated his hand from Jared's. No way was anyone seeing them like this, all lovey-dovey. Jensen's rep as a cranky badass would be toast.
Jared slowed his steps so Jensen could keep up with him and his unnaturally long legs. "Hey, did you take your pills? You seem a little, well, like you still don't feel good."
"Yes, I took my damn pills!" Jensen snapped. "And no, I don't feel so great."
Jared held out his hands in an I surrender kind of way. "Sorry, sorry, wow, testy much?" Jared's strides got just a little bit longer, and Jensen had to walk just a little bit faster to keep up with him. Fucker, he was doing it on purpose to punish Jensen for being so crabby.
"I only have two days' worth of pills left to take," Jensen offered by way of apology. "I think I may live." He sneezed and Jared laughed softly and bumped Jensen's shoulder with his own. "Maybe," Jensen added darkly.
Thursday, they got to sleep in. They'd filmed until midnight Wednesday, which meant their Thursday call time wasn't until noon.
Jensen purposefully stayed in bed as long as he could after Jared got up to deal with the dogs, knowing that Jared would fix him something awesome for breakfast.
He wasn't disappointed. When he came downstairs, there were pancakes and bacon, hot coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice waiting for him.
"It's like living at the Ritz Carlton," Jensen marveled as he took his seat at the table.
"Ass," Jared said, swiping at the back of Jensen's head with his free hand. As his other hand was preoccupied with setting the plate of pancakes down on the table, Jensen deemed it best not to retaliate, at least not physically. He didn't want to wear the pancakes.
"Okay, so maybe the help isn’t up to luxury hotel standards - but the food is," he added hastily as Jared frowned at him.
"You're lucky I love you," Jared said darkly.
"Yeah, I am," Jensen said with a contented smile.
"Eat," Jared said, pointing at the pancakes with his fork.
Eight hours later, covered with fake blood and even faker bruises, Jensen wasn't feeling quite so content. They'd broken for dinner and since Jim was there, too, they'd spread themselves out at a table together, the three of them comfortably bitching about mutual acquaintances who weren't there to defend themselves.
And then Jensen saw it: a humongous piece of chocolate cake, topped with the biggest strawberry he'd ever seen.
Jared was allergic to strawberries.
And there it sat, right there on Jim's plate, right next to Jared, just waiting to get its evil strawberry juices all over him.
"What the fuck, Jim?" Jensen jumped to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at the fruit. "What are you trying to do, kill him?"
Jared and Jim just stared at him like he'd grown another head and Jensen just couldn't believe the two of them.
"What are you talking about?" Jim asked, while at the same time Jared said, "Jensen?"
"There!" Jensen snarled. "Right there!"
Comprehension dawned on Jared's face and he shrugged. "It's not going to leap across the table and attack me, Jensen. Calm down, dude." He stabbed his chicken Parmesan with a fork, while Jim continued to look like he'd been given a mild electric shock.
Which, with the amount of flannel he was wearing, wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities, if you took static electricity into consideration.
"Are you kidding me?" Jensen's voice went up several octaves and he made an effort to bring it back down to his usual register. "That's a strawberry, Jared. You're allergic to strawberries, or did that slip your mind?"
Jared's eyebrows drew together in a frown. "I'm also a big boy, Jensen. I can take care of myself, and I can sure as hell protect myself from a goddamn strawberry, which is actually nowhere near me, I might add. And even if it was; a rash, Jensen, a mild rash is all that would happen."
Jensen looked at Jared, frustrated and helpless. How could he not see the dangers lurking around every corner? The danger that something or someone was going to come take Jared away from him?
Didn't Jared get how scared Jensen was, every minute of every day?
"People should be more careful," Jensen insisted. He pointed at Jim. "He should be more careful."
"Okay, that's enough," Jared said, standing up and stacking his many plates and Styrofoam containers together. "This is ridiculous, even for you. I'm outta here."
The words hurt and Jensen subsided back into his seat, aware of Jim's eyes on him, but not looking up to meet them.
"Sorry," he mumbled, picking up his fork and aimlessly shoving his pasta salad around his plate.
"Jensen, you know I love you, and Lord knows I know what it's like to be afraid you're gonna lose someone you care about," Jim said. "But sometimes you're an lunatic."
Jensen sighed.
"I mean, what the hell? I know you worry about everything under the sun, kid, but just back off on the rest of us, wouldja, and let us breathe some?"
When Jim sounded like Bobby, it did weird things to Jensen's emotional equilibrium and now he pretty much felt like shit. Jim ate his chocolate cake without a word while Jensen nursed his coffee in silence.
Finally he muttered, "I think the cold medicine is making me insane."
Jim just looked at him and shook his head, but when he got up to leave, he patted Jensen on the shoulder and Jensen nodded gratefully.
When he got back to set, Jensen was treated to the patented Padalecki cold shoulder. This consisted of Jared pretending that Jensen didn't exist, that he was invisible, and that he didn't speak English or any other language Jared might know.
The only time Jared looked at Jensen or spoke to him was as Sam to Dean, and given the state of Sam's soul, which was absent, there wasn't much warmth there for Jensen to take any solace from.
The ride home was equally quiet, and when they got in the house, Jensen toed his boots off at the door and said, "Good night," in a small voice as Jared grabbed the dogs' leashes.
Jared paused for a minute as he wrestled with Harley, trying to hook the leash on his collar. Sadie snuffled at his face, then looked curiously between him and Jensen.
Jensen held his breath. Jared turned and dragged his dogs out the door.
Shoulders slumping, Jensen made his way up the stairs.
He was in bed, curled up under the covers with his back to the door when Jared came in.
"Dude, are you pouting?"
"What? No!" Jensen absolutely wasn't pouting. He was just exhausted, that was all. And sick, which meant Jared should feel sorry for him, not be mad at him.
Jared climbed into bed and put a warm hand on Jensen's shoulder, tugging him over onto his back. "Did you and Jim kiss and make up?"
Jensen shrugged. "We worked it out."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I told him I was sorry for overreacting, which I so didn't do, by the way, and he told me he was sorry for not being more careful. There was no kissing."
That wasn't quite true, but it was close enough.
Jared looked doubtful for a minute, and then he smiled. "Okay."
"Okay? That's it, okay?"
"Did you want me to still be mad?" Jared asked, breathing his just-brushed minty fresh breath in Jensen's face.
"No."
"So, okay."
"So, make up sex?" Jensen said hopefully.
"I don't see why not," Jared said.
"Awesome," Jensen smiled.
"How's your cold?"
"I think it's worse. I'm not sure I can summon up the strength for anything more strenuous than a blowjob," Jensen said.
"Sounds like a plan," Jared said, stretching out on his back and flinging his arms wide. "Have at it."
Jensen poked Jared in the side. "Asshole. That's not what I meant and you know it." He tried to look pitiful and hopeful at the same time.
Jared grinned. "You don't deserve a blowjob, but I guess I can make an exception. You are pretty cute." He rolled over onto his side and kissed Jensen gently, reaching a hand inside Jensen's boxers.
"Yes, I do deserve a blowjob," Jensen said, his breath hitching. "I'm sick and the damn antibiotics are making me insane."
"This is true, especially the insane part," Jared agreed. "Let's see if we can make you feel better."
Jensen nodded in his enthusiasm for this plan, the power of speech having left him the minute Jared's warm fingers closed around him.
By Friday, Jensen was more than happy to see the end of the workweek roll around. His cold was actually getting better, which he counted as a win.
However….
"I don't know, dude," Jensen muttered, looking doubtfully up at the ceiling. If you could call the mess of twisted girders and beams, with pieces of acoustic tile hanging down randomly like whitish-gray birds of prey, a ceiling. Jensen didn't think he, in good conscience, could, but apparently the production staff had no problems with it.
"It's fine, Jensen," Jared said, nudging him along with an elbow to the ribs. It was a gentle elbow, but still an elbow. Jensen elbowed him back, not nearly as gently. It was the principle of the thing.
"Ow, fucker," Jared complained. Jensen snorted.
"Like that hurt," he said, his attention momentarily diverted from the disaster-in-waiting looming above them. "My elbows aren't nearly as pointy as yours."
"What are you, five?" Jared responded, but he was smiling down at Jensen, his hair perfectly arranged in that stupid way that made it look like Sam had spent the morning at a beauty salon. Jensen couldn't wait for the fight scene to start so he could mess it up.
