Supernatural Reverse Big Bang Fic - Covers, Pt. 1/2
Art Title: Don't Judge the Book by its T-shirt
Prompt Number: 2027
Artist: kjanddean
Link to Art
Fic Title: Covers
Author: daniomalley22
Fandom/Genre: RPS, College AU
Pairing(s): J2
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 11243
Warnings: None
Summary: Jensen's been preparing for college his whole life and he means to make the most of it, no matter how distracting his roommate Jared is with his terrible housekeeping, the bizarre hours he keeps, and the way he can make the tattoos on his arm ripple by flexing his bicep.
Author's Notes Written for spn_reversebang. Thanks so much to sylvia_locust for betaing this. Thanks to kjanddean for being generally awesome, and to the mods for running this fantastic challenge.
Also available on Ao3.
Jensen’s parents drove him to college and helped him cart all his stuff up to the dorm room. They helped him unpack and get everything put away as best they could manage - the brochure had described the dorm rooms as ‘cosy’ and Jensen thought that was generous in the extreme. They hugged him and wished him good luck and Dad slipped him fifty dollars. Jensen wished them goodbye, feeling pretty confident about the whole college thing. He was prepared, had all his textbooks and Mom had made him get a tetanus booster before he left. This was going to be an amazing new stage in his life.
Ten minutes after they’d gone, Jensen took it all back. He wasn’t ready and this was going to be a disaster. His professors were probably all going to hate him. He was going to fail all his classes. He would never make any friends. He’d probably get mugged walking home from a late class one night, or get food poisoning in the cafeteria or something. The opportunities for something to go horribly wrong were endless.
Of course, it was right around then that a knock came at the door. ‘It’s the mugger!’ Jensen thought a little hysterically, but he got a grip after that and remembered that muggers rarely knocked. Usually, they lurked in the shadows until their unsuspecting prey walked past and attacked while their guard was down. Jensen was just a little panicky, was all. Finally he called out, “Hello?”
The door opened and a man peered inside. He was huge, several inches taller than Jensen who was pretty tall himself. He had shoulder length brown hair and the light glinted off a silver lip ring, but Jensen’s eyes kept drifting away from that to the bulging muscles of his biceps, visible under his sleeveless t-shirt. One arm was covered in tattoos from shoulder to elbow. This guy could snap Jensen like a twig. He was going to eat him alive.
“Hi,” the newcomer said, stepping into the room and letting the door close behind him. “I’m Jared Padalecki - your roommate?”
Oh, God. Jared . Jensen knew he needed to say something, but he had no idea what. What did you say to someone who was covered in tattoos? “Hi?” he said, sounding even more uncertain than the first time.
Jared nodded. “Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure!” Jensen squeaked, stepping back and making what he hoped was a welcoming gesture.
Jared moved further into the room. He was carrying a duffle bag over one shoulder, another in his right hand and a battered guitar case in his left. “Did you unpack yet?” he asked. “Where’s all your stuff?”
Jensen looked around the room, puzzled. His stuff was everywhere, his books stacked on the shelf over his bed and his laptop on the desk. He pointed and Jared said, “Oh, so that is your stuff, huh? Big Star Wars geek, are you?” He pointed at the little Yoda figure Jensen had put on his shelf next to his books. There was something unpleasant in his tone that put Jensen on the defensive.
“What’s wrong with Star Wars?” Jensen asked stiffly, but Jared didn’t seem to take any notice. He went to the bed on the left and dropped his bags on it.
“I’m exhausted. Six hours on a bus, not exactly my idea of a fun time. I hope they don’t expect us to do any actual work this week.”
Jensen decided he didn’t like Jared all that much. He was just some goofball who thought college was a great excuse to party and slack off. “Actually, I’d rather get started straight away and not waste time. We’re here to learn,” he said. Jared tilted his head to look at him, raising his eyebrows a little.
“Really?” he said. “Figures, a nerd like you.” He stretched and groaned. “I’m starving. If I’m going to have the energy to put up with your try-hardiness, I’m going to need some food. You want to come?”
Jensen blinked at Jared, wondering how he could deliver an insult in one breath and an invitation in the next. He suspected that if he said yes, the meal would end with a plate of food being tipped on his head or a can of drink thrown in his lap. Juvenile, yes, but that was clearly the sort of person Jared was.
“I’m good,” Jensen said. He really didn’t have much of an appetite, due in large part to his mother’s worries about the state of the cafeteria food and the cleanliness of shared kitchens. Turning down Jared’s invitation didn’t solve that problem, but it did successfully postpone it until later.
“Okay,” Jared said. “I’ll see you later on, then.” He left the room and Jensen stood on the spot, a little stunned. Jared’s bags were still spread out over his bed untidily. He hadn’t put anything away. Jensen sighed and tried not to let it bother him. Jared was his roommate; an important part of sharing the space was tolerating the other person’s quirks.
***
Jared was an absolute slob. He didn’t hang up his clothes. He never made his bed. He would walk past the trash can Jensen had just emptied, put an empty candy bar wrapper on the shelf above it, and take a new one out of his stash.
It drove Jensen mad, but he wasn’t sure what he could say about it. He wasn’t Jared’s dad or anything, he had no grounds to tell Jared what to do. Jensen kept his stuff confined to his own side of the room and rigorously organised, but Jared took no such care and left his possessions strewn everywhere. Even though Jared had turned out to be not all that scary, just kind of boisterous, Jensen couldn’t find the nerve to talk to him about it. There was little opportunity to do so anyway, as Jared was rarely in the dorm.
He was in Jensen’s Calculus lecture though, not too surprising as there were a few hundred students in the class, mostly freshmen. In such a large group it was easy for Jensen to keep his distance, but he kept noticing Jared anyway. He sat on the left side of the lecture theatre while Jensen normally sat in the middle. He seemed to have a huge group of friends that he talked with loudly, and constantly. He always slipped out about five minutes early, and for some reason he favoured sleeveless t-shirts that showed off his massive arms. It wasn’t like Jensen wanted to notice that, it was just sort of hard to miss.
After Calculus, Jensen had to hurry to his Biology lab. He was in an irritated mood before he even got there. His partner was a complete flake and they had a group project due in less than a week. It was barely half done, thanks to Mike’s complete inability to focus.
“We have to get the rest of this done,” Jensen insisted. “Tonight, preferably,” he added, trying to pry Mike’s attention away from his phone.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike said. “Okay. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. “You want to head to the library when class is over?”
“I have Comp after this,” Mike said. “We could meet at the library at seven. Or maybe eight. Yeah, then I’ll have time to eat first. Eight.”
“Okay,” said Jensen doubtfully. “Eight.”
He did go straight to the library once the lab was over, and spent a couple of hours studying for a Calculus test and writing a paper for Essentials of College Rhetoric, the most unbearably boring subject ever conceived of. He slipped out to get a sandwich just after seven, but he was back well before eight and taking notes on a chapter of his Biomedical Ethics textbook. The chapter was about euthanasia; apparently it was much more complicated than Jensen would have thought.
Mike was twenty minutes late. Jensen severely regretted not exchanging phone numbers with him. He was relieved to finally look up and see Mike coming through the library doors.
Working with Mike in the library was just as frustrating as trying to work with him in lab, except that they were attracting dirty looks from the librarians for making too much noise. They didn’t get as much done as Jensen had hoped, and at about ten Mike announced that he had to go meet someone named Tom. Jensen wondered who made plans to meet someone at ten pm on a weeknight, and for what purpose, but didn’t ask.
