Intelligence Quota - Part 2
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Maybe the rum from Chad's flask had been overkill but Jared is still lucid enough when they enter the party at Charlie's friend's house. He follows Chad inside and they hang out where living room meets the hallway, surveying the crowd. The place is absolutely packed. There are some kids there they know from school but mostly it's a peculiar mix of people, both young and old.
It's getting late, Jared notes, or maybe it's getting early. His head is too fuzzy to be clear on the semantics. All he knows is that if he hadn't told his parents he'd be staying at Chad's, his ass would be so grounded. It feels nice to be this numbed by the alcohol, smiling stupidly at the strangers around him at the party and not feeling as awkward as he'd felt at Alexis' party. Everyone is a stranger here and everyone is your friend. It's probably from this kind of atmosphere that peace movements and love-ins are born - if they were still stuck in the sixties. Maybe it's a little bit more sinister now but Jared doesn't care and the people who probably know he's too young to be out so late, so drunk, don't care either. They are even leering at him and still he keeps up his idiotic grin.
Chad is chatting with a couple of women. Jared suspects that they are closer to their mothers' age than their own but if Chad's interested in them, then more power to him. One of them hands him a shot glass as he walks up to them and then remarks on his height. He downs the shot which turns out to be Jägermeister and he's unable to fight the grimace on his face as he puts the glass away. The women laugh. Initially he thinks they are mocking them but then they start proclaiming that they've had a run-in with the law for their previous relations with underage boys. Chad looks at Jared in horror and they all but run to the other end of the dance floor. The women might have been playing a joke on them but neither of them has the desire to be roofied by some wannabe cougar.
As they are trying their best to hide on the other side of the living room, terrified that the pleasant drunken state they'd been experiencing is swiftly vanishing and some sobering helplessness creeping upon them, a girl wanders over to them. She's obviously older than them - Jared thinks she might be the same age as Jeff. She's short and chubby, with a pretty face and she seems determined to catch Chad's attention. Since Chad is relatively easy and probably happy he's met someone his side of thirty at the party, he's suddenly making out with the girl in a nearby sofa with the girl straddling Chad.
Jared blinks. He'd been standing right there. How had they gone from just standing there to Chad getting close to third base with the girl in what seemed merely seconds? He clearly is drunker than he'd thought. Not knowing whether to save Chad or not, he wanders around the living room and out into the hallway and into the kitchen, glancing at Chad every time he enters the living room again. At his sixth check, he doesn't catch a glimpse of Chad with his hand up the girl's skirt. Instead there's this guy staring at him and he has these intense looking brown eyes. It's like he's totally caught in his gaze and he doesn't notice him coming closer until the guy is almost in his face, well, at his chest, because he's almost a head taller than the guy. That doesn't matter to his alcohol-logged brain; Chad is getting off with some chick and why shouldn't he get off with random hot guys? The thought has hardly formed in his head when he's pulled down, his lips meeting other lips.
He finds himself backed against the wall and the other guy is kissing him, tongue and all. Leaning on the wall he bends his knees a little and the guy pushes his thigh between his legs, almost pressing on his crotch.
Jared feels the guy's half-hard cock rub against his hip and somehow the idea he's obliged to do something about that pops up in his mind. While sucking on the guy's tongue he skates his right hand down the guy's sides, hiking up his shirt a little, feeling the hot skin underneath and running his fingers over his stomach. For some reason, he starts thinking of Jensen and feels like he's betraying him, like he's cheating on him. It's a strange feeling and his hearts hammers in his chest and even though the guy he's kissing is a pretty good kisser, Jared almost wants to push him away. Which would make him a huge cock tease and he really doesn't want to be one. Maybe he can just jerk the guy off right there and then never have to see him again. It seems like a good idea as he pushes his hand down the front of the guy's pants and the guy seems to like it, he shifts so Jared can better maneuver his hand. It's still an awkward angle and he doesn't get a good grip so it's more like the guy's humping his hand. So it wasn't a good idea after all. He pulls away from their kiss and the guy starts to lick his throat, which feels odd. Scanning the crowd Jared looks for Chad, hoping maybe he's done with the girl and might help him in some way.
Chad's leaving and he's leading the girl. So Jared isn't going to get to crash at his place. That's just great. Chad just smiles and gives him the thumbs up. Jared's stuck there now and his wrist is really starting to ache. Pulling his hand away, he looks at the guy who smiles and mouths something. The din of the music and the people at the party is too loud for Jared to hear so he leans closer to the guy to try to catch what he's saying.
"Wanna come home with me?"
There's a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him that going with the guy is a monumentally stupid idea and he will come to regret it. A bigger part of him wants to see where it leads and besides, if Chad is taking the girl home, he doesn't have a place to crash and there's no chance in hell he's going home in the state he is in.
He doesn't answer the guy, not verbally at least, just takes his hand and allows him to lead him outside. Everything is bathed in that gray light that precedes sunrise and there's a chill to the air. Jared pulls closer to the guy and it's only then he realizes that he doesn't know his name.
