The Second Man, NC-17, 7/9
Jan. 1st, 2010 01:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ht_murray<<--Back to Part Six
--Part Seven--
Jensen's not surprised when Jared wraps his eight foot arms around his back. Jared’s a whole other person from the ungrateful, spoiled brat Jensen first met all those... God, has it only been weeks, well, yeah Jared hasn’t even got his cast off yet... a whole other person than the Jared he met all those weeks ago. What does surprise him is Jared nuzzling at his neck; five o'clock shadow rubbing against five o'clock shadow is a completely foreign sensation to him, but apparently one his body seems to have an appreciation for. A few tentative scrapes below his jawbone, warm breath against his throat, and Jensen’s blood starts pooling below his belt.
"Uh, Jared? What are you doing?" As if he can't feel the teeth nipping at his ear lobe.
"I'd think that's obvious, Jensen. I'm doing my best to thank you for being such a thoughtful guy." Jared's speaking right into his ear, moist breath ghosting over the sensitive skin he's been nibbling on, and it takes Jensen's brain a few seconds to realize they're moving. Jared's hands bracket his hips as he slowly maneuvers Jensen further into the room. “Can you hear me...” thigh between bowed legs, rhinestones clicking against belt buckle, “...now?”
He shouldn’t be able to. What, with his blood pressure rising behind his eardrums, but then, Jared’s probably not addressing his ears. So, yeah, loud and clear, but, "The kids..."
"The kids are in the other room, and I highly doubt they're paying attention to us. Now, if you could pay attention to us? I'm trying to kiss you senseless here."
Senseless must not mean what Jensen thinks it means, because nothing gets dull or numb, despite the fact that Jared’s... God... really fucking good at the kissing. On the other hand, if senseless means stupid, then it’s working. Man, is it working. There’s no other explanation for allowing things to go as far as they do (kids in the other room for fuck’s sake) other than being totally caught up in the feel of another person kissing him as if his ability to breathe depends on it. The wet slide of a tongue against his is familiar and yet wholly different from anything Jensen has felt before, not even with Danneel, and he loved her. He’s sure he did. This is? This is? Fuck, he doesn’t know what it is, but it’s good. His brain is trying to catalog every feeling, from Jared's hands sliding over his hip bones to the way the bed shifts beneath their combined weight as Jared pushes him down on the comforter. Long fingers carefully make their way towards Jensen's belt buckle and his lizard brain does a happy dance.
"Hey, Jensen, Misha wants to know if... Holy shit!" Jeremy's exclamation is enough to make Jensen's lizard brain curl into a humiliated ball in the corner.
"Sonofa - "
"Oh fuck me."
"Yeah...if you're gonna do that, close the damn door... morons. God, my eyes!” The last sentence fades into the hall just before the door clicks shut.
Jared’s panting breath gives way to a deep chuckle. “Should’ve hung a towel on the door, I guess.”
“Should’ve closed the door,” Jensen agrees, forehead pressed into Jared’s shoulder like he can will away the blush boiling off the tops of his ears.
Jared either mistakes his gesture as snuggling or just doesn’t grasp the gravity of the situation, slips his hand under Jensen’s shirt tail and around to the small of his back, fingertips dipping below the waistband of Jensen’s jeans. “Now where were we?”
“About to fix dinner,” Jensen huffs, thumbs catching under Jared’s ribs just hard enough that Jared jerks away from the touch on reflex, and Jensen rolls to the side.
Jared looks stunned for all of fifteen seconds before his face softens, then takes on an embarrassed hue of deep red over shocked white. “I’m sorry, I...” His voice is thick and crackles in his throat.
“Don’t be.” Jensen turns so they’re facing each other, heads pillowed on arms, and, with his heart still pounding in his chest, he can’t hear any argument in his head not to reach out, so he does, one hand at Jared’s waist, and strokes over the lowest rib with his thumb. “Just not the right time.”
“Not the right time because of the kids, or because of... us?”
It’s both. Of course, it’s both, because one way it’s just inappropriate, and the other it’s a lie, which makes it the wrong everything --time being just the easiest to excuse. But the way Jensen’s hand feels on Jared seems right, and the part of Jensen that wants to wipe that disappointment and fear off Jared’s face doesn’t care about all the parts of their relationship that are wrong. Is that selfish? Jared wants it, too. The kids? Love Jared. And fuck, he looks like that’s always been his pillow, like this is where he’s supposed to sleep and wake up every day. Jensen’s not selfish if he wants Jared to be happy, and wants the kids to have Jared, if the only thing he wants for himself is to see what Jared looks like when the light comes through the window in the morning and lands where he is now. The bed creaks from his muscles tensing even before he moves, telegraphs the lean across the gap between them so Jared’s ready when Jensen presses their lips together, sighs out all of his apprehension into Jensen’s mouth, follows it with his tongue. Jensen opens and lets Jared in. When he draws back, eyes still closed, his lower lip pillowed between Jared’s, he says, “After the kids are asleep.”
Jared pulls away, his fingers cupped around the side of Jensen’s head, behind his ear and into his hair, tilts his jaw down until Jensen opens his eyes and looks at him. “We don’t have to.”
“I want to... later.” Jensen rolls away and lets his feet thunk down on the floor harder than they need to. “Now, let’s feed the troops and see if we can’t lull them into a diabetic coma for a few hours.”
Jared smacks him with a pillow before he makes it out the door. It almost shakes loose the bubble of panic in his chest.
What the fuck is he doing?
--
Making dinner is a bitch. It’s just macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, but despite having been working all day himself, Jared still insists Jensen’s not fit to cook. Like boiling water and stirring will undo his entire recovery. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the zing up and down his backbone is resentment, hackles rising to defend his provider’s pride. But after almost two weeks of having everyone hovering over him-- ‘Do you need anything, Jensen? Can I help you with that, Jensen? Are you tired, Jensen? Did you finish your dinner?’ -- well, his pride’s over itself. He’s tingling from head to toe, not because Jared steps between him and the stove or reaches over him at the sink and around him at the table, but because Jared’s over, around, and in Jensen’s space, and the guy’s a gravitational force, not just in the space, but part of the fabric of it. The lurch in Jensen’s stomach and in his groin is almost centripetal, accelerating in orbit around Jared.
Jared’s everywhere. His hands are everywhere. His feet are everywhere. His ass... keeps ending up plopped against Jensen’s hands where they’re splayed along the edge of the counter. That can’t be accidental. Neither can the way Jensen’s fingers manage always to thread themselves through Jared’s belt loops be entirely incidental. When his thumb worms its way under the hem of Jared’s t-shirt and strokes over the skin at the small of his back, Jensen catches himself and jerks it out, catches his opposite elbow and drags his straight arm across himself to hide the telltale rise in the front of his own jeans.
Damn Jared for taking the only apron.
Damn Jensen for thinking Jared looks fucking hot in the only apron. With a grunt, he heaves himself away from the counter, pokes his head into the refrigerator if for no other reason than to quash the heat rising under his skin. This? Sucks so hard.
If it was awkward being affectionate with the kids down the hall, it’s horrifying to the point of early onset rigor mortis with them standing in the same room. Jensen’s not sure why. Before things got to be too much for her, Danneel was a regular fixture around the place. Dinner time, movie time, game time, never too shy to slide a hand in his back pocket or thread her long fingers through his belt loops, sitting practically in his lap with her head on his shoulder, hand flat across his stomach. And Jensen never tried to hide it from anyone if he lowered his head enough to breathe in the smell of her hair or twirled strands of it around his fingers. That’s what couples do.
It’s what Mom and Daddy did.
Hence, his current predicament, the paralysis of analysis.
Mom and Daddy. They were... embarrassing. Jensen’s ribs clench with the phantom ache from all the times one of the customers at the diner or one of his friends poked him in the side and pointed him in the direction of whatever corner his parents were kissing in or whichever countertop they were swaying against, tasting whatever sauce or dessert the other was working on. Jensen would be stupid not to want what his parents had; everyone else did. And he does. He wants it, all of it, the stolen moments, the shared touches, the tingle of eyes watching him and wanting what he has.
Thing is, when he imagines it in his head, the thing he has that everyone wants is a girl just like Mom -- an old-fashioned girl.
Danneel was supposed to be his old-fashioned girl.
Jared’s... not. He’s not old-fashioned. Jensen’s not even sure he’s natural. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least if some of Jared’s parents’s millions had been spent on making them the perfect son to accessorize their fortune. Okay, he doesn’t really think that, but there are definitely times he can’t help but think that Jared’s not real. Jensen won’t say ‘too good to be true,’ because he does remember Jared Padalecki. He just doesn’t see that rich, spoiled brat when he looks at Jared ‘Switchfoot.’ Not anymore. Unreal, surreal, supernatural, whatever Jared is, he’s not old-fashioned, and he’s definitely no girl. Jensen’s not sure what people will accept, let alone how he’s supposed to act, what’s expected of him. There’s no script for how this story goes, and Jensen’s usually not comfortable ad libbing until at least the third read-through. So, he’s stuck in Jared’s gravitational pull, trailing along like the tail on a comet at warp speed.
Where’s his space suit? This whole... nakedness... is too much, leaves him open to the unfortunate possibility that he’s thinking with his dick. And his dick? Wants a dude.
A dude, for fuck’s sake. Which is all fine and good, right here and now, between these four walls and in their element, but they can’t stay here forever. They’re not going to fall into that big bed together and emerge two good ol’ boys when they leave the house. People will know. They’ll notice Jared’s not an old-fashioned girl. They’ll notice if Jensen touches him like he is. And they’ll point, nudge each other in the ribs just like they did when it was Mom and Daddy behind the counter, but they won’t be encouraging whoever it is they’re nudging to ‘find themselves a girl like that’ or ‘never doubt there’s someone special out there for them.’ Instead, there will be laughing and snickering, eye rolling and lewd hand gestures.
All of which Jensen could probably get over. He was a theater geek in school, after all. There’s a certain amount of drama stitched into his aura like a sequined stage costume.
But this isn’t just about him. He’s a package deal. People won’t just be pointing and snickering at him or at Jared. Joey and Jake are going to be those ‘alternative lifestyle’ kids, the ones who have to make special projects when everyone else is making Mother’s Day cards and have to explain why they have two daddies, why they call their daddies by name, why Jensen and Jared aren’t really their daddies.
Jeremy’s gonna be the guy whose brother’s a fag.
How can he do that to them?
He doesn’t realize he’s segued from awkwardly stiff to frozen in place until Joey nearly knocks him over, squealing into the space between him and the counter and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Jensen! Help!”
“Whoa!” He jerks in place, braced against the counter, and looks around for Jake on reflex. He’s broken up or been caught in the crossfire of enough Jake/Joey squabbles that he’s cringing inwardly in anticipation of being pinged by a dart gun, slingshot, or pea shooter. Only Jake’s sitting at the table with a sketchpad worrying his lip over some top secret project or other. And Jeremy’s in the other room talking to his girlfriend on the phone. The terror chasing Jensen’s baby sister is Jared, all stooped over, face grinning invitingly like the witch from Hansel and Gretel offering children a bit of gingerbread from her house.
“Dude, what’re ya doing?” There better be a good explanation, because Jensen doesn’t think he can put Jared in timeout for picking on his sister like he would Jake. Hand soothing at the back of Joey’s neck, he steps between the two so Joey’s nose ends up buried against his thigh.
Jared straightens, shrugs, palms up. “I was just saying, it’s good manners to take our caps off at the dinner table, and wouldn’t she like me to brush her hair for her while it’s cooking, so she can look like a proper young lady.”
“Oh... no.” Sliding his hand up so he’s covering Joey’s one ear with his palm and pressing the other into his leg, Jensen leans forward, whispers, “No one touches the cap, Jared. It’s kind of an unwritten law around here.” Ever since Joey had figured out that the other girls in her class wore barrettes and ribbons in their hair and that their mommies put them in there, well, no one’s touched Joey’s hair but Joey since then. She doesn’t even let Jensen help her take a bath anymore, makes him stand outside the door to remind her to wash behind her ears, don’t rinse with dirty bathwater, and dry off with a towel before she gets dressed. He’d been pretty sure she washed her hair with bar soap until he noticed the bottle of coconutty salon brand shampoo that Mom used to use somehow made it out from under the sink and into the bucket with Joey’s bubble bath and rubber duck. He buys it special for her now, conditioner, too, and puts it in her bath bucket without mention. It’s been at least two years since he’s seen her hair, but he figures it must not be a giant knotted mess. The school still screens for head lice a couple times a year, and so far, social services hasn’t come pounding down his door to tell him his sister’s got an ant farm under her cap.
“Huh.” Jared straightens, worries at his lower lip. “Well, that’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, “too bad,” and he feels Joey twitch under his hand, start to worm out from behind him, braver now that the boundary has been set.
“That makes me sad, but okay, I guess,” Jared sighs, pouting.
Jensen has no idea what the fuck Jared’s up to, but Joey slinks around in front of him and asks, “Why are you sad?”
“Well, when I was putting things away in my new room, I found a pretty hairbrush and some sparkly barettes I thought would be perfect for the lady of the house. Even found these nifty ponytail elastics.” He pulls a few colored elastic loops out of his pocket. “They’re the kind that don’t get tangled in your hair.” He shrugs. “But hey, if you don’t want ‘em, that’s okay. Now that I think about it, I can probably use ‘em to keep my bangs out of my eyes.”
Oh, he wouldn’t, would he?
