ScotchVerse: Crazy Little Thing
Title: Crazy Little Thing
Verse: Scotchverse
Author: kadiel_krieger
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Real people are real. These are not.
Warnings: None.
AN:Jensen POV. Picks up immediately after Stone Cold. Many thanks to kaylbunny for the beta.
Summary: Easy? When has anything ever been easy?
Other works in the Scotch!Verse
Laphroaig
The Glenrothes
Johnny Walker
Stone Cold
From the end of Stone Cold:
When he eases back, Jensen smiles - a warm, honest, heartbreaking sort of thing that only he could pull off with any sincerity. So yes, Misha finds himself rendered nearly speechless. Especially since, once Jensen disentangles himself from the still-buckled safety belt and gets out of the car, he leans back in with a single word that makes all the absurdity that's passed between them worth it.
"Coming?"
"Sure."
***
Jensen hangs onto the smile as long as he can, mostly because it makes him feel better about doing something so incredibly stupid.
Sure.
Of course, Misha's sure.
For all his other idiosyncrasies, all the incomprehensible shit he does on a semi-regular basis, in the moment Misha's always sure of himself. Jensen envies him for it - that he lives his life in a perpetual state of forward momentum instead of shuffling back a step for every two he takes forward.
Not that Jensen would know anything about that.
He's less into the tangential wandering Misha seems so prone to in both conversation and action. Regardless of the situation, Jensen would much rather have firm ground underfoot and a steady wall at his back. Which means this thing between them - whatever it is - drives him a little fucking nuts. Mostly because Misha's a little nuts and seems to have the disturbing tendency to change his mind according to the winds or the stars or the color of his fucking underwear.
Hell, Jensen actually pinched himself this morning when he walked in on Misha playing Martha Stewart. It just didn't, still doesn't quite compute. When Misha asked him to stay, he assumed there would be sleep possibly followed by sex. Or sex followed by sleep. To be honest, he hadn't really thought much at all past the sense of victory, the fact that he'd managed to work his way under Misha's skin enough to be asked. The fact that it mattered in the first place is just going to be one of those things Jensen never thinks about, ever.
Once upon a time, Jensen thinks he'd had it figured out. Misha was that guy. The guy who makes you think it was your idea to climb the grain elevator right after you jump off and break your wrist. The guy who takes like he's giving and gives like he's taking - gleefully manipulative but not in any malicious way. The guy who charms you out of your jacket because he's cold then asks you to unwrap him like a present.
That guy drives Jensen crazy - sometimes in the good way, sometimes not so much.
Anyway, Misha making omelets and squeezing orange juice had to be the seventh sign of the apocalypse. He's expecting the rain of toads to start any time. Really. Or is it the locusts? He's a bit fuzzy on details.
But maybe Jensen's just wrong, it's happened before once or twice. Maybe there are layers to Misha he hasn't even seen, much less touched, or tasted. Maybe he's like a jawbreaker, new colors and flavors uncovered after every lick.
It's not as if Misha makes it easy. Knowing, or trying to know him, is like standing on the beach with the tide rolling in, hoping it doesn't wash away the slip of sand you just so happen to be standing on. With strings come expectations, and as uncertain as he is about Misha's ability to meet the expectations he absolutely does not have, Jensen's even more worried about attempting to meet Misha's indecipherable, ever-evolving standards.
Sex is simple. The other stuff is - not.
Long story short, he hasn't got a fucking clue what this is to him, hadn't known it was supposed to be anything but fun until Misha asked. That doesn't mean he's not trying to figure out the best way he knows how.
Sometimes, even he can take a leap of faith. Or stumble. Whatever.
If anyone's worth it...
Misha's shoes scuff against a patch of pavement behind him as Jensen climbs the two shallow stairs to his door and he can't quite tell if it's intentional. Not that anything Misha has ever done could be considered completely unintentional, but if it was done purposefully Jensen's having a hard time finding the point.
For him, it means a fresh layer of sweat clinging to an already clammy pair of palms, nearly painful awareness, and the triumphant return of a nervous tic that hasn't surfaced since he finally grew into his nose his sophomore year of high school. What Jensen can't quite wrap his head around is why.
It's not his first time going to the big dance, not by a long shot. He's brought people back to his place before. Not that it's a revolving door, but he's far enough removed from monastic he wouldn't even recognize it if it strapped him up in a chastity belt. Having a good time is awesome. Sometimes, okay - frequently, his good times involve drinking copious amounts of scotch. And really, there's no need to even finish that thought because he knows better than anyone where it leads - a shitstorm of questions without answers.
Still, it's been awhile since he opened this particular door to someone. The last person was Jay, and even though Jared had spent half the time making obnoxious kissy faces in his general direction, it was - and still is - entirely platonic. He thinks the lip-pucker-palooza that night had been intended for the girl on the other end of Jensen's haphazard string of text messages. Not that he knows for sure, he'd been way more absorbed in the immediate, the ball game, the effortless ebb and flow of banter tempered with silence, finally breathing easy with someone that's not family. Jensen feels like the world's biggest ass that he can't remember the girl's name beyond the fact it started with N, and figures that might just be why she never called again. Shame. He does remember she was a knockout with legs that went on for-fucking-ever and did this thing with her tongue that had to be illegal in thirty of the lower forty-eight states.
Anyway.
Jensen's not delusional enough to believe it has anything to do with the actual door. That would be a level of crazy he has no interest in entertaining ever. Yeah, there's maybe a loose correlation. He can count on two hands the number of people who've crossed his threshold sober, and needs five fewer fingers for the ones that were there for something beyond sex.
Maybe he's hung-over.
Maybe this is just about the sex.
In spite of the scotch-induced gaps in Jensen's memory, it's not as if either of them can deny that they've, y'know, been there and done that seemingly everywhere else in the province, so the likelihood that's the culprit is slim. Maybe it's just Misha - the weight of his gaze combined with his uncharacteristic silence is pretty damn unnerving.
Of course, Misha only makes it worse. As soon as the thought fades down to a dull sort of roar, Misha presses in behind him, warm and fluid and quietly proprietary. All the hair on the back of Jensen's neck stands at attention, and he's so distracted by the slow draw of Misha's breath against his nape, he doesn't have it in him to move away when Misha threads an arm around him and spreads a hand over the way-too-fucking-telling skip and stutter going apeshit in his chest.
Misha, in an apparent attempt to drive Jensen even more insane, licks his lips before they find that ridiculously sensitive hollow lurking behind Jensen's ear, his voice pitched low with some emotion Jensen can't readily identify.
He says, "I can go," even though they both know he doesn't mean it and Jensen swallows hard because he gets that he's being a big fucking baby about all this and the fact that Misha - pushy, impossible Misha - is willing to take a step back, willing to give Jensen space to breathe even though he doesn't have any more answers than he started with this morning...it's, yeah.
Man up Ackles, he thinks, even though it's really not an appropriate time for Coach Tully to put in a guest appearance - not with Misha's fingers tapping an absent rhythm against his sternum, Misha's chin a gentle weight on his shoulder. There's nothing impatient in it, or maybe there is, but Jensen's too wrapped up in his own head to notice.
The soft, "No," that finds its way past Jensen's lips is more tentative than he'd like, but it's not enough to sway his conviction.
He can do this.
His body still seems to think otherwise, because when Jensen digs for his keys, his fingers don't work quite the way they should and the mangled lump he fumbles out of his pocket resembles nothing more than one of those magnetic puzzles Eric has lined up across the front of his desk back in LA. The symmetry, while not completely lost on him, would be more hilarious if he could keep his hands from shaking.
He feels the stretch of Misha's smile against his neck, the bony bump of elbow against ribs when he reaches, and if Jensen were put together any better right now he'd be fucking pissed off about being treated like a child. As it stands, he's just grateful. Thirty seconds later, Misha finds the right key from the ring then leans in to swing the door open, and Jensen doesn't have to think about it anymore.
In his opinion, anyway.
Misha seems to have other ideas, because the next thing Jensen hears is a soft laugh huffed right in his fucking ear.
"Is there a pack mule hiding in the bushes?"
Jensen grins in spite of himself, partly because who else would stand around waiting to be the butt of one of Misha's weird ass jokes, but mostly because Misha's nonsensical proclamations may be Jensen's second-favorite thing about him.
"Um, no. I think the homeowner's association would frown on that."