"What's your name?" He asks and winces at how childlike his voice sounds outside in the cold air.
The guy turns to him and looks up at him curiously like he wasn't expecting that question.
"Keith. So, what's yours?"
As they make their way through the almost deserted streets they fall into making small talk. Keith is few years older than Jared, old enough to be just out of college and starting his new job. A freaking grown-up really, but he doesn't seem too bothered with Jared being underage.
Keith's place isn't far off and Jared is almost relieved as he isn't sure he'd handle sobering up more than he already has before going to bed with Keith. Once they're inside, Keith doesn't appear to be one for ceremony and starts undressing. Jared follows suit and soon Keith is pulling him naked onto his bed.
They meet in a kiss, their lips crushing, but Jared feels like he should do something other than move his hands down Keith's torso so he straddles him and starts licking at his neck, down his chest, gently grazing the skin with his teeth. He isn't taking it slow, moving down Keith's body with almost maddening speed, not wanting to stop and think. So without thought, he takes Keith's almost flaccid dick in his hand, stroking it before touching the tip with his tongue. It tastes salty and bitter, slightly unpleasant but not so bad that he can't suck the cock into his mouth. It takes a bit of effort to keep his teeth out of the way, his lips pushing out instead of curling over the teeth. Then it hits the back of his throat and he inhales. He feels his throat spasm and he gags, feeling like an absolute idiot. Keith doesn't seem to think much of it, his head is thrown back as he rests on his elbows. So Jared braves taking him in his mouth again, keeping his hand wrapped around the base. He wants to get Keith off, he wants to know how it is to have someone else come because of something you did to them but it is taking a lot longer than he anticipated. It's not only his hand that is cramping; it's hard to kneel on the bed like he's been doing for this long and his mouth strangely is both numb and aching at the same time.
When Keith finally comes, Jared jerks his head automatically and only a tiny drop of Keith's release catches his lips, the rest ends up leaking down over his hand.
Jared raises himself up, sitting on his heels and feeling utterly unsure about what to do next. Keith seems to be a bit out of it, lying back with his arm raised over his head. As Jared starts to wonder if he should just get up and get dressed, Keith seems to come to and grabs him and pulls him down for a kiss. Perhaps it shouldn't be called a kiss, as they are rubbing their tongues together, their mouths open. It's something so obscene about it, some so dirty that Jared can't help but feel aroused. His dick is somewhere between half-hard and soft and it's definitely growing more interested. If he didn't have all this alcohol pumping through his veins, he'd be at full mast already. Keith appears to have some incredible recovery time as he's stroking his cock and it's almost hard again.
When they break the kiss, Jared feels the saliva all over his lips and kind of wants to wipe it off like a kid wipes off a kiss from an old aunt. He resists though as Keith is moving them around in the bed, pushing him higher in the bed, so he's kneeling on all fours. Not wanting to think about where this could be leading, he drops his head. Keith isn't much for touching him. Quickly he settles his hands on Jared's buttocks and pulls the cheeks apart. Jared doesn't know what to expect, perhaps spit-wet fingers pushing into him but then he has to fight back a yelp when he feels Keith's tongue on his opening. He wasn't born yesterday, he knows about rimming but he had always felt it had to be this intimate act between long-time lovers, not something you did with a guy you just picked up at a party. It feels weird and Jared knows he's tensing up, making it harder for Keith to push in but apparently he's not going to give up; he ends up somehow opening Jared up slightly with his tongue and one finger. It doesn't feel particularly good but not bad enough that Jared feels the need to ask him to stop. This goes on and Jared is kind of getting bored. Actually it feels like more he's a casual observer, like Keith isn't doing it to his body but to someone else's.
This view of his changes suddenly when he feels Keith raise himself up behind him and he feels something blunt and a lot broader than the fingers in the cleft of his ass. A part of him wants to cry no, no, no. But he doesn't get the words out, maybe because a bigger part of him wants to know how penetration actually feels. When it's a dick and not fingers, not his fingers or Keith's. The pressure feels strange, like his nerves are acting like transmitters, leading the sensation out into his body; this strange feeling of pressure and then pain that he feels almost up into his throat. And it grows and grows as Keith penetrates further. This has to end up feeling fucking fantastic at some point or on a subsequent try because who would want to do this if it felt like this all the time? He can't keep in the groans but they sound half strangled like he doesn't have any air in his lungs anymore.
His arms are beginning to shake and Jared tries his hardest to control the tremors, he doesn't really think much about whether Keith is getting off or not. He feels the stabbing, shallow thrusts and hears his grunts. There is a certain tinge of frustration to his grunts but he doesn't relent right away. The same feeling washes over Jared again, like he's waiting for a boring class to be over and the time just drags on and on.