He went back to the dorm and resentfully spent another hour working on the project alone. He went to bed a little before midnight, only to be woken up a couple of hours later by Jared coming in, bumping into things and turning the lights on, reeking of cigarette smoke.
***
Jensen’s alarm went off early the next morning, so that he could get to his College Rhetoric lecture on time. He regularly cursed whoever had made the subject a requirement for freshmen. Getting up for it was sometimes a struggle, which was why Jensen had chosen the loudest, shriekiest alarm setting on his phone.
Jensen lurched out of bed and crashed into the desk, knocking over a stack of CD’s. Jared groaned and pulled the bedcovers over his head. “Sleeping,” he mumbled.
“It’s morning,” Jensen muttered a little pissily, because it wasn’t like he was particularly eager to be awake either. “You should be getting up anyway.”
“Tired.”
“Well, when you go to bed at two am, what do you expect?” Jensen said. He grabbed his washbag and headed to the bathroom before Jared could reply.
By the time Jensen got back from showering, Jared was asleep again. He went to class, determined to spend the day more productively than the previous one. He managed to get hold of Mike and tie him down to finish the rest of their Biology project, something which left him feeling a lot more optimistic and in control of the whole college thing. He went into his Calculus test the next day feeling confident.
He got a B.
“Something wrong, Jensen?” Jared asked when he came into the dorm room that evening. In answer, Jensen held up the test paper wordlessly.
“Bummer?” Jared said uncertainly. “Are you gonna lose a scholarship or something? It’s pretty early in the semester, you’d have to have failed pretty much everything to already be on academic probation...”
“I’m not gonna lose my scholarship!” Jensen snapped. Even if he did, his parents had saved for years to pay his college tuition. That wasn’t the point.
“Then what’s the big deal?” Jared asked. “It’s a B. Even a nerd like you should be satisfied with that.”
“I don’t get B’s!” Jensen said. “I was the valedictorian of my high school. I aced everything. I’m good at math.”
“It’s a tough class,” Jared said. Jensen held in a snort. Of course Jared would think that. He glowered at the paper and tried to make sense of the corrections once more.
“If you’re really bothered about it, maybe we should study together some time,” Jared suggested tentatively. Jensen looked up at him, shocked, and Jared shrugged. “I’m pretty good at Calc.”
“You?” Jensen said disbelievingly, only realising how he must sound when Jared’s expression hardened.
“Whatever, forget it,” Jared snapped. “I thought I’d offer to help, but you obviously don’t want anything to do with me, so be that way.” He snatched a sheet of paper off his desk and flicked it at Jensen. “I’m getting out of here,” he said, closing the door hard behind him as he left.
Jensen looked at the paper Jared had tossed at him. It was the same test he’d taken, but at the top was an A with ‘Excellent work!’ written next to it. Jensen scowled and let it drop to the floor. Whatever. It didn’t matter how good at math Jared was, he would probably be impossible to study with. Jensen wasn’t missing out on anything.
***
“Oh, Jensen,” said his mother when she learned about the B. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Jensen grumbled. “I thought I’d studied enough...”
“Maybe you need to improve the way you’re studying,” she suggested. “I know, things are different now you’re at college, there’s a lot of distractions and things you want to explore, but you can’t forget why you’re there. Maybe you need a study partner.”
That wasn’t really what Jensen wanted to hear, but... “Jared, my roommate, offered,” Jensen admitted stupidly. “But I sort of turned him down.”
“Well, Jensen, that wasn’t very bright, was it? You’ll just have to tell him you changed your mind.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Jensen Ross Ackles,” his mom said, much firmer now. “Your father and I both worked sixty hours a week for the past eighteen years to pay for your education, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you invest a little effort of your own.”
So that was that. Jensen was just going to have to face Jared and ask if the offer of study help was still open.
It was hard, because Jared seemed to be avoiding him.
Jensen couldn’t approach him at Calc - well, he could, but Jared was always surrounded by a huge crowd of people who he seemed to like and who had probably never implied that he was a brainless idiot. Jensen wimped out and decided to wait until he saw Jared back at the dorm, but he gave up and went to bed long before Jared returned. He was contemplating writing Jared a note when he saw him as he was leaving the cafeteria after dinner. (Jensen still had doubts about the cafeteria food, but he never had time to even think about cooking, so mass produced slop it was.)
Jared was sitting on a bench opposite the cafeteria, playing an acoustic guitar. Jensen realised that, although he’d seen Jared bring the case in that first day, he’d never seen him play. For a moment, Jensen felt like he was seeing Jared through someone else’s eyes, someone who didn’t know him. His fingers moved over the strings quickly and surely, and his ridiculously long legs somehow seemed even longer when they were tucked underneath him. He didn’t recognise the song, but Jared was really into it, head bobbing and eyes half closed. The hard edge that he carried with him was gone, something Jensen had never noticed until it was absent.
Jensen moved closer and watched, slightly distracted by the way Jared’s hair flopped over his face. It made him want to reach out and smooth out the tangles. He couldn’t judge Jared’s skill at all, but there was something captivating in the way he played. After less than a minute, though, Jared noticed Jensen standing there, and stopped.
“Jensen,” he said, voice neutral. His face became closed off again, and he straightened up.
“Hey,” said Jensen. There was a short, uncomfortable silence. “I’m sorry I was a jerk the other day,” Jensen said at last. “Are we cool?” Jared just looked at him, face revealing nothing, so Jensen plunged on. “Because, um... if that offer was still open, about studying together, I was thinking it might be a good idea.” Jared still didn’t react. Jensen searched for something else to say. “I can help you, too, with studying for...” He tried to think of other subjects Jared might need help with.
“For what?” Jared asked sceptically. “History of Rock and Roll?”
“That’s a subject?” Jensen replied, surprised.
Jared shrugged. “I thought it would fill my Humanities requirement. Turns out, not so much. But it’ll count towards my music major, if I decide to go that way.” He stood up, putting the guitar back in its case and closing it. “If you still need help with Calc, I guess I can do that,” he said, lifting the case.
“Really? Great! Thanks,” said Jensen. “When’s good for you? Now? Actually, not now - I’ve got a paper to write. What about tomorrow night?”
“I have to work tomorrow night,” Jared said. “I’m free on Thursday, at midday.”
“I’ve got a lab,” Jensen said. “Thursday night?”
“I have to work then, too.”
“Friday, then.”
“Study on a Friday night?” Jared said, but Jensen must have looked sufficiently desperate that he relented. “Okay, fine. But you need to bring snacks.”
Since Jared had stashed enough candy around their dorm room to feed a dozen people for a week, Jensen found it a bit rich that he was demanding even more, but he wasn’t about to argue with the guy doing him a favour. “Sure!” he said. He could get some granola bars or wheat crackers, it wasn’t like Jared needed more sugar.
Jensen had planned to catch up on things throughout the week so that by Friday, he could concentrate on Calculus with Jared, but it didn’t work out that way, much to his disappointment. Most of his class work was straightforward enough but more time consuming than he’d allowed for. His paper on euthanasia was the exception; try as he might he couldn’t use the set readings to form any sort of concrete opinion he could argue for. As soon as he felt like he was getting a handle on it, his research would turn up a different viewpoint and he’d be lost once more. He could have described the arguments for and against, but the essay topic was asking him to pick a side. He could have just chosen one, but it would have felt like a cop-out if he put an argument together without really meaning it. He’d planned to have the paper finished by Friday, but instead he wasn’t even half done.