Jared grabs a hank of hair on one side of his head and starts winding a purple elastic around it. Apparently, yes, he would. And before the macaroni has cooked to al dente, Jared’s sporting matching pigtails on the top of his head like ears on some little fru-fru lap dog. He pulls two more elastics out of his pocket and sets them on the counter. “Guess I have more holders than hair,” and sets the spares on the counter.
Jensen’s so busy snickering at Jared’s hijinks that he almost misses it when Joey slides her hand up the refrigerator door and along the edge of the counter, slow so slow, like no one’s supposed to notice.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” Her voice is so small, Jensen wants to scoop her up and hold her so her mouth is closer to his ear like she’s a seashell full of mermaid secrets.
Jared sneaks a peek at her out the corner of his eye, and Jensen can almost guarantee the opposite side of his mouth is smirking like crazy. “That depends,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“On what?” Joey asks, twining the elastics around her fingers.
“Well, I don’t know if you have enough hair for pigtails.”
“I do.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I do! See!” The cap slaps down on the counter hard enough to ruffle the bread wrapper, and at least two feet of thick, shiny hair tumbles down across Joey’s shoulders, kinked and wavy from being stuffed up under there for so long.
Jensen doesn’t know where Jared gets his kid whispering skills, but while Jensen fights off the urge to wrap his fingers in his sister’s loose hair, taken aback by how much it looks like Mom’s, Jared gives a casual shrug, stirs the macaroni. “Yup, I guess you do.”
“So, will you teach me?” Her eyes are so big, everything about her softer, and Jensen’s a little ashamed to admit, he’d almost stopped thinking of her as a girl until now. He’s taken aback by just how much he missed her.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Jared says, “but how about after we eat, you and I camp out in the living room and have a hair party, just the two of us?”
“Can we have ribbons?”
“Sure.”
“Barrettes?”
“Okay.”
“Bows?”
“You betcha.”
Next thing Jensen knows, Joey’s plastered against Jared’s leg, and it’s Jared’s hand in her hair, smoothing it back away from her face.
She doesn’t ask if Jared will be her mommy. That’s for Jensen to do.
And he’d be a stupid ass not to ask.
As for alternative lifestyles... seems like they’re already living one.
And kicking ass.
--
Jared turns over carefully on the lumpy couch, wondering exactly why he's awake. He's been sleeping on the piece of furniture long enough to have perfected the art of turning over without either falling off or making the ancient springs creak beneath his weight. He has to squint to read the small red numbers on the VCR display and see that it's ass o'clock in the morning --only about two hours since he first closed his eyes and drifted off. His stomach growls loud enough to make the dog's ears twitch, and he figures it must be the combination of hunger pangs and light pooling into the room from the kitchen that woke him in the first place.
His head hurts, a little like he’s hung over, skull pulled away from his brain, and it’s not until he turns it against the arm of the couch that he remembers it’s in pigtails. Tight pigtails. He doesn’t know how girls put up with this torture. They need to come out, like now. His fingers fumble between the cushions and his throbbing head, and the sharp jolt of hairs being pulled out by the root shocks him into full wakefulness before the first pigtail’s even half out.
That’s when he remembers how he fell asleep on the couch in the first place. How he slept through the ache in his crotch is beyond him. He’s spent half the night with a pillow in his lap waiting for the kids to finally, finally fall into that diabetic coma Jensen had alluded to, only to find out their endurance surpassed his by at least an hour. He must’ve dozed off while he was letting Joey practice on his hair. A quick feel of the other side of his head, and yup, that one’s braided. He must be a sight. A drooling, snoring, aching below the belt, sight.
With a groan, he starts to turn over, disappointed because Jensen’s probably already gone to bed. Except Jared’s feet are kinda stuck. And warm. He wiggles them around, hears the rustle of paper and feels the blunt edge of a belt buckle against his one socked foot. Whatever’s under his casted foot is soft and squishy, and... oops, doesn’t appreciate being smushed under his casted foot. Straining his neck, Jared glances down his body to the end of the couch just in time to see Jensen shift sideways away from his wiggling feet, the newspaper he was reading still sprawled over his lap and the obtrusive appendages in it. Aww, Jensen didn’t go to bed without him. But the position he’s in --head drooped over the back of the couch, the cap of a red Sharpie stuck to his bottom lip, and lapful of Jared --can’t be very comfortable.
Jared sits up, swinging his legs carefully out from under the newspaper and off the couch, stretches cramped limbs before trying to stand. He hobbles around the back of the couch and kneels with his mouth close to Jensen’s lolling head. “Jensen. Hey, Jensen. Bed’s waiting.”
He gets nothing more than a half snore and a splayed hand across his face, smooshing his lips sideways before he leans away. Jensen smacks his lips together, dislodging the pen cap, which falls into the newspaper. “Here, lemme get that for ya,” Jared whispers, sliding the red pen out of Jensen’s slack hand and reaching for the cap. It rolls away into the depression between Jensen’s thighs and lands on a circled ad. Jared’s curiosity is piqued. Just what is Jensen looking for in the Classifieds, anyway?
He leans closer, over Jensen’s shoulder so as not to block out the thin ray of light streaming in from the kitchen. The fixture above the sink gives off enough light for Jared to read the ad Jensen has circled about ten times in his evil red pen. He almost swallows his tongue when he realizes the ad is looking for single guys age twenty to forty to provide "companionship" to a select and professionally vetted group of clients.
Jensen plans to become a high end escort, selling his companionable self to put food on the table? Oh, hell no!
Jared’s got half a mind to take Jensen by his outstretched neck and throttle some sense into him. Hasn’t he figured out yet that the money doesn’t matter? Besides, Jensen has Jared now, and as soon as Jensen’s back to work, Jared’s got money coming in, too. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t comment on his clothes. Kids from the high school come in all the time asking how much a pair of his jeans would cost to make. And just last week, the dance team coach came in to price costumes for the whole squad. He hasn’t told Jensen about it, yet. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but now that he has his sewing machine, there’s nothing to keep him from going to town and starting his own line. His clothes are one of a kind originals. He can pretty much set his own prices.
Jensen’s gonna let him contribute to this family if Jared has to... Ugh!
He reads the ad again, to make sure he understood it the first time, and if anything, that makes him furious. The thought of complete strangers putting their hands on Jensen, on Jensen’s body, on his lips. Fuck, Jared’s barely even had the chance to touch him, yet, and Jensen is his dammit! Suddenly possessive, Jared cups Jensen’s jaw and fastens their lips together, probing and licking between Jensen’s slack jaws until he’s inside, stroking Jensen awake from roof of his mouth to the tip of his tongue. There’s only a half-grunted ‘hmmph’ of surprise before Jensen’s caught up in the tide with him, tipping his head back even farther to give Jared better access as Jared’s hand slides down the front of his chest, and under the newspaper.
Jared gets the top button of Jensen’s jeans unfastened and his fingertips inside as far as the elastic of Jensen’s boxer briefs before Jensen catches his wrist and draws away, sitting up straight enough to look Jared in the eye. “Not that I don’t think this is my favorite wake up ever, but what’s with all the urgency?”
“I dunno,” Jared pants, “thought maybe I’d get what I could before the price goes up.”
“The price of wha...? Oh.” Jensen peers down at the newspaper in his lap, a smirk tugging the corner of his mouth.
“Jensen! You think selling yourself for money is a joke? I know they word those ads so the don’t actually say it’s prostitution, but everyone knows it is. And you’re...”
“I’m what?” Jensen asks.
“You’re mine!” Okay, Jared didn’t really mean to say that. He does have other very logical, very rational, convincing reasons why Jensen should not be circling ads for male escorts, but since when does Jared have control of his mouth?
“Oh, I am, am I?” And the bastard just looks too damned pleased with himself.
“Well, yeah.” Jared hears the pout creep into his voice, looks down at the floor to hide his disappointment. “I thought you... we...” His voice cuts out completely.
“Oh, hell,” Jensen says, “I can’t tease you anymore.” Jared feels Jensen’s hand under his chin and looks up. “I was just pulling your chain. I was a little pissed at you for falling asleep on me, and pissed at myself for not having the heart to wake you up, and all I had was the stupid Classified ads to keep me company, so I set you up.”
“You weren’t really planning to sell yourself to pay the bills?”
Jensen shakes his head. “Are you kidding? My mom would roll over in her grave. Worse. She’d come back and beat my ass with a rolling pin.”
Jared’s too relieved to be angry, lets his forehead fall against Jensen’s chin. “Oh, thank God. I didn’t wanna have to lock you in the basement for the rest of your life.” He jerks back, putting Jensen at arm’s length. “But why did you have the Classifieds open in the first place?”
Looking down, Jensen rubs his hand up and down Jared’s forearm where it rests over his chest. “That was supposed to be a surprise.”
“Another surprise?”
“Well, yeah. I actually was looking for a job.”
“But you have a job. The diner’s about all you can handle. If you think I’m going to let you take on more after all this...”
Jensen’s hand tightens on Jared’s elbow, grounding him before he can fly off on an emotional tirade. “Jared, I’m selling the diner. Misha’s been asking me to for years. His offer’s more than fair. I just. I wanted to have something else lined up before I told you.”
“You’re...” Jared searches Jensen’s eyes for any hint that this is just another leg of the practical joke relay he’s been on since he woke up, but there’s no doubt Jensen’s serious. “Your store? Jensen, that’s...” He doesn’t know where he gets the strength or agility after being crouched on the floor for so long, but he flings himself over the back of the couch, ends up draped over Jensen, chest to chest, one hand bracing himself up on the cushions. “Wow!” He can’t resist going in for another kiss, this one rough and exuberant, fingers fisted in the front of Jensen’s shirt.
When it breaks up, Jensen touches his bruised lips tentatively, looks down his nose at Jared’s mouth. “I hope you’re still that excited about it when the money runs out and I’m working some minimum wage job in the fertilizer plant to put food on the table.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Jared says, smoothing his hand over Jensen’s stomach. “You got me to help out around here. And besides, you’re amazing, Jensen. You sing, you dance, you write your own music, act, direct, produce. You should take the money from the diner and produce your own show.”
“Dude,” Jensen huffs, head falling back against the arm of the couch again. “I wouldn’t even know where to start on something that huge. And what if it flopped?”
Now Jared does shake him, finishes with a brisk rub of knuckles over Jensen’s sternum. “Have a little faith. Do what works. Musicals are huge right now, right? Hell, look at High School Musical, and Mamma Mia, and there was that one with the Beatles score, and Xanadu... dude, Moulin Rouge! Need I say more?”
“All right, I agree with you that musical production sounds right up my alley, but just so you know, Moulin Rouge is sacred. It belongs nowhere in the same sentence as Xanadu, thank you very much. You’re dooming me to failure by even suggesting I attempt something of that calibre.”
“Failure’s just another word for experience. You gotta start somewhere. Hey!” Jared’s arm twists around Jensen’s waist and turns him so they’re facing. “You know what I’d love to see?”
Cross-eyed from the proximity and suddenly breathing harder under Jared’s hand, “What?”
“A musical set to the score of Air Supply’s greatest hits.” And he knows he’s got a terrible singing voice, but he can’t help but sing, “Young looooovveee, so stroooong, has never been a part of meeeeee,” before he nuzzles under Jensen’s jaw, his hand sliding lower under the newspaper.
Then, Jensen’s not just breathing harder, he’s guffawing in laughter, his belly undulating like a cobra in a pillowcase. “Air Supply? Seriously? That’s kinda...”
“Gay?” Jared finishes for him.
“Well, yeah. Isn’t it?”
“Not as gay as this,” Jared snickers, finally sliding his hand past the elastic of Jensen’s underwear and finding him more than half hard inside. He gives a quick stroke up from root to tip and relishes the way Jensen’s laughter cuts off abruptly, hips twitching up so the newspaper crackles between them.
“Probably...” hard swallow as Jensen’s chin tips down, “probably not.” Then, he’s bucking into Jared’s hand, opening his mouth to Jared’s delving tongue, breathing in gasps and pants as Jared tugs faster, matching the rhythm of his hand with that of his mouth so Jensen arches up off the couch, the rest of his body seeming to levitate between two points of intense stimulation.
Jared breaks away for a second, licking down Jensen’s jaw and over his collar bone while his hand works Jensen’s jeans and underwear down his hips to the tops of his thighs. Jensen barely gets enough breath in his chest to mumble, “The kids...”
Jared tongues Jensen’s ear lobe, grins at the little squeak that elicits before he engulfs Jensen’s cock in his hand once more and says, “Then shut up, and don’t move the newspaper.”
“Mmkay,” Jensen huffs. He opens his mouth, twisting his chin around to meet Jared’s lips, and Jared can’t help but stop and stare, his own mouth parted just inches from Jensen’s, unable to move closer and risk throwing the whole scene out of focus. Instead, he teases Jensen with his breath, watches Jensen open wider in anticipation only to be disappointed when Jared draws back, blows along the line of Jensen’s jaw and into his ear while his hand speeds up beneath the newspaper.
Jared’s hips grind into a throwpillow, not having a hand free to even undo his own pants. He hasn’t gotten off from humping a pillow since... well, how the hell should he know, but he’s got enough graphic imagery flashing through his mind at that moment to know he’s not naive. And fuck, he’d love to take even one of those pictograph scenarios and play it out right here, but that’s not going to happen. The kids are still upstairs, and Jensen’s way too close already.
Fuck it. Jared lurches forward and up so his cock gets more friction, one arm sliding under Jensen’s arched back and clawing into the arm of the couch on the other side. He times his downward thrusts to the upward pull of his hand, closes his eyes and grinds against Jensen from chest to clavicle, his nose buried against Jensen’s throat so the heady scent of arousal and sweat floods his senses. For long, tense seconds, that’s all there is between them, panting breath and writhing, clinging touches, the thwap-a-thwap-a-thwap of the newspaper against the back of Jared’s hand. It dissolves into a slippery wet slide as Jensen heaves out his release, back arching, his arms vice tight, clenching and holding for all he’s worth until Jared whites out and slides down after him.