"How's that fair?" Misha asks, and Jensen feels the tension in his spine dial down from an eleven to seven.
"Because I should be able to tend livestock in the courtyard?"
"Because you're obviously disabled. No, I'm sorry - physically challenged."
"How so?"
"Clearly," Misha says with mock sincerity, and plants what's probably intended to be a chaste kiss in the spot that apparently serves as the nexus for all Jensen's nerve endings, "You have trouble finding your way inside. A pack mule might help. Perhaps even with getting the groceries in. I certainly don't intend to throw you over my shoulder."
Jensen rolls his eyes and takes the step, or steps. Hell, it might be two or it might be four, he's too busy thinking about how smoothly Misha coaxed him down to count. With Misha still wound around him like an octopus, it's more awkward shuffling than actual steps anyway, but since they end up inside with the door closed and locked behind them he figures it's good enough.
Of course, that's also when he starts to really freak out.
It makes Jensen squirm, try to escape. He's flipping through and discarding the fifteenth of an infinite number of plausible excuses when Misha wraps him up tighter, murmurs nonsense against his skin.
Fucking fuck.
"Misha..." he says then stops because he doesn't know how to go on, what to go on with.
Misha just hums and draws lopsided figure eights around his nipple in lieu of actually responding. Awesome. So much for helping.
Thing of it is, Jensen can't pin himself down enough to explain. It's not the guy thing, or even the sober thing, really. Okay, that's a lie, but it's more the sober thing than the guy thing. He's been with guys before. He's even been with guys without the fucking scotch. Just not anyone he, y'know, actually wants to keep.
Fuck.
Maybe he can't do this. Maybe he should have just let Misha drop him off and go. Maybe it's too much, too soon.
But it's not, not really, not when he shoves all the knee-jerk panic aside.
Two weeks after Misha joined the cast, Jensen's cock had already been seriously considering breaking his tried and true rule about shitting where you sleep. Not consciously, of course, but his cock has never really cared about conscious. Which just sounds wrong, even inside his head.
Jensen himself, the one that actually has thoughts in his upstairs brain, had just ignored it. His cock is, by and large, his least intelligent organ and had done the same thing the first time he stumbled into a half dressed Tom Welling, not to mention the time Jeff hugged him a little too tight in the middle of a scene, or when Adrienne cocked her hip and that stupid Smurfs shirt stretched the wrong way. While he probably has far fewer notches on his proverbial bedpost than Dean Winchester, his dick has always been about equal opportunity corruption. If he hadn't learned to ignore it in high school, he'd be dead of dehydration or disease-ridden already.
At some point though, the interest migrated.
Jensen has never really put a name to it, never allowed it to find more than fleeting purchase between his ears, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly when it started. Sometime late last year, he thinks, which had sucked hardcore considering that was about the same time he started having more scenes with Misha than he did Jared.
Just, fuck.
Now he is thinking about it and it's a fucking flower unfolding in his brain, like it was just sitting there happily dormant until he stumbled by with a watering can ready to pay attention.
Jensen hates fucking flowers.
Except he doesn't, not really, but every petal that peels back terrifies him a little more until he's staring at the heart of this epically bad idea without anything in the way of preparation.
So yeah, it turns out he actually does remember when it started, every single fucked up second. Hindsight's the only thing that makes it fucked up, because the moment itself is so absurdly innocuous it makes him want to laugh and kick himself in the ass.
It was a Saturday. They'd just wrapped for the week, and thank fucking God because Jensen had been wrecked since Thursday, exhausted since the day before that and had just spent three hours strapped to a hospital bed crying manly tears of manliness. It was the kind of emotional meat grinder that always made him wonder why the hell he chose acting. The fact they weren't on location only compounded his misery, because here in the studio his personal space consisted of a couple of chairs and a bathroom flanked on one side by wardrobe and the other by make-up. With all the cheerful chattering, he was having a hard time lacing up all the old wounds he'd had to open to get the job done.
The staccato series of knocks on his door had been the last fucking straw. He'd snapped, flung the door open with some really colorful language and a metric ton of diva bullshit heavy on his tongue. Misha had stood there silently and let him unload. Not only that, but he'd pushed Jensen back into the slipshod dressing room when people started poking their heads around corners to stare. He'd shoved Jensen into one of the ratty armchairs that looked more like a set piece than actual furniture, rooted through Jensen's bag until he found his iPod, and popped the buds in Jensen's ears like he did it every fucking day. Then he'd smirked a smirk that said, "Chill out you crazy fucker, I like this job and I'm not going to lose it because you bust a gasket and die," before he pressed play and disappeared in a swift sway of trench coat.
Yeah, he remembers. In the moment, there'd only been relief. He'd zoned out to his music, wearing his clothes, and let Dean Winchester slough off like dead skin. After was another story altogether, and even once he'd spent that night sucking and fucking his way through three different busty blondes, the questions were still waiting.
How had Misha known?
Jay would have asked had he been there, of course. He'd have turned on his puppy eyes, scrunched his face into Sam-shapes, and asked Jensen what he needed. Misha didn't have to.
It had all been a little too method for his comfort, and the only reason it hadn't screwed with the dynamic was because he's a professional and an ace at compartmentalizing his life.
He ignored it and it went away, mostly - simple as that. Until now.
When Jensen comes back to himself, Misha's not draped all over him anymore, and he can't decide whether the tightness in his chest is gratitude or something else. Misha hasn't wandered far, though what he hopes to accomplish by going through the silverware drawer, Jensen has no fucking idea.
Misha's weird.
"Are you in the habit of succumbing to random bouts of catatonia?" Misha asks, still seemingly fascinated by Jensen's flatware, testing the balance of each of his steak knives with a considering quirk etched on his brow.
"I don't think so?"
There's a hollow kind of clank when Misha drops the knife back in the drawer and closes it.
"I meant what I said. I'm not well-suited to mooning."
"Okay...and how am I supposed to fix that?" Jensen asks, then takes the initiative to close the gulf between them, because somehow he feels like it will help, say something that needs saying that he can't say.
Misha laughs, and it's got an edge to it - a derisive little wheeze that makes Jensen want to shake him, because that's not who he is. In the end, he wraps his hand tentatively across the back of Misha's neck, steps in close until he can knock their foreheads together, until Misha relaxes and goes blurry. His heart's pounding so hard he can barely hear because he doesn't want to fuck this up, doesn't want to care whether he fucks this up even though he does. It feels familiar, though Jensen can't figure out why.
It wouldn't take much, really, to lean in that extra two inches, kiss away whatever's crawled up Misha's ass, and Jensen's gearing himself up to do exactly that before Misha disentangles himself and pulls back.
"I can't do this, Jensen."
To say it's a slap in the face would be a gross understatement, and Jensen can feel it in his bones, feel the heat thrumming across the back of his neck all the way to the tips of his ears, because this is the very thing he tries so hard to guard himself against.
"What the fuck, dude?" Jensen spits back, and the urge to shake Misha returns with a vengeance, shake or punch or do other kinds of ill-advised violence because really, what the fuck. No matter what he might or might not want, Jensen's about five words away from chucking Misha out on his ass just for being a dick. Still, running has got him all kinds of nowhere in the past so instead of doing anything overly rash, he just backs slowly away until his calves hit the couch and he can sit down to stew.
"What the fuck, indeed," Misha says and settles in beside Jensen, legs curled under him, his arm draped across the back of the couch like he owns it, like it belongs there. Even in the midst of his frustration, Jensen can't deny wanting it there even though he really fucking wants to. But Misha's wearing a small, sad smile that Jensen will probably learn to hate and looking over his shoulder instead of looking at him. "It would be easier if I didn't give a shit. We could just go on randomly fucking one another's brains out. I've got too much respect for myself to do that to either of us. Life's too short to bank on a day that may never come."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means, Jensen, that this means something to me, whether I want it to or not," he says, inching forward ever so slightly like he's going to reach out and touch, and Jensen tenses before Misha eases back and sighs again. "But unless it means something to you, I just - can't, won't. As entertaining as it's been, I'm tired of trying to find new and improved ways to get you drunk, and it's not good for either of us. "
"Hold the fucking phone."
Misha just stares back at him, actually at him, his head tilted in a bastardized parody of Castiel. It's unnerving.
"How long?"