Jensen arrived at the dorm for his Friday night study session with Jared armed with a bag of dried fruit and an unopened packet of pens. He dropped the pens on the desk where Jared was sitting, and he raised an eyebrow at Jensen. “How long are you expecting us to study for?” he asked, amused. Jensen shook his head and handed over the dried fruit. Jared looked at it in dismay.
“Have you done the problem set from today’s lecture yet?” Jensen asked.
“No,” said Jared, speaking slowly as though worried that Jensen might not understand. “Because it’s Friday.”
“Well, are we going to do this, or what?” Jensen asked. Jared nodded and flipped his textbook open.
“Okay,” he said, “show me how you’d solve this.”
They worked for nearly an hour, quietly for the most part. Jared kept track of where Jensen was up to but mostly focused on his own assignment and picking all the dried apple out of the bag. Jensen tried to concentrate on his own work but kept getting distracted thinking about his euthanasia paper instead.
“Is everything okay, Jensen?” Jared said at last.
“Huh?”
“Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet, and...” he glanced at Jensen’s notepad, “You’ve done that last problem bass-ackwards. You didn’t make that mistake with the others.”
Jensen looked over the problem and found the mistake. “Shit,” he muttered, crossing out the error and starting over.
“Something on your mind?” Jared asked.
“No,” Jensen grumbled, concentrating furiously.
Jared kept quiet then, and after a minute or two it was Jensen who said, “If you were sick, would you rather live longer and be in pain, or be comfortable but die sooner?”
“What the fuck?” Jared asked, turning to look straight at Jensen, his surprise clear. “Where did that come from?”
“I’ve got this paper to write for Biomedical Ethics, and I picked this topic about whether doctors should encourage patients to get treatment to extend their lives even if their quality of life isn’t good, or advise them not to because they’re dying anyway, and I can’t figure out what to say about it.”
“Jesus,” said Jared, “that’s fucking morbid. Can’t you just pick a different topic?”
“I chose this one... I’m doing pre-med, you know. If I can’t figure this stuff out, I won’t be able to give my patients the best care.”
“Jensen,” Jared said, the slow voice coming back again although this time it was tinged with frustration. “You’re not actually a doctor yet. You don’t have any patients.”
“I know! I just want to get it right.”
Jared looked at him with an incredulous expression. “You can’t get it ‘right’,” he said. “It’s a philosophical thing, um... conundrum. The point is to prove that there’s a justification for the position you decide to take, not that it’s the only justified position.” Jensen took a breath, ready to protest, but Jared wasn’t finished. “My mother had cancer, you know. She was in and out of hospital for a long time, but in the end she was just too sick. I don’t think bringing her home was the right thing, or the wrong thing. It was just what we had to do.”
“I... I’m sorry,” Jensen said. “I didn’t know...”
Jared shrugged. “Whatever. I just think... if you really end up a doctor and you go in thinking that there’s always a right answer, it’s not going to work out for you.” He glanced down at the math they’d been working on and shook his head. “I need a break. I’m going to get something to eat.”
Jared left, and Jensen sat back down with his Calc assignment, glad that at least that had clear answers.
***
After that, Jensen started to seriously reconsider the impression he’d formed of Jared. He started to notice things that he’d somehow missed before. Sure, Jared was out late most nights, but when he was in the dorm he was usually studying. Since Jensen had complained about it, Jared was a lot better about putting his trash in the bin. He was still a slob in other ways, but he was also generous and made it clear that Jensen was free to share his snacks. And once Jensen started paying attention and trying to get along with Jared, he realised that Jared was also sort of keeping his distance.
That kind of sucked, because of all the people Jensen had met at college, Jared was the one he’d spent the most time with and who knew him the best. He was the only person Jensen would even consider having a serious conversation with, and Jensen had totally screwed up a possible friendship by being judgemental.
Because he was trying to be less of an asshole, Jensen noticed when Jared grabbed his guitar case one evening and started to leave the room. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Practice room?”
“Nah, you have to be a declared music major to book one of those. I’m just going to take it out, to the lounge or the quad maybe, and practice down there.”
Jensen looked at him. The lounge and the quad were both busy, noisy spaces. They couldn’t possibly be ideal for practicing. “You could stay here?” he suggested.
“I don’t want to distract you while you’re studying.”
“You won’t, it’s fine!” Jensen said, annoyed at himself for not having noticed that Jared never, ever, played his guitar in the dorm.
Jared paused for a second, and then nodded and opened the guitar case. Pleased, Jensen went back to studying. Unfortunately, as Jared started to play, he realised that it was far more of a distraction than he’d anticipated. He wasn’t used to having to tune out noise while he worked; at home, he’d studied at the desk in his room with the door shut and it had always been pretty quiet. Jensen hunched over his laptop and tried to tune out the noise.
Thirty minutes of fairly unproductive work followed. Jensen kept having to backtrack and rewrite every sentence. He was considering making some excuse and heading to the library, except that it would be totally obvious why he was leaving, and he’d feel pretty dickish about bailing after asking Jared to stay. But then he heard Jared mutter “Shit,” and the music stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Jensen asked, turning around. Jared sat on the bed looking sadly down at his guitar.
“I broke a string,” he said, pulling the offending string free and glaring at it.
“Oh, can you fix it?”
“I could, if I had any more.” Jared poked around in his guitar case, pulling out several packets but none of them apparently what he was looking for. “I’ve got everything else, but no D string. I’ll have to buy some more once I get paid next week. If I have enough left over after paying tuition.” He frowned pensively into the guitar case and placed the guitar back in it.
Jensen knew it wasn’t really his business and he shouldn’t say anything, but he still found himself wondering, “Could you borrow some money from home? That’s a long time to be without your guitar.”
Jared looked startled at the suggestion. “Nah,” he said. “My brother doesn’t make that much, and he’s got my little sister to take care of. Usually, if I have spare money at the end of the week, I send it home to them.”
“Is that why you work so much?” Jensen wondered, things suddenly making a lot more sense.
“Yeah, I got a partial scholarship and some savings to pay for college, but there’s still living expenses. And my brother works really hard to take care of Megan - to take care of both of us, before I left home. He had to drop out of high school in his last year to take care of Mom, and the rest of us. I want to return the favour, you know? And there’s not much I can do right now, but Megan and I have sort of agreed that once we’re both done with college, we’re going to pay for Jeff to go. If we can convince him.” Jared went quiet then, shifted on the bed like he was a little uncomfortable at how much he’d revealed.
“You guys sound really close. It’s great,” said Jensen. “I mean, it sucks that you all went through that. But you guys sound really great.” And then he went back to his paper before he could say anything else stupid and embarrassing.
***
Over the days which followed, Jensen questioned whether it would be weird to give Jared some new guitar strings, and eventually decided he didn’t care. He did feel a little guilty for rifling through the crap on Jared’s desk, looking for the packet he’d tossed there, but it wasn’t like Jared would ever even notice, considering how much crap there was lying around. Jensen wrote down every piece of information on the packet just in case, and headed out to find a music store.
When he got back later with the guitar strings, Jared was just getting ready for work, so Jensen handed the strings over without much fanfare.
“It’s no big deal,” he said with a little wave when Jared tried to thank him. “I just thought... you wouldn’t like not being able to play.”
Jared grinned at him. “Awesome,” he said. “I’ll be back around two. Sorry if I wake you up again.”
“You’re going to be so tired!” Jensen said, wincing at how much he sounded like his mother, but unable to stop himself.
“Well, I didn’t schedule myself any super early classes, unlike some weirdos,” Jared teased on his way out the door. “If you get that Calc assignment done, I can check it over tomorrow and you can see what you need to work on for the test.”