Jensen’s already sound asleep, fingers threaded in Jared’s hair, by the time Jared lifts his head from the puddle of drool he made on Jensen’s shirt front. He considers getting up and going to bed for all of five seconds, then decides this is just too comfy. He’s spent weeks on this couch already. One more night won’t hurt a thing. The last thing he manages to do is button Jensen’s pants before he lets himself succumb to sleep as well, his head pillowed on Jensen’s stomach.
--
“I swear, I didn’t realize it was so messy back here.” Jared roots around in the crew compartment of the truck, stuffing trash into plastic grocery bags. “I’d have cleaned it out sooner.”
Jensen does his best to look put out, leaning against the passenger door with his arms crossed over his chest. He’d let Jared off the hook, but the mortified expression he got on his face when he opened the cab and two empty soda cans rolled out was bordering on adorable, and at this angle, bent over with his shorts/gaucho pants/hula skirt riding up (honestly, where does he get these inspirations?) Jared isn’t exactly hard on the eyes. Jensen happens to know that most of that stuff has been back there, strewn across the floor boards and under the seats, longer than Jared’s been in the family. He just hopes Jeremy hasn’t been ‘entertaining’ anyone in the back seat.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jensen finally says. “I’ll ride in front.” It’s a tease more than anything. He suspects the primary reason that Jared’s insisting on Jeremy driving is because Jared wants to sit next to Jensen, and the front just has bucket seats with one of those useless center console seats.
“Can’t,” Jared inists. “Jake called shotgun, and Joey wants the armrest seat thingie.”
“Hate to break it to you, Jay, but Joey’s gotta use the booster seat. We get stopped for anything at all, and they see her sitting on that console, lap belt or not, we’re gonna have some serious ‘splainin’ to do with CPS. I’m pretty sure that seat’s only legal for hauling home drunks after you take away their car keys.” Jensen’s not kidding about that much, and he can tell by the way Jared’s muscles tense under the exposed skin above the row of rhinestones on his waistband, that Jared takes it as a criticism of his parenting skills. Time was, Jensen would’ve liked nothing better than to make Jared feel small and inadequate, but that time’s past. Sliding up behind Jared, Jensen smooths his hands over the exposed strip of skin and tugs the t-shirt down over it, hands sliding to Jared’s hips. “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know. And hey, that booster seat takes up a lot of room. You and I’re practically gonna have to sit in each other’s laps.”
Jared sighs, some of the tension melting away under Jensen’s fingertips. “Ooh, promise?” Standing up, Jared shifts his weight from one side to the other, not exactly wiggling his ass, but the intent is clear as he leers over his shoulder.
“I promise not to leave you on the side of the road. Aside from that...”
Jared tilts his chin up and looks over the top of Jensen’s head. “What’s that? Did you say something? Jensen?” Then he glances down, feigns surprise. “Oh, there you are. Y’know, I think maybe you need the booster seat more than Joey. She can sit on my lap. I know she won’t threaten to throw me out.”
“And I’ll be sure to have her put some more of those pigtails in your hair.”
“Ooh!” Jared’s head jerks back, face pinched in a tight grimace as he massages the sides of his head. “God, no. Those elastics are a farse. I swear I’m missing a handful of hair from each side of my head now. Won’t get tangled, my ass.” He stops massaging and adopts a devious expression, mouth down to Jensen’s ear. “Of course, under the right circumstances, getting my hair ripped out could be all kinds of fun. I bet pigtails make great handles...” Jensen’s nerve endings spark like Jared’s a static charge and Jensen’s a stainless steel countertop. Every follicle on his body rises to attention... every follicle, but before the imminent electrical pop and snap, Jared backs off, a chuckle rumbling in his throat. “You’re so freaking adorable when you blush.”
Jensen begs to differ. There’s nothing adorable about a grown man turning patriotic, red above the belt, blue below, and one white strip between where his belt’s gotten really tight. He means to say as much, but finds his Adam’s apple lodged behind his soft palate as Jared stoops back down and continues cleaning the trash off the floorboards. Jensen’s predicament doesn’t get any less complicated when he glances up from under his eyelashes at the patches of taut thigh muscle peeking out from behind the long strips of denim swaying to just below his knees-- a Jared-original hybrid between gaucho pants and a hula skirt. On anyone else, it’d be a ‘People of Wal-Mart’ caption contest waiting to happen. But on Jared, it’s the fashion wave of the future. Guy could sell bubble gum as denture adhesive. Only Jared... Jensen’s Jared.
He’s snapped out of his ogling when Jared mumbles, “What the hell?”
Jensen stiffens, because seriously, Jared could’ve uncovered just about any number of things under that seat, and most are bound to be embarrassing. “Huh?” It seems to be the most appropriate response.
“What is this?” Jared straightens, dangling something from his fingertips and one outstretched arm like it might be radioactive or contagious.
Luckily, Jensen knows the answer to that question. “Um, those’re chaps.” He’d completely forgotten his costume change in the back of the truck in the wake of ketchup cap pistols and canceled venues. “One of my old costumes. From when I did... that acting thing.”
“Ohhh.” Jared eyeballs the white leather and rearranges it until it actually resembles an article of clothing. “A little risque aren’t they?” he asks, turning them around back to front. “You really wore assless chaps on stage?”
Jensen snorts and snags the chaps out of Jared’s hands. “All chaps are assless, you dumbass. You’re supposed to wear them over jeans.”
Biting at the corner of his lip with an obvious blush creeping up his cheeks, Jared says, “But... you don’t have to, do you?”
Jensen leans in, taking his turn to inflict a little... patriotism, but he can’t go through with it, ends up laughing as he tosses the chaps into a bag to be taken into the house later. “As long as there are kids in the house, yes. Yes. Yes.”
“And if there aren’t?”
“When does that ever happen?” His voice is slightly more bitter than he intends.
Aside from that (awesome) makeout session on the couch and the ‘help’ Jensen had given Jared getting in and out (and off in) the bathtub the night before, his and Jared’s physical relationship is stalled out somewhere around the purple properties on the Monopoly board. Jensen knows he’s holding up the show. It’s not like he doesn’t want to, and it’s not like he hasn’t before, just never with Jared. And for some reason, it feels like everyone’s got a vested interest in his and Jared’s sex life. It’s like every time he even starts to think of Jared that way, he suddenly feels the gaze of a half dozen eyeballs at his back. A dairy farmer spent less time heat checking his prize heifers. Life was so much easier when casual sex was just casual and didn’t vicariously involve everyone else in his life.
On cue, Joey comes running down the porch. “Jensen! Jake pulled my hair!” Both men turn to catch her as she barrels into them at full speed. All in all, it’s not a bad problem to have. Joey’s still wearing her baseball cap, but her hair’s in pigtails and pokes out from beneath the band (which is now held together with black tape, since it wouldn’t adjust tight enough to stay on without her hair stuffed underneath.)
“He’s just jealous,” Jensen offers.
“Am not!” Jake skulks up behind. Five a.m. is definitely not his time of the morning, but Jensen’s proud to see him up, anyway. A few weeks ago, he’d never have gotten the kids to agree to spend a Saturday down at the store. This morning, they got themselves up and ready without more than a few exaggerated yawns over breakfast.
Jared lifts Joey up and sets her in the booster seat on the far side of the cab. “Are too!” she rebuts.
“Not!” Jake argues, sliding into the shotgun seat as Jeremy rounds the driver side.
Jared makes a show of ‘helping’ Jensen in the back beside Joey. Jensen knows a grope when he feels one. Of course, that doesn’t stop him from sitting just a little big closer to Jared than he has to in order to avoid getting crushed against the booster seat. And if, somewhere during the trip from home to store Jared’s hand slides off Jensen’s knee and in between his thighs, fingertips absently stroking over the inseam, Jensen doesn’t exactly swat him away.
--
The first bus of Solo and Ensemble competitors shows up in the parking lot behind the diner within a half hour of opening. Within ten minutes students are lined up at the counter ordering everything from plain biscuits with no butter to full plates of eggs, sausage, and pancakes. Seriously, what kind of parents sent their kids off in the morning without feeding them first? It’s a steady flow in and out the door from that point on. If they don’t come by the busload, they walk the three blocks from the high school. Despite the signs all over the place that dictate the necessity of patrons to bus their own tables, most of them don’t bother, and they don’t tip either. So, Jake and Joey man the frontlines. Jake clears the dishes, and Joey wipes down the tables, half of them decorated with smiley faces made out of salt from the table shakers, or worse, the lo cal sweetener from the little dish of pink and blue packets, because apparently complimentary condiments don’t cost anything and magically replenish themselves.
Jensen’s twitchy, biting his tongue and about three seconds away from turning his guitar into a weapon of mass destruction. Coming here was a bad idea. If it was hard letting people help him out around the house, it’s a thousand times worse watching them do his job when he’s not allowed to help, and Jared’s idea for him to sit in the front window and play his guitar like this is some kind of coffee shop isn’t making him feel useful at all. He’s finally had enough when Jake hauls the heaping dish pan past a table of guys wearing letter jackets from a rival school with drumsticks poking out of their pockets and mirrored sunglasses hiding their eyes, and one of the SOBs piles another stack of plates onto the load.
Leaping up from his stool, Jensen manages to catch the toppling tower of dishes before it hits the floor. He sets the load down on the drummers’s table hard enough to rattle the silverware in the next booth. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he glowers. “You’ve been finished eating for half an hour, and there are people lined up outside waiting for a seat.”
“Not our problem,” the closest kid spouts off. The rest fold their arms and lean back in agreement. “We’re still trying to decide if we want dessert or not.”
“We’re out.”
“Menu says you got pie. We want pie.”
Jensen’s about to tell him what he can do with his pie when a hand tightens on his shoulder and a half dozen Little Debbie fudge brownies drop onto the table in front of him.
“Sorry, guys,” Jared says, hand soothing over the tight muscles in Jensen’s back, “all out of our usual dessert items, but Little Debbie’s on the house so long as you take it ‘to go.’ We really need the table.”
The brownies disappear into pockets in a flash, just the whisper of cellophane crinkling to indicate they were ever there, and the group heads for the door before Jared can change his mind. With a huff, Jensen picks up the dish pan only to have Jared take it from him and set it down on the next table. “Jeremy will get that.”
“I can do it, Jared.”
“That’s not the point, Jen. You promised me you wouldn’t. And you know what that means.”
“No!”
Jared smirks waggling his eyebrows. “You promised.”
“You can’t be serious.” Sure, there had been a little stipulation Jensen agreed to when Jared allowed him to come down here today, but he never actually expected to have to follow through.
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no way I’m doing that.”
“Oh, you’ll do it, all right.” By now, Jared’s expression’s shifted through worried to perturbed to devious to downright... gleeful.
Jensen jerks his head around, eyeing the room full of juvenile delinquents, half of which he’s sure are ogling Jared’s ass, the bastards. “People will think we’re nuts.”
“So what?” Jared smirks. He leads Jensen by the hand over to the jukebox in the corner. Jensen doesn’t know why he lets himself be led, but he goes along, expecting Jared to let him off the hook at any second.
“So, I’m not doing it.”
Jared puts his dollar in the machine and makes a selection, then turns Jensen around, so they’re facing, hands clasped at shoulder height. “The deal was, if you tried to do any of the work, you’d have to dance with me.”
“How is dancing less strenuous than bussing a table?”
“Because bussing tables is work. Dancing is good for the soul.” The music starts blaring from the jukebox, the unmistakable harmonica introduction to “All I Want is You,” from the movie Juno. “Now, dance, monkey, dance!”
Jensen stands stock still, his arms limp as Jared does his best imitation polka which is really just stomping his one good foot up and down and waving his and Jensen’s arms from side to side. “I’m not dancing,” Jensen sulks.
Jared doesn’t argue, just shrugs and starts to sing along to the lyrics. “Iff I was a flower growing wild and free, all I’d want is you to be my sweet honey bee.”
God, he’s terrible. Jared might be a kid whisperer and a good hand around the kitchen, possibly even borderline brilliant with a sewing machine, but a musician, he is not. Not only is he completely tone deaf, but he has no idea what his indoor voice is. “And if you were a kiss I know I’d be a huuuuugggg.” Everyone in the store has stopped eating and turned their eyes on Jensen and Jared, and Jared’s just bellering away like a cow in heat, completely oblivious to anything but Jensen. And Jensen? Can’t help but laugh.
“Oh, what the hell.” Jensen tightens his hands around Jared’s, catches the rhythm, and starts to dance. It’s wildly exaggerated, the two of them pivoting around Jared’s cast, squatting up and down in an oompa, oompa, oompa, alternating which is the oom- and which is the -pa on every other beat, all the while laughing like they’ve just been let in on the best joke ever.
On the final beat, Jensen goes a little wide and trips on a chair, flails backward only to have Jared catch him and pin him up against the jukebox to stop his fall. The next thing he knows, they’re chest to chest, breathing heavy in front of a room full of strangers, and Jensen only thinks for a second about ducking away when Jared leans in to kiss him.