"I'm not sure what you're asking," Misha says, but something in his tone makes Jensen want to call bullshit. So he does.
"Howlong?"
"Since I...ate? I had that omelet about an - "
"Fuck you, Misha," Jensen growls, teeth aching from the pressure he's putting them under. If he gets through this without a cracked crown, it'll be a miracle, but he has to know. "How long have you been thinking about this? Us? Whatever."
Even if this is all there ever is, it's a question worth asking.
Misha's eyes go slightly unfocused and he does that thing again, where he looks at anything but Jensen. It means, of course, that either Misha's actually nervous or he's getting ready to lie.
"A while," is what he finally says, and Jensen believes him.
"So cut me some fucking slack. Two hours ago I thought I was nothing more than a booty call that probably overstayed my welcome. I'm not like you. I don't turn on a dime."
"I'd never ask you to."
"Then what the fuck do you want?"
"Does it matter?"
"You really think I'd ask if it didn't?"
"You."
"I thought we'd kind of covered that already, with the sex."
"It's like I'm speaking to an emotional invalid."
"Not helping."
Misha leans in, deliberately slow and intensely fucking focused. Jensen lets him, holds his gaze as long as he can, until his eyes start to cross, and when Misha's fingertips find his face again it feels a little less claustrophobic than it did just a few short hours ago. Misha's lips are soft and wet, but not insistent when they find his, and it's not leading up to something or down from something.
It just is.
The impulse is still there, the cartoon devil crouched on his shoulder that tells Jensen to take it to that place, the familiar place of liquor and flesh and come and teeth. It would be so simple to slip his hands up under Misha's shirt and realign them into something more normal.
But he doesn't.
Misha, of course, looks caught between pride and confusion when he pulls back, and the slow blink Misha treats Jensen to is satisfaction enough for the moment - enough for Jensen, though apparently not enough for Misha because his hands drop into his lap and he shifts away by inches.
"I want you, you insufferable jackass. Pretty packaging only goes so far, and as singular a specimen as you are, it's not just your ass or your mouth I'm after. I'm too far gone for careful," Misha says in a rush, a little breathless, like the honesty of it's actually crushing him. Jensen has exactly three seconds to think maybe this isn't easy for either of them before Misha's gone, headed for the door and his car and hours of uncomfortable silence on set three days from now.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This is totally why he never gets involved, never mind with a co-worker.
"Misha, wait."
Even with the minimal height difference, Jensen catches up easily. Something to be said, he guesses, for being forced to keep in step with a damned Sasquatch of Jared's size all the time. The door slams shut when he palms it, rattling a couple of the pre-furnished knick-knacks littering the sofa table under the window, and Jensen misses ramming Misha's nose against the steel by a quarter of an inch. His reflexes are awesome.
Misha doesn't turn or push him away or move at all except to let his head fall forward in silence. It's better than nothing, and Jensen flattens his free hand against the door too, pins Misha in the way he once had in that alley what seems like a lifetime ago. When breathes against the nape of Misha's neck, ruffling the small hairs with a sigh, Misha sighs with him and shifts, presses back into Jensen just enough that it feels like he wants to issue a standing invitation.
Something clicks, and Jensen's not sure where to place the blame or lay the gratitude, but it's maybe kind of awesome to finally be of one mind. That he can watch the flush creep up the back of Misha's neck and not immediately want to put it somewhere else, that he doesn't have to reach immediately for his scotch or Misha's cock.
It also means he has no fucking clue what to do.
Misha takes the decision out of his hands when he does finally turn, stubble scraped against Jensen's cheek, their noses bumping gracelessly together because they're standing just a little too close to make it easy. Then there's a palm pressed against his chest again, a gentle push that forces him back a couple steps. When Misha's face springs into focus, there's something like suspicion caught up in his eyes, and Jensen feels like shit for being the reason it's there.
So he says, "Stay," and finds Misha's hand, threads their fingers together. It's awkward, because he doesn't really know how to do this, much less the why, but when he tacks the, "please," on after, Misha smiles and grips tighter and Jensen figures maybe he's doing a decent job of it.
The last thing Jensen expects is when Misha slips past him silently, tugs on his hand until he's drawn into a stutter-step in Misha's wake. Or it was the last thing he expected, until he finds himself watching Misha push open every door that lines his pitiful excuse of a hallway with an almost childlike curiosity. He's not sure if Misha's on a mission of some kind or if it's just exploratory poking, but for Jensen it's vaguely uncomfortable, like someone going through his laundry basket or garbage or whatever. Not that Jensen's messy, he's not, it's just his space. He's doing the best he can to stamp out the defensive impulses, because he's the one that asked Misha to stay.
Right?
Fuck.
Apparently, there's a method to Misha's madness because when he swings the last door open, the door to the master, he pulls them both inside without missing a step.
Okay. That's, okay. Really fucking confusing, but okay.
Jensen manages to get Misha's name out before the soft pads of Misha's fingers press down against his lips, urging him to silence. Which, yeah, will never be anything other than fucking hot, but he feels like he missed something along the way, some non-verbal cue that blew right on by while he was mired in indecision. He could have sworn the entire conversation they'd had was about this thing not just being sex.
Not that anyone will ever hear him complain, because when Misha's hands finally stir to motion, they're gentle, careful in a way he's maybe never been before - not that Jensen's able to remember everything clearly through the scotch haze. It definitely feels different, looks different as he watches the deliberate path wind down across his stomach, Misha's thumbs hooked under the hem of his shirt, the slow skyward push that has Jensen raising his arms without being asked, nipples pebbled and aching as the heels of Misha's hands graze against them. And it is different, because there's no way Jensen would have had the patience for this drunk, he knows that much for a fact - so slow it's almost painful and he has to bite back the questions burning in his lungs for fear that Misha will stop.
He doesn't. His lips and tongue follow his hands in that same haphazard pattern, and when Misha does finally speak, it's with his cheek pressed against Jensen's navel, his fingers poised to pop the button on Jensen's jeans, and Jensen has to move when the words come because he just can't. Can't. So he drags Misha up, kisses him hard, tries to lick them out of his mouth. It doesn't work. With Misha flushed up against him they echo back even louder - an inescapable loop of, "So fucking beautiful," rounding on itself over and over and even Jensen knows it has nothing to do with his body.
This would be the complicated other stuff he tries like hell to avoid.
Except now, now he's drawing it in, breathing it in furiously, like until now he's been little more than an emaciated shell of himself, and that letting Misha permeate all those tightly kept corners he's always held apart changes something, because somehow he knows - knows that Misha will be careful despite his protestations. It makes Jensen brave, lets him ease back and look, really see the dark tangle of Misha's bedhead, the flush rising on his cheeks, something in his eyes that Jensen absolutely does not have the fortitude to name. It lets him peel Misha's T-shirt up over his head at a deliberate pace instead of a frenzied one. Lets him find the curve of Misha's shoulder where it bends into neck and murmur things against that soft patch of skin he could regret tomorrow - things like, "Want this," and "Want you," and "Fuck Misha, what the fuck are you doing to me?" When Misha's hands sweep down his back in cautious, soothing strokes, Jensen feels like he might just crumble in the face of so much tenderness. It aches in his stomach, behind his teeth, in his chest, his dick, because Misha's taking him apart expertly - like it was something he was born to do.
A harsh breath rattles up his throat, and it's almost too much.
"Misha, I..." Jensen says, and lets his hands wander aimlessly across the hard planes of Misha's back, feeling the muscles tense and release when Misha moves, not knowing what else to do because he's kind of dizzy.
"Shhh," Misha whispers against his ear, and Jensen steadfastly fucking refuses to acknowledge the shudder that crawls out under his skin, because it's ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is the second shudder that comes, the one he can't deny when Misha's grips his wrists, draws his hands away from skin and around before pressing a kiss to each of his palms.
It's enough to make him lose track of things for awhile, and when Jensen snaps back to awareness, somehow he's naked and Misha's naked and they're more or less horizontal on something soft and Misha's face is right there lit up with want and humor and all the things that make Jensen a little more okay with all that complicated stuff. Then he feels Misha's knees press against his hips, the slow drag of Misha's cock against his, and he wants.
His hands fly on autopilot, drawn to the sharp outline of Misha's hipbones, and he grapples, trying to drive them faster. Misha stills, catches his wrists in that almost unbearably firm grip again, and leans up to push Jensen's hands against the bed over his head.