***
Jensen took Jared’s advice. After a week of studying hard, and working with Jared whenever he had the time, Jensen passed his next Calc test with a B+. While it was an improvement, he’d been hoping for more.
Jared didn’t understand his disappointment. “It’s a good grade!” he insisted. “What’s the big deal?”
“I’ve spent every spare moment studying, and this is the best I can do,” Jensen said miserably. “And now I’m falling behind in my other classes. My paper for College Rhetoric was half a page short, and I fell asleep in the lecture because I had to stay up until three am to finish it.”
Jared sighed at him. “You need to take a break, Jensen. Most people can’t get an A for every single assignment. It doesn’t mean you’re not doing well.”
“But it’s only the start of freshman year,” Jensen said. “And I’m already struggling. What if it gets worse? What if I get put on academic probation? Or flunk out? What if my grades aren’t good enough for med school?”
Jared blinked at him. “You’re not struggling,” he said slowly. “Most college students would be thrilled with grades like that. I really doubt flunking, or getting put on probation, is even a slight possibility. And sure, med school’s competitive, but not that much, I don’t think.”
Jensen nodded and tried to feel reassured, since Jared was obviously trying so hard to make him feel better. He must not have succeeded, because Jared sighed and said, “Okay, obviously that’s not really the problem, so what else are you worried about?”
That took Jensen by surprise, and he answered without thinking, “I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my parents.”
“Well, I doubt they’ll care that much,” Jared said, “unless... they do?”
Jensen shrugged. “They want me to do well. They worked really hard for me to go to college.”
Jared gave a half-smile. “I would have thought a star student like you would be on a scholarship.”
“Well, yeah, but you pointed out yourself that that only covers tuition. They’ve saved for years so that my brother and sister and I could go to college. They’re going to think I don’t appreciate them.”
Jared was quiet, but he was looking at Jensen in a thoughtful, intent way that got on his nerves. “What?” he demanded.
Jared shook himself and looked away. “It’s your family, it’s not really my business,” he said. “But... are you really worried about whether they’ll be upset that you got a B plus? Not a D or something, a B plus. Have they done that before, or are you worrying without proof that you need to?” He paused for a second to let Jensen consider that, but didn’t wait for his answer before adding, “Because if it’s the first thing, then maybe you should ask yourself whether that’s a reasonable thing for them to expect.”
The following silence was deeply uncomfortable, until Jensen said, “I’m supposed to be meeting Mike from Bio lab,” and hurried out of the room.
Jensen had learned that although Mike wasn’t much interested in Biology he could be reliable up to a point, as long as Jensen was the one worrying about the bigger picture of getting their work done. That allowed Jensen to keep working with him without murdering him, which was good as Mike was entertaining company.
They had a lab report to finish and a paper to write. The paper was actually an individual assignment, not something they needed to write together, but Jensen had suggested they work on it together anyway, mainly because he wasn’t sure Mike would ever finish it otherwise.
Most of the study session involved Jensen reminding Mike what they were supposed to be doing and deflecting his attempts to distract them both, but after an hour or so of productive work, Jensen decided they could both use a break.
“How are you finding college so far?” he asked.
“It is so great!” Mike enthused. “I went to this party last Saturday, and there was this girl there, and I swear, she had a piercing right-”
“I thought you and Tom...”
“Oh, yeah, we are. I didn’t do anything with her, if that’s what you’re wondering, but...”
Jensen tried to block the previous minute from his mind and interrupted, “Anyway, I was actually talking about the workload. You know. Tests and papers, all that.”
“Oh.” Mike shrugged indifferently. “It’s alright, I guess. Most of my classes are pretty easy, except for Bio. Don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to get that out of the way freshman year.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot to do,” Jensen agreed.
“I’m getting B’s in everything else, though, so that’s pretty sweet.”
Jensen nodded, wanting to ask more questions but not sure he knew Mike well enough to interrogate him about his family background. Maybe you couldn’t know someone well enough for that to be okay. He said, “Yeah, that’s great,” and went back to the paper.
***
In the end, Jensen’s mom reacted to Jensen’s B+ by saying, “A B plus, well... that’s not too bad. There’s always next time.” Jensen ended the phone call with a sense of having dodged a bullet.
Things got better between him and Jared. They started eating together in the cafeteria and sitting together during Calculus lectures. Jared continued to be an utter slob and leave his stuff lying around everywhere, until one day Jensen couldn’t bear it anymore, and snapped.
“I realise you’re pretty occupied with trying to re-create Marylin Manson’s greatest sounds or whatever, but would it kill you to pick up your trash and put it, you know, in the trash can?” Jensen snarked one night. He felt a little bad for being so mean, but Jared had been driving him mad, leaving discarded packets and wrappers and old receipts lying around. Even worse were the empty takeout containers, which Jensen thought might be starting to smell. He hadn’t wanted to make a fuss, but all the heavy sighs and pointed looks in the world had failed to make a difference, and he was at a loss.
Jared, for his part, looked around the room as though he was seeing it for the first time. “Oh, man!” he said. “You should have mentioned it earlier!” He jumped up, carefully putting his guitar down on the bed, and went around the room snatching up crumpled sheets of paper and empty packets. He dropped the rubbish in the trash can and squashed it all down. “There!” he said, “right as rain.” And he sat back down before Jensen could think of anything else to say.
It wasn’t right as rain at all. The trash was picked up, but now the trash can was overflowing. Jared’s clothes were still lying all over the place, and so were his textbooks and notes - Jensen always wondered how he ever found anything he needed. But anyway, he’d only complained about the trash, so Jared might think he was moving the goalposts if he started complaining about other things now. And he’d tried, and seemed really happy to have picked up the rubbish. Jensen glowered in Jared’s direction, trying to convince himself that things were okay.
“Why are you looking at me?” Jared asked. “Are you staring at my tattoos?”
“No,” Jensen denied instantly, but his traitorous eyes strayed right towards them. He’d never let himself just look at them, always conscious of not wanting to be caught staring.
“You can look,” Jared said, striking an exaggerated pose. “I know it’s hard to resist, I don’t blame you.”
Jensen turned away, blushing. He would never admit it because he knew that Jared was being over the top to be funny, but the way his muscles flexed made Jensen’s heart race nonetheless. “Do you think you’ll ever get more?” he asked, trying to sound normal.
“Sure,” Jared answered. “I want a full sleeve someday, and maybe the other arm too. It’s just, right now, I need my money for school. I had to save since I was fifteen just to pay for these, it took me two years.”
Jensen nodded, then did the math and frowned. “You got them when you were seventeen?”
“Well, yeah!” said Jared. “Oh, what, you don’t approve?”
“No!” Jensen said, although he didn’t. “It’s just, you know. You realise they’re permanent?”
Jared jumped up from his chair. “Holy shit, really? Are you fucking serious? I don’t believe it, why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” Jensen watched with wide eyes as Jared flailed. He finally stilled and glanced at Jensen’s face before doubling over with laughter. “Did you really think I didn’t know?”
“I just meant...” Jensen said carefully, “what if, one day, you don’t like them anymore?”
Jared swiped at his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, revealing the earrings hanging from one ear. Jensen made himself look away, and his gaze fell back on Jared’s arms.
“I really don’t think that will happen,” Jared said. “It’s like... I’d have to change a lot, I think, to not like them anymore, and how can you live your life worrying that one day all your priorities might suddenly change? You’d never be able to do anything.”
“I guess so,” Jensen said, turning that idea over in his mind. There was something frightening about it; it meant that the future was uncertain and changeable, and that he had no choice but to go forwards anyway and do the best he could. It meant that maybe he was the foolish one, for imagining that there were guarantees where none existed.