Keith gives up. On the assfucking that is. As he moves away, Jared allows himself to drop down, hoping that it's over. He's been sobering up so fast that his head is spinning and he wants to go to sleep or even have a shower, but Keith is crawling up the bed in front of him, pushing his dick in his face. Jared's jaws are still aching from last time but he still opens his mouth to take Keith in. He is so tired and is longing so much for this all to be over that he grabs the length of the cock a little too hard and Keith gasps in pain, causing him to let go right away. Lifting his head, he looks up at Keith, wondering if he should dare to ask him to call it quits. But Keith pushes his dick in his face again and resting on his hands, Jared takes him again into his mouth. The pain in his jaws starts spreading over his face, his cheeks ache and he feels his breathing becoming even more labored. He wonders if Keith notices, if he thinks he's into it or something. Time begins to drag again and all he ends up feeling is the ache in his face and his arms that have begun straining under his weight. If only he knew how to stop in a polite way. After all, he had initiated the whole thing. Not the kiss but he could have broken that off. It was him who had reached down Keith's pants.
If Keith would just come already. Maybe he is just that bad, his blowjob technique that awful.
Lifting his head, slipping Keith's cock out of his mouth, Jared takes deep breath. His whole face smarts and he barely manages to catch himself before he falls completely down onto the mattress, completely drained.
And finally Keith catches on. Raising himself a bit up, he grabs his own dick and starts jerking off with fast strokes. Jared is so exhausted that he is able to keep the feeling of failure at bay. With great effort, he holds his head up, thinking about how these things always end up with money shot in porn.
It comes, the money shot that is. Not like in porn where it's usually great globs of come all over. Instead Jared feels slight wetness on his chin and nose. Reaching with his fingers, he wipes it off and then licks it off. Truth be told, he thinks his own come tastes better but then again he's pretty sure Keith smokes and he has read somewhere that makes ejaculate taste even bitterer. Not that he's going to tell him that.
He crawls up the bed and flops down besides Keith who apparently is feeling cuddly, pulling Jared towards him and throwing his arm around him. It feels strange that Keith is suddenly so attentive, seeing how he seemed to only care about his own release. Jared knows girls complain about this a lot but he'd believed that with two guys, there would be more familiarity with the plumbing so to speak. Not that he's dying to come or anything; he wants to sleep. Maybe shower first and then sleep for about a hundred years or so. There's no alcohol buzz lingering and he's probably going to wake up aching all over.
His eyelids flutter closed and his grasp on consciousness is slipping.
Keith doesn't seem to want him to sleep. He is pulling his face up for a kiss and Jared can't do it anymore. He turns his head away and pushes away from Keith. His guts are starting to twist with emotion and he wants away.
Getting up, he scrambles for his clothes, finding most of them in a heap on the floor next to the bed. He jumps around, trying to put them on, wanting to get away as fast as he can.
"Hey, slow down. No need to hurry, it's hardly morning yet."
Jared looks at Keith, wondering whether to admit to him that he feels that the whole thing was a huge mistake and at that moment he can't think of anything he regrets doing more. But he doesn't tell him. He simply squeezes his feet into his shoes and pats his pockets to see if he's got his belongings with him.
And then he leaves.
Thankfully Keith's place isn't that far from Chad's house. Jared reckons it would take him about twenty minutes to walk there, so he runs and makes it in ten. His body doesn't really have the energy for it but he pushes. His thighs ache and he wants to scream with the effort. But he also doesn't want to wake up the people in the houses that line the streets he runs, like he's a crazy morning jogger who forgot to put on a t-shirt and sweatpants.
His breath is short and he doubles over in effort to breathe deeper. Looking up at Chad's window, he doesn't see a light. Maybe he went home with the girl, maybe he's asleep but Jared needs to get inside. He's not going home in the state he's in.
Chad answers his cell almost immediately.
"Chad, you at your house?"
"Course I am. I thought … I'm coming to let you in."
Chad doesn't say anything when he lets Jared in, just gives him a sweeping look and frowns. Jared looks at his friend and wonders if he thinks he's a total idiot.
When they come up to Chad's room, Jared looks at Chad's en suite bathroom. He's bone tired and wants most of all to sleep for at least a century but he feels dirty and disgusting.
"Can I take a shower?"
Chad simply nods.
It's in the shower Jared tries to assess what the hell he'd been doing. Touching his body, he thinks about Keith's hands, mouth and dick. He hadn't said no, he had allowed Keith to touch him, to fuck him. He'd even given him a blowjob and yet the regret is burning a hole in his stomach and the tears are starting to sting his eyes.
Stepping out of the shower he haphazardly dries himself off with a towel he presumes is clean and grabs sweatpants he knows Chad won't mind lending him.
"So you went home with that guy?"
Chad is waiting for him, sitting on his bed with his legs crossed like he's waiting for a good explanation. Jared turns to him and then away to drag forth Chad's sleeping bag from his closet. He's used that sleeping bag countless of times when he's stayed over at Chad's and it fills him with comfort to have something so familiar and something so connected to him being just a kid, an innocent freaking kid who doesn't make monumentally bad decisions.