--
By four o’clock, the kids have all cleared out, Jensen’s fingers are sore from playing, and his toes are sore from dancing, because it turns out, he’s pretty hard-headed when it comes to not working, and Jared’s cast doesn’t know when it’s standing on toes instead of floor. Jensen’s lost an E string from playing, which was actually sorta fun after he set up a tip jar and started taking requests. Interestingly enough, the jar filled up faster once Jared let slip that Jensen writes some of his own songs and people started asking for those. The crowd might’ve been mostly ill-mannered and disrespectful teenagers, all too aware of just how out from under their parents’s thumbs they were, but they were music lovers. It’s not something Jensen would ever consider doing again, but it beat working behind the counter, and the feedback was helpful.
Overall, what should’ve been a nerve-wracking day in which strokes were had by all, hasn’t turned out so bad. Jensen attributes that to Jared and his bomb-defusing, stroke averting lips of doom. He’s having circulation issues of a whole other variety at this point, but Jensen thinks he’ll live to see his head not explode in the near future. Other parts of his body are due to erupt at any moment.
They’re closing up early, because there’s nothing left to serve, anyway, and Jensen can’t seem to wipe the stupid grin off his face as he watches Jared wipe down tables.
“Did you get everything sorted out with Misha?” Jared asks, spraying the next booth with sanitizer and brushing errant crumbs to the floor.
“Yup,” Jensen says. “It’ll take a couple of weeks to get the papers around, and I’m still going to help out around here until he gets more hands, but as an employee, not the resident number cruncher.” Jensen can’t help himself. He slides up behind Jared, hands going around Jared’s hips. It’s funny how bad dancing, terrible singing, and very public exchanging of saliva seem to have obliterated whatever remaining inhibitions Jensen had about being with Jared. If embarrassment is the world’s most effective inhibitor, then at this point, Jensen’s so thoroughly desensitized to it that he should be pretty much unstoppable. So, yeah, he wants his hands on Jared right now. Therefore, he puts his hands on Jared. He can’t remember the last time being this selfish felt this good.
“Just part time, though, right?” Jared turns around and sits on the edge of the table, makes room for Jensen between his knees. “You need time to work out what you’re going to do next,” tugging Jensen forward by the belt loops, “and unfinished business at home, if you know what I mean.”
Oh boy, does Jensen know. “Only part time.” Jensen grins and leans in for another kiss, gets pegged in the back of the head with a sponge. “Hey!” He wheels around, expecting to see Jeremy smirking at him from behind the counter. Instead, it’s Christian fucking Kane, polishing his usual stool with his ass. “We’re out of food, Kane. Take your ass home to your wife.”
“I just need coffee to tide me over. Carrie’s gonna swing by here and meet me. Then, we’re going into Austin for dinner.”
“Date night?”
Kane shrugs. “More like a celebration.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of celebration?”
“The kind where she’s not allowed to drink anything, and I promise to drink enough for all three of us,” Kane says with a stupid, loopy grin.
“Well, you dirty...” Jensen crosses the floor in three steps, traps Chris in a giant hug before the sneaky bastard could duck away. “You finally snuck one past the defensive line, didn’t you?” Stepping away with a couple of firm claps on the back, Jensen can tell from Chris’s sheepish expression that he’s right. “Dude, that’s awesome.”
“No doubt,” Jared agrees, giving Chris the same treatment. Breaking the hug, he steps back with Christian at arm’s length. “Is that what that little powwow was about earlier?”
“Powwow?” Chris asks.
“Yeah, you and that guy in the corner booth.” Jared starts wiping down the counter as he speaks. “Big guy, beard, hat pulled way down over his eyes. I was getting a weird vibe off of him, like he was waiting for something, or looking for someone. I was on my way over to talk to him when you sat down. Seemed like you knew him, so I left it alone.”
“Ohhhh, yeah, yeah,” Chris dismisses with a chuckle. “Guy I paid to surprise Carrie with flowers at work. He’s from out of town. Needed directions since no one around here delivers.” Jared accepts that answer with a nod, but Jensen knows Chris well enough to see the subtle change in his color.
“Well, aren’t you husband of the year all of the sudden,” Jensen chides, narrowing his gaze.
Chris gives a quick ‘leave it alone’ shake of his head, “I dunno. From what I hear, Misha’s gunning for the title.”
“No way, Misha?” Jensen’s momentarily caught off guard. Admittedly, he hasn’t seen much of Misha today, what with Jensen stuck out front and Misha in the back, but come to think of it, Grace was in three different times that day, and she’s usually just a breakfast before school kind of customer. “And Grace?” he ventures, putting two and two together.
“I calls it like I sees it.” Chris always pulls out the hick drawl when he changes the subject. For now, Jensen lets him get away with it.
Chuckling to himself, Jensen says, “So, Grace finally found her saint.”
“Dude,” Jared pipes in, “she looks at him like a freakin’ angel of the Lord.”
“Fallen angel, but I do my best.” Misha emerges from the kitchen carrying all the newly-washed, stainless steel warming pans. “Speaking of which,” he glances at his wristwatch and kicks into a higher gear, dishtowel flung over his shoulder as he re-assembles the warming bin. “Grace is coming by in half an hour. The local youth group is having a lock-in down at the roller skating rink for kids of all ages. I didn’t wanna say anything in front off Jake and Joey, but we’re taking Grace’s boys. We’d love to take Jake and Joey along, too. Repay ‘em for all their hard work today, seein’ as we can’t really pay ‘em, child labor laws being what they are.”
“A lock-in?” Jensen asks, suddenly concerned. “Don’t those usually run all night?”
“’Til ten a.m,” Misha nods, wiping his hands and leaving the towel on the hand-rail of the grill.
“Wow, well... all night... I...” Jensen’s skin is suddenly too tight with the drawstring at his throat like a choke collar. “I don’t think they’ve ever...” He doesn’t know why he’s stammering. This is a blessing, right? He’s been keeping Jared lifting cars all week by using the kids as an excuse, and now they have a legitimate distraction to keep the kids out of the house all night. But they’ve never been out the whole night before. And Jensen’s never been completely alone with Jared before. Between the two new horizons there’s enough unexplored territory to make Jensen wanna dive into the nearest prairie dog burrow and never come out.
“It’s a church group, Jensen,” Chris adds. “They’ll be fine.” Fucking Kane gives a not-so-subtle jerk of his head to the table Jared’s bent over in the corner, ass shimmying in time to the sweeping motion of his bulging arms. Jensen swallows, not sure if it’s panic or lust rising, or rather, which is rising fastest.
“I’ll make sure they’re fine.” Jeremy’s been wrestling a cart full of freshly stocked napkin holders through the swinging door into the back, adds his two cents worth.
“Wait?” Jensen says. “You’re going?”
“I wasn’t planning on it, but it’ll be fun for the kids, and I’m not doing anything else. Besides,” Jeremy blushes, suddenly engrossed in rearranging the condiments on every table, “...I thought...” clearing his throat, “You and Jared... maybe...”
“You people do know I’m capable of cleaning and listening at the same time,” Jared snickers, dropping his cleaning tote on the counter before wrapping his arms around Jensen’s waist, dropping his head on one shoulder. “And I want a vote, too.”
Jensen laughs, one of those nervous, half-hysterical laughs that can either escalate into rib-cracking guffaws or deteriorate into tears with just one miscalculated breath. “Do I even need to ask?”
Jared nuzzles against the shell of his ear, eliciting a ticklish squeak, and says, “Pleeeeeasse, Jen-nyyyyyyy.”
“You call me that again, and there’ll be no more bubble baths for you.” Jensen’s almost positive he’s whispering, but the color rising on Chris and Misha’s cheeks, the manly grunt Kane gives as he shoves his thumbs into his belt loops, suggest that maybe Jensen doesn’t know how to use his indoor voice either. He blames it on the sound of his own heart pounding against his eardrums.
“Pleasseeee, Jennn-nnnyyy!” The kids dart out from under the counter and latch onto one each of Jensen’s thighs. Little sneaks.
How can he say no? How could he even want to say no? He can’t, and he doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean everyone can just gang up on him like this and get off easy. “I dunno,” Jensen waffles. “You’ve been working all day. I bet you’ll fall asleep and miss half the fun.”
“No we won’t!” The kids promise.
“And the roller skating rink? That means you’ll need money for video games, I assume?”
The kids nod shyly.
“And for soda and food?”
“Anything that’s not pizza,” Misha offers. “The youth group’s paying for pizza.”
“You know I’ve been out of work for a couple of weeks. We’re a little short on...Ah, hell...” He can’t jerk them around. “You can have whatever’s in my tip jar. But split it evenly, you understand?”
“Yay!”
He doesn’t know if that’s a yes or a no, but Jared squeezes him so hard right then, he either comes off the floor for a few seconds or just loses sensation in his toes.
While Jake and Joey dump the change out onto the tables and divvy it up, Jensen asks, “You’re sure it’s okay? They won’t be interfering with yours and Grace’s evening?”
“Jensen, half the kids in town are going to be there. If by interfere you mean, won’t laugh at my cheesy jokes or come to my puppet show, then, it’ll be fine.”
“Puppet show?” Jensen boggles.
“Don’t ask.”
Jensen’s too preoccupied with the heat of Jared at his back, giant hands stroking up and down Jensen’s forearms to remember what he’s not supposed to ask about. Uncharted territory or not, there’s no turning back now.
--
Everyone clearing out of the diner, the last being Chris and his wife, Carrie, on the way to their celebration dinner in Austin, has the strange effect of somehow increasing the amount of the empty space Jensen takes up just by being Jensen. Jared’s Jensen, with that little sheen of sweat on his brow and the deer in headlights amount of extra white around his eyes, doing his best to be all cool and... male, the closer they get to being alone together. They haven’t actually touched since Chris’s wife showed up. Somehow Jensen squirmed out of Jared’s arms to hug Carrie the same way he had Chris, and then found himself somewhere else to stand. First, at the counter, then behind it, then atop one of the little two-seater tables with his back pressed to the wall, ankles crossed and fingers tucked up under his arms.
Jared’s doing his best not to take it personally. He gets that Jensen’s barely out of the closet (even though, from what Chris and Misha have told Jared, everyone deserves way more credit for putting two and two together than Jensen gives them.) It’s one thing to have everyone in town speculating about your sex life. It’s something else entirely to have people going out of their way to accommodate it and being none too subtle in the process. You’d think their bedroom had an observation lounge or something, the way everyone has vested themselves in making sure it gets some use.
If Jared wasn’t currently dying from the chronic, fast becoming acute, effects of delayed sexual gratification, he’d be a little self conscious himself at this point. But he’s not self conscious. He’s too busy being Jensen conscious. And right now, he’s hyper aware of the way the muscles at the small of Jensen’s back tense up under his hand as he guides them out the door to the truck. “Guess what?” Jared asks.
“What?”
“Since our chauffeur has other obligations, you get to drive.”
“You’re not afraid I’ll strain something? I dunno, my big toe? My right ass cheek?” Jared knows it’s supposed to be genuine sarcasm (oxymoron, much?) but it’s hard to miss the lingering note of bitterness at the end.
Hand on the door handle, Jared swings it open with a creaking groan, and says, “Not if I do this.” Before Jensen can squirm away, Jared catches him by the hips and hoists him into the driver’s seat. They end up with Jared standing between Jensen’s knees, all the better to kiss him, his pretty.
Except Jensen bats Jared’s hands off his thighs and hops back down to the ground causing Jared to stumble back a step. “I can do it myself,” he huffs. “I’m not a fucking girl.”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Jared ducks his head away. He should’ve known this wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing’s been easy since the day he washed up on the sand. “Um, I don’t know if you noticed, but neither am I. That’s supposed to be what makes this fun.” Leaning against the truck in an effort to stop the contents of his stomach sloshing around, Jared swallows. “Are you having fun, Jensen?”
“No!” Jensen snips, then immediately retracts it. “Yes... I... I just don’t know how to do this.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Jared offers. “First, we stop at the drug store to stock up on... No, wait. First, you let me... Oh, yeah, before that, I kiss you senseless in the alley behind the diner, or you kiss me and rub me off behind the dumpster, or...”
Jensen tries to get back into the truck by kicking his heel up behind him and sliding in backwards. His foot slides off the doorjamb and he slips and falls on his ass, instead, winds up sitting on the running board looking up at Jared with his eyebrows furrowed into dark storm clouds. “Fuck!”
“Or you try to do everything yourself, bust your ass, and I kiss it and make it better.” Jared holds out his hand, which Jensen takes with a snort. He keeps his hand on Jensen’s elbow as Jensen gets back into the truck, and they end up in pretty much the same position they started out in, Jared between Jensen’s knees, a hand cupping each thigh. Despite being pretty much eyeball to eyeball at this point, Jensen keeps his gaze fixed over Jared’s shoulder, his bottom lip pinched between his teeth. “Hey,” Jared says. Then, fingertips to Jensen’s chin he repeats, “Hey, look at me.” Jensen does, and whatever bit of obstinate, stubborn, male pride or whatever the fuck it is that’s screwing with his head, flickers and dies, leaving just the original spark at the bottom of the fire pit... fear. “There’s no right way to do... this, whatever ‘this’ is. We just wing it, the same way we’ve been doing it all along.” He gives each of Jensen’s pant legs a tug to smooth them out and lifts his hands away. “Or we can stop. It’s your call.”
Jensen sucks his lower lip in a little farther on the leading edge of a deep, rattling breath, and Jared’s convinced he’s about to be let down. There’s no way that will be easy, but Jared did say he could wait forever. He’s not about to make a liar out of himself, even if he half suspects he was just quoting random Air Supply lyrics when he said it in the first place. He backs up half a step as if to dodge an invisible blow.
He doesn’t get very far.
--
TBC
A/N: Only one part today. The next two parts really need to be together. I'll try to have them up tomorrow. Happy New Year!