Part Two
Prompt Number: 2027
Artist: kjanddean
Link to Art
Fic Title: Covers
Author: daniomalley22
Fandom/Genre: RPS, College AU
Pairing(s): J2
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 11243
Warnings: None
Summary: Jensen's been preparing for college his whole life and he means to make the most of it, no matter how distracting his roommate Jared is with his terrible housekeeping, the bizarre hours he keeps, and the way he can make the tattoos on his arm ripple by flexing his bicep.
Author's Notes Written for spn_reversebang. Thanks so much to sylvia_locust for betaing this. Thanks to kjanddean for being generally awesome, and to the mods for running this fantastic challenge.
Also available on Ao3.
Jensen’s parents drove him to college and helped him cart all his stuff up to the dorm room. They helped him unpack and get everything put away as best they could manage - the brochure had described the dorm rooms as ‘cosy’ and Jensen thought that was generous in the extreme. They hugged him and wished him good luck and Dad slipped him fifty dollars. Jensen wished them goodbye, feeling pretty confident about the whole college thing. He was prepared, had all his textbooks and Mom had made him get a tetanus booster before he left. This was going to be an amazing new stage in his life.
Ten minutes after they’d gone, Jensen took it all back. He wasn’t ready and this was going to be a disaster. His professors were probably all going to hate him. He was going to fail all his classes. He would never make any friends. He’d probably get mugged walking home from a late class one night, or get food poisoning in the cafeteria or something. The opportunities for something to go horribly wrong were endless.
Of course, it was right around then that a knock came at the door. ‘It’s the mugger!’ Jensen thought a little hysterically, but he got a grip after that and remembered that muggers rarely knocked. Usually, they lurked in the shadows until their unsuspecting prey walked past and attacked while their guard was down. Jensen was just a little panicky, was all. Finally he called out, “Hello?”
The door opened and a man peered inside. He was huge, several inches taller than Jensen who was pretty tall himself. He had shoulder length brown hair and the light glinted off a silver lip ring, but Jensen’s eyes kept drifting away from that to the bulging muscles of his biceps, visible under his sleeveless t-shirt. One arm was covered in tattoos from shoulder to elbow. This guy could snap Jensen like a twig. He was going to eat him alive.
“Hi,” the newcomer said, stepping into the room and letting the door close behind him. “I’m Jared Padalecki - your roommate?”
Oh, God. Jared . Jensen knew he needed to say something, but he had no idea what. What did you say to someone who was covered in tattoos? “Hi?” he said, sounding even more uncertain than the first time.
Jared nodded. “Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure!” Jensen squeaked, stepping back and making what he hoped was a welcoming gesture.
Jared moved further into the room. He was carrying a duffle bag over one shoulder, another in his right hand and a battered guitar case in his left. “Did you unpack yet?” he asked. “Where’s all your stuff?”
Jensen looked around the room, puzzled. His stuff was everywhere, his books stacked on the shelf over his bed and his laptop on the desk. He pointed and Jared said, “Oh, so that is your stuff, huh? Big Star Wars geek, are you?” He pointed at the little Yoda figure Jensen had put on his shelf next to his books. There was something unpleasant in his tone that put Jensen on the defensive.
“What’s wrong with Star Wars?” Jensen asked stiffly, but Jared didn’t seem to take any notice. He went to the bed on the left and dropped his bags on it.
“I’m exhausted. Six hours on a bus, not exactly my idea of a fun time. I hope they don’t expect us to do any actual work this week.”
Jensen decided he didn’t like Jared all that much. He was just some goofball who thought college was a great excuse to party and slack off. “Actually, I’d rather get started straight away and not waste time. We’re here to learn,” he said. Jared tilted his head to look at him, raising his eyebrows a little.
“Really?” he said. “Figures, a nerd like you.” He stretched and groaned. “I’m starving. If I’m going to have the energy to put up with your try-hardiness, I’m going to need some food. You want to come?”
Jensen blinked at Jared, wondering how he could deliver an insult in one breath and an invitation in the next. He suspected that if he said yes, the meal would end with a plate of food being tipped on his head or a can of drink thrown in his lap. Juvenile, yes, but that was clearly the sort of person Jared was.
“I’m good,” Jensen said. He really didn’t have much of an appetite, due in large part to his mother’s worries about the state of the cafeteria food and the cleanliness of shared kitchens. Turning down Jared’s invitation didn’t solve that problem, but it did successfully postpone it until later.
“Okay,” Jared said. “I’ll see you later on, then.” He left the room and Jensen stood on the spot, a little stunned. Jared’s bags were still spread out over his bed untidily. He hadn’t put anything away. Jensen sighed and tried not to let it bother him. Jared was his roommate; an important part of sharing the space was tolerating the other person’s quirks.
***
Jared was an absolute slob. He didn’t hang up his clothes. He never made his bed. He would walk past the trash can Jensen had just emptied, put an empty candy bar wrapper on the shelf above it, and take a new one out of his stash.
It drove Jensen mad, but he wasn’t sure what he could say about it. He wasn’t Jared’s dad or anything, he had no grounds to tell Jared what to do. Jensen kept his stuff confined to his own side of the room and rigorously organised, but Jared took no such care and left his possessions strewn everywhere. Even though Jared had turned out to be not all that scary, just kind of boisterous, Jensen couldn’t find the nerve to talk to him about it. There was little opportunity to do so anyway, as Jared was rarely in the dorm.
He was in Jensen’s Calculus lecture though, not too surprising as there were a few hundred students in the class, mostly freshmen. In such a large group it was easy for Jensen to keep his distance, but he kept noticing Jared anyway. He sat on the left side of the lecture theatre while Jensen normally sat in the middle. He seemed to have a huge group of friends that he talked with loudly, and constantly. He always slipped out about five minutes early, and for some reason he favoured sleeveless t-shirts that showed off his massive arms. It wasn’t like Jensen wanted to notice that, it was just sort of hard to miss.
After Calculus, Jensen had to hurry to his Biology lab. He was in an irritated mood before he even got there. His partner was a complete flake and they had a group project due in less than a week. It was barely half done, thanks to Mike’s complete inability to focus.
“We have to get the rest of this done,” Jensen insisted. “Tonight, preferably,” he added, trying to pry Mike’s attention away from his phone.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike said. “Okay. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. “You want to head to the library when class is over?”
“I have Comp after this,” Mike said. “We could meet at the library at seven. Or maybe eight. Yeah, then I’ll have time to eat first. Eight.”
“Okay,” said Jensen doubtfully. “Eight.”
He did go straight to the library once the lab was over, and spent a couple of hours studying for a Calculus test and writing a paper for Essentials of College Rhetoric, the most unbearably boring subject ever conceived of. He slipped out to get a sandwich just after seven, but he was back well before eight and taking notes on a chapter of his Biomedical Ethics textbook. The chapter was about euthanasia; apparently it was much more complicated than Jensen would have thought.
Mike was twenty minutes late. Jensen severely regretted not exchanging phone numbers with him. He was relieved to finally look up and see Mike coming through the library doors.
Working with Mike in the library was just as frustrating as trying to work with him in lab, except that they were attracting dirty looks from the librarians for making too much noise. They didn’t get as much done as Jensen had hoped, and at about ten Mike announced that he had to go meet someone named Tom. Jensen wondered who made plans to meet someone at ten pm on a weeknight, and for what purpose, but didn’t ask.
He went back to the dorm and resentfully spent another hour working on the project alone. He went to bed a little before midnight, only to be woken up a couple of hours later by Jared coming in, bumping into things and turning the lights on, reeking of cigarette smoke.