"What do you think?" Jared says as he rolls out the sleeping bag.
"I was just asking … Jay, did something happen?"
"Why do you think that?" He says, the words rushing out of his mouth.
"Jay …"
"OK, stuff happened. I lost my freaking virginity to a guy I'd only know for a couple of hours tops. Just my finest hour really." Jared grabs a large pillow from Chad's bed and throws it to the floor.
Chad is silent and Jared can't stand the way he's looking at him.
"What about you? What about that girl?" Jared asks, hoping to shift Chad's attention.
"She just went to her place, I suppose. I kind of have the feeling she realized just how young I was when we went outside. But Jay … you sure you're okay?"
He doesn't lie to Chad. He's never lied to Chad and there's no reason to start now since Chad has never judged him - not ever.
"I don't know. I just … didn't expect to be like this."
"What, over too fast or something?"
"Oh, lord no. Chad, it was like it took forever. I mean, for him to get off. First I blew him and it was so hard … I …" Jared falters, wondering how much detail Chad can handle. He wants to tell him everything, he wants to tell someone.
Chad seems to sense there's something more and keeps silent.
"So yeah, he comes and is almost ready to start again right away and he … he tries to fuck me." Jared chokes on the words, it feels stupid to use that word, fuck, about himself. "It's like … 'cause I've never … and it's tight and it hurts and he can't really get it in … you know what I mean. But he keeps going for the longest time … and then he stops … and Chad, I don't know why … I blew him again. After he'd been in my ass. I just … so fucking stupid … god, no condom." He hides his face in his hands. He is fucking stupid, colossally moronic.
Lying on the sleeping bag he turns away from Chad. He can't fight the tears, he's too exhausted. The sobs he does try to fight but when he feels Chad's hand on his shoulder, he lets go.
There's a quiz bowl team meeting on a Sunday, because the final is looming on the horizon and they need to be prepared.
Prepared isn't what Jared's feeling right now. He feels achy, his head throbs despite the Tylenol Chad gave him and most of all, he just wants to die. His chest literally hurts with his disappointment in himself. He definitely doesn't want to see the other quiz bowl kids. Not Sandy who seemed to have the good sense to stay the hell away from Alexis' party. Not Alexis herself; he's still feeling a bitter towards her and how she mostly ignored him all night at the party. Not Danneel, though he does have the urge to tell Danneel what happened. And least of all does he want to see Jensen and be reminded that he probably blew every chance he'd ever had with Jensen by being too chicken-shit to even talk to him at Alexis' party and then of course by having a stupid one night stand.
Yes, he wants to die.
He walks to the school, hoping that some fresh air would make him feel at least physically better.
Big, fat fucking chance.
He has to sit down like an old man with a hemorrhoid and Danneel looks at him like she can't decide whether to laugh at him or go get him a cushion.
The meeting itself goes pretty well. Alexis obviously wants to keep it short and Jared is betting that she's almost as hung over as he is. Apparently he's not bad at answering questions and being his walking encyclopedia self even though his brain is trying its best to divorce his skull and every muscle in his body is protesting loudly.
To his massive relief, Jensen doesn't show up. He's nauseated as it is and having Jensen there would probably make it feel worse.
When they finally escape the meeting, Danneel practically drags him into her car.
"Jared Tristan Padalecki, please don't tell me that you are coming down with the flu so close to the final. Please tell me that you are simply hung over."
He looks at her, not knowing what expression he's giving her but the look on her face changes from annoyed and concerned to something that could only be called compassion.
"Oh, sweetie. What happened? What did you and Chad do after you left Alexis' place?"
Knowing that he could trust Danneel and considering how miserable he is still feeling, he starts telling her what happened.
She listens solemnly, very much like Chad and doesn't inject anything until she senses he's said what he wanted to say. He shifts in the passenger sheet, trying to find a comfortable position and trying to stifle the sobs he's about to burst into.
Without speaking a word, Danneel pulls him into a hug, her hands stroking his back and he can't help but burrowing his face in her hair, unable to stifle his tears.
What he's really crying about, he still doesn't understand, but he's glad that neither Chad nor Danneel want to press him for any more details. He's getting snot and tears all over Danneel's shirt but she simply takes it in stride and he can hear her murmuring almost inaudibly that things will be okay. That's something he knows; sleeping with someone you don't know all that well isn't going to end the world. It may very well be the single most stupid thing he's ever done but it's over and done with now and he can't take it back.
"You okay?" Danneel asks him when he's finally stopped.
"For now," he says, trying to wipe away the wet spots on Danneel's shoulder.
"Leave it. I'm gonna take you home now and you are going to go to bed. I'm not promising that this will be all better tomorrow but at least you won't be hung over then."
"Yeah. Danny, did Jensen leave with that guy he came with?"