Craning his neck, he frowned up at the ceiling again. He really didn't like the looks of it. There were…things hanging off it and the beams were twisted in ways that made him very nervous, especially in the corner farthest away from the door. The corner where Jensen could see his and Jared's marks, as well as Misha's.
The cameras were set up and the lights were almost ready for the first shot, Jensen could tell. There were people milling around everywhere in that special organized chaos that characterized a film set. He spotted Phil over by one of the monitors and he started moving in that direction.
"Hey, Jensen," Phil said with a welcoming smile. A smile that faded when he saw the way Jensen was glaring up at the ceiling. "What?"
"Don't you think that that," Jensen jerked his chin up towards the dangling acoustic tile bits, "looks a little unsafe? Just a bit?"
"Jensen," Phil sighed. "The location guys said the place has looked like this for years. Smallville's used it a million times. The ceiling isn't going to cave in, at least not anytime soon."
"It's like you know him so well, Phil," came Jared's voice from behind Jensen.
"Fuck Smallville. Look at it!" Jensen snapped. "It's a mess. It could cave in at any second." Jensen frowned at the twin expressions of tolerant skepticism on Jared and Phil's faces. "Or pieces of it could fall down on all our heads." He waited for them to take him seriously, but of course, they never did. They just smiled and nodded and said, Oh, that's just Jensen, always worrying about things that are never going to happen.
Someday…Jensen pulled up short at that line of thought. Did he want something catastrophic to happen, just so he could look Jared in the eye and say I told you so?
So that Jared would look back at him and say, I'm so sorry, Jensen, you were right, I should have listened to you?
Damn straight he did, even if it was only a small part of him that wanted it. He felt ashamed at that and he was glad his mother wasn't here to know what a terrible person he really was.
Now he just looked up one more time, shook his head and said, "Maybe you could at least not have those lights so high up they're brushing the rotting beams and crumbling tiles. You know, you might not want to actually precipitate whatever accident is for sure gonna happen here."
He stared up at the lights while the lighting guys ignored him as they got their stuff set up the way they wanted it with no regard for safety whatsoever, in Jensen's opinion. Looking back at Phil, Jensen said, "I'm not sure you need those lights anyway. I think a better camera angle would be - " and just like that, he and Phil were talking about cameras angles and shots and coverages and Jensen momentarily forgot all about the looming ceiling that was just waiting to kill them all.
Jensen did eventually convince Phil and the lighting guys to lower some of the lights and to move the actors' marks over a bit, until they were under a less ominous-looking section of the ceiling.
He counted that as a win.
Once they started shooting, Jensen tried to focus completely on poor, hapless Dean and his annoyingly soulless little brother and his stupid useless angel BFF, so except for the niggling voice in the back of his head that refused to shut up about the scary ceiling, Jensen managed to mostly concentrate on doing his job.
A job he did pretty damn well, if he did say so himself. He thought he saw a moment of real fear in Misha's eyes when Dean advanced on Cas and told him he didn't care what the hell was going on up in Heaven, he needed Cas here, dammit, and why wasn't he around more to help Dean deal with Sam and Bobby and all these fucking Campbells and stupid Crowley, not to mention Meg and Raphael and some other angel whose name Jensen couldn't remember at the moment, although he was sure it started with a "B."
The scene may have required more takes than it should have.
Sometimes Jensen longed for the good old days when they didn't have a cast of thousands, when it was just him and Jared and maybe a guest star or two. He'd bitched about it a lot back then, exhausted and convinced that without someone else to carry part of the load, he and Jared were just going to burn out one day, just end up as tiny little piles of ashes in the unrelenting rain, but at least then he hadn't had to remember all these fucking names.
Balthazar, that was it.
Jensen was so distracted by his moment of cranky character bleed that he didn't realize the motherfucking ceiling was in point of fact actually coming down until a piece of it hit Jared squarely on the head.
"Son of a bitch!" Jensen yelled, as people started running in about a hundred different directions at once. He lunged for Jared, who was sitting on the floor with a dazed look on his face, one hand clutching his head and the other holding a big chunk of something jagged and heavy looking.
"Let me see," Jensen growled, sliding to his knees next to Jared. "Goddammit," he said, as he gently pried Jared's hand away from where blood was oozing out from between his fingers. "Goddammit!"
Scalp wounds always bleed a lot ran on a loop through his mind, like some kind of frantic mantra. His mother always said they bled like a bitch.
"Jensen?" Jared asked dazedly. "Jensen, is that you?" He dropped the piece of ceiling and reached out blindly, groping for Jensen's face.
It was only the tiniest twitch at the side of Jared's mouth and the quick flash of a dimple that prevented Jensen from either fainting or having a heart attack on the spot.
"Shut up, asshole," he hissed, grabbing Jared's wrist hard. "You're not as funny as you fucking think you are." He pulled Dean's jacket off, then his flannel shirt, and then yanked his t-shirt up over his head. Who the hell's idea was it for Dean to wear so many goddamn layers of clothing, anyway? All that those layers accomplished was to lull Jensen into a false sense of security that no one could tell he ate Jared's cooking every chance he got.
Jared could have bled to death by the time Jensen freed himself from Dean's stupid clothes to get to the t-shirt.
Jensen wadded up said t-shirt and pressed it carefully to the admittedly small laceration on the side of Jared's head. The hunk of ceiling must have just glanced off Jared's exceptionally hard head. Sweat, no doubt brought on by heart-stopping terror, prickled at the back of Jensen's neck. He shivered as the cool air of the warehouse hit his clammy, naked torso.
Jared reached a hand up and grasped Jensen's wrist. "I got it," he said, trying to take the t-shirt out of his hand. "Put your shirt back on or you'll freeze to death.
"Quit it," Jensen snapped. "And hold still." He looked at Jared's hand on his wrist and his stomach gave an unpleasant lurch. There was blood on his arm, Jared's blood. His gut twisted again. Great, now there was going to be vomit all over the place, too.
"Don't look at it," Jared said, and Jensen quickly raised his eyes to Jared's face, which wasn't any less bloody than anywhere else, so that didn't really make him feel any better. "Scalp wounds always bleed a lot, you know that. Just - look at me. I'm fine, Jensen."
Jensen studied Jared's face. He was pale, but his eyes were clear and his smile was warm. He did look fine, except for the blood that was running down the side of his head and neck, staining the collar of his shirt a dark crimson. Jensen's stomach rolled once more and he clenched his teeth together tight.
He felt dizzy, whether with relief or nausea he wasn't sure. Probably both. He shivered again and Jared said firmly, "Let me hold this and you can put your shirt on, you crazy exhibitionist."
Jensen huffed out a laugh and gave up his death grip on the now bloody t-shirt. He shrugged Dean's outer shirt back on, but his hands were shaking too badly to do up the buttons. Too bad, everyone was just going to have to put up with his naked chest and slightly pudgy stomach.
While the set medic poked at Jared's head and shone a flashlight in his eyes and asked him how many fingers she was holding up, Jensen was fairly bursting with the need to say I told you so, I told everybody that ceiling was dangerous. He'd been bursting to say it since the minute it had come raining down on top of them, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it while Jared was covered in blood.
Jared still looked gruesome, even though the medic said he was fine, that it was just a small scalp laceration. She'd stuck a butterfly bandage on it and pronounced it fixed in about two seconds flat. Jensen only hoped she was right and he started looking around, wondering where the ambulances and network suits and emergency personnel were. Surely Jared deserved more than a butterfly.
Jensen suspected the pathetic expression Jared was working was an attempt to head off Jensen's inevitable rant, but he wasn't going to be so easily sidetracked. He wasn't going to wuss out on this.
He needed the vindication.
"I told you," he started, and he watched with grim amusement as Jared's face took on a resigned expression. "I told everybody. And now look at you." There was fear behind his words and Jared obviously saw it in his face, because he smiled softly, his eyes warm.
"I know you did, Jensen. And they should have listened. We all should have listened to you." Jensen was pleasantly surprised and gratified by Jared's admission. Okay, stunned was more like it, until Jared spoiled the whole thing by adding, "Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, dude," with a big, stupid grin.
"Excuse me?"
"Well, even Calamity Jensen has to be right sometime." Jared looked at him fondly, laughing, and Jensen wanted to strangle him. He'd always been grateful that Jared found Jensen's neuroses to be amusing rather than annoying, but right now he would have settled for a little less amusement.
But then again, there was something infectious in Jared's laugh and Jensen found himself fighting a smile. He couldn't hide it from Jared for long and soon enough they were both sitting there grinning at each other like idiots.