***
Jensen’s alarm went off early the next morning, so that he could get to his College Rhetoric lecture on time. He regularly cursed whoever had made the subject a requirement for freshmen. Getting up for it was sometimes a struggle, which was why Jensen had chosen the loudest, shriekiest alarm setting on his phone.
Jensen lurched out of bed and crashed into the desk, knocking over a stack of CD’s. Jared groaned and pulled the bedcovers over his head. “Sleeping,” he mumbled.
“It’s morning,” Jensen muttered a little pissily, because it wasn’t like he was particularly eager to be awake either. “You should be getting up anyway.”
“Tired.”
“Well, when you go to bed at two am, what do you expect?” Jensen said. He grabbed his washbag and headed to the bathroom before Jared could reply.
By the time Jensen got back from showering, Jared was asleep again. He went to class, determined to spend the day more productively than the previous one. He managed to get hold of Mike and tie him down to finish the rest of their Biology project, something which left him feeling a lot more optimistic and in control of the whole college thing. He went into his Calculus test the next day feeling confident.
He got a B.
“Something wrong, Jensen?” Jared asked when he came into the dorm room that evening. In answer, Jensen held up the test paper wordlessly.
“Bummer?” Jared said uncertainly. “Are you gonna lose a scholarship or something? It’s pretty early in the semester, you’d have to have failed pretty much everything to already be on academic probation...”
“I’m not gonna lose my scholarship!” Jensen snapped. Even if he did, his parents had saved for years to pay his college tuition. That wasn’t the point.
“Then what’s the big deal?” Jared asked. “It’s a B. Even a nerd like you should be satisfied with that.”
“I don’t get B’s!” Jensen said. “I was the valedictorian of my high school. I aced everything. I’m good at math.”
“It’s a tough class,” Jared said. Jensen held in a snort. Of course Jared would think that. He glowered at the paper and tried to make sense of the corrections once more.
“If you’re really bothered about it, maybe we should study together some time,” Jared suggested tentatively. Jensen looked up at him, shocked, and Jared shrugged. “I’m pretty good at Calc.”
“You?” Jensen said disbelievingly, only realising how he must sound when Jared’s expression hardened.
“Whatever, forget it,” Jared snapped. “I thought I’d offer to help, but you obviously don’t want anything to do with me, so be that way.” He snatched a sheet of paper off his desk and flicked it at Jensen. “I’m getting out of here,” he said, closing the door hard behind him as he left.
Jensen looked at the paper Jared had tossed at him. It was the same test he’d taken, but at the top was an A with ‘Excellent work!’ written next to it. Jensen scowled and let it drop to the floor. Whatever. It didn’t matter how good at math Jared was, he would probably be impossible to study with. Jensen wasn’t missing out on anything.
***
“Oh, Jensen,” said his mother when she learned about the B. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Jensen grumbled. “I thought I’d studied enough...”
“Maybe you need to improve the way you’re studying,” she suggested. “I know, things are different now you’re at college, there’s a lot of distractions and things you want to explore, but you can’t forget why you’re there. Maybe you need a study partner.”
That wasn’t really what Jensen wanted to hear, but... “Jared, my roommate, offered,” Jensen admitted stupidly. “But I sort of turned him down.”
“Well, Jensen, that wasn’t very bright, was it? You’ll just have to tell him you changed your mind.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Jensen Ross Ackles,” his mom said, much firmer now. “Your father and I both worked sixty hours a week for the past eighteen years to pay for your education, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you invest a little effort of your own.”
So that was that. Jensen was just going to have to face Jared and ask if the offer of study help was still open.
It was hard, because Jared seemed to be avoiding him.
Jensen couldn’t approach him at Calc - well, he could, but Jared was always surrounded by a huge crowd of people who he seemed to like and who had probably never implied that he was a brainless idiot. Jensen wimped out and decided to wait until he saw Jared back at the dorm, but he gave up and went to bed long before Jared returned. He was contemplating writing Jared a note when he saw him as he was leaving the cafeteria after dinner. (Jensen still had doubts about the cafeteria food, but he never had time to even think about cooking, so mass produced slop it was.)
Jared was sitting on a bench opposite the cafeteria, playing an acoustic guitar. Jensen realised that, although he’d seen Jared bring the case in that first day, he’d never seen him play. For a moment, Jensen felt like he was seeing Jared through someone else’s eyes, someone who didn’t know him. His fingers moved over the strings quickly and surely, and his ridiculously long legs somehow seemed even longer when they were tucked underneath him. He didn’t recognise the song, but Jared was really into it, head bobbing and eyes half closed. The hard edge that he carried with him was gone, something Jensen had never noticed until it was absent.
Jensen moved closer and watched, slightly distracted by the way Jared’s hair flopped over his face. It made him want to reach out and smooth out the tangles. He couldn’t judge Jared’s skill at all, but there was something captivating in the way he played. After less than a minute, though, Jared noticed Jensen standing there, and stopped.
“Jensen,” he said, voice neutral. His face became closed off again, and he straightened up.
“Hey,” said Jensen. There was a short, uncomfortable silence. “I’m sorry I was a jerk the other day,” Jensen said at last. “Are we cool?” Jared just looked at him, face revealing nothing, so Jensen plunged on. “Because, um... if that offer was still open, about studying together, I was thinking it might be a good idea.” Jared still didn’t react. Jensen searched for something else to say. “I can help you, too, with studying for...” He tried to think of other subjects Jared might need help with.
“For what?” Jared asked sceptically. “History of Rock and Roll?”
“That’s a subject?” Jensen replied, surprised.
Jared shrugged. “I thought it would fill my Humanities requirement. Turns out, not so much. But it’ll count towards my music major, if I decide to go that way.” He stood up, putting the guitar back in its case and closing it. “If you still need help with Calc, I guess I can do that,” he said, lifting the case.
“Really? Great! Thanks,” said Jensen. “When’s good for you? Now? Actually, not now - I’ve got a paper to write. What about tomorrow night?”
“I have to work tomorrow night,” Jared said. “I’m free on Thursday, at midday.”
“I’ve got a lab,” Jensen said. “Thursday night?”
“I have to work then, too.”
“Friday, then.”
“Study on a Friday night?” Jared said, but Jensen must have looked sufficiently desperate that he relented. “Okay, fine. But you need to bring snacks.”
Since Jared had stashed enough candy around their dorm room to feed a dozen people for a week, Jensen found it a bit rich that he was demanding even more, but he wasn’t about to argue with the guy doing him a favour. “Sure!” he said. He could get some granola bars or wheat crackers, it wasn’t like Jared needed more sugar.
Jensen had planned to catch up on things throughout the week so that by Friday, he could concentrate on Calculus with Jared, but it didn’t work out that way, much to his disappointment. Most of his class work was straightforward enough but more time consuming than he’d allowed for. His paper on euthanasia was the exception; try as he might he couldn’t use the set readings to form any sort of concrete opinion he could argue for. As soon as he felt like he was getting a handle on it, his research would turn up a different viewpoint and he’d be lost once more. He could have described the arguments for and against, but the essay topic was asking him to pick a side. He could have just chosen one, but it would have felt like a cop-out if he put an argument together without really meaning it. He’d planned to have the paper finished by Friday, but instead he wasn’t even half done.
Jensen arrived at the dorm for his Friday night study session with Jared armed with a bag of dried fruit and an unopened packet of pens. He dropped the pens on the desk where Jared was sitting, and he raised an eyebrow at Jensen. “How long are you expecting us to study for?” he asked, amused. Jensen shook his head and handed over the dried fruit. Jared looked at it in dismay.
