ht_murray | Roots, RPS, JA/JP, R, 1/1

Title: Roots
Author:

tru_faith_lost
Characters/Pairings: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Rating: R for non-graphic m/m sex, maybe a bad word or two
Warnings: m/m sex, non-graphic, schmoop and fluff so graphic you'll puke
Summary: Jared doesn't get what it is between them. Getting to the root of the matter is better than walking away. Schmoopy, fluffy, sugar-sweet in places, and downright angsty in others. I needed some happy.
Disclaimer: I'd cut off all my hair without blinking to make them mine, but yesterday it took me an hour to comb it, so obviously that hasn't happened yet. I'm not making any money off their happiness, but I'd pay to watch.
A/N: Many thanks to

soydolcelatte (God, I hope I spelled that right) for proving that, not only does the the f-list know all, but it's scary fast, too. And giant smishes-o-doom for

ysbail for super fast beta. Always thanks to my bud at

3rd_leg for the music to write by.

Roots

Jared doesn’t get it. He’s ready to write it off as a lot of things--things like fourteen hour work days that end five hours before the beginning of the next fourteen hour work day, and not enough time to eat and sleep, let alone take a shower long enough for any business that’s not washing. Could also just be the delayed caffeine rush from the tallest cup of double, triple, whatever was hot and came with a shot of rocket fuel he downed in the car on the way to set.

He’s not surprised. Not really. His blood’s sludge this time of the morning. It takes it a while to get flowing, but once it does, well, he’s still young and horny about ninety percent of the time. Once it’s flowing, it’s flowing. Like clockwork. Every goddamned day for chrissakes. Doesn’t matter if they’re at set by five or not until noon, the second he sits in the makeup chair across from Jensen, he’s instantly, achingly aware of the teeth on his zipper.

He’s not in junior high anymore, doesn’t feel the need to hide it, can take a little good-natured ribbing if anyone notices.

But Jensen’s the only one who ever notices, at least, the only one who takes it upon himself to mention it. Bastard.

Jared’s probably as comfortable with his body as he’s ever going to get, to the point of offering it to other people to wear from time to time.

Here, Jen, try this leg on for size. How ‘bout these arms? They look pretty good draped around your shoulders, am I right?

Seriously, Jared doesn’t get embarrassed about his body or whichever part of it has a mind of its own. If anyone other than Jensen were to point out the way his jeans never fit right in the mornings, Jared wouldn’t be bothered in the least.

But it’s not anyone else pointing it out. It’s Jensen. Jensen gives him one knowing, sidelong glance down his nose, lips parted while Grace applies the conditioner that keeps Dean from being cracked and chapped through fifteen takes in arctic wind, and Jared’s about twelve years old again.

It’s fucking embarrassing.

And it’s not like Jensen’s all that perfect. His eyelashes are ridiculously long. Jared’s noticed. He notices a lot, actually. He’s got his head tipped back, his neck cradled in the crook of the chair, Melody’s expert fingers working the snags out of his hair with her fingers as she applies the gel and blows it dry. She pushes a terry headband up his forehead to hold his bangs out of the way when she applies the sunscreen and base, a little bit of extra care where the scar of the day will be pasted on later.

She finishes the makeup and takes the headband off, runs her fingers through his hair one last time to make sure it moves right. Jared tips his head forward to let her brush the hair forward from the nape of his neck to the crown in case there are any gel clumps weighting it down, and he catches Jensen’s reflection in the hand mirror on the counter.

Jensen’s smiling, talking quietly to Grace, a little drawl in his voice, because Dean’s not shown up yet. The little crinkles in the corners of his eyes get longer every time he blinks. That’s when Jared realizes his eyelashes are too long. They cover the crinkles, and make Jared’s pants too tight.

“You got a problem over there, cowboy?” Jensen quips.

Melody pats him on the shoulder and he straightens his head back on his shoulders, stands up, and adjusts his pants.