There was apparently something about finally, for once in his life, being right that cheered Jensen up immensely. He looked around at Phil huddled in the corner with the location guys and the carpenters and the set designers, the stunt men and the network insurance guy, and the world didn't seem quite so scary. Danger no longer lurked around every corner. His certainty that disaster would strike had actually been validated and the world hadn't ended, even if the network bigwigs were going to have a conniption that one of their stars had gotten hurt on the job.
He could only hope Dawn wouldn't feel the need to fly up to see for herself that Jared was in one piece.
Jensen shook a few pieces of plaster out of his hair, carefully wiped as much of Jared's blood off his hands as he could, and smiled.
"You ready to go home, man? I think we deserve to go home early. The dogs are probably starving to death. They probably ate the couch cushions and now they're going to shit stuffing all over the living room."
"Yeah, yeah," Jared said, slinging an arm around Jensen's shoulders as they walked out into the cold Vancouver night, ignoring the insurance guy chasing behind them, frantically waving papers, no doubt waivers preventing him from suing, at Jared. "I'll show you couch cushions, dude."
"What does even mean," Jensen complained, elbowing Jared very carefully in the ribs. He didn't want Jared's head wound to start bleeding again. "I don’t know what that means."
"If you play your cards right," Jared whispered in his ear as they got close to the car, "It means you'll be bent over the couch with your face in the cushions and your ass at my mercy - hey, Clif, how's it hanging?" he said as Clif opened the car door for them and then moved to head off the insurance guy before he could climb into the car with them.
Clif smiled knowingly at Jensen's burning face as he waved them into the backseat.
"You can't have sex with a head wound, Jared," Jensen said in a voice he hoped was too low for Clif to hear. "What's wrong with you? Oh, right, you just got hit in the head!"
"I'll be real still, baby, real careful, I won't move, or make a sound. You can do whatever you want and I'll just take it," Jared whispered in Jensen's ear. He buckled his seat belt and beamed at Jensen. "What do you say?"
Jensen didn't say much of anything, since he'd been rendered speechless by the visuals Jared had just provided. While he was contemplating straddling Jared and riding his cock until neither one of them could remember their names, Clif spoke up. Jensen twitched, startled out of his thoughts as Jared elbowed him in the ribs.
"Dude, what's with all the gratuitous elbowing?" Jensen asked.
"So, guys," Clif said. "I hear a bit of the sky fell tonight."
Jared laughed and Jensen shrugged. "Eh, no big deal," he said. "I have it on good authority it was just a rogue acorn."
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Word count: 10,000
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Prompt: Written for j2_everafter. Chicken Little
Summary: Jensen knows he tends to see the worst-case scenario in every situation. Jared would say that's a bit of an understatement. Jensen doesn't know why nobody ever takes him seriously. Jared thinks it's adorable. And as he says, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
Author's notes: AU only in the sense that Genevieve and Danneel are absent. In fact, I'm very fussy about my terms and I would call it an AR. I love Gen and Danneel a lot and didn't want to have to treat them badly or deal with them in some angsty, unpleasant way, so I just completely negated their very existence. Set sometime in the beginning of Season 6. I have no idea what episode they're shooting here. A generic Season 6 episode, apparently, but there are some vague spoilers for the first half of the season.
Title from JC Chasez's Build My World, following my recent trend of titles that consist of long-ass sentences, frequently penned by JC, or other members of NSYNC.
Thanks to topaz119 and Ashley, both of whom made suggestions that helped a whole lot.
When Jensen got home from set Monday night, he opened the door to the low murmur of voices and the artificial flicker of blue light coming from the three million-inch flat screen TV Jared insisted belonged in the living room. Other than that, the place was as silent as a tomb and almost as cold.
Peering around the corner, the sight that met Jensen's eyes was exactly the sight he'd expected to see when he realized what time it had gotten to be. Jared was home before Jensen because Dean and Castiel had a big scene to do that didn't include Sam poking his giant forehead into the action.
Jensen had known just what Jared was going to do with his time off.
Jared was sitting on the couch, enthralled. His mouth hung open slightly and he was leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He stared straight ahead, unblinking. The dogs lay unnoticed at his feet, Sadie looking resigned, Harley looking worried. To be fair, Harley always looked a little worried.
Jensen thought it was food-related.
By the expression on his face, Jensen knew instantly that Jared was watching Antiques Roadshow.
Jensen sighed, giving in to the inevitable. There was no way he was going to get Jared's attention until his favorite show was over. Toeing off his shoes, Jensen sat down on the couch next to Jared, stretched out and plunked his feet on the coffee table, crossing his legs at the ankles.
He wasn't sure if Jared even knew he was there.
They sat in silence while a white-haired old lady wearing enormous glasses nodded with polite interest as the peppy ceramics expert told her the hideous vase she'd brought in was worth somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand dollars. Jensen couldn’t tell if she was in shock or if she just hadn't heard what the girl told her.
"Really?" she said, smiling uncertainly. "That's nice."
Then a middle-aged man was brought to tears by the news that his precious collection of Civil War correspondence was worth a whopping eight hundred dollars. Jensen wasn't sure if they were tears of joy or disappointment.
Jensen shook his head but he knew better than to say anything. For Jared, this show was sacred. And to be fair, Jared didn't give Jensen a hard time about his obsession with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, so Jensen kept his uncharitable thoughts about antiques to himself.
After a Windsor chair that turned out to be counterfeit and a watercolor painting of birds that was apparently worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and almost caused the badly dressed woman who'd brought it in to have a coronary on the air, it was over.
Thank God.
"You know, your dogs could be dead and I could have packed up my shit and left you, and you'd never even realize," Jensen said.
"Huh?" Jared turned to look at him, his mouth finally closing as the credits played over various people proudly showing off the utterly worthless crap they'd hauled in for the show. "Why would my dogs be dead?"
Jensen gestured to Harley and Sadie, who were sitting patiently at Jared's feet. "They look like they're starving."
Jared smacked Jensen on the back of the head. "They're not starving. Your face is starving."
Jensen stared. "That makes no sense whatsoever, you do know that, don't you?"
Jared leaned over and planted a kiss on Jensen's mouth. "Hi. Did you want something, or are you just trying to annoy me?" he asked, standing up and moving over to where the dogs' leashes hung on a hook by the front door. He shook himself out of his antique-induced daze and stretched, his shirt riding up to expose a strip of flat, tanned belly. He couldn't quite hide the smirk that played around his lips.
"I want you to pay attention to your dogs, dude," Jensen said distractedly, enjoying the unexpected, yet very welcome view of Jared's stomach.
"You're an annoying bastard, have I mentioned that recently?" Jared asked, whistling Harley and Sadie over. They clamored around him, sniffing and woofing in anticipation.
"About a million times, give or take. If I didn't know better, I'd think you didn't love me. Get out of here," Jensen said and Jared smiled his brilliant, happy smile. Jensen's stomach gave that same little flutter it did every time Jared sent a smile directly at him. Sometimes he wondered if that would ever change, or if he would be spending the rest of his life in thrall to those dimples.
If that were the case, he thought he could probably deal.
Jared and his dogs were gone for over half an hour. To take his mind off the possibility of them having been run over by a car or gotten lost on the way back from the park, Jensen used the time to call his mother for advice on what he should buy his siblings for Christmas.
"I don't know, Jensen. They're your brother and sister, not mine. Are you saying you don't know them well enough anymore to be able to pick out a simple Christmas present for them?" Two sentences in and the conversation was already a minefield. It was Donna Ackles's most remarkable talent and Jensen secretly wished he'd inherited that instead of her freckles.
His mother's voice was a mix of sweet and sarcastic, the one that always made him want to defend himself, although he often didn't know against what. He just wanted to buy Josh and McKenzie something they might actually want and now here his mother was trying to turn it into some kind of moratorium on his relationship with them, with no doubt a sidebar or two about the ratio between how long he'd been living in Vancouver compared to how often he called the various members of his family.
She probably had spreadsheets at the ready.
"Mom," Jensen tried to interrupt. "Is Dad there?" Conversations with his father were much easier than those with his mother, consisting mostly of the verbal equivalent of thumping each other manfully on the shoulder.
"He's recording right now, Jensen. I can't disturb him, you know how he gets." She sniffed, and Jensen could see the look of exasperated affection that appeared on her face every time the topic of Jensen's dad still working came up.