"Let me take care of you, Jensen."
Fuck.
It makes his head snap sideways, eyes slammed shut, teeth caught against his lower lip and copper on his tongue - anything to take the edge off, to distract from the happy little twitch his dick does at the idea of just laying back and taking it, letting Misha have his way. He shouldn't want to, shouldn't even want to think about it, but with his defenses completely fucking compromised it's hard to convince anyone otherwise, least of all himself.
Misha must take his silence for consent, because soon that wicked tongue is working its way down the side of his neck, dipping into his collarbone, tracing the line of his ribs and with his eyes closed it's both better and worse. Better because he can give himself over more easily to the plain physicality of it - lips and hands and tongue and skin. Worse because everything feels amplified and he can't escape the fact that the hitch in his breath, the matching hitch in Misha's has jack shit to do with physical.
The bed dips gently, and he doesn't think anything of it until his skin goes to gooseflesh, the sloppy chill of drying saliva creeping slowly into his spine. When he pries his eyes open Misha's not in the space above him or beside him or anywhere in the fucking room and his chest goes tight for a full fucking minute before he remembers, oh yeah, he can still speak.
"Misha?"
There's a soft thump from the master bath followed by a curse and when Misha peers around the corner at him, Jensen absolutely does not think he's adorable. Not. It takes him a few seconds to get the brain spun back up to speed enough to figure out what Misha's looking for, but when he does he points.
"Bottom drawer, back right corner."
Misha glides back towards him, completely unabashed by his nakedness, hips swinging hypnotically with a kind of feral roll and bunch Jensen can only equate with jungle cats. The look that Misha flashes him before he bends to unearth Jensen's stash chases each and every fucking goose bump he's ever thought of having straight to Timbuktu.
"You realize, I'm sure, that you're not in high school anymore?" Misha quirks a smile at him then tosses two condoms and a tube of lube on the bed.
Which, granted, is a valid point - he'd just never gotten out of the habit.
Still.
The bed dips again and Misha's above him, lowering lips to meet his, and any remotely smartass response he could have come back with flies the fucking coop. It takes an act of will not to wrap Misha up and flip them over, wipe that crooked smile off his face and replace it with something less smug. That's not what this is about, though. So Jensen waits, opens to Misha's tongue when it pushes at against his mouth seeking entry, and lets Misha take what he wants at the tempo he wants without interfering.
He lets go, lets his eyelids droop, his muscles relax, and learns to simply be.
Misha brings him back with a kiss to his temple, his lips a slick, warm slide on skin that makes Jensen open his eyes for the briefest of seconds before he lets them slip shut again.
Then Misha's in his ear, whispering low and dirty, "No, Jensen. Open your eyes. I want you to watch. Watch."
And if Misha's saying that, like that, there's definitely something to see. His eyelids snap back so fast it's a wonder he doesn't give himself a concussion and when he looks at Misha, down the long, fucking gorgeous line of his body he can't exactly see. The way Misha's rocking, the hard curve of his cock wet against his belly, the telling absence of his hand on Jensen's skin, there's no other explanation.
"Fuck, Misha."
And fuck the rules, Jensen thinks, reaches out blindly. He chalks the palm against his sternum up to Misha's damn yogi ninjitsu or whatever.
"I thought I told you," Misha breathes, back bowed and neck arched, flush creeping up his chest as he hisses his lungs empty, slides another finger home, "to relax."
"But I..."
"Jensen," Misha sighs and goes completely, achingly still, says, "Please," with such a messed up mix of emotions that even though Jensen will never understand, he respects and slides himself - bare ass and all - into the corner of the bed where mattress and headboard both meet wall. Less temptation there, away, to touch Misha though not himself because Misha's still Misha and too flexible, too wanton, too pretty for this crazy fucked-up world and with the new angle Jensen can actually see.
Fuck.
The glare Misha gives him when he grabs for his cock is enough to make Jensen behave, his hands curled to fists against his thighs, breath coming fast and hard because it's the only outlet left to him as he watches Misha's eyes slip shut, the muscles undulate under Misha's skin, his spine curling and unfurling just beyond his reach. It's fucking torture.
"Misha," Jensen breathes, too desperate to care just how desperate he sounds and Misha's eyes slit open just enough for him to see and something changes, because the serenity's gone, the deliberate intensity breaks under Misha's eager hands. Jensen feels more than sees the condom go on, firm fingers stroking down as his head cracks back against the wall. Then Misha's there, hovering above him with that impossible sinuous grace, thighs tensed and face so fucking open Jensen doesn't know what to do with any of it - the want, the need, the sheer magnitude of what Misha is laid out before him without walls. It's too much, and Jensen pulls a breath to say so, say something, wants to bury his face against Misha's chest just so he doesn't have to see, but then Misha - Misha guides him in, and sinks down in one long, slow burn that feels like more of a fucking heaven than Jensen's ever known and words fail.
Jensen can't put a name to the sound that crawls up Misha's throat either. It's somewhere between a moan and a sigh, and when he settles in hips to hips Jensen can't breathe for the heat and the tightness and the angle, all of Misha's warmth stretched out right there where he can but can't touch.
"Please, I need," he hears himself say, like he's not of this world anymore, not of his own body, and that makes the most sense of anything that's happened to him today.
Misha rocks just enough for him to feel it and draws his thumbs against the angle of Jensen's jaw.
"What, Jensen? Tell me what you need," Misha says, managing somehow to sound completely in control and completely wrecked at the same time in that way that only Misha ever could.
"I need to touch," Jensen says, hands reaching before he's even finished and Misha smiles wide, bends back as Jensen's fingers trace the lines of his ribs, the hollows of his hipbones. The rhythm starts slow, aching, and Jensen's almost more mesmerized by the tiny flutters of Misha's muscle dancing under his fingertips than the sweet, slow slide - almost, because to say otherwise would be a lie. It's perfect, the walls bracing him up, cold drywall against his shoulders, Misha like a furnace around him moving like a fucking dancer, and Jensen can't help but look up, can't help but try to catch him watching and he does. Misha stares right back, stripped down to this and only this, not less without the defenses wrapped up around him, just different - freer, wilder.
It's goddamn gorgeous.
Jensen leans in, lays a trail of kisses against Misha's skin, then wraps his hand tight around Misha's cock, watches his control slip just that much more and he rocks harder, tension breaking Jensen down until he's breathless and panting with the need for release. It makes him grip tighter, pull faster, twist his hand that extra half turn, and then he's dragging Misha down because he wants to share what little breath he has, kiss him senseless until he shatters. It's more teeth than lips when Jensen gets Misha close enough, the angle changes and makes him suck in air, Misha moaning right into his mouth, gasping sweet choked off fuck unh fuck sounds as he keeps the pace and Jensen keeps it with him. Jensen has a half a second when Misha goes rigid against him where he has time to think that if it gets any better, his fucking brain is going to explode. Then it does get better because Misha comes hard, his spine caught in an S curve of Jensen's making, his body vibrating and Jensen really can't breathe because Misha's locked down around him, hot and wet, and then he's gone too - whiteout - the world falling away.
Maybe it should take longer to claw his way back, but it's more than long enough already in Jensen's opinion. First of all, he's clean, no wayward spray of come, no used condom, so either Misha is the most awesome guy in the awesomely wide universe or it didn't happen at all and Jensen just has a fan-fucking-tastic imagination. His back seems to think it happened, so does his dick, and as unreliable as it's been in the past he thinks he's going to just have to trust it this once. Misha's still there lying not six inches away and still naked, so that points to his 'not a dream' theory being a sensible one.
Weird thing is, Misha's still quiet.
"Hey," Jensen says, mostly because he doesn't know what else to say, because this is new ground for him with Misha - good ground, but still new.
When Misha looks up at him, his eyes are bright and so blue it makes Jensen's chest ache, it also makes him want to do stupid shit, say stupid shit that he doesn't say. So he's just not going to.
Instead he says, "I thought this wasn't about sex," and reaches out to touch again, because he can.
"Well, it's not just about sex, but a man has needs," Misha replies, huffs a laugh, and the lightness in his tone is enough to convince Jensen that everything might just be okay.
"A man does, does he?"
"You have no idea."
Misha curls into him again, all hands and muscle, and Jensen welcomes it, wants it, even if it's still a little terrifying to let someone in so far so fast.