"Jason? Yes, but I actually think he's Jensen's roommate so that's nothing weird." She winks at Jared and he can't help but laughing.
Then the quiz bowl final is upon them and Jared puts what happened with Keith into the back of his mind and concentrates on having all the facts figured out.
Jensen is very impressed with him at their last one-on-one meeting for the final when Jared manages to name all the presidents and the vice-presidents of the USA without ever hesitating.
"You've got this down to an art," he remarks and Jared can't deny that his heart jumps just a tiny bit at that remark.
When it's finally the time for the final itself, Jared feels the exactly right amount of tension and Danneel seems to be in the same place. Sandy is ultra focused as always. For the first half of the competition everything is looking up for them. The other team is good and no one can really claim to have the lead at this point. But Lady Luck is a flighty mistress and at the second to last question, the tide turns.
"Thanks to information theory and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the possibility of its existence was disproven in the 20th century. What controls a trap door that opens for fast molecules from one side and slow molecules from the other? This imaginary creature was dreamed up to question the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Name this diabolical entropy-increasing entity imagined by the same person who unified theories of electromagnetism."
Jared and Sandy look at Danneel who is in charge of the chemistry and physics knowledge. Judging by the look in her eyes, she isn't sure. Jared feels he should know this as well but somehow all his science knowledge has been channeled away.
And the other team gets the buzzer and gives the answer which is Maxwell's Demon. It's like the lights go out in Danneel's eyes. If they get the next question, they'll tie.
Maybe because of Danneel freezing up and maybe because he couldn't handle the pressure of being in the quiz bowl finals, Jared doesn't realize that the last question is being read until he hears the last words of it.
"…by this author who also wrote Foucault's Pendulum."
He panics. Are they asking for the author or for another book title? Danneel looks at him and so does Sandy. Actually Sandy seems more like she's trying to extract the answer from him with some kind of mind reading as she's probably assuming that the same brain freezing that was affecting Danneel is affecting Jared.
The other team hits the buzzer and of course they were asking for a title, Name of the Rose. Jared can't help but groan. It's one of his favorite books, maybe because it took him about a month to get through it.
Fuck, they've lost. Sandy's determined face crumbles into dismay, Danneel mutters a curse word under her breath and Jared can't help but feel that this is all his fault. Only if he'd done a little bit better and focused more.
Alexis, Mr. Rosenbaum and Jensen are also rather forlorn when the team comes off the stage.
"This could have gone better," Alexis says, trying to look stern but her disappointment is discernible.
"What happened with you, Danny?" Jensen asks softly and Danneel just shrugs in surrender.
"Sometimes you can't bring it," Jared says and Jensen nods.
They all stand there silently for a minute or two while the other team and their entourage skip off singing their school anthem.
Life miraculously returns to normal.
Sure, their schoolmates are a little disappointed that they should lose the final but that's all forgotten the next week when the basketball team loses the chance to get to the state championships.
Somehow that's a bigger blow to the student population than a few nerds not knowing the answer to some questions in a quiz bowl showdown no one attended any way.
Not that Jared takes much notice. The teachers had apparently been sparing him homework before and now they are piling it on. A presentation and yet another essay from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Jared is certain he must have done something terrible to James Joyce in his former life when he writes about the symbolic meaning behind Stephen Dedalus's name.
Then the summer holidays are upon them and Jared has many weeks of no school ahead of him.
Thankfully he manages to procure himself a summer job. Last summer he didn't have a job and besides the lack of money, it was really boring to hang around all day and having to make your own fun. It's fun for a couple of weeks but not the entire summer holidays. Not when your parents have to work and all you have for company is your kid sister. Jared loves Megan dearly but knows that another summer like that might've put a damper on his affections.
So instead he is employed by Erasmus's Necessities, an independent bookstore that supplies college students and the anti-establishment types. This college town has more than enough of those and amongst them is Misha, one of Jared's co-workers.
Jared doesn't have a crush on Misha. It's more like he thinks Misha is the coolest guy ever to walk the planet. He is definitely the guy Jared wants to be when he gets into his twenties. Got his college degree early and then spent a few years globe-trotting and obviously learning few things on the way.
Like Tibetan throat singing and the Faroese language.
He even has the habit of greeting costumers in Faroese. "Góðan dag. Hvussu gongur?" When you are the store manager, you can obviously allow yourself to be quite silly to the customers.
All in all, Jared really likes his job. Sometimes it's crazy hectic and he has to run around the entire day looking for copies of The Last Unicorn when he's not recommending Kierkegaard to someone who wants to read something that makes them think.
Other days can be so slow that all they can to do, to kill time, is to take stock and tidy the store up.
And somewhere between the self-help section and the travel guides, Jared becomes friends with Misha.
"Hand me all the Canada books," Misha prompts when they are dusting the shelves in the travelling section on a very slow day. "Say, tell me something interesting. What does Jared Padalecki like to do? Besides the whole trivia buff thing, I mean."