She thought Alan should have retired already and be relaxing on a tropical island somewhere. As if doing voice-overs in his home recording studio was such strenuous work. She just wanted to sit on a beach and have someone bring her Pina Coladas.
"Mom, hey, Mom," Jensen said, trying to stem the tide before she really got going. "I gotta go. Jared's just coming in with the dogs."
That wasn't technically true, but Jared and the dogs would be coming home eventually, so it wasn't technically a lie, either.
"Well, you tell that boy I said hi. As a matter of fact, Jensen, just put him on the phone right now so I can tell him myself." Jensen hated to use the word smug in regards to his momma, but there was no point in lying to himself as well as to her. She was very close to being smug here.
"Mom -"
"I knew it. Jared's no more about to walk through your front door than I am," was the answer he got. Jensen shot a panicked look out the window to the street below before he could stop himself, just in case his mother had actually managed to find her way to Vancouver in order to torment him further.
This time he decided the word smug was unavoidable. "You looked to see if I was really there, didn't you, baby?"
"Mom, I just want to get Josh and Mac a present they'll like," Jensen said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if that would ward off a headache. He would say he had no idea how he'd been suckered into this surreal conversation, but that would be a lie. It happened every time he talked to his mother on the phone.
"Of course, dear. Why didn't you just say so?" Jensen didn't even bother to protest, just waited for the pearls of wisdom to drop into his ear. "Mac wants a new Mac," which made Jensen roll his eyes at how lame his mother was. "A MacBook Pro, to be exact. And Josh wants a camera. Make sure it's an expensive one."
"You couldn't have just said that in the first place?" Jensen asked.
"Well, no, sweetie. What fun would that have been? I need to go, Jensen, I have a beep."
Jensen could have gotten all indignant about his mother hanging up on her son who she never saw just so she could talk to someone else who she probably saw all the time, but he didn't waste his energy. She was his mother and she was never wrong.
"Bye, Mom, I love you."
"I love you, too, baby."
As Jensen struggled to get his phone back into its holster, he heard the front door open and the skittering of eight doggie feet coming across the foyer.
"Goddamn piece of shit," he muttered as he gave up on the holster and just tossed his phone onto the coffee table. It made him look like a tool anyway, walking around with his phone on his hip. Who did that?
Jared did, for one, although Jensen had to admit, as he studied his boyfriend, that Jared didn't look quite as dorky as Jensen did with a phone holster. It was hard to look dorky with that body. Those shoulders screamed a lot of things. Dork was definitely not one of them.
Of course, Jared was a total dork, even if he didn't look like one. Not that Jensen would ever admit that, not under any kind of torture that even Alistair could come up with.
"Did you eat?" Jared asked as he hung the dog's leashes on their hooks and headed for the kitchen.
"I had something before we did the last scene," Jensen told him, trailing along in his wake.
Jared sent him a look. Okay, more like a glare.
"What?" Jensen shrugged defensively. "I did."
"I'll bet. A stale donut and some dried up carrot sticks, maybe." Jared had already pulled a container of leftover chili out of the refrigerator. Dumping its contents into a pot and turning the burner on with the smooth, efficient movements Jensen had never thought to associate with Jared in the kitchen until he'd actually started living with him, Jared said, "Jensen. You heard what the doctor said."
"You know, I already have a mother. One whom I talked to just a little bit ago, and seriously, dude, she is more than enough." Jensen was less irritated than he probably sounded. He had heard what the doctor said and had fully intended to eat when he got home. He wasn't stupid, not by a long shot. Those antibiotics on an empty stomach made him feel gross. But if Jared wanted to fuss Jensen would be more than happy to eat the results.
"How did the shoot go?" Jared asked, ignoring Jensen's fake pissiness. "Did Phil go with your version?"
Jensen brightened. "He did. He changed a couple of the shots the way I suggested, said I was right and they worked better that way. We saved a ton of time, since we didn't have to do the extra setup." Phil had seen right away what Jensen had been trying to say, which made Jensen think maybe he'd gotten a handle on this directing thing after all.
Maybe he could avoid an ulcer next time if they ever let him direct another one.
Jared had a big block of cheddar cheese out now and was grating it into a bowl. Jensen watched him with a kind of horrified fascination, waiting for Jared's knuckles to disappear in messy spurts of blood and skin, but miraculously, there was no flesh lost to the grater, and Jensen had a nice pile of finger-less cheese for his chili.
Wrapping the block of cheddar back up again, Jared pulled open the refrigerator door, shoved the cheese back in and emerged with a cold beer, which he held out in Jensen's general direction.
Jensen looked at it doubtfully as he settled his ass on the stool at the counter. "I don't know if I should," he said. "Not with those drugs I'm on."
"Jensen," Jared said, and Jensen could almost see his eyes sprain as he worked hard not to roll them, "They're not drugs. They're only antibiotics. You won't die if you have a beer."
"Jared, the patient package insert said mixing them with alcohol could cause brain failure. Brain failure," Jensen repeated, just in case Jared didn't grasp the seriousness of the warning the first time.
"I think your brain failed a long time ago, Jen," Jared said solemnly. Jensen glared at him, but really, he guessed he'd walked right into that one and had no one to blame but himself.
"Very funny, Jared. Anybody ever tell you you have amazing comic timing? You should go on TV," Jensen retorted as he gave in and popped the cap off the beer. One probably wouldn't hurt.
"Aw, don't be that way, baby." Jared made kissy faces at Jensen and he looked so ridiculous, what with his gigantic forehead and his floppy hair and his dimples, that Jensen couldn't have stopped the smile that broke out on his face if you paid him.
"Is that chili ready yet?" he asked, mostly to distract Jared from being adorable. He cringed inwardly at his use of the word adorable. Nobody here was adorable, except for maybe Sadie.
In lieu of an answer, Jared turned and heaped chili high into two bowls, sprinkled a few handfuls of grated cheese on top, and slid one of them in front of Jensen with a spoon and a command to "Eat."
"So, how's your mom doing?" Jared asked just as Jensen shoveled a very large spoonful of really hot chili into his mouth. He gasped, choking a little, and reached for his beer.
"Dude, you suck!" Jensen said after he'd swirled beer around in his mouth in an effort to prevent fifth degree burns on his tongue.
Jared smirked. "Let me guess, she gave you a hard time just for breathing and then caught you in a lie." His chili was almost gone already. How he did that without aspirating or combusting was a mystery to Jensen.
"I ended up looking out the window because I was afraid she was coming up the walk!" Jensen was indignant all over again when he thought about the conversation with his mother.
Jared threw back his head and laughed. "Dude, your face. Someday she's going to show up here just to watch your head explode."
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Jay. Just wait, someday she's going to figure out what a jackwagon you are and then it'll be your turn to hide."
"Your mom loves me," Jared said complacently, and Jensen had to admit he was right, although he wasn't about to say it out loud.
Jared finished the last of his chili and Jensen waited a minute or two. Once it became clear that Jared wasn't going to lick the bowl, Jensen stood up and started to clear the dishes away, dumping them in the sink.
"Should we give the leftovers to the babies?" Jared asked, getting up and following Jensen over to the stove, peering over his shoulder into the pot.
"You can't feed chili to the dogs," Jensen said, scandalized. "What if it doesn't agree with them? What if it makes them sick and they barf all over the house? In the living room, on the rug? Then we'll have to have the carpets cleaned, which'll cost a fortune. Dude, what if they puke on the floor and one of us steps in it, slips and falls and breaks a leg? They'll have to shoot around us, or, or, what if you break your neck? They'll write you out of the show - Sam can't be paralyzed! You can't have a show about a paralyzed hunter, Jared, it just wouldn't work." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "What are you thinking, man?"
"Jesus, Jen, breathe, dude. I'm sorry I didn't realize the fate of the entire world hung in the balance here and that I could tip the scales in the wrong direction by letting Harley eat something that might give him indigestion," Jared said. "Someone should have alerted Lucifer. Sounds like a plan he could have gotten behind." There was nothing but affection in Jared's voice, but Jensen huffed anyway.
Jared planted a kiss on the top of Jensen's head. Jensen aimed an irritable smack at him and Jared ducked away, laughing.
"Is it safe for me to do the dishes, or will I be in danger of losing a limb in a tragic housekeeping accident it I do?" Jared stood momentarily poised with his hands over the sink, looking at Jensen with that mischievous smirk that never failed to disarm Jensen's defenses.