Part Eight
Jensen's not surprised when Jared wraps his eight foot arms around his back. Jared’s a whole other person from the ungrateful, spoiled brat Jensen first met all those... God, has it only been weeks, well, yeah Jared hasn’t even got his cast off yet... a whole other person than the Jared he met all those weeks ago. What does surprise him is Jared nuzzling at his neck; five o'clock shadow rubbing against five o'clock shadow is a completely foreign sensation to him, but apparently one his body seems to have an appreciation for. A few tentative scrapes below his jawbone, warm breath against his throat, and Jensen’s blood starts pooling below his belt.
"Uh, Jared? What are you doing?" As if he can't feel the teeth nipping at his ear lobe.
"I'd think that's obvious, Jensen. I'm doing my best to thank you for being such a thoughtful guy." Jared's speaking right into his ear, moist breath ghosting over the sensitive skin he's been nibbling on, and it takes Jensen's brain a few seconds to realize they're moving. Jared's hands bracket his hips as he slowly maneuvers Jensen further into the room. “Can you hear me...” thigh between bowed legs, rhinestones clicking against belt buckle, “...now?”
He shouldn’t be able to. What, with his blood pressure rising behind his eardrums, but then, Jared’s probably not addressing his ears. So, yeah, loud and clear, but, "The kids..."
"The kids are in the other room, and I highly doubt they're paying attention to us. Now, if you could pay attention to us? I'm trying to kiss you senseless here."
Senseless must not mean what Jensen thinks it means, because nothing gets dull or numb, despite the fact that Jared’s... God... really fucking good at the kissing. On the other hand, if senseless means stupid, then it’s working. Man, is it working. There’s no other explanation for allowing things to go as far as they do (kids in the other room for fuck’s sake) other than being totally caught up in the feel of another person kissing him as if his ability to breathe depends on it. The wet slide of a tongue against his is familiar and yet wholly different from anything Jensen has felt before, not even with Danneel, and he loved her. He’s sure he did. This is? This is? Fuck, he doesn’t know what it is, but it’s good. His brain is trying to catalog every feeling, from Jared's hands sliding over his hip bones to the way the bed shifts beneath their combined weight as Jared pushes him down on the comforter. Long fingers carefully make their way towards Jensen's belt buckle and his lizard brain does a happy dance.
"Hey, Jensen, Misha wants to know if... Holy shit!" Jeremy's exclamation is enough to make Jensen's lizard brain curl into a humiliated ball in the corner.
"Sonofa - "
"Oh fuck me."
"Yeah...if you're gonna do that, close the damn door... morons. God, my eyes!” The last sentence fades into the hall just before the door clicks shut.
Jared’s panting breath gives way to a deep chuckle. “Should’ve hung a towel on the door, I guess.”
“Should’ve closed the door,” Jensen agrees, forehead pressed into Jared’s shoulder like he can will away the blush boiling off the tops of his ears.
Jared either mistakes his gesture as snuggling or just doesn’t grasp the gravity of the situation, slips his hand under Jensen’s shirt tail and around to the small of his back, fingertips dipping below the waistband of Jensen’s jeans. “Now where were we?”
“About to fix dinner,” Jensen huffs, thumbs catching under Jared’s ribs just hard enough that Jared jerks away from the touch on reflex, and Jensen rolls to the side.
Jared looks stunned for all of fifteen seconds before his face softens, then takes on an embarrassed hue of deep red over shocked white. “I’m sorry, I...” His voice is thick and crackles in his throat.
“Don’t be.” Jensen turns so they’re facing each other, heads pillowed on arms, and, with his heart still pounding in his chest, he can’t hear any argument in his head not to reach out, so he does, one hand at Jared’s waist, and strokes over the lowest rib with his thumb. “Just not the right time.”
“Not the right time because of the kids, or because of... us?”
It’s both. Of course, it’s both, because one way it’s just inappropriate, and the other it’s a lie, which makes it the wrong everything --time being just the easiest to excuse. But the way Jensen’s hand feels on Jared seems right, and the part of Jensen that wants to wipe that disappointment and fear off Jared’s face doesn’t care about all the parts of their relationship that are wrong. Is that selfish? Jared wants it, too. The kids? Love Jared. And fuck, he looks like that’s always been his pillow, like this is where he’s supposed to sleep and wake up every day. Jensen’s not selfish if he wants Jared to be happy, and wants the kids to have Jared, if the only thing he wants for himself is to see what Jared looks like when the light comes through the window in the morning and lands where he is now. The bed creaks from his muscles tensing even before he moves, telegraphs the lean across the gap between them so Jared’s ready when Jensen presses their lips together, sighs out all of his apprehension into Jensen’s mouth, follows it with his tongue. Jensen opens and lets Jared in. When he draws back, eyes still closed, his lower lip pillowed between Jared’s, he says, “After the kids are asleep.”
Jared pulls away, his fingers cupped around the side of Jensen’s head, behind his ear and into his hair, tilts his jaw down until Jensen opens his eyes and looks at him. “We don’t have to.”
“I want to... later.” Jensen rolls away and lets his feet thunk down on the floor harder than they need to. “Now, let’s feed the troops and see if we can’t lull them into a diabetic coma for a few hours.”
Jared smacks him with a pillow before he makes it out the door. It almost shakes loose the bubble of panic in his chest.
What the fuck is he doing?
--
Making dinner is a bitch. It’s just macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, but despite having been working all day himself, Jared still insists Jensen’s not fit to cook. Like boiling water and stirring will undo his entire recovery. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the zing up and down his backbone is resentment, hackles rising to defend his provider’s pride. But after almost two weeks of having everyone hovering over him-- ‘Do you need anything, Jensen? Can I help you with that, Jensen? Are you tired, Jensen? Did you finish your dinner?’ -- well, his pride’s over itself. He’s tingling from head to toe, not because Jared steps between him and the stove or reaches over him at the sink and around him at the table, but because Jared’s over, around, and in Jensen’s space, and the guy’s a gravitational force, not just in the space, but part of the fabric of it. The lurch in Jensen’s stomach and in his groin is almost centripetal, accelerating in orbit around Jared.
Jared’s everywhere. His hands are everywhere. His feet are everywhere. His ass... keeps ending up plopped against Jensen’s hands where they’re splayed along the edge of the counter. That can’t be accidental. Neither can the way Jensen’s fingers manage always to thread themselves through Jared’s belt loops be entirely incidental. When his thumb worms its way under the hem of Jared’s t-shirt and strokes over the skin at the small of his back, Jensen catches himself and jerks it out, catches his opposite elbow and drags his straight arm across himself to hide the telltale rise in the front of his own jeans.
Damn Jared for taking the only apron.
Damn Jensen for thinking Jared looks fucking hot in the only apron. With a grunt, he heaves himself away from the counter, pokes his head into the refrigerator if for no other reason than to quash the heat rising under his skin. This? Sucks so hard.
If it was awkward being affectionate with the kids down the hall, it’s horrifying to the point of early onset rigor mortis with them standing in the same room. Jensen’s not sure why. Before things got to be too much for her, Danneel was a regular fixture around the place. Dinner time, movie time, game time, never too shy to slide a hand in his back pocket or thread her long fingers through his belt loops, sitting practically in his lap with her head on his shoulder, hand flat across his stomach. And Jensen never tried to hide it from anyone if he lowered his head enough to breathe in the smell of her hair or twirled strands of it around his fingers. That’s what couples do.
It’s what Mom and Daddy did.
Hence, his current predicament, the paralysis of analysis.
Mom and Daddy. They were... embarrassing. Jensen’s ribs clench with the phantom ache from all the times one of the customers at the diner or one of his friends poked him in the side and pointed him in the direction of whatever corner his parents were kissing in or whichever countertop they were swaying against, tasting whatever sauce or dessert the other was working on. Jensen would be stupid not to want what his parents had; everyone else did. And he does. He wants it, all of it, the stolen moments, the shared touches, the tingle of eyes watching him and wanting what he has.
Thing is, when he imagines it in his head, the thing he has that everyone wants is a girl just like Mom -- an old-fashioned girl.
Danneel was supposed to be his old-fashioned girl.
Jared’s... not. He’s not old-fashioned. Jensen’s not even sure he’s natural. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least if some of Jared’s parents’s millions had been spent on making them the perfect son to accessorize their fortune. Okay, he doesn’t really think that, but there are definitely times he can’t help but think that Jared’s not real. Jensen won’t say ‘too good to be true,’ because he does remember Jared Padalecki. He just doesn’t see that rich, spoiled brat when he looks at Jared ‘Switchfoot.’ Not anymore. Unreal, surreal, supernatural, whatever Jared is, he’s not old-fashioned, and he’s definitely no girl. Jensen’s not sure what people will accept, let alone how he’s supposed to act, what’s expected of him. There’s no script for how this story goes, and Jensen’s usually not comfortable ad libbing until at least the third read-through. So, he’s stuck in Jared’s gravitational pull, trailing along like the tail on a comet at warp speed.
Where’s his space suit? This whole... nakedness... is too much, leaves him open to the unfortunate possibility that he’s thinking with his dick. And his dick? Wants a dude.
A dude, for fuck’s sake. Which is all fine and good, right here and now, between these four walls and in their element, but they can’t stay here forever. They’re not going to fall into that big bed together and emerge two good ol’ boys when they leave the house. People will know. They’ll notice Jared’s not an old-fashioned girl. They’ll notice if Jensen touches him like he is. And they’ll point, nudge each other in the ribs just like they did when it was Mom and Daddy behind the counter, but they won’t be encouraging whoever it is they’re nudging to ‘find themselves a girl like that’ or ‘never doubt there’s someone special out there for them.’ Instead, there will be laughing and snickering, eye rolling and lewd hand gestures.
All of which Jensen could probably get over. He was a theater geek in school, after all. There’s a certain amount of drama stitched into his aura like a sequined stage costume.
But this isn’t just about him. He’s a package deal. People won’t just be pointing and snickering at him or at Jared. Joey and Jake are going to be those ‘alternative lifestyle’ kids, the ones who have to make special projects when everyone else is making Mother’s Day cards and have to explain why they have two daddies, why they call their daddies by name, why Jensen and Jared aren’t really their daddies.
Jeremy’s gonna be the guy whose brother’s a fag.
How can he do that to them?
He doesn’t realize he’s segued from awkwardly stiff to frozen in place until Joey nearly knocks him over, squealing into the space between him and the counter and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Jensen! Help!”
“Whoa!” He jerks in place, braced against the counter, and looks around for Jake on reflex. He’s broken up or been caught in the crossfire of enough Jake/Joey squabbles that he’s cringing inwardly in anticipation of being pinged by a dart gun, slingshot, or pea shooter. Only Jake’s sitting at the table with a sketchpad worrying his lip over some top secret project or other. And Jeremy’s in the other room talking to his girlfriend on the phone. The terror chasing Jensen’s baby sister is Jared, all stooped over, face grinning invitingly like the witch from Hansel and Gretel offering children a bit of gingerbread from her house.
“Dude, what’re ya doing?” There better be a good explanation, because Jensen doesn’t think he can put Jared in timeout for picking on his sister like he would Jake. Hand soothing at the back of Joey’s neck, he steps between the two so Joey’s nose ends up buried against his thigh.
Jared straightens, shrugs, palms up. “I was just saying, it’s good manners to take our caps off at the dinner table, and wouldn’t she like me to brush her hair for her while it’s cooking, so she can look like a proper young lady.”
“Oh... no.” Sliding his hand up so he’s covering Joey’s one ear with his palm and pressing the other into his leg, Jensen leans forward, whispers, “No one touches the cap, Jared. It’s kind of an unwritten law around here.” Ever since Joey had figured out that the other girls in her class wore barrettes and ribbons in their hair and that their mommies put them in there, well, no one’s touched Joey’s hair but Joey since then. She doesn’t even let Jensen help her take a bath anymore, makes him stand outside the door to remind her to wash behind her ears, don’t rinse with dirty bathwater, and dry off with a towel before she gets dressed. He’d been pretty sure she washed her hair with bar soap until he noticed the bottle of coconutty salon brand shampoo that Mom used to use somehow made it out from under the sink and into the bucket with Joey’s bubble bath and rubber duck. He buys it special for her now, conditioner, too, and puts it in her bath bucket without mention. It’s been at least two years since he’s seen her hair, but he figures it must not be a giant knotted mess. The school still screens for head lice a couple times a year, and so far, social services hasn’t come pounding down his door to tell him his sister’s got an ant farm under her cap.
“Huh.” Jared straightens, worries at his lower lip. “Well, that’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, “too bad,” and he feels Joey twitch under his hand, start to worm out from behind him, braver now that the boundary has been set.
“That makes me sad, but okay, I guess,” Jared sighs, pouting.
Jensen has no idea what the fuck Jared’s up to, but Joey slinks around in front of him and asks, “Why are you sad?”
“Well, when I was putting things away in my new room, I found a pretty hairbrush and some sparkly barettes I thought would be perfect for the lady of the house. Even found these nifty ponytail elastics.” He pulls a few colored elastic loops out of his pocket. “They’re the kind that don’t get tangled in your hair.” He shrugs. “But hey, if you don’t want ‘em, that’s okay. Now that I think about it, I can probably use ‘em to keep my bangs out of my eyes.”
Oh, he wouldn’t, would he?
Jared grabs a hank of hair on one side of his head and starts winding a purple elastic around it. Apparently, yes, he would. And before the macaroni has cooked to al dente, Jared’s sporting matching pigtails on the top of his head like ears on some little fru-fru lap dog. He pulls two more elastics out of his pocket and sets them on the counter. “Guess I have more holders than hair,” and sets the spares on the counter.