"Just stuff." Jared shrugs and almost drops a book about Ontario on the floor.
"Please, feel free to elaborate on this 'just stuff'. Does it involve something scandalous like writing dirty emails to the heads of state in small European countries or do you use your powers for good and help run a shelter for blind sea monkeys?"
"Oh, we can't all be as exciting as you, Misha."
"Any torrid affairs in your past? You secretly someone's trophy wife? You had a drunken one night stand and woke up next to your school's mascot?" Despite the jest in Misha's voice and the light tone of their conversation, Jared clearly isn't completely over what happened after Alexis' birthday party and the mention of a drunken one night stand is enough to invoke that memory. Misha doesn't miss the slight wince Jared does.
"Anything you want to tell me? I'm curious but if you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to talk about it." The tone in Misha's voice makes Jared want to tell him - there's concern and understanding and Jared knows that Misha won't judge him.
"That's okay. I had just had a very stupid drunken one night stand not so long ago. I'm mostly over it though."
"Oh. Aren't you seventeen? That's kind of young to be having stupid drunken one night stands."
"Seventeen next month actually."
"Oh, kid," Misha says softly.
"You don't have to be sorry for me."
"That wasn't convincing."
"Okay, I wasn't ready for it at all and I kind of did it because I was drunk and stupid and a little heartbroken. And the sex itself was awful." Jared isn't quite sure why he's feeling like sharing and hides his face behind 100 Exciting Hiking Trails in Alberta. "I think I went against everything everyone tells you your first time should be like. An unprotected drunken one night stand with a complete stranger. What, that ticks about four don'ts, doesn't it?"
"We all do things we shouldn't do," Misha says as he leans against the shelves. "Stop beating yourself up."
"You know, I think I'm most angry at myself for allowing it to go as far as it went. It could have been a drunken make-out and a bad hand job at the most. I just didn't want to be a cock tease."
Misha doesn't seem to be thrown off at all, knowing that Jared had his one night stand with another guy. He merely quirks his eyebrows and looks Jared straight in the eyes.
"You are sixteen. You are supposed to be a cock tease. You are supposed to say enough when you think it's enough. Please never think that you owe someone something in bed because you flirted with them, kissed them, got a hand job from them…"
"No, I gave him a hand job," Jared hastens to say, like he feels that Misha must not get the wrong impression.
"Kid, seriously. You control your own body. Sure, sex is kind of a mutual thing where people try to pleasure each other but it's not like every orgasm comes with an IOU."
Jared looks back down on 100 Exciting Hiking Trails in Alberta. He knows all this - it's another matter whether or not he believes it.
"Yeah," he sighs. "I suppose you are right."
Misha slaps him on the back and tells him that he must go and alphabetize the Europe section - preferably by their official titles in the native languages.
"Let them know it's called Magyar Köztársaság."
In the summertime all of his friends scatter like cockroaches when you turn on the light. Danneel goes away for couple of weeks to Mexico with her family and Chad goes off to some kind of basketball camp. Jared finds himself almost left alone because he isn't going anywhere during the summer. He does learn that he isn't completely alone when Jensen calls him up one night, mostly just to chat. Jensen has a summer job as well, at the local paper. He bitches to Jared about doing pieces about the local craft fair and the new recycling plan that the city council is installing.
"I know it's a great experience and there's only a slim chance I'll ever become a journalist at a major paper but why did they make me write about The Summer Delight Perfect Garden Competition? I think I've learned more about geraniums in the last two days than I ever wanted to know about anything."
"Hey, at least you'll appreciate it more when you get to cover the more exciting stuff, like a bocce tournament or something."
"Hilarious, Jared, you slay me. I thought you'd be sympathetic. Is there no one who understands my plight? Jason told me earlier as he was going out with his girlfriend that I should be glad my job is at least related to what I'm studying. 'Cause he and his girlfriend are music majors and they are both working at the golf club."
He can't help it. As soon as Jensen mentions that Jason has a girlfriend, he does a little fist bump into the air. Not that Jason having a girlfriend makes it any more likely that Jensen will fall for him but it does kindle a spark of hope.
"You can complain all you want to me. I work in retail now, I'm used to it. Just today a customer, a fifty year old man, asked why we didn't display the Twilight books more prominently. Your complaints can't be more stupid than that."
"Please tell me you said something snarky. Seriously, did the guy really think a store called Erasmus's Necessities would actually flaunt the fact that you can buy shitty books about sparkly vampires there?"
"You actually think people get the name of the store?"
"No, perhaps not."
They continue their phone conversations over the next weeks. Jared who normally isn't very quick to answer his phone has started to knock things down in his haste to get to his phone when it rings, so whenever it's Chad or his mom calling, he gets a tiny bit disappointed.
It's July before he knows it and Chad is back from the basketball camp and has started dropping hints that Jared should celebrate his birthday in style.