“Have you done the problem set from today’s lecture yet?” Jensen asked.
“No,” said Jared, speaking slowly as though worried that Jensen might not understand. “Because it’s Friday.”
“Well, are we going to do this, or what?” Jensen asked. Jared nodded and flipped his textbook open.
“Okay,” he said, “show me how you’d solve this.”
They worked for nearly an hour, quietly for the most part. Jared kept track of where Jensen was up to but mostly focused on his own assignment and picking all the dried apple out of the bag. Jensen tried to concentrate on his own work but kept getting distracted thinking about his euthanasia paper instead.
“Is everything okay, Jensen?” Jared said at last.
“Huh?”
“Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet, and...” he glanced at Jensen’s notepad, “You’ve done that last problem bass-ackwards. You didn’t make that mistake with the others.”
Jensen looked over the problem and found the mistake. “Shit,” he muttered, crossing out the error and starting over.
“Something on your mind?” Jared asked.
“No,” Jensen grumbled, concentrating furiously.
Jared kept quiet then, and after a minute or two it was Jensen who said, “If you were sick, would you rather live longer and be in pain, or be comfortable but die sooner?”
“What the fuck?” Jared asked, turning to look straight at Jensen, his surprise clear. “Where did that come from?”
“I’ve got this paper to write for Biomedical Ethics, and I picked this topic about whether doctors should encourage patients to get treatment to extend their lives even if their quality of life isn’t good, or advise them not to because they’re dying anyway, and I can’t figure out what to say about it.”
“Jesus,” said Jared, “that’s fucking morbid. Can’t you just pick a different topic?”
“I chose this one... I’m doing pre-med, you know. If I can’t figure this stuff out, I won’t be able to give my patients the best care.”
“Jensen,” Jared said, the slow voice coming back again although this time it was tinged with frustration. “You’re not actually a doctor yet. You don’t have any patients.”
“I know! I just want to get it right.”
Jared looked at him with an incredulous expression. “You can’t get it ‘right’,” he said. “It’s a philosophical thing, um... conundrum. The point is to prove that there’s a justification for the position you decide to take, not that it’s the only justified position.” Jensen took a breath, ready to protest, but Jared wasn’t finished. “My mother had cancer, you know. She was in and out of hospital for a long time, but in the end she was just too sick. I don’t think bringing her home was the right thing, or the wrong thing. It was just what we had to do.”
“I... I’m sorry,” Jensen said. “I didn’t know...”
Jared shrugged. “Whatever. I just think... if you really end up a doctor and you go in thinking that there’s always a right answer, it’s not going to work out for you.” He glanced down at the math they’d been working on and shook his head. “I need a break. I’m going to get something to eat.”
Jared left, and Jensen sat back down with his Calc assignment, glad that at least that had clear answers.
***
After that, Jensen started to seriously reconsider the impression he’d formed of Jared. He started to notice things that he’d somehow missed before. Sure, Jared was out late most nights, but when he was in the dorm he was usually studying. Since Jensen had complained about it, Jared was a lot better about putting his trash in the bin. He was still a slob in other ways, but he was also generous and made it clear that Jensen was free to share his snacks. And once Jensen started paying attention and trying to get along with Jared, he realised that Jared was also sort of keeping his distance.
That kind of sucked, because of all the people Jensen had met at college, Jared was the one he’d spent the most time with and who knew him the best. He was the only person Jensen would even consider having a serious conversation with, and Jensen had totally screwed up a possible friendship by being judgemental.
Because he was trying to be less of an asshole, Jensen noticed when Jared grabbed his guitar case one evening and started to leave the room. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Practice room?”
“Nah, you have to be a declared music major to book one of those. I’m just going to take it out, to the lounge or the quad maybe, and practice down there.”
Jensen looked at him. The lounge and the quad were both busy, noisy spaces. They couldn’t possibly be ideal for practicing. “You could stay here?” he suggested.
“I don’t want to distract you while you’re studying.”
“You won’t, it’s fine!” Jensen said, annoyed at himself for not having noticed that Jared never, ever, played his guitar in the dorm.
Jared paused for a second, and then nodded and opened the guitar case. Pleased, Jensen went back to studying. Unfortunately, as Jared started to play, he realised that it was far more of a distraction than he’d anticipated. He wasn’t used to having to tune out noise while he worked; at home, he’d studied at the desk in his room with the door shut and it had always been pretty quiet. Jensen hunched over his laptop and tried to tune out the noise.
Thirty minutes of fairly unproductive work followed. Jensen kept having to backtrack and rewrite every sentence. He was considering making some excuse and heading to the library, except that it would be totally obvious why he was leaving, and he’d feel pretty dickish about bailing after asking Jared to stay. But then he heard Jared mutter “Shit,” and the music stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Jensen asked, turning around. Jared sat on the bed looking sadly down at his guitar.
“I broke a string,” he said, pulling the offending string free and glaring at it.
“Oh, can you fix it?”
“I could, if I had any more.” Jared poked around in his guitar case, pulling out several packets but none of them apparently what he was looking for. “I’ve got everything else, but no D string. I’ll have to buy some more once I get paid next week. If I have enough left over after paying tuition.” He frowned pensively into the guitar case and placed the guitar back in it.
Jensen knew it wasn’t really his business and he shouldn’t say anything, but he still found himself wondering, “Could you borrow some money from home? That’s a long time to be without your guitar.”
Jared looked startled at the suggestion. “Nah,” he said. “My brother doesn’t make that much, and he’s got my little sister to take care of. Usually, if I have spare money at the end of the week, I send it home to them.”
“Is that why you work so much?” Jensen wondered, things suddenly making a lot more sense.
“Yeah, I got a partial scholarship and some savings to pay for college, but there’s still living expenses. And my brother works really hard to take care of Megan - to take care of both of us, before I left home. He had to drop out of high school in his last year to take care of Mom, and the rest of us. I want to return the favour, you know? And there’s not much I can do right now, but Megan and I have sort of agreed that once we’re both done with college, we’re going to pay for Jeff to go. If we can convince him.” Jared went quiet then, shifted on the bed like he was a little uncomfortable at how much he’d revealed.
“You guys sound really close. It’s great,” said Jensen. “I mean, it sucks that you all went through that. But you guys sound really great.” And then he went back to his paper before he could say anything else stupid and embarrassing.
***
Over the days which followed, Jensen questioned whether it would be weird to give Jared some new guitar strings, and eventually decided he didn’t care. He did feel a little guilty for rifling through the crap on Jared’s desk, looking for the packet he’d tossed there, but it wasn’t like Jared would ever even notice, considering how much crap there was lying around. Jensen wrote down every piece of information on the packet just in case, and headed out to find a music store.
When he got back later with the guitar strings, Jared was just getting ready for work, so Jensen handed the strings over without much fanfare.
“It’s no big deal,” he said with a little wave when Jared tried to thank him. “I just thought... you wouldn’t like not being able to play.”
Jared grinned at him. “Awesome,” he said. “I’ll be back around two. Sorry if I wake you up again.”
“You’re going to be so tired!” Jensen said, wincing at how much he sounded like his mother, but unable to stop himself.
“Well, I didn’t schedule myself any super early classes, unlike some weirdos,” Jared teased on his way out the door. “If you get that Calc assignment done, I can check it over tomorrow and you can see what you need to work on for the test.”
***
Jensen took Jared’s advice. After a week of studying hard, and working with Jared whenever he had the time, Jensen passed his next Calc test with a B+. While it was an improvement, he’d been hoping for more.