Jensen’s so busy snickering at Jared’s hijinks that he almost misses it when Joey slides her hand up the refrigerator door and along the edge of the counter, slow so slow, like no one’s supposed to notice.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” Her voice is so small, Jensen wants to scoop her up and hold her so her mouth is closer to his ear like she’s a seashell full of mermaid secrets.
Jared sneaks a peek at her out the corner of his eye, and Jensen can almost guarantee the opposite side of his mouth is smirking like crazy. “That depends,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“On what?” Joey asks, twining the elastics around her fingers.
“Well, I don’t know if you have enough hair for pigtails.”
“I do.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I do! See!” The cap slaps down on the counter hard enough to ruffle the bread wrapper, and at least two feet of thick, shiny hair tumbles down across Joey’s shoulders, kinked and wavy from being stuffed up under there for so long.
Jensen doesn’t know where Jared gets his kid whispering skills, but while Jensen fights off the urge to wrap his fingers in his sister’s loose hair, taken aback by how much it looks like Mom’s, Jared gives a casual shrug, stirs the macaroni. “Yup, I guess you do.”
“So, will you teach me?” Her eyes are so big, everything about her softer, and Jensen’s a little ashamed to admit, he’d almost stopped thinking of her as a girl until now. He’s taken aback by just how much he missed her.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Jared says, “but how about after we eat, you and I camp out in the living room and have a hair party, just the two of us?”
“Can we have ribbons?”
“Sure.”
“Barrettes?”
“Okay.”
“Bows?”
“You betcha.”
Next thing Jensen knows, Joey’s plastered against Jared’s leg, and it’s Jared’s hand in her hair, smoothing it back away from her face.
She doesn’t ask if Jared will be her mommy. That’s for Jensen to do.
And he’d be a stupid ass not to ask.
As for alternative lifestyles... seems like they’re already living one.
And kicking ass.
--
Jared turns over carefully on the lumpy couch, wondering exactly why he's awake. He's been sleeping on the piece of furniture long enough to have perfected the art of turning over without either falling off or making the ancient springs creak beneath his weight. He has to squint to read the small red numbers on the VCR display and see that it's ass o'clock in the morning --only about two hours since he first closed his eyes and drifted off. His stomach growls loud enough to make the dog's ears twitch, and he figures it must be the combination of hunger pangs and light pooling into the room from the kitchen that woke him in the first place.
His head hurts, a little like he’s hung over, skull pulled away from his brain, and it’s not until he turns it against the arm of the couch that he remembers it’s in pigtails. Tight pigtails. He doesn’t know how girls put up with this torture. They need to come out, like now. His fingers fumble between the cushions and his throbbing head, and the sharp jolt of hairs being pulled out by the root shocks him into full wakefulness before the first pigtail’s even half out.
That’s when he remembers how he fell asleep on the couch in the first place. How he slept through the ache in his crotch is beyond him. He’s spent half the night with a pillow in his lap waiting for the kids to finally, finally fall into that diabetic coma Jensen had alluded to, only to find out their endurance surpassed his by at least an hour. He must’ve dozed off while he was letting Joey practice on his hair. A quick feel of the other side of his head, and yup, that one’s braided. He must be a sight. A drooling, snoring, aching below the belt, sight.
With a groan, he starts to turn over, disappointed because Jensen’s probably already gone to bed. Except Jared’s feet are kinda stuck. And warm. He wiggles them around, hears the rustle of paper and feels the blunt edge of a belt buckle against his one socked foot. Whatever’s under his casted foot is soft and squishy, and... oops, doesn’t appreciate being smushed under his casted foot. Straining his neck, Jared glances down his body to the end of the couch just in time to see Jensen shift sideways away from his wiggling feet, the newspaper he was reading still sprawled over his lap and the obtrusive appendages in it. Aww, Jensen didn’t go to bed without him. But the position he’s in --head drooped over the back of the couch, the cap of a red Sharpie stuck to his bottom lip, and lapful of Jared --can’t be very comfortable.
Jared sits up, swinging his legs carefully out from under the newspaper and off the couch, stretches cramped limbs before trying to stand. He hobbles around the back of the couch and kneels with his mouth close to Jensen’s lolling head. “Jensen. Hey, Jensen. Bed’s waiting.”
He gets nothing more than a half snore and a splayed hand across his face, smooshing his lips sideways before he leans away. Jensen smacks his lips together, dislodging the pen cap, which falls into the newspaper. “Here, lemme get that for ya,” Jared whispers, sliding the red pen out of Jensen’s slack hand and reaching for the cap. It rolls away into the depression between Jensen’s thighs and lands on a circled ad. Jared’s curiosity is piqued. Just what is Jensen looking for in the Classifieds, anyway?
He leans closer, over Jensen’s shoulder so as not to block out the thin ray of light streaming in from the kitchen. The fixture above the sink gives off enough light for Jared to read the ad Jensen has circled about ten times in his evil red pen. He almost swallows his tongue when he realizes the ad is looking for single guys age twenty to forty to provide "companionship" to a select and professionally vetted group of clients.
Jensen plans to become a high end escort, selling his companionable self to put food on the table? Oh, hell no!
Jared’s got half a mind to take Jensen by his outstretched neck and throttle some sense into him. Hasn’t he figured out yet that the money doesn’t matter? Besides, Jensen has Jared now, and as soon as Jensen’s back to work, Jared’s got money coming in, too. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t comment on his clothes. Kids from the high school come in all the time asking how much a pair of his jeans would cost to make. And just last week, the dance team coach came in to price costumes for the whole squad. He hasn’t told Jensen about it, yet. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but now that he has his sewing machine, there’s nothing to keep him from going to town and starting his own line. His clothes are one of a kind originals. He can pretty much set his own prices.
Jensen’s gonna let him contribute to this family if Jared has to... Ugh!
He reads the ad again, to make sure he understood it the first time, and if anything, that makes him furious. The thought of complete strangers putting their hands on Jensen, on Jensen’s body, on his lips. Fuck, Jared’s barely even had the chance to touch him, yet, and Jensen is his dammit! Suddenly possessive, Jared cups Jensen’s jaw and fastens their lips together, probing and licking between Jensen’s slack jaws until he’s inside, stroking Jensen awake from roof of his mouth to the tip of his tongue. There’s only a half-grunted ‘hmmph’ of surprise before Jensen’s caught up in the tide with him, tipping his head back even farther to give Jared better access as Jared’s hand slides down the front of his chest, and under the newspaper.
Jared gets the top button of Jensen’s jeans unfastened and his fingertips inside as far as the elastic of Jensen’s boxer briefs before Jensen catches his wrist and draws away, sitting up straight enough to look Jared in the eye. “Not that I don’t think this is my favorite wake up ever, but what’s with all the urgency?”
“I dunno,” Jared pants, “thought maybe I’d get what I could before the price goes up.”
“The price of wha...? Oh.” Jensen peers down at the newspaper in his lap, a smirk tugging the corner of his mouth.
“Jensen! You think selling yourself for money is a joke? I know they word those ads so the don’t actually say it’s prostitution, but everyone knows it is. And you’re...”
“I’m what?” Jensen asks.
“You’re mine!” Okay, Jared didn’t really mean to say that. He does have other very logical, very rational, convincing reasons why Jensen should not be circling ads for male escorts, but since when does Jared have control of his mouth?
“Oh, I am, am I?” And the bastard just looks too damned pleased with himself.
“Well, yeah.” Jared hears the pout creep into his voice, looks down at the floor to hide his disappointment. “I thought you... we...” His voice cuts out completely.
“Oh, hell,” Jensen says, “I can’t tease you anymore.” Jared feels Jensen’s hand under his chin and looks up. “I was just pulling your chain. I was a little pissed at you for falling asleep on me, and pissed at myself for not having the heart to wake you up, and all I had was the stupid Classified ads to keep me company, so I set you up.”
“You weren’t really planning to sell yourself to pay the bills?”
Jensen shakes his head. “Are you kidding? My mom would roll over in her grave. Worse. She’d come back and beat my ass with a rolling pin.”
Jared’s too relieved to be angry, lets his forehead fall against Jensen’s chin. “Oh, thank God. I didn’t wanna have to lock you in the basement for the rest of your life.” He jerks back, putting Jensen at arm’s length. “But why did you have the Classifieds open in the first place?”
Looking down, Jensen rubs his hand up and down Jared’s forearm where it rests over his chest. “That was supposed to be a surprise.”
“Another surprise?”
“Well, yeah. I actually was looking for a job.”
“But you have a job. The diner’s about all you can handle. If you think I’m going to let you take on more after all this...”
Jensen’s hand tightens on Jared’s elbow, grounding him before he can fly off on an emotional tirade. “Jared, I’m selling the diner. Misha’s been asking me to for years. His offer’s more than fair. I just. I wanted to have something else lined up before I told you.”
“You’re...” Jared searches Jensen’s eyes for any hint that this is just another leg of the practical joke relay he’s been on since he woke up, but there’s no doubt Jensen’s serious. “Your store? Jensen, that’s...” He doesn’t know where he gets the strength or agility after being crouched on the floor for so long, but he flings himself over the back of the couch, ends up draped over Jensen, chest to chest, one hand bracing himself up on the cushions. “Wow!” He can’t resist going in for another kiss, this one rough and exuberant, fingers fisted in the front of Jensen’s shirt.
When it breaks up, Jensen touches his bruised lips tentatively, looks down his nose at Jared’s mouth. “I hope you’re still that excited about it when the money runs out and I’m working some minimum wage job in the fertilizer plant to put food on the table.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Jared says, smoothing his hand over Jensen’s stomach. “You got me to help out around here. And besides, you’re amazing, Jensen. You sing, you dance, you write your own music, act, direct, produce. You should take the money from the diner and produce your own show.”
“Dude,” Jensen huffs, head falling back against the arm of the couch again. “I wouldn’t even know where to start on something that huge. And what if it flopped?”
Now Jared does shake him, finishes with a brisk rub of knuckles over Jensen’s sternum. “Have a little faith. Do what works. Musicals are huge right now, right? Hell, look at High School Musical, and Mamma Mia, and there was that one with the Beatles score, and Xanadu... dude, Moulin Rouge! Need I say more?”
“All right, I agree with you that musical production sounds right up my alley, but just so you know, Moulin Rouge is sacred. It belongs nowhere in the same sentence as Xanadu, thank you very much. You’re dooming me to failure by even suggesting I attempt something of that calibre.”
“Failure’s just another word for experience. You gotta start somewhere. Hey!” Jared’s arm twists around Jensen’s waist and turns him so they’re facing. “You know what I’d love to see?”
Cross-eyed from the proximity and suddenly breathing harder under Jared’s hand, “What?”
“A musical set to the score of Air Supply’s greatest hits.” And he knows he’s got a terrible singing voice, but he can’t help but sing, “Young looooovveee, so stroooong, has never been a part of meeeeee,” before he nuzzles under Jensen’s jaw, his hand sliding lower under the newspaper.
Then, Jensen’s not just breathing harder, he’s guffawing in laughter, his belly undulating like a cobra in a pillowcase. “Air Supply? Seriously? That’s kinda...”
“Gay?” Jared finishes for him.
“Well, yeah. Isn’t it?”
“Not as gay as this,” Jared snickers, finally sliding his hand past the elastic of Jensen’s underwear and finding him more than half hard inside. He gives a quick stroke up from root to tip and relishes the way Jensen’s laughter cuts off abruptly, hips twitching up so the newspaper crackles between them.
“Probably...” hard swallow as Jensen’s chin tips down, “probably not.” Then, he’s bucking into Jared’s hand, opening his mouth to Jared’s delving tongue, breathing in gasps and pants as Jared tugs faster, matching the rhythm of his hand with that of his mouth so Jensen arches up off the couch, the rest of his body seeming to levitate between two points of intense stimulation.
Jared breaks away for a second, licking down Jensen’s jaw and over his collar bone while his hand works Jensen’s jeans and underwear down his hips to the tops of his thighs. Jensen barely gets enough breath in his chest to mumble, “The kids...”
Jared tongues Jensen’s ear lobe, grins at the little squeak that elicits before he engulfs Jensen’s cock in his hand once more and says, “Then shut up, and don’t move the newspaper.”
“Mmkay,” Jensen huffs. He opens his mouth, twisting his chin around to meet Jared’s lips, and Jared can’t help but stop and stare, his own mouth parted just inches from Jensen’s, unable to move closer and risk throwing the whole scene out of focus. Instead, he teases Jensen with his breath, watches Jensen open wider in anticipation only to be disappointed when Jared draws back, blows along the line of Jensen’s jaw and into his ear while his hand speeds up beneath the newspaper.
Jared’s hips grind into a throwpillow, not having a hand free to even undo his own pants. He hasn’t gotten off from humping a pillow since... well, how the hell should he know, but he’s got enough graphic imagery flashing through his mind at that moment to know he’s not naive. And fuck, he’d love to take even one of those pictograph scenarios and play it out right here, but that’s not going to happen. The kids are still upstairs, and Jensen’s way too close already.
Fuck it. Jared lurches forward and up so his cock gets more friction, one arm sliding under Jensen’s arched back and clawing into the arm of the couch on the other side. He times his downward thrusts to the upward pull of his hand, closes his eyes and grinds against Jensen from chest to clavicle, his nose buried against Jensen’s throat so the heady scent of arousal and sweat floods his senses. For long, tense seconds, that’s all there is between them, panting breath and writhing, clinging touches, the thwap-a-thwap-a-thwap of the newspaper against the back of Jared’s hand. It dissolves into a slippery wet slide as Jensen heaves out his release, back arching, his arms vice tight, clenching and holding for all he’s worth until Jared whites out and slides down after him.