"I don't have my birthday until August and we need a party now, not after a billion weeks. It doesn't have to be big. Just get your geek squad and that dude you are working with and can't shut up about. Dude, if I didn't know you were still all in love and shit with Jensen, I would be so sure you had your next big gay crush."
Jared laughs. He has the feeling that Chad might be jealous because he's been talking so much about Misha.
Throwing a party isn't going to a problem, not when his parents have already suggested he should bring his friends over for his birthday. He's sure that the difference between him and Jeff sometimes throws them off. Before Jeff went off to college, his huge horde of friends drifted through the house on a regular basis and Jared is certain his parents think he's lonely, despite all the time he has spent on the quiz bowl team, with Chad, and everyone else.
So getting their consent for a party was the easy thing. They even plan to be away for the duration of the night.
Inviting people isn't a big deal either, except Jared seems to be unable to extend an invitation to Jensen.
They've been calling each other once a week or so, sharing stories about their jobs and such and it shouldn't be an impassable obstacle for Jared to pick up the phone and invite Jensen. All he can see in his mind's eye is some kind of a nightmare scenario where Jensen laughs derisively at him when Jared invites him and tells him there's no way in hell he'd ever show up at some pathetic high school party. Logically he knows that Jensen would probably be super nice if he had to turn down the invitation but logic isn't enough at the moment.
When he finally bites the bullet and calls Jensen, he can hardly hear Jensen's greeting for the thundering in his ears.
"Jay, was about to call you. They finally gave me something with substance to write about. Local history, murder mystery, family tragedy, the works, mostly because there aren't more garden shows to write about and they had to have me do something. Of course that means I've been spending the last couple of days at the city archives with old court documents. So please tell me something fun that doesn't involve a coroner's report." Jensen sounds a bit like he hasn't had the pleasure of talking to another human being for a long time.
"I... I'm going to throw a birthday party and I was wondering whether you wanted to come. You don't have to. It's not a big deal or anything, not a billion people you've never met. Chad, Danneel, maybe Sandy if she isn't busy and Alexis and maybe my brother and a few other friends." He rushes everything out and waits for Jensen's answer.
"Oh cool, when is your birthday?"
"On the 19th but the party will be on Saturday."
"I'm there. Believe me. Anything I should bring? Need someone to visit the liquor store for you?"
"Great. I do think we have the booze covered. There isn't going to be a lot of it. My parents are nice enough to allow the party and I don't want anything to get out of hand."
"I'll help you. I'll control Sandy. You take the rest." He could hear the laughter in Jensen's voice.
"You are kind of a jerk, did you know that?"
Jared tries his best to fight the nerves. He shouldn't be nervous - there are just few of his good friends coming over but he feels he must give a good impression, like he's a corporate hot shot who needs to suck up to his bosses in hopes of getting a promotion.
Uncharacteristically Chad is the first one to arrive and he takes one look at Jared's face and bursts out laughing.
"Dude, this is a party, not your funeral. Lighten up and tell me where you are keeping the snacks. I'm starving."
Chad plants himself on the living room couch with his feet on the coffee table and a bag of Doritos.
"Where's the party music? I need to get my swerve on here."
"While sitting on the couch, Chad?"
"Hey, I'm saving it. Can't go and spend it all in one go. Go and put some Britney on, bitch."
"Shut up and eat your Doritos."
Danneel and Sandy show up together. Sandy has her laptop with her but Jared has known her for years and knows that Sandy hates idle moments. Her latest pet project, apparently, is making a searchable database of quiz bowl questions.
As Jared dares to bring out the drinks his brother was so kind to buy for him, Misha shows up and he's the first one who seems to have bothered with a birthday present.
"Here, I thought you might need one of those." Misha's present is a t-shirt that reads: 'Save water, shower with me.'
"Thanks, I guess," Jared says, eyeing the t-shirt suspiciously. He's never been into funny t-shirts and Misha doesn't seem to be the type either. The message on the t-shirt almost feels ominous.
Jensen shows up shortly after that and Jared hastens to hide the t-shirt, not sure exactly why he's doing it though. Like Misha, Jensen comes bearing a birthday present.
"Sorry, didn't know what to give you," Jensen says as he thrusts couple of hastily wrapped shot glasses into Jared's hands.
"Awesome. My first pair of shot glasses," Jared says, trying his uttermost to play it cool. He puts the glasses away in a safe place.
Being a host is kind of tiring, even if all he's doing is serving a little more than a handful of people drinks and making sure there's enough dip on the table and that Chad is not putting his fingers into it. He can't really engage in the conversation, only catching bits here and there.
Misha and Danneel seem to hit it off and Jensen is sitting with Sandy and her laptop and the database project of doom. Chad and his other friends are laughing and probably discussing basketball while Alexis sits by them and listens. She's somehow so awkward sitting there, like she really wants to talk to Chad and the guys but has no idea how to enter the conversation.