"Have I mentioned lately what a dick you are?" Jensen glared at Jared, but there was no real heat behind it. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch in amusement and quickly turned away before Jared could catch him.
"Not in the last five minutes," Jared replied. "You're slipping." He leaned forward and planted a chili-flavored kiss on Jensen's lips. Pulling back, his eyes searched Jensen's face. "Hey," he said, his voice serious. "Go to bed. Get some sleep, and don't forget to take your pills."
Jensen's lips quirked up in a smile. "Yes, Mom," he said. "Don't stay up too late," he added. I don't want you sleepy tomorrow and not paying attention to what you're doing. Dean doesn't need Sam tripping over his own feet and -"
"Jensen, I promise you, Sam won't trip over anything. Dean'll be perfectly safe." Jared's smile was wide and bright enough that Jensen had to blink a few times. "I'll be up soon, go on."
Jensen smiled back. Maybe he'd try to stay awake until Jared joined him. He felt sure it would be worth the effort.
He could admit he was tired, but really, he wasn't actually sick. It was just a cold, or rather, a really bad sinus infection. Jensen dutifully took the antibiotics his doctor had prescribed for him, although he had some rather strong opinions about people who insisted on taking antibiotics every time they sneezed. That way lay the development of mutant strains of bacteria and viruses that were resistant to every wonder drug known to man, with the capability of wiping out all life on the planet, if people weren't a little more careful, or more willing to suck it up and just blow their noses for a week or two without acting like they were dying.
Or if their boyfriend and co-star would just take a chill pill and let them hock up their mucus in peace.
But, no, Jared had decided that Jensen needed to take care of himself, which Jensen had actually been doing quite capably since he'd left home at the age of eighteen, so he wasn't sure what Jared was so worried about.
"How is it that you'll imagine a worse case scenario for every situation you encounter, including death and dismemberment if I don't load the dishwasher properly," and there were air quotes, which made Jensen crazy, "but you won't take care of yourself when you're sick?" Jared had fussed at him this morning. "Remember the first season when you had tonsillitis? If it hadn't been for Kim -"
Jared broke off in mid-sentence, which Jensen appreciated. He still had a hard time talking about Kim. The day he'd spent in Jensen's hotel room, watching Jensen suffer through the most excruciating sore throat he'd ever had, obviously not as stoically as he'd been trying to suffer, and then loading him in the car to take him to the hospital, was one of Jensen's most treasured memories.
He blinked and glanced at Jared, who was looking frustrated and more upset than Jensen thought the occasion called for.
"Okay, Jared, okay," Jensen said, smiling, trying to placate the big mother hen. He shook his bottle of pills in Jared's face, and Jared batted his hand away, laughing in spite of himself. "See, I'm taking my pills like a good boy. Happy?"
"I'll be happy when you're not sick anymore," Jared growled firmly, which filled Jensen with a ridiculous warm feeling. He felt his neck prickle with heat and he rubbed his hand over the back of it. He looked up to find Jared watching him with stern eyes.
"Okay," Jensen agreed, pinned and unable to look away and Jared nodded like he was finally satisfied. Jensen felt like he'd just run up several flights of stairs, flushed and out of breath. He didn't resist when Jared pulled him none-too-gently into his arms and kissed him even more breathless.
"You'll get my cold," he protested, half-heartedly trying to shove Jared away. "And then you'll give it to everyone on set and then -" Jensen's explanation of how dire the situation had the potential to get was lost against Jared's mouth, but that was okay. He'd explain it to him later.
Maybe in the car on the way to work.
And now, finding himself spread out on the bed under Jared, his wrists pinned above his head and his knees up around his ears, while Jared made it very clear that Jensen had better follow the doctor's instructions to the letter, Jensen sighed happily and was absolutely willing to let go of his fear of Jared catching his cold, at least for tonight.
No cold germs would dare infect Jared when he was in this kind of mood.
"Gngh," he gasped at a particularly masterful thrust of Jared's hips. He tilted his head up, reaching with his mouth and catching Jared behind his right ear, one of Jensen's favorite places to taste and ran his tongue over the soft skin there.
"Jesus," Jared breathed. "You -" he seemed to be having trouble finding his words. Jensen smiled against Jared's neck. Speechless was a good look on Jared.
Jensen kind of spread himself out under Jared's onslaught, open and willing and admittedly a bit wanton. It spurred Jared on to new heights and when Jensen came down from it all, it was at least five minutes before he regained the ability to breath.
Jared looked pretty pleased with himself as he wiped Jensen's come off his stomach with Jensen's discarded boxers and smiled at Jensen, his dimples having their usual effect.
"Don't come crying to me if you start sneezing tomorrow, man," Jensen said, snuggling contentedly down into his pillow.
"I wouldn't dream of it," Jared replied, his voice sleepy as he snuffled into Jensen's hair and arranged his arms and legs artfully around Jensen's, so that Jensen had no chance of going anywhere for the rest of the night.
"'Night, Jared," he yawned, but Jared was already asleep.
All of Jensen's sneezing and coughing meant that Jared hounded Jensen at every opportunity about his medication schedule, when he'd last eaten, how much sleep he was getting, and the state of his hydration. It was like living with his mother on speed.
And then Jensen blanched at the thought of his mother on speed. The very idea made him want to gather supplies and squirrel himself away in a cave until the inevitable nuclear winter had passed.
In spite of Jared's best efforts, the stupid sinus infection hung on like a motherfucker and Jensen found himself dragging his ass through the week like some kind of weakened kitten, which he tried, with limited success, to keep Jared from realizing.
It was also making him cranky.
Tuesday evening was Jared's turn to stay late, shooting a scene with Grandpa Campbell that required him to do a stunt that Jensen thought was one of the most dangerous things he'd ever heard of.
Jared just stared at him blankly. "Are you serious?" Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen could see Mitch smirking. Mitch was one tough son of a bitch, but Jensen didn't think AD Skinner had really seen a lot of action back in the day, so he didn't know where Mitch got off mocking Jensen's concern for Jared's safety.
"Yes, I'm serious," Jensen hissed irritably through all the snot clogging his nose. He thought maybe he sounded like a dying bullfrog. "What do you think is going to happen when that cable lets go, Jared?"
"Um, I'm going to get tossed into the wall like I'm supposed to?" Jared said, his tone implying that Jensen was being unreasonable. Jensen hated that tone. He was allowed to be as concerned about Jared's health and well being as Jared was about Jensen's stupid cold.
Jensen narrowed his eyes. "Jared -"
"If you ladies are finished dithering?" Phil said, waving his headset at Jensen. "Why are you still here? Go home, feed Jared's dogs or something." He took at good look at Jensen and added, shuddering, "And take your germs with you."
Jensen sneezed and Jared squeezed his arm. "Go on, Jensen, go home. It'll be fine. You trust the stunt guys, you know you do. And besides, we've done this sort of gag a thousand times before and it's always been fine."
And that was the thing. Jensen had total faith in the stunt guys' ability to rig what was in all actuality a simple enough stunt. He put his life in their hands everyday without a qualm. But when it was Jared's life…well, everything just seemed ten times as dangerous, was all.
Jensen sighed. Breathing that deeply brought on a bit of a coughing spell and when he could finally pull in air again, Phil and Jared were staring at him in concern. Well, Jared looked concerned. Phil just looked repulsed.
They were right. Jensen needed to go home, to leave before the stunt coordinator caught on that Jensen was worried. He didn't want to impugn anyone's professionalism here.
Sneezing again, Jensen made a show of trying to wipe his nose on Jared's, okay, on Sam's shirt, as a sort of half-ass apology. Jared smiled at him and shoved him in the direction of the door.
"Go."
Jensen gave him a sloppy salute and went.
Jensen was silent on the drive home, listening to Clif talk about his wife's new hairdo and about how excited he was to be getting some screen time again next month and the breathtaking color of the sunset. Jensen let the words wash over him without paying much attention to their actual content.
Clif eyed him knowingly as he got out of the car. "Have a good night, dude," was all he said, but Jensen clearly heard the unspoken and stop worrying, you big loser as Clif waved goodbye.
Jensen fed the dogs, found himself something to eat - Jared had labeled several containers in the refrigerator with the words EAT ME, JENSEN, so it wasn't too difficult - took his pills, and watched Sports Center for an hour or so, all without much awareness at all of what he was doing.
He was just waiting.
At eight o'clock, his phone beeped with a text. Still alive. Be home soon. Have food ready, bitch.