Jared didn’t understand his disappointment. “It’s a good grade!” he insisted. “What’s the big deal?”
“I’ve spent every spare moment studying, and this is the best I can do,” Jensen said miserably. “And now I’m falling behind in my other classes. My paper for College Rhetoric was half a page short, and I fell asleep in the lecture because I had to stay up until three am to finish it.”
Jared sighed at him. “You need to take a break, Jensen. Most people can’t get an A for every single assignment. It doesn’t mean you’re not doing well.”
“But it’s only the start of freshman year,” Jensen said. “And I’m already struggling. What if it gets worse? What if I get put on academic probation? Or flunk out? What if my grades aren’t good enough for med school?”
Jared blinked at him. “You’re not struggling,” he said slowly. “Most college students would be thrilled with grades like that. I really doubt flunking, or getting put on probation, is even a slight possibility. And sure, med school’s competitive, but not that much, I don’t think.”
Jensen nodded and tried to feel reassured, since Jared was obviously trying so hard to make him feel better. He must not have succeeded, because Jared sighed and said, “Okay, obviously that’s not really the problem, so what else are you worried about?”
That took Jensen by surprise, and he answered without thinking, “I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my parents.”
“Well, I doubt they’ll care that much,” Jared said, “unless... they do?”
Jensen shrugged. “They want me to do well. They worked really hard for me to go to college.”
Jared gave a half-smile. “I would have thought a star student like you would be on a scholarship.”
“Well, yeah, but you pointed out yourself that that only covers tuition. They’ve saved for years so that my brother and sister and I could go to college. They’re going to think I don’t appreciate them.”
Jared was quiet, but he was looking at Jensen in a thoughtful, intent way that got on his nerves. “What?” he demanded.
Jared shook himself and looked away. “It’s your family, it’s not really my business,” he said. “But... are you really worried about whether they’ll be upset that you got a B plus? Not a D or something, a B plus. Have they done that before, or are you worrying without proof that you need to?” He paused for a second to let Jensen consider that, but didn’t wait for his answer before adding, “Because if it’s the first thing, then maybe you should ask yourself whether that’s a reasonable thing for them to expect.”
The following silence was deeply uncomfortable, until Jensen said, “I’m supposed to be meeting Mike from Bio lab,” and hurried out of the room.
Jensen had learned that although Mike wasn’t much interested in Biology he could be reliable up to a point, as long as Jensen was the one worrying about the bigger picture of getting their work done. That allowed Jensen to keep working with him without murdering him, which was good as Mike was entertaining company.
They had a lab report to finish and a paper to write. The paper was actually an individual assignment, not something they needed to write together, but Jensen had suggested they work on it together anyway, mainly because he wasn’t sure Mike would ever finish it otherwise.
Most of the study session involved Jensen reminding Mike what they were supposed to be doing and deflecting his attempts to distract them both, but after an hour or so of productive work, Jensen decided they could both use a break.
“How are you finding college so far?” he asked.
“It is so great!” Mike enthused. “I went to this party last Saturday, and there was this girl there, and I swear, she had a piercing right-”
“I thought you and Tom...”
“Oh, yeah, we are. I didn’t do anything with her, if that’s what you’re wondering, but...”
Jensen tried to block the previous minute from his mind and interrupted, “Anyway, I was actually talking about the workload. You know. Tests and papers, all that.”
“Oh.” Mike shrugged indifferently. “It’s alright, I guess. Most of my classes are pretty easy, except for Bio. Don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to get that out of the way freshman year.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot to do,” Jensen agreed.
“I’m getting B’s in everything else, though, so that’s pretty sweet.”
Jensen nodded, wanting to ask more questions but not sure he knew Mike well enough to interrogate him about his family background. Maybe you couldn’t know someone well enough for that to be okay. He said, “Yeah, that’s great,” and went back to the paper.
***
In the end, Jensen’s mom reacted to Jensen’s B+ by saying, “A B plus, well... that’s not too bad. There’s always next time.” Jensen ended the phone call with a sense of having dodged a bullet.
Things got better between him and Jared. They started eating together in the cafeteria and sitting together during Calculus lectures. Jared continued to be an utter slob and leave his stuff lying around everywhere, until one day Jensen couldn’t bear it anymore, and snapped.
“I realise you’re pretty occupied with trying to re-create Marylin Manson’s greatest sounds or whatever, but would it kill you to pick up your trash and put it, you know, in the trash can?” Jensen snarked one night. He felt a little bad for being so mean, but Jared had been driving him mad, leaving discarded packets and wrappers and old receipts lying around. Even worse were the empty takeout containers, which Jensen thought might be starting to smell. He hadn’t wanted to make a fuss, but all the heavy sighs and pointed looks in the world had failed to make a difference, and he was at a loss.
Jared, for his part, looked around the room as though he was seeing it for the first time. “Oh, man!” he said. “You should have mentioned it earlier!” He jumped up, carefully putting his guitar down on the bed, and went around the room snatching up crumpled sheets of paper and empty packets. He dropped the rubbish in the trash can and squashed it all down. “There!” he said, “right as rain.” And he sat back down before Jensen could think of anything else to say.
It wasn’t right as rain at all. The trash was picked up, but now the trash can was overflowing. Jared’s clothes were still lying all over the place, and so were his textbooks and notes - Jensen always wondered how he ever found anything he needed. But anyway, he’d only complained about the trash, so Jared might think he was moving the goalposts if he started complaining about other things now. And he’d tried, and seemed really happy to have picked up the rubbish. Jensen glowered in Jared’s direction, trying to convince himself that things were okay.
“Why are you looking at me?” Jared asked. “Are you staring at my tattoos?”
“No,” Jensen denied instantly, but his traitorous eyes strayed right towards them. He’d never let himself just look at them, always conscious of not wanting to be caught staring.
“You can look,” Jared said, striking an exaggerated pose. “I know it’s hard to resist, I don’t blame you.”
Jensen turned away, blushing. He would never admit it because he knew that Jared was being over the top to be funny, but the way his muscles flexed made Jensen’s heart race nonetheless. “Do you think you’ll ever get more?” he asked, trying to sound normal.
“Sure,” Jared answered. “I want a full sleeve someday, and maybe the other arm too. It’s just, right now, I need my money for school. I had to save since I was fifteen just to pay for these, it took me two years.”
Jensen nodded, then did the math and frowned. “You got them when you were seventeen?”
“Well, yeah!” said Jared. “Oh, what, you don’t approve?”
“No!” Jensen said, although he didn’t. “It’s just, you know. You realise they’re permanent?”
Jared jumped up from his chair. “Holy shit, really? Are you fucking serious? I don’t believe it, why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” Jensen watched with wide eyes as Jared flailed. He finally stilled and glanced at Jensen’s face before doubling over with laughter. “Did you really think I didn’t know?”
“I just meant...” Jensen said carefully, “what if, one day, you don’t like them anymore?”
Jared swiped at his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, revealing the earrings hanging from one ear. Jensen made himself look away, and his gaze fell back on Jared’s arms.
“I really don’t think that will happen,” Jared said. “It’s like... I’d have to change a lot, I think, to not like them anymore, and how can you live your life worrying that one day all your priorities might suddenly change? You’d never be able to do anything.”
“I guess so,” Jensen said, turning that idea over in his mind. There was something frightening about it; it meant that the future was uncertain and changeable, and that he had no choice but to go forwards anyway and do the best he could. It meant that maybe he was the foolish one, for imagining that there were guarantees where none existed.
Part Two