The benefits far outweigh the risks.
Verse: Scotchverse
Author: kadiel_krieger
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Real people are real. These are not.
Warnings: None.
AN:Jensen POV. Picks up immediately after Stone Cold. Many thanks to kaylbunny for the beta.
Summary: Easy? When has anything ever been easy?
Other works in the Scotch!Verse
Laphroaig
The Glenrothes
Johnny Walker
Stone Cold
From the end of Stone Cold:
When he eases back, Jensen smiles - a warm, honest, heartbreaking sort of thing that only he could pull off with any sincerity. So yes, Misha finds himself rendered nearly speechless. Especially since, once Jensen disentangles himself from the still-buckled safety belt and gets out of the car, he leans back in with a single word that makes all the absurdity that's passed between them worth it.
"Coming?"
"Sure."
***
Jensen hangs onto the smile as long as he can, mostly because it makes him feel better about doing something so incredibly stupid.
Sure.
Of course, Misha's sure.
For all his other idiosyncrasies, all the incomprehensible shit he does on a semi-regular basis, in the moment Misha's always sure of himself. Jensen envies him for it - that he lives his life in a perpetual state of forward momentum instead of shuffling back a step for every two he takes forward.
Not that Jensen would know anything about that.
He's less into the tangential wandering Misha seems so prone to in both conversation and action. Regardless of the situation, Jensen would much rather have firm ground underfoot and a steady wall at his back. Which means this thing between them - whatever it is - drives him a little fucking nuts. Mostly because Misha's a little nuts and seems to have the disturbing tendency to change his mind according to the winds or the stars or the color of his fucking underwear.
Hell, Jensen actually pinched himself this morning when he walked in on Misha playing Martha Stewart. It just didn't, still doesn't quite compute. When Misha asked him to stay, he assumed there would be sleep possibly followed by sex. Or sex followed by sleep. To be honest, he hadn't really thought much at all past the sense of victory, the fact that he'd managed to work his way under Misha's skin enough to be asked. The fact that it mattered in the first place is just going to be one of those things Jensen never thinks about, ever.
Once upon a time, Jensen thinks he'd had it figured out. Misha was that guy. The guy who makes you think it was your idea to climb the grain elevator right after you jump off and break your wrist. The guy who takes like he's giving and gives like he's taking - gleefully manipulative but not in any malicious way. The guy who charms you out of your jacket because he's cold then asks you to unwrap him like a present.
That guy drives Jensen crazy - sometimes in the good way, sometimes not so much.
Anyway, Misha making omelets and squeezing orange juice had to be the seventh sign of the apocalypse. He's expecting the rain of toads to start any time. Really. Or is it the locusts? He's a bit fuzzy on details.
But maybe Jensen's just wrong, it's happened before once or twice. Maybe there are layers to Misha he hasn't even seen, much less touched, or tasted. Maybe he's like a jawbreaker, new colors and flavors uncovered after every lick.
It's not as if Misha makes it easy. Knowing, or trying to know him, is like standing on the beach with the tide rolling in, hoping it doesn't wash away the slip of sand you just so happen to be standing on. With strings come expectations, and as uncertain as he is about Misha's ability to meet the expectations he absolutely does not have, Jensen's even more worried about attempting to meet Misha's indecipherable, ever-evolving standards.
Sex is simple. The other stuff is - not.
Long story short, he hasn't got a fucking clue what this is to him, hadn't known it was supposed to be anything but fun until Misha asked. That doesn't mean he's not trying to figure out the best way he knows how.
Sometimes, even he can take a leap of faith. Or stumble. Whatever.
If anyone's worth it...
Misha's shoes scuff against a patch of pavement behind him as Jensen climbs the two shallow stairs to his door and he can't quite tell if it's intentional. Not that anything Misha has ever done could be considered completely unintentional, but if it was done purposefully Jensen's having a hard time finding the point.
For him, it means a fresh layer of sweat clinging to an already clammy pair of palms, nearly painful awareness, and the triumphant return of a nervous tic that hasn't surfaced since he finally grew into his nose his sophomore year of high school. What Jensen can't quite wrap his head around is why.
It's not his first time going to the big dance, not by a long shot. He's brought people back to his place before. Not that it's a revolving door, but he's far enough removed from monastic he wouldn't even recognize it if it strapped him up in a chastity belt. Having a good time is awesome. Sometimes, okay - frequently, his good times involve drinking copious amounts of scotch. And really, there's no need to even finish that thought because he knows better than anyone where it leads - a shitstorm of questions without answers.
Still, it's been awhile since he opened this particular door to someone. The last person was Jay, and even though Jared had spent half the time making obnoxious kissy faces in his general direction, it was - and still is - entirely platonic. He thinks the lip-pucker-palooza that night had been intended for the girl on the other end of Jensen's haphazard string of text messages. Not that he knows for sure, he'd been way more absorbed in the immediate, the ball game, the effortless ebb and flow of banter tempered with silence, finally breathing easy with someone that's not family. Jensen feels like the world's biggest ass that he can't remember the girl's name beyond the fact it started with N, and figures that might just be why she never called again. Shame. He does remember she was a knockout with legs that went on for-fucking-ever and did this thing with her tongue that had to be illegal in thirty of the lower forty-eight states.
Anyway.
Jensen's not delusional enough to believe it has anything to do with the actual door. That would be a level of crazy he has no interest in entertaining ever. Yeah, there's maybe a loose correlation. He can count on two hands the number of people who've crossed his threshold sober, and needs five fewer fingers for the ones that were there for something beyond sex.
Maybe he's hung-over.
Maybe this is just about the sex.
In spite of the scotch-induced gaps in Jensen's memory, it's not as if either of them can deny that they've, y'know, been there and done that seemingly everywhere else in the province, so the likelihood that's the culprit is slim. Maybe it's just Misha - the weight of his gaze combined with his uncharacteristic silence is pretty damn unnerving.
Of course, Misha only makes it worse. As soon as the thought fades down to a dull sort of roar, Misha presses in behind him, warm and fluid and quietly proprietary. All the hair on the back of Jensen's neck stands at attention, and he's so distracted by the slow draw of Misha's breath against his nape, he doesn't have it in him to move away when Misha threads an arm around him and spreads a hand over the way-too-fucking-telling skip and stutter going apeshit in his chest.
Misha, in an apparent attempt to drive Jensen even more insane, licks his lips before they find that ridiculously sensitive hollow lurking behind Jensen's ear, his voice pitched low with some emotion Jensen can't readily identify.
He says, "I can go," even though they both know he doesn't mean it and Jensen swallows hard because he gets that he's being a big fucking baby about all this and the fact that Misha - pushy, impossible Misha - is willing to take a step back, willing to give Jensen space to breathe even though he doesn't have any more answers than he started with this morning...it's, yeah.
Man up Ackles, he thinks, even though it's really not an appropriate time for Coach Tully to put in a guest appearance - not with Misha's fingers tapping an absent rhythm against his sternum, Misha's chin a gentle weight on his shoulder. There's nothing impatient in it, or maybe there is, but Jensen's too wrapped up in his own head to notice.
The soft, "No," that finds its way past Jensen's lips is more tentative than he'd like, but it's not enough to sway his conviction.
He can do this.
His body still seems to think otherwise, because when Jensen digs for his keys, his fingers don't work quite the way they should and the mangled lump he fumbles out of his pocket resembles nothing more than one of those magnetic puzzles Eric has lined up across the front of his desk back in LA. The symmetry, while not completely lost on him, would be more hilarious if he could keep his hands from shaking.
He feels the stretch of Misha's smile against his neck, the bony bump of elbow against ribs when he reaches, and if Jensen were put together any better right now he'd be fucking pissed off about being treated like a child. As it stands, he's just grateful. Thirty seconds later, Misha finds the right key from the ring then leans in to swing the door open, and Jensen doesn't have to think about it anymore.
In his opinion, anyway.
Misha seems to have other ideas, because the next thing Jensen hears is a soft laugh huffed right in his fucking ear.
"Is there a pack mule hiding in the bushes?"
Jensen grins in spite of himself, partly because who else would stand around waiting to be the butt of one of Misha's weird ass jokes, but mostly because Misha's nonsensical proclamations may be Jensen's second-favorite thing about him.
"Um, no. I think the homeowner's association would frown on that."