Jensen laughed and all the tension left his body at once, making him almost drop his phone. Harley looked up at him, his face conveying its usual worried expression. "He'll be home soon, boy," Jensen assured him, handing him a Milk Bone.
Harley crunched noisily for a while, then went back to sleep, his nose planted in the warm fur of Sadie's neck.
Jensen followed suit, the three of them huddled together on the couch in a big warm pile.
He was much too sick to put together a meal for Jared.
And what was Jared thinking, anyway, wanting Jensen to handle his food, inviting Jensen's germs to gang up on him like that?
One of these days, Jared's carefree approach to life was going to get him in real trouble.
Good thing I'm always going to be there to rescue him, Jensen thought as he drifted off, dimly aware that his clogged up, open-mouthed breathing was making him drool all over Sadie.
She wouldn't mind, he knew. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.
Wednesday brought more of the same. That is to say, more sneezing and a whole lot more snot. Jensen had an earlier call time than Jared, since Jared had worked later into the evening the day before.
He wouldn't have thought it possible but he was even crankier today than he had been yesterday. Maybe a little bit sensitive, too. Jensen was totally blaming the drugs.
By the time Jared arrived on set, Jensen and Misha were in the middle of an intense conversation.
"It's like the butterfly wing effect," Jensen was arguing. "Everything you do, everything you don't do, it all has consequences. You of all people should know that, you with your Twitter minions, or whatever you call them," he said, waving his hands to encompass the craziness of Twitter in general and Misha's in particular.
Misha glanced helplessly at Jared, who shrugged and said, "What did you do, man?"
Misha shook his head, looking both bewildered and beleaguered as he said defensively; "I sprinkled some salt on the steps of my trailer. There was a lot of ice -"
"Yes, and when that ice melts, the salt is going to end up soaking into the ground and poisoning the soil and the water table for miles arou -"
Jared hooked an arm around Jensen's neck and squeezed, effectively cutting off his air. Jensen's speech about the dangers of contaminating the water table sputtered to a halt.
"Ignore Calamity Jensen, here, dude," Jared said to Misha. "Or better yet, just nod and smile. It's easier that way." He was smiling, but it looked a little forced.
"Hey," Jensen tried to say, stung. He knew he worried about things sometimes, actually he was sure a cadre of therapists would probably have a field day trying to analyze his psyche and figure out why he was such a Gloomy Gus, as his mother so lovingly phrased it. But he'd thought Jared - well, Jared almost never laughed at him, at least not in an unkind way. He smiled with what Jensen liked to think was affection, not condescension, and let Jensen extrapolate on the many dangers he saw in the world without it ever feeling patronizing.
This, this felt patronizing, and Jensen smiled tightly as he extricated himself from Jared's octopus arms.
"Sorry," he said shortly, not meaning it in the slightest. Jared had the decency to look guilty. Or maybe he was just gassy, Jensen couldn't really tell for sure.
Misha laughed nervously. He liked to claim he was extra-sensitive to any discord amongst his fellows, or as he liked to phrase it, any disturbance in the Force. Right now, he just looked like he wanted to bolt.
Jensen refused to meet Jared's eyes and stood there glaring at the Impala until Phil called them to order.
"If you're quite ready, gentlemen?" He glanced between Jensen and Jared and then hastily looked away, obviously not wanting to get caught in the middle of any conflict on his set. He liked to pretend that everything was just peachy at all times.
Jensen scowled as they found their marks.
Jared continued to look uneasy until Phil called "action," then his face smoothed out into soulless Sam's bland yet sinister expression.
Jensen felt Dean's usual irritation and fear that dealing with Sam provoked slip over him and that, combined with the betrayal he felt at Jared's amusement at his expense meant they got the scene in fewer takes than usual, since Jensen refused to react to Jared and Misha's antics every time one of them flubbed a line of dialogue.
They weren't twelve-year old boys and they weren't new to the acting profession, so Jensen couldn't understand why every time one of them fucked up a reading, the other one had to turn it into some kind of comedy routine.
No one else besides the two of them was amused in the slightest, Jensen thought bitterly, completely ignoring the fact that Phil was laughing so hard at Misha's dolphin impression that he was turning an alarming shade of red. Served him right if he popped a blood vessel in his brain, which could totally happen, either from laughing too hard, or from straining on the toilet, Jensen was sure of it.
Although if that were the case, surely Jared would have ruptured his whole brain by now. Jensen shook his head to clear it of those kinds of thoughts, even if they were definitely the kind of thoughts that would be in Dean's head, and he was supposed to be Dean right now.
Finally they finished the scene and it was time to break for lunch.
At that point, after sending one last look at both Jared and Jensen, Misha took off for his trailer like there were Hellhounds on his ass.
"Running scared like the little girl he is," Jensen muttered under his breath, staring after Misha with a contemptuous snort.
"Being kind of sexist there, aren't you, Jensen?" Jared asked. "Little boys run scared just as fast as little girls do. I'll bet when you were little -"
"Shut up, Jared," Jensen growled, and Jared just blinked at him, making Jensen feel like an ass. He sighed.
"Can we just go eat lunch?" He stood there and looked at Jared, trying not to sneeze, and Jared stood there and looked back, an unreadable expression on his face that was almost as empty as Sam's had been earlier.
Jensen hated that he'd put that look there. "I just, when you said - I mean, you usually - Misha -" he broke off, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He was the world's biggest idiot.
Comprehension dawned across Jared's face, and he looked contrite for a minute before his smile came back in full force.
"I'm sorry, man," he said, eyes serious despite his smile. "I didn't mean anything by it. Misha just looked so…confused." He laughed. "It's actually a good look on him." Jared held out a hand to Jensen, looking at him imploringly and Jensen folded like a cheap suit. He wouldn't have believed it possible, but Jared's smile got even wider as they headed in the direction of craft services, walking hand-in-hand like a couple of kids at the mall. "Come on, I'm fixin' to starve to death."
There was no way in the world Jensen could resist that smile and he knew that Jared knew it.
"Fine," he sighed as he extricated his hand from Jared's. No way was anyone seeing them like this, all lovey-dovey. Jensen's rep as a cranky badass would be toast.
Jared slowed his steps so Jensen could keep up with him and his unnaturally long legs. "Hey, did you take your pills? You seem a little, well, like you still don't feel good."
"Yes, I took my damn pills!" Jensen snapped. "And no, I don't feel so great."
Jared held out his hands in an I surrender kind of way. "Sorry, sorry, wow, testy much?" Jared's strides got just a little bit longer, and Jensen had to walk just a little bit faster to keep up with him. Fucker, he was doing it on purpose to punish Jensen for being so crabby.
"I only have two days' worth of pills left to take," Jensen offered by way of apology. "I think I may live." He sneezed and Jared laughed softly and bumped Jensen's shoulder with his own. "Maybe," Jensen added darkly.
Thursday, they got to sleep in. They'd filmed until midnight Wednesday, which meant their Thursday call time wasn't until noon.
Jensen purposefully stayed in bed as long as he could after Jared got up to deal with the dogs, knowing that Jared would fix him something awesome for breakfast.
He wasn't disappointed. When he came downstairs, there were pancakes and bacon, hot coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice waiting for him.
"It's like living at the Ritz Carlton," Jensen marveled as he took his seat at the table.
"Ass," Jared said, swiping at the back of Jensen's head with his free hand. As his other hand was preoccupied with setting the plate of pancakes down on the table, Jensen deemed it best not to retaliate, at least not physically. He didn't want to wear the pancakes.
"Okay, so maybe the help isn’t up to luxury hotel standards - but the food is," he added hastily as Jared frowned at him.
"You're lucky I love you," Jared said darkly.
"Yeah, I am," Jensen said with a contented smile.
"Eat," Jared said, pointing at the pancakes with his fork.
Eight hours later, covered with fake blood and even faker bruises, Jensen wasn't feeling quite so content. They'd broken for dinner and since Jim was there, too, they'd spread themselves out at a table together, the three of them comfortably bitching about mutual acquaintances who weren't there to defend themselves.
And then Jensen saw it: a humongous piece of chocolate cake, topped with the biggest strawberry he'd ever seen.
Jared was allergic to strawberries.
And there it sat, right there on Jim's plate, right next to Jared, just waiting to get its evil strawberry juices all over him.
"What the fuck, Jim?" Jensen jumped to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at the fruit. "What are you trying to do, kill him?"
Jared and Jim just stared at him like he'd grown another head and Jensen just couldn't believe the two of them.