Jensen’s already sound asleep, fingers threaded in Jared’s hair, by the time Jared lifts his head from the puddle of drool he made on Jensen’s shirt front. He considers getting up and going to bed for all of five seconds, then decides this is just too comfy. He’s spent weeks on this couch already. One more night won’t hurt a thing. The last thing he manages to do is button Jensen’s pants before he lets himself succumb to sleep as well, his head pillowed on Jensen’s stomach.
--
“I swear, I didn’t realize it was so messy back here.” Jared roots around in the crew compartment of the truck, stuffing trash into plastic grocery bags. “I’d have cleaned it out sooner.”
Jensen does his best to look put out, leaning against the passenger door with his arms crossed over his chest. He’d let Jared off the hook, but the mortified expression he got on his face when he opened the cab and two empty soda cans rolled out was bordering on adorable, and at this angle, bent over with his shorts/gaucho pants/hula skirt riding up (honestly, where does he get these inspirations?) Jared isn’t exactly hard on the eyes. Jensen happens to know that most of that stuff has been back there, strewn across the floor boards and under the seats, longer than Jared’s been in the family. He just hopes Jeremy hasn’t been ‘entertaining’ anyone in the back seat.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jensen finally says. “I’ll ride in front.” It’s a tease more than anything. He suspects the primary reason that Jared’s insisting on Jeremy driving is because Jared wants to sit next to Jensen, and the front just has bucket seats with one of those useless center console seats.
“Can’t,” Jared inists. “Jake called shotgun, and Joey wants the armrest seat thingie.”
“Hate to break it to you, Jay, but Joey’s gotta use the booster seat. We get stopped for anything at all, and they see her sitting on that console, lap belt or not, we’re gonna have some serious ‘splainin’ to do with CPS. I’m pretty sure that seat’s only legal for hauling home drunks after you take away their car keys.” Jensen’s not kidding about that much, and he can tell by the way Jared’s muscles tense under the exposed skin above the row of rhinestones on his waistband, that Jared takes it as a criticism of his parenting skills. Time was, Jensen would’ve liked nothing better than to make Jared feel small and inadequate, but that time’s past. Sliding up behind Jared, Jensen smooths his hands over the exposed strip of skin and tugs the t-shirt down over it, hands sliding to Jared’s hips. “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know. And hey, that booster seat takes up a lot of room. You and I’re practically gonna have to sit in each other’s laps.”
Jared sighs, some of the tension melting away under Jensen’s fingertips. “Ooh, promise?” Standing up, Jared shifts his weight from one side to the other, not exactly wiggling his ass, but the intent is clear as he leers over his shoulder.
“I promise not to leave you on the side of the road. Aside from that...”
Jared tilts his chin up and looks over the top of Jensen’s head. “What’s that? Did you say something? Jensen?” Then he glances down, feigns surprise. “Oh, there you are. Y’know, I think maybe you need the booster seat more than Joey. She can sit on my lap. I know she won’t threaten to throw me out.”
“And I’ll be sure to have her put some more of those pigtails in your hair.”
“Ooh!” Jared’s head jerks back, face pinched in a tight grimace as he massages the sides of his head. “God, no. Those elastics are a farse. I swear I’m missing a handful of hair from each side of my head now. Won’t get tangled, my ass.” He stops massaging and adopts a devious expression, mouth down to Jensen’s ear. “Of course, under the right circumstances, getting my hair ripped out could be all kinds of fun. I bet pigtails make great handles...” Jensen’s nerve endings spark like Jared’s a static charge and Jensen’s a stainless steel countertop. Every follicle on his body rises to attention... every follicle, but before the imminent electrical pop and snap, Jared backs off, a chuckle rumbling in his throat. “You’re so freaking adorable when you blush.”
Jensen begs to differ. There’s nothing adorable about a grown man turning patriotic, red above the belt, blue below, and one white strip between where his belt’s gotten really tight. He means to say as much, but finds his Adam’s apple lodged behind his soft palate as Jared stoops back down and continues cleaning the trash off the floorboards. Jensen’s predicament doesn’t get any less complicated when he glances up from under his eyelashes at the patches of taut thigh muscle peeking out from behind the long strips of denim swaying to just below his knees-- a Jared-original hybrid between gaucho pants and a hula skirt. On anyone else, it’d be a ‘People of Wal-Mart’ caption contest waiting to happen. But on Jared, it’s the fashion wave of the future. Guy could sell bubble gum as denture adhesive. Only Jared... Jensen’s Jared.
He’s snapped out of his ogling when Jared mumbles, “What the hell?”
Jensen stiffens, because seriously, Jared could’ve uncovered just about any number of things under that seat, and most are bound to be embarrassing. “Huh?” It seems to be the most appropriate response.
“What is this?” Jared straightens, dangling something from his fingertips and one outstretched arm like it might be radioactive or contagious.
Luckily, Jensen knows the answer to that question. “Um, those’re chaps.” He’d completely forgotten his costume change in the back of the truck in the wake of ketchup cap pistols and canceled venues. “One of my old costumes. From when I did... that acting thing.”
“Ohhh.” Jared eyeballs the white leather and rearranges it until it actually resembles an article of clothing. “A little risque aren’t they?” he asks, turning them around back to front. “You really wore assless chaps on stage?”
Jensen snorts and snags the chaps out of Jared’s hands. “All chaps are assless, you dumbass. You’re supposed to wear them over jeans.”
Biting at the corner of his lip with an obvious blush creeping up his cheeks, Jared says, “But... you don’t have to, do you?”
Jensen leans in, taking his turn to inflict a little... patriotism, but he can’t go through with it, ends up laughing as he tosses the chaps into a bag to be taken into the house later. “As long as there are kids in the house, yes. Yes. Yes.”
“And if there aren’t?”
“When does that ever happen?” His voice is slightly more bitter than he intends.
Aside from that (awesome) makeout session on the couch and the ‘help’ Jensen had given Jared getting in and out (and off in) the bathtub the night before, his and Jared’s physical relationship is stalled out somewhere around the purple properties on the Monopoly board. Jensen knows he’s holding up the show. It’s not like he doesn’t want to, and it’s not like he hasn’t before, just never with Jared. And for some reason, it feels like everyone’s got a vested interest in his and Jared’s sex life. It’s like every time he even starts to think of Jared that way, he suddenly feels the gaze of a half dozen eyeballs at his back. A dairy farmer spent less time heat checking his prize heifers. Life was so much easier when casual sex was just casual and didn’t vicariously involve everyone else in his life.
On cue, Joey comes running down the porch. “Jensen! Jake pulled my hair!” Both men turn to catch her as she barrels into them at full speed. All in all, it’s not a bad problem to have. Joey’s still wearing her baseball cap, but her hair’s in pigtails and pokes out from beneath the band (which is now held together with black tape, since it wouldn’t adjust tight enough to stay on without her hair stuffed underneath.)
“He’s just jealous,” Jensen offers.
“Am not!” Jake skulks up behind. Five a.m. is definitely not his time of the morning, but Jensen’s proud to see him up, anyway. A few weeks ago, he’d never have gotten the kids to agree to spend a Saturday down at the store. This morning, they got themselves up and ready without more than a few exaggerated yawns over breakfast.
Jared lifts Joey up and sets her in the booster seat on the far side of the cab. “Are too!” she rebuts.
“Not!” Jake argues, sliding into the shotgun seat as Jeremy rounds the driver side.
Jared makes a show of ‘helping’ Jensen in the back beside Joey. Jensen knows a grope when he feels one. Of course, that doesn’t stop him from sitting just a little big closer to Jared than he has to in order to avoid getting crushed against the booster seat. And if, somewhere during the trip from home to store Jared’s hand slides off Jensen’s knee and in between his thighs, fingertips absently stroking over the inseam, Jensen doesn’t exactly swat him away.
--
The first bus of Solo and Ensemble competitors shows up in the parking lot behind the diner within a half hour of opening. Within ten minutes students are lined up at the counter ordering everything from plain biscuits with no butter to full plates of eggs, sausage, and pancakes. Seriously, what kind of parents sent their kids off in the morning without feeding them first? It’s a steady flow in and out the door from that point on. If they don’t come by the busload, they walk the three blocks from the high school. Despite the signs all over the place that dictate the necessity of patrons to bus their own tables, most of them don’t bother, and they don’t tip either. So, Jake and Joey man the frontlines. Jake clears the dishes, and Joey wipes down the tables, half of them decorated with smiley faces made out of salt from the table shakers, or worse, the lo cal sweetener from the little dish of pink and blue packets, because apparently complimentary condiments don’t cost anything and magically replenish themselves.
Jensen’s twitchy, biting his tongue and about three seconds away from turning his guitar into a weapon of mass destruction. Coming here was a bad idea. If it was hard letting people help him out around the house, it’s a thousand times worse watching them do his job when he’s not allowed to help, and Jared’s idea for him to sit in the front window and play his guitar like this is some kind of coffee shop isn’t making him feel useful at all. He’s finally had enough when Jake hauls the heaping dish pan past a table of guys wearing letter jackets from a rival school with drumsticks poking out of their pockets and mirrored sunglasses hiding their eyes, and one of the SOBs piles another stack of plates onto the load.
Leaping up from his stool, Jensen manages to catch the toppling tower of dishes before it hits the floor. He sets the load down on the drummers’s table hard enough to rattle the silverware in the next booth. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he glowers. “You’ve been finished eating for half an hour, and there are people lined up outside waiting for a seat.”
“Not our problem,” the closest kid spouts off. The rest fold their arms and lean back in agreement. “We’re still trying to decide if we want dessert or not.”
“We’re out.”
“Menu says you got pie. We want pie.”
Jensen’s about to tell him what he can do with his pie when a hand tightens on his shoulder and a half dozen Little Debbie fudge brownies drop onto the table in front of him.
“Sorry, guys,” Jared says, hand soothing over the tight muscles in Jensen’s back, “all out of our usual dessert items, but Little Debbie’s on the house so long as you take it ‘to go.’ We really need the table.”
The brownies disappear into pockets in a flash, just the whisper of cellophane crinkling to indicate they were ever there, and the group heads for the door before Jared can change his mind. With a huff, Jensen picks up the dish pan only to have Jared take it from him and set it down on the next table. “Jeremy will get that.”
“I can do it, Jared.”
“That’s not the point, Jen. You promised me you wouldn’t. And you know what that means.”
“No!”
Jared smirks waggling his eyebrows. “You promised.”
“You can’t be serious.” Sure, there had been a little stipulation Jensen agreed to when Jared allowed him to come down here today, but he never actually expected to have to follow through.
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no way I’m doing that.”
“Oh, you’ll do it, all right.” By now, Jared’s expression’s shifted through worried to perturbed to devious to downright... gleeful.
Jensen jerks his head around, eyeing the room full of juvenile delinquents, half of which he’s sure are ogling Jared’s ass, the bastards. “People will think we’re nuts.”
“So what?” Jared smirks. He leads Jensen by the hand over to the jukebox in the corner. Jensen doesn’t know why he lets himself be led, but he goes along, expecting Jared to let him off the hook at any second.
“So, I’m not doing it.”
Jared puts his dollar in the machine and makes a selection, then turns Jensen around, so they’re facing, hands clasped at shoulder height. “The deal was, if you tried to do any of the work, you’d have to dance with me.”
“How is dancing less strenuous than bussing a table?”
“Because bussing tables is work. Dancing is good for the soul.” The music starts blaring from the jukebox, the unmistakable harmonica introduction to “All I Want is You,” from the movie Juno. “Now, dance, monkey, dance!”
Jensen stands stock still, his arms limp as Jared does his best imitation polka which is really just stomping his one good foot up and down and waving his and Jensen’s arms from side to side. “I’m not dancing,” Jensen sulks.
Jared doesn’t argue, just shrugs and starts to sing along to the lyrics. “Iff I was a flower growing wild and free, all I’d want is you to be my sweet honey bee.”
God, he’s terrible. Jared might be a kid whisperer and a good hand around the kitchen, possibly even borderline brilliant with a sewing machine, but a musician, he is not. Not only is he completely tone deaf, but he has no idea what his indoor voice is. “And if you were a kiss I know I’d be a huuuuugggg.” Everyone in the store has stopped eating and turned their eyes on Jensen and Jared, and Jared’s just bellering away like a cow in heat, completely oblivious to anything but Jensen. And Jensen? Can’t help but laugh.
“Oh, what the hell.” Jensen tightens his hands around Jared’s, catches the rhythm, and starts to dance. It’s wildly exaggerated, the two of them pivoting around Jared’s cast, squatting up and down in an oompa, oompa, oompa, alternating which is the oom- and which is the -pa on every other beat, all the while laughing like they’ve just been let in on the best joke ever.
On the final beat, Jensen goes a little wide and trips on a chair, flails backward only to have Jared catch him and pin him up against the jukebox to stop his fall. The next thing he knows, they’re chest to chest, breathing heavy in front of a room full of strangers, and Jensen only thinks for a second about ducking away when Jared leans in to kiss him.