Fucking eyelashes.

xXx

Snow tubing’s fun. They figure it’s a great way to spend their one day off. Production gave them a day off in the middle of the week for a change because of scheduling problems with a location they need. They’re going to miss watching Sunday football at Jared’s to make up it up, which leaves them with a Wednesday afternoon to burn. There’s nothing but daytime television to watch.

Nothing good happens on soaps on Wednesdays. Seriously, you can watch on Monday and Friday and keep up with all the major plot lines.

Not that Jared would know.

At any rate, they don’t have anything planned for the day, and Jared can kick Jen’s ass at Guitar Hero at night. It’s not often they have an afternoon to burn. A few hours in the sun, some light that’s not artificial and not reflected in their eyes while they try to hit their marks, will do them both good. They’re really not up for the drive to the ski resort, but there’s a snow tubing hill just outside of town.

They don’t know what to expect. It’s not like they grew up snow tubing in Texas. They’re not exactly prepared. Everyone else on the hill is in full snow gear -- hat, coat, gloves, and pants.

Snow pants. Huh.

“Soo,” Jen drawls, frowning down at his Wranglers, “you wanna do something else?”

Jared frowns, smacks his mittens together (yeah, mittens--they’re nostalgic, what’s it to ya), tugs his knit cap down over his ears. “What? You afraid of getting a little wet?”

“It’s cold,” Jensen says, huffing a white cloud with his breath to make his point.

“Oh,” Jared grins. “You’re worried about shrinkage, then.”

That earns him the first of about fifty snowballs to the face. Jen only gets the one in at the top of the hill, and Jared one in retaliation before the park employees blow their whistles.

“No snowball throwing in the public areas! This is your first warning!”

That doesn’t stop them sneaking one in every time they think no one’s looking. After a couple hours of tubing down super-slick paths of snow that’ve been frozen and re-packed enough times to resemble bobsled chutes, they’re both soaked and on their second warning.

Jared’s not sure when his stealthy snowballs start veering off course from Jensen’s face to his ass, but he thinks it’s about the time Jensen accidentally pulls off Jared’s hat and discovers that he didn’t put any product in his hair that morning.

Jensen snags a gloved hand in the cap as they start another long trek up the hill, still laughing hysterically from hitting the snow fence at the bottom and bouncing out of the tubes onto their already wet asses. It comes off in his hand, and he looks at it surprised for a second before breaking up, his entire face splitting around his mouth, under his jaw, and up to the corners of his eyes.

Jared feels his hair standing on end, actually hears the crackle of static in the ends, and tugs his chin down in a frown as he rolls his eyes upward, trying to catch a glimpse through the ridge of his brow. Between the dry winter air and the static charge building up on the nylon lining of their snow tubes over the course of the afternoon, Jared’s hair sticks up in every direction like a plasma lightning ball.

Jensen’s laughing so hard Jared thinks he’s going to suffocate. He watches, a pout tugging on his face from the inside that he refuses to let surface. His whole scalp tingles with the sun and static electricity as Jensen laughs, head thrown back, lips slick with Blistex. The crinkles are back in the corners of his eyes, and the eyelashes catch the overhead sun in a fan of neat, dark shadow that just makes the green pop out, twinkling with laugh-tears.

The tingle in Jared’s scalp migrates lower, and his wet jeans choose that exact second to suction onto his skin so they fit like leather.

Jared snatches his cap back and uses it to smash the hair back down before nailing Jensen with a snowball on the ass of his jeans. Hell, Jared’s not going to be the only one running up the hill with his jeans clinging to his ass.

“Bitch!” Jensen laughs, returning fire with a fistful of snow that goes down the front of Jared’s coat before he takes off up the hill.

Jared squeals and huffs from the punch of snow against his chest and shakes the front of his coat to get the ice out, an ice cream headache in his entire body. By the time he straightens up and slowly blinks the melted drops out of his eyes, Jensen’s halfway up the hill. Jared shrugs, straightens his cap, and trudges after him slowly.