"What are you talking about?" Jim asked, while at the same time Jared said, "Jensen?"
"There!" Jensen snarled. "Right there!"
Comprehension dawned on Jared's face and he shrugged. "It's not going to leap across the table and attack me, Jensen. Calm down, dude." He stabbed his chicken Parmesan with a fork, while Jim continued to look like he'd been given a mild electric shock.
Which, with the amount of flannel he was wearing, wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities, if you took static electricity into consideration.
"Are you kidding me?" Jensen's voice went up several octaves and he made an effort to bring it back down to his usual register. "That's a strawberry, Jared. You're allergic to strawberries, or did that slip your mind?"
Jared's eyebrows drew together in a frown. "I'm also a big boy, Jensen. I can take care of myself, and I can sure as hell protect myself from a goddamn strawberry, which is actually nowhere near me, I might add. And even if it was; a rash, Jensen, a mild rash is all that would happen."
Jensen looked at Jared, frustrated and helpless. How could he not see the dangers lurking around every corner? The danger that something or someone was going to come take Jared away from him?
Didn't Jared get how scared Jensen was, every minute of every day?
"People should be more careful," Jensen insisted. He pointed at Jim. "He should be more careful."
"Okay, that's enough," Jared said, standing up and stacking his many plates and Styrofoam containers together. "This is ridiculous, even for you. I'm outta here."
The words hurt and Jensen subsided back into his seat, aware of Jim's eyes on him, but not looking up to meet them.
"Sorry," he mumbled, picking up his fork and aimlessly shoving his pasta salad around his plate.
"Jensen, you know I love you, and Lord knows I know what it's like to be afraid you're gonna lose someone you care about," Jim said. "But sometimes you're an lunatic."
Jensen sighed.
"I mean, what the hell? I know you worry about everything under the sun, kid, but just back off on the rest of us, wouldja, and let us breathe some?"
When Jim sounded like Bobby, it did weird things to Jensen's emotional equilibrium and now he pretty much felt like shit. Jim ate his chocolate cake without a word while Jensen nursed his coffee in silence.
Finally he muttered, "I think the cold medicine is making me insane."
Jim just looked at him and shook his head, but when he got up to leave, he patted Jensen on the shoulder and Jensen nodded gratefully.
When he got back to set, Jensen was treated to the patented Padalecki cold shoulder. This consisted of Jared pretending that Jensen didn't exist, that he was invisible, and that he didn't speak English or any other language Jared might know.
The only time Jared looked at Jensen or spoke to him was as Sam to Dean, and given the state of Sam's soul, which was absent, there wasn't much warmth there for Jensen to take any solace from.
The ride home was equally quiet, and when they got in the house, Jensen toed his boots off at the door and said, "Good night," in a small voice as Jared grabbed the dogs' leashes.
Jared paused for a minute as he wrestled with Harley, trying to hook the leash on his collar. Sadie snuffled at his face, then looked curiously between him and Jensen.
Jensen held his breath. Jared turned and dragged his dogs out the door.
Shoulders slumping, Jensen made his way up the stairs.
He was in bed, curled up under the covers with his back to the door when Jared came in.
"Dude, are you pouting?"
"What? No!" Jensen absolutely wasn't pouting. He was just exhausted, that was all. And sick, which meant Jared should feel sorry for him, not be mad at him.
Jared climbed into bed and put a warm hand on Jensen's shoulder, tugging him over onto his back. "Did you and Jim kiss and make up?"
Jensen shrugged. "We worked it out."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I told him I was sorry for overreacting, which I so didn't do, by the way, and he told me he was sorry for not being more careful. There was no kissing."
That wasn't quite true, but it was close enough.
Jared looked doubtful for a minute, and then he smiled. "Okay."
"Okay? That's it, okay?"
"Did you want me to still be mad?" Jared asked, breathing his just-brushed minty fresh breath in Jensen's face.
"No."
"So, okay."
"So, make up sex?" Jensen said hopefully.
"I don't see why not," Jared said.
"Awesome," Jensen smiled.
"How's your cold?"
"I think it's worse. I'm not sure I can summon up the strength for anything more strenuous than a blowjob," Jensen said.
"Sounds like a plan," Jared said, stretching out on his back and flinging his arms wide. "Have at it."
Jensen poked Jared in the side. "Asshole. That's not what I meant and you know it." He tried to look pitiful and hopeful at the same time.
Jared grinned. "You don't deserve a blowjob, but I guess I can make an exception. You are pretty cute." He rolled over onto his side and kissed Jensen gently, reaching a hand inside Jensen's boxers.
"Yes, I do deserve a blowjob," Jensen said, his breath hitching. "I'm sick and the damn antibiotics are making me insane."
"This is true, especially the insane part," Jared agreed. "Let's see if we can make you feel better."
Jensen nodded in his enthusiasm for this plan, the power of speech having left him the minute Jared's warm fingers closed around him.
By Friday, Jensen was more than happy to see the end of the workweek roll around. His cold was actually getting better, which he counted as a win.
However….
"I don't know, dude," Jensen muttered, looking doubtfully up at the ceiling. If you could call the mess of twisted girders and beams, with pieces of acoustic tile hanging down randomly like whitish-gray birds of prey, a ceiling. Jensen didn't think he, in good conscience, could, but apparently the production staff had no problems with it.
"It's fine, Jensen," Jared said, nudging him along with an elbow to the ribs. It was a gentle elbow, but still an elbow. Jensen elbowed him back, not nearly as gently. It was the principle of the thing.
"Ow, fucker," Jared complained. Jensen snorted.
"Like that hurt," he said, his attention momentarily diverted from the disaster-in-waiting looming above them. "My elbows aren't nearly as pointy as yours."
"What are you, five?" Jared responded, but he was smiling down at Jensen, his hair perfectly arranged in that stupid way that made it look like Sam had spent the morning at a beauty salon. Jensen couldn't wait for the fight scene to start so he could mess it up.
Craning his neck, he frowned up at the ceiling again. He really didn't like the looks of it. There were…things hanging off it and the beams were twisted in ways that made him very nervous, especially in the corner farthest away from the door. The corner where Jensen could see his and Jared's marks, as well as Misha's.
The cameras were set up and the lights were almost ready for the first shot, Jensen could tell. There were people milling around everywhere in that special organized chaos that characterized a film set. He spotted Phil over by one of the monitors and he started moving in that direction.
"Hey, Jensen," Phil said with a welcoming smile. A smile that faded when he saw the way Jensen was glaring up at the ceiling. "What?"
"Don't you think that that," Jensen jerked his chin up towards the dangling acoustic tile bits, "looks a little unsafe? Just a bit?"
"Jensen," Phil sighed. "The location guys said the place has looked like this for years. Smallville's used it a million times. The ceiling isn't going to cave in, at least not anytime soon."
"It's like you know him so well, Phil," came Jared's voice from behind Jensen.
"Fuck Smallville. Look at it!" Jensen snapped. "It's a mess. It could cave in at any second." Jensen frowned at the twin expressions of tolerant skepticism on Jared and Phil's faces. "Or pieces of it could fall down on all our heads." He waited for them to take him seriously, but of course, they never did. They just smiled and nodded and said, Oh, that's just Jensen, always worrying about things that are never going to happen.
Someday…Jensen pulled up short at that line of thought. Did he want something catastrophic to happen, just so he could look Jared in the eye and say I told you so?
So that Jared would look back at him and say, I'm so sorry, Jensen, you were right, I should have listened to you?
Damn straight he did, even if it was only a small part of him that wanted it. He felt ashamed at that and he was glad his mother wasn't here to know what a terrible person he really was.
Now he just looked up one more time, shook his head and said, "Maybe you could at least not have those lights so high up they're brushing the rotting beams and crumbling tiles. You know, you might not want to actually precipitate whatever accident is for sure gonna happen here."
He stared up at the lights while the lighting guys ignored him as they got their stuff set up the way they wanted it with no regard for safety whatsoever, in Jensen's opinion. Looking back at Phil, Jensen said, "I'm not sure you need those lights anyway. I think a better camera angle would be - " and just like that, he and Phil were talking about cameras angles and shots and coverages and Jensen momentarily forgot all about the looming ceiling that was just waiting to kill them all.
Jensen did eventually convince Phil and the lighting guys to lower some of the lights and to move the actors' marks over a bit, until they were under a less ominous-looking section of the ceiling.
He counted that as a win.