--
By four o’clock, the kids have all cleared out, Jensen’s fingers are sore from playing, and his toes are sore from dancing, because it turns out, he’s pretty hard-headed when it comes to not working, and Jared’s cast doesn’t know when it’s standing on toes instead of floor. Jensen’s lost an E string from playing, which was actually sorta fun after he set up a tip jar and started taking requests. Interestingly enough, the jar filled up faster once Jared let slip that Jensen writes some of his own songs and people started asking for those. The crowd might’ve been mostly ill-mannered and disrespectful teenagers, all too aware of just how out from under their parents’s thumbs they were, but they were music lovers. It’s not something Jensen would ever consider doing again, but it beat working behind the counter, and the feedback was helpful.
Overall, what should’ve been a nerve-wracking day in which strokes were had by all, hasn’t turned out so bad. Jensen attributes that to Jared and his bomb-defusing, stroke averting lips of doom. He’s having circulation issues of a whole other variety at this point, but Jensen thinks he’ll live to see his head not explode in the near future. Other parts of his body are due to erupt at any moment.
They’re closing up early, because there’s nothing left to serve, anyway, and Jensen can’t seem to wipe the stupid grin off his face as he watches Jared wipe down tables.
“Did you get everything sorted out with Misha?” Jared asks, spraying the next booth with sanitizer and brushing errant crumbs to the floor.
“Yup,” Jensen says. “It’ll take a couple of weeks to get the papers around, and I’m still going to help out around here until he gets more hands, but as an employee, not the resident number cruncher.” Jensen can’t help himself. He slides up behind Jared, hands going around Jared’s hips. It’s funny how bad dancing, terrible singing, and very public exchanging of saliva seem to have obliterated whatever remaining inhibitions Jensen had about being with Jared. If embarrassment is the world’s most effective inhibitor, then at this point, Jensen’s so thoroughly desensitized to it that he should be pretty much unstoppable. So, yeah, he wants his hands on Jared right now. Therefore, he puts his hands on Jared. He can’t remember the last time being this selfish felt this good.
“Just part time, though, right?” Jared turns around and sits on the edge of the table, makes room for Jensen between his knees. “You need time to work out what you’re going to do next,” tugging Jensen forward by the belt loops, “and unfinished business at home, if you know what I mean.”
Oh boy, does Jensen know. “Only part time.” Jensen grins and leans in for another kiss, gets pegged in the back of the head with a sponge. “Hey!” He wheels around, expecting to see Jeremy smirking at him from behind the counter. Instead, it’s Christian fucking Kane, polishing his usual stool with his ass. “We’re out of food, Kane. Take your ass home to your wife.”
“I just need coffee to tide me over. Carrie’s gonna swing by here and meet me. Then, we’re going into Austin for dinner.”
“Date night?”
Kane shrugs. “More like a celebration.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of celebration?”
“The kind where she’s not allowed to drink anything, and I promise to drink enough for all three of us,” Kane says with a stupid, loopy grin.
“Well, you dirty...” Jensen crosses the floor in three steps, traps Chris in a giant hug before the sneaky bastard could duck away. “You finally snuck one past the defensive line, didn’t you?” Stepping away with a couple of firm claps on the back, Jensen can tell from Chris’s sheepish expression that he’s right. “Dude, that’s awesome.”
“No doubt,” Jared agrees, giving Chris the same treatment. Breaking the hug, he steps back with Christian at arm’s length. “Is that what that little powwow was about earlier?”
“Powwow?” Chris asks.
“Yeah, you and that guy in the corner booth.” Jared starts wiping down the counter as he speaks. “Big guy, beard, hat pulled way down over his eyes. I was getting a weird vibe off of him, like he was waiting for something, or looking for someone. I was on my way over to talk to him when you sat down. Seemed like you knew him, so I left it alone.”
“Ohhhh, yeah, yeah,” Chris dismisses with a chuckle. “Guy I paid to surprise Carrie with flowers at work. He’s from out of town. Needed directions since no one around here delivers.” Jared accepts that answer with a nod, but Jensen knows Chris well enough to see the subtle change in his color.
“Well, aren’t you husband of the year all of the sudden,” Jensen chides, narrowing his gaze.
Chris gives a quick ‘leave it alone’ shake of his head, “I dunno. From what I hear, Misha’s gunning for the title.”
“No way, Misha?” Jensen’s momentarily caught off guard. Admittedly, he hasn’t seen much of Misha today, what with Jensen stuck out front and Misha in the back, but come to think of it, Grace was in three different times that day, and she’s usually just a breakfast before school kind of customer. “And Grace?” he ventures, putting two and two together.
“I calls it like I sees it.” Chris always pulls out the hick drawl when he changes the subject. For now, Jensen lets him get away with it.
Chuckling to himself, Jensen says, “So, Grace finally found her saint.”
“Dude,” Jared pipes in, “she looks at him like a freakin’ angel of the Lord.”
“Fallen angel, but I do my best.” Misha emerges from the kitchen carrying all the newly-washed, stainless steel warming pans. “Speaking of which,” he glances at his wristwatch and kicks into a higher gear, dishtowel flung over his shoulder as he re-assembles the warming bin. “Grace is coming by in half an hour. The local youth group is having a lock-in down at the roller skating rink for kids of all ages. I didn’t wanna say anything in front off Jake and Joey, but we’re taking Grace’s boys. We’d love to take Jake and Joey along, too. Repay ‘em for all their hard work today, seein’ as we can’t really pay ‘em, child labor laws being what they are.”
“A lock-in?” Jensen asks, suddenly concerned. “Don’t those usually run all night?”
“’Til ten a.m,” Misha nods, wiping his hands and leaving the towel on the hand-rail of the grill.
“Wow, well... all night... I...” Jensen’s skin is suddenly too tight with the drawstring at his throat like a choke collar. “I don’t think they’ve ever...” He doesn’t know why he’s stammering. This is a blessing, right? He’s been keeping Jared lifting cars all week by using the kids as an excuse, and now they have a legitimate distraction to keep the kids out of the house all night. But they’ve never been out the whole night before. And Jensen’s never been completely alone with Jared before. Between the two new horizons there’s enough unexplored territory to make Jensen wanna dive into the nearest prairie dog burrow and never come out.
“It’s a church group, Jensen,” Chris adds. “They’ll be fine.” Fucking Kane gives a not-so-subtle jerk of his head to the table Jared’s bent over in the corner, ass shimmying in time to the sweeping motion of his bulging arms. Jensen swallows, not sure if it’s panic or lust rising, or rather, which is rising fastest.
“I’ll make sure they’re fine.” Jeremy’s been wrestling a cart full of freshly stocked napkin holders through the swinging door into the back, adds his two cents worth.
“Wait?” Jensen says. “You’re going?”
“I wasn’t planning on it, but it’ll be fun for the kids, and I’m not doing anything else. Besides,” Jeremy blushes, suddenly engrossed in rearranging the condiments on every table, “...I thought...” clearing his throat, “You and Jared... maybe...”
“You people do know I’m capable of cleaning and listening at the same time,” Jared snickers, dropping his cleaning tote on the counter before wrapping his arms around Jensen’s waist, dropping his head on one shoulder. “And I want a vote, too.”
Jensen laughs, one of those nervous, half-hysterical laughs that can either escalate into rib-cracking guffaws or deteriorate into tears with just one miscalculated breath. “Do I even need to ask?”
Jared nuzzles against the shell of his ear, eliciting a ticklish squeak, and says, “Pleeeeeasse, Jen-nyyyyyyy.”
“You call me that again, and there’ll be no more bubble baths for you.” Jensen’s almost positive he’s whispering, but the color rising on Chris and Misha’s cheeks, the manly grunt Kane gives as he shoves his thumbs into his belt loops, suggest that maybe Jensen doesn’t know how to use his indoor voice either. He blames it on the sound of his own heart pounding against his eardrums.
“Pleasseeee, Jennn-nnnyyy!” The kids dart out from under the counter and latch onto one each of Jensen’s thighs. Little sneaks.
How can he say no? How could he even want to say no? He can’t, and he doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean everyone can just gang up on him like this and get off easy. “I dunno,” Jensen waffles. “You’ve been working all day. I bet you’ll fall asleep and miss half the fun.”
“No we won’t!” The kids promise.
“And the roller skating rink? That means you’ll need money for video games, I assume?”
The kids nod shyly.
“And for soda and food?”
“Anything that’s not pizza,” Misha offers. “The youth group’s paying for pizza.”
“You know I’ve been out of work for a couple of weeks. We’re a little short on...Ah, hell...” He can’t jerk them around. “You can have whatever’s in my tip jar. But split it evenly, you understand?”
“Yay!”
He doesn’t know if that’s a yes or a no, but Jared squeezes him so hard right then, he either comes off the floor for a few seconds or just loses sensation in his toes.
While Jake and Joey dump the change out onto the tables and divvy it up, Jensen asks, “You’re sure it’s okay? They won’t be interfering with yours and Grace’s evening?”
“Jensen, half the kids in town are going to be there. If by interfere you mean, won’t laugh at my cheesy jokes or come to my puppet show, then, it’ll be fine.”
“Puppet show?” Jensen boggles.
“Don’t ask.”
Jensen’s too preoccupied with the heat of Jared at his back, giant hands stroking up and down Jensen’s forearms to remember what he’s not supposed to ask about. Uncharted territory or not, there’s no turning back now.
--
Everyone clearing out of the diner, the last being Chris and his wife, Carrie, on the way to their celebration dinner in Austin, has the strange effect of somehow increasing the amount of the empty space Jensen takes up just by being Jensen. Jared’s Jensen, with that little sheen of sweat on his brow and the deer in headlights amount of extra white around his eyes, doing his best to be all cool and... male, the closer they get to being alone together. They haven’t actually touched since Chris’s wife showed up. Somehow Jensen squirmed out of Jared’s arms to hug Carrie the same way he had Chris, and then found himself somewhere else to stand. First, at the counter, then behind it, then atop one of the little two-seater tables with his back pressed to the wall, ankles crossed and fingers tucked up under his arms.
Jared’s doing his best not to take it personally. He gets that Jensen’s barely out of the closet (even though, from what Chris and Misha have told Jared, everyone deserves way more credit for putting two and two together than Jensen gives them.) It’s one thing to have everyone in town speculating about your sex life. It’s something else entirely to have people going out of their way to accommodate it and being none too subtle in the process. You’d think their bedroom had an observation lounge or something, the way everyone has vested themselves in making sure it gets some use.
If Jared wasn’t currently dying from the chronic, fast becoming acute, effects of delayed sexual gratification, he’d be a little self conscious himself at this point. But he’s not self conscious. He’s too busy being Jensen conscious. And right now, he’s hyper aware of the way the muscles at the small of Jensen’s back tense up under his hand as he guides them out the door to the truck. “Guess what?” Jared asks.
“What?”
“Since our chauffeur has other obligations, you get to drive.”
“You’re not afraid I’ll strain something? I dunno, my big toe? My right ass cheek?” Jared knows it’s supposed to be genuine sarcasm (oxymoron, much?) but it’s hard to miss the lingering note of bitterness at the end.
Hand on the door handle, Jared swings it open with a creaking groan, and says, “Not if I do this.” Before Jensen can squirm away, Jared catches him by the hips and hoists him into the driver’s seat. They end up with Jared standing between Jensen’s knees, all the better to kiss him, his pretty.
Except Jensen bats Jared’s hands off his thighs and hops back down to the ground causing Jared to stumble back a step. “I can do it myself,” he huffs. “I’m not a fucking girl.”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Jared ducks his head away. He should’ve known this wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing’s been easy since the day he washed up on the sand. “Um, I don’t know if you noticed, but neither am I. That’s supposed to be what makes this fun.” Leaning against the truck in an effort to stop the contents of his stomach sloshing around, Jared swallows. “Are you having fun, Jensen?”
“No!” Jensen snips, then immediately retracts it. “Yes... I... I just don’t know how to do this.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Jared offers. “First, we stop at the drug store to stock up on... No, wait. First, you let me... Oh, yeah, before that, I kiss you senseless in the alley behind the diner, or you kiss me and rub me off behind the dumpster, or...”
Jensen tries to get back into the truck by kicking his heel up behind him and sliding in backwards. His foot slides off the doorjamb and he slips and falls on his ass, instead, winds up sitting on the running board looking up at Jared with his eyebrows furrowed into dark storm clouds. “Fuck!”
“Or you try to do everything yourself, bust your ass, and I kiss it and make it better.” Jared holds out his hand, which Jensen takes with a snort. He keeps his hand on Jensen’s elbow as Jensen gets back into the truck, and they end up in pretty much the same position they started out in, Jared between Jensen’s knees, a hand cupping each thigh. Despite being pretty much eyeball to eyeball at this point, Jensen keeps his gaze fixed over Jared’s shoulder, his bottom lip pinched between his teeth. “Hey,” Jared says. Then, fingertips to Jensen’s chin he repeats, “Hey, look at me.” Jensen does, and whatever bit of obstinate, stubborn, male pride or whatever the fuck it is that’s screwing with his head, flickers and dies, leaving just the original spark at the bottom of the fire pit... fear. “There’s no right way to do... this, whatever ‘this’ is. We just wing it, the same way we’ve been doing it all along.” He gives each of Jensen’s pant legs a tug to smooth them out and lifts his hands away. “Or we can stop. It’s your call.”
Jensen sucks his lower lip in a little farther on the leading edge of a deep, rattling breath, and Jared’s convinced he’s about to be let down. There’s no way that will be easy, but Jared did say he could wait forever. He’s not about to make a liar out of himself, even if he half suspects he was just quoting random Air Supply lyrics when he said it in the first place. He backs up half a step as if to dodge an invisible blow.
He doesn’t get very far.
--
TBC
A/N: Only one part today. The next two parts really need to be together. I'll try to have them up tomorrow. Happy New Year!
Part Eight