He decides the view’s not really all that bad.

xXx

Snow tubing’s fun. And they’re not the only ones who think so. At the top of the hill, park officials are turning people away, out of approved snow tubes to hand out. Jensen’s already given his away to a sniffling little girl in braids with pink fur on her mittens when Jared drags over the ridge to the ramp.

“You go ahead,” Jensen says.

“No way, dude. I’m not walking that hill alone,” Jared refuses. “You’re the one pushing thirty. I still have my boyish metabolism. If anyone can use an extra run up the hill, it’s you.”

“Is that so?” Jensen asks, stepping into Jared’s space, chest thrust out.

Jared thrusts his chest back and makes a show of stooping down to meet Jensen’s gaze. “Yup, it is.”

A group of girls on a high school band trip giggle and point, covering their brace-filled smiles with plushy mittens and searching their pockets for scraps of paper. Jensen caves, sheepish, and looks down. A smile spreads slowly over his face. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Sure I a...”

Before Jared can gloat, Jensen snatches the cap from his head again and dives into the tube, starts paddling toward the top of the lip frantically. “But if you don’t come with me, I’m gonna leave you standing here to sign autographs looking like that.”

“Son of a...” Jared puts a hand to his head, pulls it back with a yelp when the static charge jumps to his fingertips. He doesn’t need a bigger prod than that. Grunting with a spurt of determination, he sprints and leaps into the tube just as Jensen goes over the edge. He somehow gets his legs wrapped around in front of Jensen, and Jen leans back into his chest as they gain momentum, careening down the hill.

Behind them, whistles blow from all along the ridge. They’re not on an approved path, and they didn’t wait their turn, but it’s not like they’re worried about getting thrown out of the park. It’s the last run of the day, anyway. Some rules are made to be broken.

And some are made to be kept.

They realize half a second before they hit the pothole that there’s no way to avoid it. On reflex, Jared wraps his arms around Jensen, pulling him close as they hit the crater and go airborne. They land in a heap, yards away from the tube that ejected them.

They lay there for awhile, limbs tangled together while they try to catch the breath that whooshed from their lungs on impact.

The first thing Jared’s aware of, once stars stop dancing behind his eyelids, is his hair. He hears it crackling against the snow, and feels it waving around, every follicle a tiny dowsing rod in search of some invisible source of energy.

Jensen coughs and spits, his mouth full of Jared’s hair, and no matter how he pushes it out of his face, it gloms on again. He finally resorts to putting both hands on the sides of Jared’s face and pushing all the hair back like one of Melody’s terry headbands.

The second thing Jared’s aware of is Jensen’s cock hard against his thigh as their chests heave together.

xXx

Their first kiss is quick and almost chaste, Jensen’s hands in Jared’s hair and half the people on the hill running down to check on them, stolen before anyone can see.

The second’s hot and lasts long enough for the heat to dry off their jeans. It has to be, because there’s no way they’re getting them off wet.

The jeans aren’t the only things that get off that night.

xXx

Jared’s not sure where this is going. They’ve been doing...whatever this is for a year, haven’t stopped since that day on the snow tubing hill, and not much else has changed. They’re still pulling fourteen hour days, still have the occasional night o’ five hours sleep.

Only now, at least one of those hours is spent skin on skin, gasping into each other’s mouths, the rest of the night draped over each other like satin sheets. There’s still not enough time to jerk off in the shower before they drive themselves to the lot, but they make up for it by showering together, slow lazy kisses and lather to wash away last night’s mess. Jared’s still blindingly hard by the time Melody finishes with his hair, but Jensen always finds time to help him out, usually in the wardrobe trailer before going to set, or in their own trailer, something loud playing on Playstation as their alibi if anyone comes to the door.

This is not one of those days. That’s probably why Jared’s mind is going way faster than it should be when they start on his couch in front of Sunday afternoon football, long slow touches along inseams and Jensen’s nose in the hair behind Jared’s ear. It’s not the first time it’s started like this. In a year, they’ve pretty much breached every first time either can think of...save one.