"How's that fair?" Misha asks, and Jensen feels the tension in his spine dial down from an eleven to seven.
"Because I should be able to tend livestock in the courtyard?"
"Because you're obviously disabled. No, I'm sorry - physically challenged."
"How so?"
"Clearly," Misha says with mock sincerity, and plants what's probably intended to be a chaste kiss in the spot that apparently serves as the nexus for all Jensen's nerve endings, "You have trouble finding your way inside. A pack mule might help. Perhaps even with getting the groceries in. I certainly don't intend to throw you over my shoulder."
Jensen rolls his eyes and takes the step, or steps. Hell, it might be two or it might be four, he's too busy thinking about how smoothly Misha coaxed him down to count. With Misha still wound around him like an octopus, it's more awkward shuffling than actual steps anyway, but since they end up inside with the door closed and locked behind them he figures it's good enough.
Of course, that's also when he starts to really freak out.
It makes Jensen squirm, try to escape. He's flipping through and discarding the fifteenth of an infinite number of plausible excuses when Misha wraps him up tighter, murmurs nonsense against his skin.
Fucking fuck.
"Misha..." he says then stops because he doesn't know how to go on, what to go on with.
Misha just hums and draws lopsided figure eights around his nipple in lieu of actually responding. Awesome. So much for helping.
Thing of it is, Jensen can't pin himself down enough to explain. It's not the guy thing, or even the sober thing, really. Okay, that's a lie, but it's more the sober thing than the guy thing. He's been with guys before. He's even been with guys without the fucking scotch. Just not anyone he, y'know, actually wants to keep.
Fuck.
Maybe he can't do this. Maybe he should have just let Misha drop him off and go. Maybe it's too much, too soon.
But it's not, not really, not when he shoves all the knee-jerk panic aside.
Two weeks after Misha joined the cast, Jensen's cock had already been seriously considering breaking his tried and true rule about shitting where you sleep. Not consciously, of course, but his cock has never really cared about conscious. Which just sounds wrong, even inside his head.
Jensen himself, the one that actually has thoughts in his upstairs brain, had just ignored it. His cock is, by and large, his least intelligent organ and had done the same thing the first time he stumbled into a half dressed Tom Welling, not to mention the time Jeff hugged him a little too tight in the middle of a scene, or when Adrienne cocked her hip and that stupid Smurfs shirt stretched the wrong way. While he probably has far fewer notches on his proverbial bedpost than Dean Winchester, his dick has always been about equal opportunity corruption. If he hadn't learned to ignore it in high school, he'd be dead of dehydration or disease-ridden already.
At some point though, the interest migrated.
Jensen has never really put a name to it, never allowed it to find more than fleeting purchase between his ears, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly when it started. Sometime late last year, he thinks, which had sucked hardcore considering that was about the same time he started having more scenes with Misha than he did Jared.
Just, fuck.
Now he is thinking about it and it's a fucking flower unfolding in his brain, like it was just sitting there happily dormant until he stumbled by with a watering can ready to pay attention.
Jensen hates fucking flowers.
Except he doesn't, not really, but every petal that peels back terrifies him a little more until he's staring at the heart of this epically bad idea without anything in the way of preparation.
So yeah, it turns out he actually does remember when it started, every single fucked up second. Hindsight's the only thing that makes it fucked up, because the moment itself is so absurdly innocuous it makes him want to laugh and kick himself in the ass.
It was a Saturday. They'd just wrapped for the week, and thank fucking God because Jensen had been wrecked since Thursday, exhausted since the day before that and had just spent three hours strapped to a hospital bed crying manly tears of manliness. It was the kind of emotional meat grinder that always made him wonder why the hell he chose acting. The fact they weren't on location only compounded his misery, because here in the studio his personal space consisted of a couple of chairs and a bathroom flanked on one side by wardrobe and the other by make-up. With all the cheerful chattering, he was having a hard time lacing up all the old wounds he'd had to open to get the job done.
The staccato series of knocks on his door had been the last fucking straw. He'd snapped, flung the door open with some really colorful language and a metric ton of diva bullshit heavy on his tongue. Misha had stood there silently and let him unload. Not only that, but he'd pushed Jensen back into the slipshod dressing room when people started poking their heads around corners to stare. He'd shoved Jensen into one of the ratty armchairs that looked more like a set piece than actual furniture, rooted through Jensen's bag until he found his iPod, and popped the buds in Jensen's ears like he did it every fucking day. Then he'd smirked a smirk that said, "Chill out you crazy fucker, I like this job and I'm not going to lose it because you bust a gasket and die," before he pressed play and disappeared in a swift sway of trench coat.
Yeah, he remembers. In the moment, there'd only been relief. He'd zoned out to his music, wearing his clothes, and let Dean Winchester slough off like dead skin. After was another story altogether, and even once he'd spent that night sucking and fucking his way through three different busty blondes, the questions were still waiting.
How had Misha known?
Jay would have asked had he been there, of course. He'd have turned on his puppy eyes, scrunched his face into Sam-shapes, and asked Jensen what he needed. Misha didn't have to.
It had all been a little too method for his comfort, and the only reason it hadn't screwed with the dynamic was because he's a professional and an ace at compartmentalizing his life.
He ignored it and it went away, mostly - simple as that. Until now.
When Jensen comes back to himself, Misha's not draped all over him anymore, and he can't decide whether the tightness in his chest is gratitude or something else. Misha hasn't wandered far, though what he hopes to accomplish by going through the silverware drawer, Jensen has no fucking idea.
Misha's weird.
"Are you in the habit of succumbing to random bouts of catatonia?" Misha asks, still seemingly fascinated by Jensen's flatware, testing the balance of each of his steak knives with a considering quirk etched on his brow.
"I don't think so?"
There's a hollow kind of clank when Misha drops the knife back in the drawer and closes it.
"I meant what I said. I'm not well-suited to mooning."
"Okay...and how am I supposed to fix that?" Jensen asks, then takes the initiative to close the gulf between them, because somehow he feels like it will help, say something that needs saying that he can't say.
Misha laughs, and it's got an edge to it - a derisive little wheeze that makes Jensen want to shake him, because that's not who he is. In the end, he wraps his hand tentatively across the back of Misha's neck, steps in close until he can knock their foreheads together, until Misha relaxes and goes blurry. His heart's pounding so hard he can barely hear because he doesn't want to fuck this up, doesn't want to care whether he fucks this up even though he does. It feels familiar, though Jensen can't figure out why.
It wouldn't take much, really, to lean in that extra two inches, kiss away whatever's crawled up Misha's ass, and Jensen's gearing himself up to do exactly that before Misha disentangles himself and pulls back.
"I can't do this, Jensen."
To say it's a slap in the face would be a gross understatement, and Jensen can feel it in his bones, feel the heat thrumming across the back of his neck all the way to the tips of his ears, because this is the very thing he tries so hard to guard himself against.
"What the fuck, dude?" Jensen spits back, and the urge to shake Misha returns with a vengeance, shake or punch or do other kinds of ill-advised violence because really, what the fuck. No matter what he might or might not want, Jensen's about five words away from chucking Misha out on his ass just for being a dick. Still, running has got him all kinds of nowhere in the past so instead of doing anything overly rash, he just backs slowly away until his calves hit the couch and he can sit down to stew.
"What the fuck, indeed," Misha says and settles in beside Jensen, legs curled under him, his arm draped across the back of the couch like he owns it, like it belongs there. Even in the midst of his frustration, Jensen can't deny wanting it there even though he really fucking wants to. But Misha's wearing a small, sad smile that Jensen will probably learn to hate and looking over his shoulder instead of looking at him. "It would be easier if I didn't give a shit. We could just go on randomly fucking one another's brains out. I've got too much respect for myself to do that to either of us. Life's too short to bank on a day that may never come."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means, Jensen, that this means something to me, whether I want it to or not," he says, inching forward ever so slightly like he's going to reach out and touch, and Jensen tenses before Misha eases back and sighs again. "But unless it means something to you, I just - can't, won't. As entertaining as it's been, I'm tired of trying to find new and improved ways to get you drunk, and it's not good for either of us. "
"Hold the fucking phone."
Misha just stares back at him, actually at him, his head tilted in a bastardized parody of Castiel. It's unnerving.
"How long?"
"I'm not sure what you're asking," Misha says, but something in his tone makes Jensen want to call bullshit. So he does.