Once they started shooting, Jensen tried to focus completely on poor, hapless Dean and his annoyingly soulless little brother and his stupid useless angel BFF, so except for the niggling voice in the back of his head that refused to shut up about the scary ceiling, Jensen managed to mostly concentrate on doing his job.
A job he did pretty damn well, if he did say so himself. He thought he saw a moment of real fear in Misha's eyes when Dean advanced on Cas and told him he didn't care what the hell was going on up in Heaven, he needed Cas here, dammit, and why wasn't he around more to help Dean deal with Sam and Bobby and all these fucking Campbells and stupid Crowley, not to mention Meg and Raphael and some other angel whose name Jensen couldn't remember at the moment, although he was sure it started with a "B."
The scene may have required more takes than it should have.
Sometimes Jensen longed for the good old days when they didn't have a cast of thousands, when it was just him and Jared and maybe a guest star or two. He'd bitched about it a lot back then, exhausted and convinced that without someone else to carry part of the load, he and Jared were just going to burn out one day, just end up as tiny little piles of ashes in the unrelenting rain, but at least then he hadn't had to remember all these fucking names.
Balthazar, that was it.
Jensen was so distracted by his moment of cranky character bleed that he didn't realize the motherfucking ceiling was in point of fact actually coming down until a piece of it hit Jared squarely on the head.
"Son of a bitch!" Jensen yelled, as people started running in about a hundred different directions at once. He lunged for Jared, who was sitting on the floor with a dazed look on his face, one hand clutching his head and the other holding a big chunk of something jagged and heavy looking.
"Let me see," Jensen growled, sliding to his knees next to Jared. "Goddammit," he said, as he gently pried Jared's hand away from where blood was oozing out from between his fingers. "Goddammit!"
Scalp wounds always bleed a lot ran on a loop through his mind, like some kind of frantic mantra. His mother always said they bled like a bitch.
"Jensen?" Jared asked dazedly. "Jensen, is that you?" He dropped the piece of ceiling and reached out blindly, groping for Jensen's face.
It was only the tiniest twitch at the side of Jared's mouth and the quick flash of a dimple that prevented Jensen from either fainting or having a heart attack on the spot.
"Shut up, asshole," he hissed, grabbing Jared's wrist hard. "You're not as funny as you fucking think you are." He pulled Dean's jacket off, then his flannel shirt, and then yanked his t-shirt up over his head. Who the hell's idea was it for Dean to wear so many goddamn layers of clothing, anyway? All that those layers accomplished was to lull Jensen into a false sense of security that no one could tell he ate Jared's cooking every chance he got.
Jared could have bled to death by the time Jensen freed himself from Dean's stupid clothes to get to the t-shirt.
Jensen wadded up said t-shirt and pressed it carefully to the admittedly small laceration on the side of Jared's head. The hunk of ceiling must have just glanced off Jared's exceptionally hard head. Sweat, no doubt brought on by heart-stopping terror, prickled at the back of Jensen's neck. He shivered as the cool air of the warehouse hit his clammy, naked torso.
Jared reached a hand up and grasped Jensen's wrist. "I got it," he said, trying to take the t-shirt out of his hand. "Put your shirt back on or you'll freeze to death.
"Quit it," Jensen snapped. "And hold still." He looked at Jared's hand on his wrist and his stomach gave an unpleasant lurch. There was blood on his arm, Jared's blood. His gut twisted again. Great, now there was going to be vomit all over the place, too.
"Don't look at it," Jared said, and Jensen quickly raised his eyes to Jared's face, which wasn't any less bloody than anywhere else, so that didn't really make him feel any better. "Scalp wounds always bleed a lot, you know that. Just - look at me. I'm fine, Jensen."
Jensen studied Jared's face. He was pale, but his eyes were clear and his smile was warm. He did look fine, except for the blood that was running down the side of his head and neck, staining the collar of his shirt a dark crimson. Jensen's stomach rolled once more and he clenched his teeth together tight.
He felt dizzy, whether with relief or nausea he wasn't sure. Probably both. He shivered again and Jared said firmly, "Let me hold this and you can put your shirt on, you crazy exhibitionist."
Jensen huffed out a laugh and gave up his death grip on the now bloody t-shirt. He shrugged Dean's outer shirt back on, but his hands were shaking too badly to do up the buttons. Too bad, everyone was just going to have to put up with his naked chest and slightly pudgy stomach.
While the set medic poked at Jared's head and shone a flashlight in his eyes and asked him how many fingers she was holding up, Jensen was fairly bursting with the need to say I told you so, I told everybody that ceiling was dangerous. He'd been bursting to say it since the minute it had come raining down on top of them, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it while Jared was covered in blood.
Jared still looked gruesome, even though the medic said he was fine, that it was just a small scalp laceration. She'd stuck a butterfly bandage on it and pronounced it fixed in about two seconds flat. Jensen only hoped she was right and he started looking around, wondering where the ambulances and network suits and emergency personnel were. Surely Jared deserved more than a butterfly.
Jensen suspected the pathetic expression Jared was working was an attempt to head off Jensen's inevitable rant, but he wasn't going to be so easily sidetracked. He wasn't going to wuss out on this.
He needed the vindication.
"I told you," he started, and he watched with grim amusement as Jared's face took on a resigned expression. "I told everybody. And now look at you." There was fear behind his words and Jared obviously saw it in his face, because he smiled softly, his eyes warm.
"I know you did, Jensen. And they should have listened. We all should have listened to you." Jensen was pleasantly surprised and gratified by Jared's admission. Okay, stunned was more like it, until Jared spoiled the whole thing by adding, "Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, dude," with a big, stupid grin.
"Excuse me?"
"Well, even Calamity Jensen has to be right sometime." Jared looked at him fondly, laughing, and Jensen wanted to strangle him. He'd always been grateful that Jared found Jensen's neuroses to be amusing rather than annoying, but right now he would have settled for a little less amusement.
But then again, there was something infectious in Jared's laugh and Jensen found himself fighting a smile. He couldn't hide it from Jared for long and soon enough they were both sitting there grinning at each other like idiots.
There was apparently something about finally, for once in his life, being right that cheered Jensen up immensely. He looked around at Phil huddled in the corner with the location guys and the carpenters and the set designers, the stunt men and the network insurance guy, and the world didn't seem quite so scary. Danger no longer lurked around every corner. His certainty that disaster would strike had actually been validated and the world hadn't ended, even if the network bigwigs were going to have a conniption that one of their stars had gotten hurt on the job.
He could only hope Dawn wouldn't feel the need to fly up to see for herself that Jared was in one piece.
Jensen shook a few pieces of plaster out of his hair, carefully wiped as much of Jared's blood off his hands as he could, and smiled.
"You ready to go home, man? I think we deserve to go home early. The dogs are probably starving to death. They probably ate the couch cushions and now they're going to shit stuffing all over the living room."
"Yeah, yeah," Jared said, slinging an arm around Jensen's shoulders as they walked out into the cold Vancouver night, ignoring the insurance guy chasing behind them, frantically waving papers, no doubt waivers preventing him from suing, at Jared. "I'll show you couch cushions, dude."
"What does even mean," Jensen complained, elbowing Jared very carefully in the ribs. He didn't want Jared's head wound to start bleeding again. "I don’t know what that means."
"If you play your cards right," Jared whispered in his ear as they got close to the car, "It means you'll be bent over the couch with your face in the cushions and your ass at my mercy - hey, Clif, how's it hanging?" he said as Clif opened the car door for them and then moved to head off the insurance guy before he could climb into the car with them.
Clif smiled knowingly at Jensen's burning face as he waved them into the backseat.
"You can't have sex with a head wound, Jared," Jensen said in a voice he hoped was too low for Clif to hear. "What's wrong with you? Oh, right, you just got hit in the head!"
"I'll be real still, baby, real careful, I won't move, or make a sound. You can do whatever you want and I'll just take it," Jared whispered in Jensen's ear. He buckled his seat belt and beamed at Jensen. "What do you say?"
Jensen didn't say much of anything, since he'd been rendered speechless by the visuals Jared had just provided. While he was contemplating straddling Jared and riding his cock until neither one of them could remember their names, Clif spoke up. Jensen twitched, startled out of his thoughts as Jared elbowed him in the ribs.
"Dude, what's with all the gratuitous elbowing?" Jensen asked.
"So, guys," Clif said. "I hear a bit of the sky fell tonight."
Jared laughed and Jensen shrugged. "Eh, no big deal," he said. "I have it on good authority it was just a rogue acorn."