Usually, Jared’s mind shuts down about the time they take it into the bedroom, leaving the dogs to the television. This time, it doesn’t go away, this feeling like he’s hanging over the edge of a cliff and can’t see if there are spikes below or a pit full of foam. This time it’s still tight and clawing in his chest when Jensen breaks underneath him, clenches around him as Jared stops moving and watches, lip rolled between his teeth.

He watches as Jensen empties onto his stomach, back arched against the bed; watches Jensen’s ridiculously long eyelashes flutter along cheekbones pinked with arousal; watches spit-slick lips part on panted breaths Jen slowly relaxes into the bed, still fluttering around Jared’s cock.

Jen opens his eyes slowly and clenches his fingers around Jared’s biceps, gives a slight nod to go ahead.

Jared doesn’t. Not this time.

This time, the ache in his chest breaks, something between a sob and a retch, and it just pops out of his mouth before he knows what he’s saying. “Jen, what are we doing?”

Jensen blinks up at him just long enough for Jared to think it’s over, that Jen’s gathering the energy to throw him off and dart out the door. Maybe Jared even gets a little teary-eyed over it, because he can’t seem to do more than wait.

Jen doesn’t leave. Instead, he tightens his legs and his hands simultaneously, drags Jared down and himself up until they’re chest to chest and eye to eye. Jen slides one hand over Jay’s shoulder and around behind the nape of his neck, holds himself up as the other hand slides into the hair at Jared’s temple and up, twining fingers at the back of his head.

“Making love,” Jen says.

Jared trembles, a shudder through his whole body like everything finally falling into place, and it’s almost too much, can’t be real. Can’t be love.

Jensen smooths away the shudders with more soft pets in Jared’s hair, then spells it out by kissing slowly up Jared’s neck and along his jaw.

His lips touch the corner of Jared’s, and Jay gasps, turns his mouth away.

He needs it to speak. Gotta say it before the word’s lost in the aftermath.

“I love you,” Jared pants.

Jensen kisses him in answer, long, and deep, and slow.

Jared comes without ever moving, and they collapse into the pillows, as the world whites out behind his eyelids.

Even blinded, he’s hyper-aware of Jensen beside him, Jensen with him like they haven’t let themselves be until now.

Strong legs, long arms, and caressing fingers; love, love, and love. They both slide into sleep, Jared inside Jensen, and Jensen’s fingers knotted in Jared’s hair.

xXx

Jared’s a terrible father. Jensen says he’s not. Easy for Jensen to say. Tori loves Jensen.

Jared’s pretty convinced their adopted daughter knows he picked her name. Jensen says Tori’s too little to know that she’s Chinese and her name isn’t. Tori’s a beautiful name, and anyway, she’s their daughter, nothing less or more.

But Tori must be way smarter than the average three-year-old, because Jared can’t think of one other reason why she hates him so much.

He watches the water swirling down the drain, head hung low between his shoulders and forearms trembling as he braces against the tub, knees digging into the tile. He’s not going to cry.

Except he totally already is. Water’s been running down the overflow drain for the last two minutes, and he just can’t find the strength to lift his hands and turn the faucets.

He’ll have to empty the whole thing and start over anyway. He forgot the bubbles. Of course he forgot the bubbles. He’s a terrible father.

His hand almost makes it to the faucet but just falls into the water, limp when his chest tightens too much for him to breathe, and his head falls onto his arm. Tori’s rubber ducky, cruising faster than it should be with no bubbles to impede its progress, bumps into his hand as it follows a swirl in the water toward the drain.

It’s so little. The whole toy fits in the palm of his hand and he can see skin on every side of it. He must look like some sort of giant to their daughter. No wonder she cringes and ducks behind Jensen’s legs when he reaches out to hug her. Jensen’s not much shorter than he is, but Jensen’s...erm...refined. Jared thinks maybe that’s the word he’s looking for. Maybe not. At any rate, Jensen’s hands are smaller. They don’t look like the paws of some giant grizzly bear to their tiny daughter.