"Howlong?"
"Since I...ate? I had that omelet about an - "
"Fuck you, Misha," Jensen growls, teeth aching from the pressure he's putting them under. If he gets through this without a cracked crown, it'll be a miracle, but he has to know. "How long have you been thinking about this? Us? Whatever."
Even if this is all there ever is, it's a question worth asking.
Misha's eyes go slightly unfocused and he does that thing again, where he looks at anything but Jensen. It means, of course, that either Misha's actually nervous or he's getting ready to lie.
"A while," is what he finally says, and Jensen believes him.
"So cut me some fucking slack. Two hours ago I thought I was nothing more than a booty call that probably overstayed my welcome. I'm not like you. I don't turn on a dime."
"I'd never ask you to."
"Then what the fuck do you want?"
"Does it matter?"
"You really think I'd ask if it didn't?"
"You."
"I thought we'd kind of covered that already, with the sex."
"It's like I'm speaking to an emotional invalid."
"Not helping."
Misha leans in, deliberately slow and intensely fucking focused. Jensen lets him, holds his gaze as long as he can, until his eyes start to cross, and when Misha's fingertips find his face again it feels a little less claustrophobic than it did just a few short hours ago. Misha's lips are soft and wet, but not insistent when they find his, and it's not leading up to something or down from something.
It just is.
The impulse is still there, the cartoon devil crouched on his shoulder that tells Jensen to take it to that place, the familiar place of liquor and flesh and come and teeth. It would be so simple to slip his hands up under Misha's shirt and realign them into something more normal.
But he doesn't.
Misha, of course, looks caught between pride and confusion when he pulls back, and the slow blink Misha treats Jensen to is satisfaction enough for the moment - enough for Jensen, though apparently not enough for Misha because his hands drop into his lap and he shifts away by inches.
"I want you, you insufferable jackass. Pretty packaging only goes so far, and as singular a specimen as you are, it's not just your ass or your mouth I'm after. I'm too far gone for careful," Misha says in a rush, a little breathless, like the honesty of it's actually crushing him. Jensen has exactly three seconds to think maybe this isn't easy for either of them before Misha's gone, headed for the door and his car and hours of uncomfortable silence on set three days from now.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This is totally why he never gets involved, never mind with a co-worker.
"Misha, wait."
Even with the minimal height difference, Jensen catches up easily. Something to be said, he guesses, for being forced to keep in step with a damned Sasquatch of Jared's size all the time. The door slams shut when he palms it, rattling a couple of the pre-furnished knick-knacks littering the sofa table under the window, and Jensen misses ramming Misha's nose against the steel by a quarter of an inch. His reflexes are awesome.
Misha doesn't turn or push him away or move at all except to let his head fall forward in silence. It's better than nothing, and Jensen flattens his free hand against the door too, pins Misha in the way he once had in that alley what seems like a lifetime ago. When breathes against the nape of Misha's neck, ruffling the small hairs with a sigh, Misha sighs with him and shifts, presses back into Jensen just enough that it feels like he wants to issue a standing invitation.
Something clicks, and Jensen's not sure where to place the blame or lay the gratitude, but it's maybe kind of awesome to finally be of one mind. That he can watch the flush creep up the back of Misha's neck and not immediately want to put it somewhere else, that he doesn't have to reach immediately for his scotch or Misha's cock.
It also means he has no fucking clue what to do.
Misha takes the decision out of his hands when he does finally turn, stubble scraped against Jensen's cheek, their noses bumping gracelessly together because they're standing just a little too close to make it easy. Then there's a palm pressed against his chest again, a gentle push that forces him back a couple steps. When Misha's face springs into focus, there's something like suspicion caught up in his eyes, and Jensen feels like shit for being the reason it's there.
So he says, "Stay," and finds Misha's hand, threads their fingers together. It's awkward, because he doesn't really know how to do this, much less the why, but when he tacks the, "please," on after, Misha smiles and grips tighter and Jensen figures maybe he's doing a decent job of it.
The last thing Jensen expects is when Misha slips past him silently, tugs on his hand until he's drawn into a stutter-step in Misha's wake. Or it was the last thing he expected, until he finds himself watching Misha push open every door that lines his pitiful excuse of a hallway with an almost childlike curiosity. He's not sure if Misha's on a mission of some kind or if it's just exploratory poking, but for Jensen it's vaguely uncomfortable, like someone going through his laundry basket or garbage or whatever. Not that Jensen's messy, he's not, it's just his space. He's doing the best he can to stamp out the defensive impulses, because he's the one that asked Misha to stay.
Right?
Fuck.
Apparently, there's a method to Misha's madness because when he swings the last door open, the door to the master, he pulls them both inside without missing a step.
Okay. That's, okay. Really fucking confusing, but okay.
Jensen manages to get Misha's name out before the soft pads of Misha's fingers press down against his lips, urging him to silence. Which, yeah, will never be anything other than fucking hot, but he feels like he missed something along the way, some non-verbal cue that blew right on by while he was mired in indecision. He could have sworn the entire conversation they'd had was about this thing not just being sex.
Not that anyone will ever hear him complain, because when Misha's hands finally stir to motion, they're gentle, careful in a way he's maybe never been before - not that Jensen's able to remember everything clearly through the scotch haze. It definitely feels different, looks different as he watches the deliberate path wind down across his stomach, Misha's thumbs hooked under the hem of his shirt, the slow skyward push that has Jensen raising his arms without being asked, nipples pebbled and aching as the heels of Misha's hands graze against them. And it is different, because there's no way Jensen would have had the patience for this drunk, he knows that much for a fact - so slow it's almost painful and he has to bite back the questions burning in his lungs for fear that Misha will stop.
He doesn't. His lips and tongue follow his hands in that same haphazard pattern, and when Misha does finally speak, it's with his cheek pressed against Jensen's navel, his fingers poised to pop the button on Jensen's jeans, and Jensen has to move when the words come because he just can't. Can't. So he drags Misha up, kisses him hard, tries to lick them out of his mouth. It doesn't work. With Misha flushed up against him they echo back even louder - an inescapable loop of, "So fucking beautiful," rounding on itself over and over and even Jensen knows it has nothing to do with his body.
This would be the complicated other stuff he tries like hell to avoid.
Except now, now he's drawing it in, breathing it in furiously, like until now he's been little more than an emaciated shell of himself, and that letting Misha permeate all those tightly kept corners he's always held apart changes something, because somehow he knows - knows that Misha will be careful despite his protestations. It makes Jensen brave, lets him ease back and look, really see the dark tangle of Misha's bedhead, the flush rising on his cheeks, something in his eyes that Jensen absolutely does not have the fortitude to name. It lets him peel Misha's T-shirt up over his head at a deliberate pace instead of a frenzied one. Lets him find the curve of Misha's shoulder where it bends into neck and murmur things against that soft patch of skin he could regret tomorrow - things like, "Want this," and "Want you," and "Fuck Misha, what the fuck are you doing to me?" When Misha's hands sweep down his back in cautious, soothing strokes, Jensen feels like he might just crumble in the face of so much tenderness. It aches in his stomach, behind his teeth, in his chest, his dick, because Misha's taking him apart expertly - like it was something he was born to do.
A harsh breath rattles up his throat, and it's almost too much.
"Misha, I..." Jensen says, and lets his hands wander aimlessly across the hard planes of Misha's back, feeling the muscles tense and release when Misha moves, not knowing what else to do because he's kind of dizzy.
"Shhh," Misha whispers against his ear, and Jensen steadfastly fucking refuses to acknowledge the shudder that crawls out under his skin, because it's ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is the second shudder that comes, the one he can't deny when Misha's grips his wrists, draws his hands away from skin and around before pressing a kiss to each of his palms.
It's enough to make him lose track of things for awhile, and when Jensen snaps back to awareness, somehow he's naked and Misha's naked and they're more or less horizontal on something soft and Misha's face is right there lit up with want and humor and all the things that make Jensen a little more okay with all that complicated stuff. Then he feels Misha's knees press against his hips, the slow drag of Misha's cock against his, and he wants.
His hands fly on autopilot, drawn to the sharp outline of Misha's hipbones, and he grapples, trying to drive them faster. Misha stills, catches his wrists in that almost unbearably firm grip again, and leans up to push Jensen's hands against the bed over his head.