Jensen’s not some giant, hairy freak.

He doesn’t hear her precious baby feet pad up behind him. The water’s still running, and Dora the Explorer’s still blaring on the television, the only thing that can make Tori stop crying when Jensen leaves for the set every morning. Producer’s hours aren’t really any better than those of the top billed actors. Everything changes and stays the same.

Jared doesn’t know how long he can keep doing this, holding their screaming daughter in his arms while kissing Jensen goodbye and keeping Tori from following him out the door, tear tracks down her cheeks. Some days she’s crying and irritable all day, refuses anything Jared gives her to eat, spills her Kool-Aid, he’s pretty sure on purpose, and moves away if he sits beside her on the floor to watch videos with her.

Some days they reach a truce, but she never runs to Jared when he comes home from shopping or screen testing for his next project the way she runs up to Jensen, all gigglesqueal happy as he sweeps her into his arms. She won’t even look Jared in the eye. She can’t keep her fingers away from Jensen’s eyelashes.

He doesn’t blame her, and he doesn’t blame Jen. God, he loves them both so much. He just doesn’t know how long he can do this.

He feels her behind him before he hears her. He hadn’t known she could reach the sinktop, but he recognizes the bristles of his hairbrush against his scalp when she runs it through his hair.

His first reaction is panic. What else has he left on the sink that she can get hold of? She can’t reach the medicine cabinet, can she? Is it even locked?

The second is self-recrimination. How did he not know she can reach the sink?

All that fades away, when she puts her head on his shoulder and says, “Don’t cry, Daddy.”

Only then, he can’t stop. He barely manages to get a trembling hand on the faucet to turn the water off before pulling her into his arms. If he holds her too tight, she doesn’t seem to mind, just pets her hands through his hair until he has no tears left to cry.

When Jensen comes home, Jared’s seated in front of the couch on the floor, and Tori’s brushing his hair, talking in three-year-old-ese about bows and braids. Jensen doesn’t say anything, just slides up behind her on the couch so she’s seated in his lap. He presses a kiss to her cheek and the top of Jared’s head before gathering Jared’s hair between his own hands.

“Here, lemme show you how,” he whispers.

When they fall into bed that night, their daughter tucked into Jared and Jared tucked into Jensen, Jared’s still got pigtails in his hair and a grin on his face that hurts but won’t go away.

Jensen wraps his arm around Jared’s waist, rests his hand on Tori’s cheek, and nuzzles into the back of Jared’s neck, breath parting the hair behind his ear.

“You ever cut your hair, I’ll kick your ass,” he whispers just before falling asleep.

Jared wouldn’t dream of it.

The End

A/N: So, I dunno about you, but I really needed the schmoop. Feeling kinda left out with all my friends in Chicago ~~groping~~ meeting the boys without me.

Those of you don't like memes can just leave your comments at the door, each one will be snuggled tightly. But I'd really love if people would comment with their favorite Jared/Sam hair icons. I don't have nearly enough. LOL.

Current Mood: giggly
Current Location: College Station, TX
Current Music: Hide and Seek, Imogen Heap

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ysbail.livejournal.com

Your warning didn't work - I didn't puke. But saying that my teeth ache from the sweetness *g*

I love the evolution of this - the gradualness of the fall into devotion. I've already commented on the fact that I love the way Jared thinks to prtect Jensen as the hurtle down the snowy hill - with no regard for himself at all.

Not sure why Tori is scared of her daddy - maybe it's just that Jared's so wound up, so concerned that he's doing something wrong that he just radiates tension. And besides, I think I'd be blubbering for a bit when Jensen walked out the door in the morning too.

And that scene - Jensen teaching Tori to braid Jared's hair - I absolutely adore it ...

And I don't think I have a Jared hair icon - sorry.

From:

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Roots, RPS, JA/JP, R, 1/1

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