"Let me take care of you, Jensen."
Fuck.
It makes his head snap sideways, eyes slammed shut, teeth caught against his lower lip and copper on his tongue - anything to take the edge off, to distract from the happy little twitch his dick does at the idea of just laying back and taking it, letting Misha have his way. He shouldn't want to, shouldn't even want to think about it, but with his defenses completely fucking compromised it's hard to convince anyone otherwise, least of all himself.
Misha must take his silence for consent, because soon that wicked tongue is working its way down the side of his neck, dipping into his collarbone, tracing the line of his ribs and with his eyes closed it's both better and worse. Better because he can give himself over more easily to the plain physicality of it - lips and hands and tongue and skin. Worse because everything feels amplified and he can't escape the fact that the hitch in his breath, the matching hitch in Misha's has jack shit to do with physical.
The bed dips gently, and he doesn't think anything of it until his skin goes to gooseflesh, the sloppy chill of drying saliva creeping slowly into his spine. When he pries his eyes open Misha's not in the space above him or beside him or anywhere in the fucking room and his chest goes tight for a full fucking minute before he remembers, oh yeah, he can still speak.
"Misha?"
There's a soft thump from the master bath followed by a curse and when Misha peers around the corner at him, Jensen absolutely does not think he's adorable. Not. It takes him a few seconds to get the brain spun back up to speed enough to figure out what Misha's looking for, but when he does he points.
"Bottom drawer, back right corner."
Misha glides back towards him, completely unabashed by his nakedness, hips swinging hypnotically with a kind of feral roll and bunch Jensen can only equate with jungle cats. The look that Misha flashes him before he bends to unearth Jensen's stash chases each and every fucking goose bump he's ever thought of having straight to Timbuktu.
"You realize, I'm sure, that you're not in high school anymore?" Misha quirks a smile at him then tosses two condoms and a tube of lube on the bed.
Which, granted, is a valid point - he'd just never gotten out of the habit.
Still.
The bed dips again and Misha's above him, lowering lips to meet his, and any remotely smartass response he could have come back with flies the fucking coop. It takes an act of will not to wrap Misha up and flip them over, wipe that crooked smile off his face and replace it with something less smug. That's not what this is about, though. So Jensen waits, opens to Misha's tongue when it pushes at against his mouth seeking entry, and lets Misha take what he wants at the tempo he wants without interfering.
He lets go, lets his eyelids droop, his muscles relax, and learns to simply be.
Misha brings him back with a kiss to his temple, his lips a slick, warm slide on skin that makes Jensen open his eyes for the briefest of seconds before he lets them slip shut again.
Then Misha's in his ear, whispering low and dirty, "No, Jensen. Open your eyes. I want you to watch. Watch."
And if Misha's saying that, like that, there's definitely something to see. His eyelids snap back so fast it's a wonder he doesn't give himself a concussion and when he looks at Misha, down the long, fucking gorgeous line of his body he can't exactly see. The way Misha's rocking, the hard curve of his cock wet against his belly, the telling absence of his hand on Jensen's skin, there's no other explanation.
"Fuck, Misha."
And fuck the rules, Jensen thinks, reaches out blindly. He chalks the palm against his sternum up to Misha's damn yogi ninjitsu or whatever.
"I thought I told you," Misha breathes, back bowed and neck arched, flush creeping up his chest as he hisses his lungs empty, slides another finger home, "to relax."
"But I..."
"Jensen," Misha sighs and goes completely, achingly still, says, "Please," with such a messed up mix of emotions that even though Jensen will never understand, he respects and slides himself - bare ass and all - into the corner of the bed where mattress and headboard both meet wall. Less temptation there, away, to touch Misha though not himself because Misha's still Misha and too flexible, too wanton, too pretty for this crazy fucked-up world and with the new angle Jensen can actually see.
Fuck.
The glare Misha gives him when he grabs for his cock is enough to make Jensen behave, his hands curled to fists against his thighs, breath coming fast and hard because it's the only outlet left to him as he watches Misha's eyes slip shut, the muscles undulate under Misha's skin, his spine curling and unfurling just beyond his reach. It's fucking torture.
"Misha," Jensen breathes, too desperate to care just how desperate he sounds and Misha's eyes slit open just enough for him to see and something changes, because the serenity's gone, the deliberate intensity breaks under Misha's eager hands. Jensen feels more than sees the condom go on, firm fingers stroking down as his head cracks back against the wall. Then Misha's there, hovering above him with that impossible sinuous grace, thighs tensed and face so fucking open Jensen doesn't know what to do with any of it - the want, the need, the sheer magnitude of what Misha is laid out before him without walls. It's too much, and Jensen pulls a breath to say so, say something, wants to bury his face against Misha's chest just so he doesn't have to see, but then Misha - Misha guides him in, and sinks down in one long, slow burn that feels like more of a fucking heaven than Jensen's ever known and words fail.
Jensen can't put a name to the sound that crawls up Misha's throat either. It's somewhere between a moan and a sigh, and when he settles in hips to hips Jensen can't breathe for the heat and the tightness and the angle, all of Misha's warmth stretched out right there where he can but can't touch.
"Please, I need," he hears himself say, like he's not of this world anymore, not of his own body, and that makes the most sense of anything that's happened to him today.
Misha rocks just enough for him to feel it and draws his thumbs against the angle of Jensen's jaw.
"What, Jensen? Tell me what you need," Misha says, managing somehow to sound completely in control and completely wrecked at the same time in that way that only Misha ever could.
"I need to touch," Jensen says, hands reaching before he's even finished and Misha smiles wide, bends back as Jensen's fingers trace the lines of his ribs, the hollows of his hipbones. The rhythm starts slow, aching, and Jensen's almost more mesmerized by the tiny flutters of Misha's muscle dancing under his fingertips than the sweet, slow slide - almost, because to say otherwise would be a lie. It's perfect, the walls bracing him up, cold drywall against his shoulders, Misha like a furnace around him moving like a fucking dancer, and Jensen can't help but look up, can't help but try to catch him watching and he does. Misha stares right back, stripped down to this and only this, not less without the defenses wrapped up around him, just different - freer, wilder.
It's goddamn gorgeous.
Jensen leans in, lays a trail of kisses against Misha's skin, then wraps his hand tight around Misha's cock, watches his control slip just that much more and he rocks harder, tension breaking Jensen down until he's breathless and panting with the need for release. It makes him grip tighter, pull faster, twist his hand that extra half turn, and then he's dragging Misha down because he wants to share what little breath he has, kiss him senseless until he shatters. It's more teeth than lips when Jensen gets Misha close enough, the angle changes and makes him suck in air, Misha moaning right into his mouth, gasping sweet choked off fuck unh fuck sounds as he keeps the pace and Jensen keeps it with him. Jensen has a half a second when Misha goes rigid against him where he has time to think that if it gets any better, his fucking brain is going to explode. Then it does get better because Misha comes hard, his spine caught in an S curve of Jensen's making, his body vibrating and Jensen really can't breathe because Misha's locked down around him, hot and wet, and then he's gone too - whiteout - the world falling away.
Maybe it should take longer to claw his way back, but it's more than long enough already in Jensen's opinion. First of all, he's clean, no wayward spray of come, no used condom, so either Misha is the most awesome guy in the awesomely wide universe or it didn't happen at all and Jensen just has a fan-fucking-tastic imagination. His back seems to think it happened, so does his dick, and as unreliable as it's been in the past he thinks he's going to just have to trust it this once. Misha's still there lying not six inches away and still naked, so that points to his 'not a dream' theory being a sensible one.
Weird thing is, Misha's still quiet.
"Hey," Jensen says, mostly because he doesn't know what else to say, because this is new ground for him with Misha - good ground, but still new.
When Misha looks up at him, his eyes are bright and so blue it makes Jensen's chest ache, it also makes him want to do stupid shit, say stupid shit that he doesn't say. So he's just not going to.
Instead he says, "I thought this wasn't about sex," and reaches out to touch again, because he can.
"Well, it's not just about sex, but a man has needs," Misha replies, huffs a laugh, and the lightness in his tone is enough to convince Jensen that everything might just be okay.
"A man does, does he?"
"You have no idea."
Misha curls into him again, all hands and muscle, and Jensen welcomes it, wants it, even if it's still a little terrifying to let someone in so far so fast.
The benefits far outweigh the risks.