"Hey, Alexis, wanna come and help me in the kitchen?" Jared asks in the spur of the moment. She smiles and nods but gives a lingering look back at Chad and the guys before entering the kitchen with Jared.
Jared's mother had prepared pigs-in-a-blanket and some sort of mini pizzas that Jared has to heat up and Alexis helps him. Not much, as she's about five times slower than Jared moving the mini pizzas to the baking tray.
"So, Chad is serious about the basketball?"
"Hmm, I guess so," Jared says, finishing off the first tray.
"Is he aiming to get a scholarship or something like that? Like you know, to State or something?"
"I don't know. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know himself. Why are you wondering?"
"Oh, just curious, you know," she says, poking at the food processor on the counter.
"Okay." Jared keeps on getting the food into the oven. Alexis watches him for a while and then disappears back into the living room.
As the evening progresses, Jared hasn't really had the opportunity to sit down. He does manage to drink a couple of beers while flitting about, though.
"Hey," Jensen comes up to him as he's changing the music - the party playlist apparently wasn't long enough. "So Sandy has put a lot of work into that database. Like a crazy amount."
Jared nods as he scrolls through his iTunes playlists, trying to find something fun. He has way too much classical music on there because he likes listening to it when he's studying.
"You are like the most responsible host I've ever seen," Jensen says.
"Hmm?" Jared says, feeling a bit distracted as he hurries to scroll quickly over the playlist he uses when he's feeling a particularly lovesick.
"I mean, most people would have brought out a couple of bags of chips and a big bag of Skittles and thought it would be quite adequate but you have this whole Betty Crocker thing going on. I'm impressed, I have to say."
"Oh, Mom just thought I couldn't let my guests starve. I want this to be a nice party."
"This is your seventeen year old birthday party, dude. All you should be thinking about it having fun and getting laid."
Jared almost chokes on his beer and ends up accidentally inhaling it into his nose.
"Oh, youth. So sweet and innocent."
Jared can't help but blush.
"Very funny," he mutters as he wipes his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.
"Hey, Jared!" Alexis slides up to him. "Is there something more I can do?" She seems very eager to help now.
"Uhm, you could help me a bit more in the kitchen. I need to put stuff away," Jared says reluctantly, looking down at Alexis.
There isn't much that needs to be done in the kitchen so Alexis ends up sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of beer in her hand and looking like she wanted Jared to sit next to her.
Warily he sits down with her, also with a beer in hand which would be his fourth that evening. She starts telling him all about her first year at college, down to how many lecture notes she wrote down in one of her lectures and exactly how many pages there are in her Introduction to Engineering textbook. Since Jared has never planned on ever studying engineering, his interest is limited. Still, he feels like Alexis must need to get this off her chest and have a sympathetic ear listening to her. He just wishes it wasn't his sympathetic ear, at least not on his birthday.
They end up sitting there for a long time because when Jared gets up to get his sixth beer, Danneel, Sandy and Jensen all poke their heads into the kitchen.
"So we were thinking of heading home. Early start for some of us and stuff."
Jared springs up. Seeing that it's almost two in the morning, he knows he can't make them stay but he didn't plan spending almost the whole evening hearing about how hard the freshman year in Engineering is.
Seeing Danneel, Sandy and Jensen leaving, Chad and the others head home as well and finally it's only Misha and Alexis who are left.
"Hey, I'm going home. Alexis, isn't it? Want a ride or something?" Misha asks.
"No, no. I live close by. Jared, maybe you can just walk me home? I mean, the weather is so nice and you can sober up a bit."
Misha looks at Jared with a raised eyebrow but Jared can't do anything but shrug. He's not sure exactly why Alexis wants him to walk her home but she does live close by. It's only three blocks away and Jared isn't too good to walk her home.
Jared has no idea how they ended up in the park instead of in front of Alexis' house. The park is submerged in the heavy and hot summer darkness. As they make their way into it, it feels like the park will swallow them whole. Somewhere far in, somewhere between the big oak tree and the gazebo in the heart of the park, Alexis stops.
"Let's sit down here," she says and sits down on a backless bench. Jared sits down, the bench almost uncomfortably low for him; his knees almost at chin level.
The alcohol is still buzzing in his veins, so he really doesn't think much of it, after they have sat there for few minutes in a strange sort of silence, when Alexis takes his hand, weaving her delicate fingers with his large ones. He merely stares at their hands and through the drunken haze marvels at the difference in size. Alexis' hand feels like a child's hand even though she's older than him. He's so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't have time to react when Alexis pulls down his face and kisses him. It's not a sweet little peck, no, it's a teeth-clicking, tongue-shoving French kiss and while his first instinct is to bite the tongue invading his mouth, he does possess enough presence of mind to just push her gently away.
"No," he says in a clear voice. He really wants to say 'I'm gay' but that's almost not relevant. "We are just friends."
Alexis looks at him. She doesn't exactly look hurt, rather slightly confused. Jared gets the distinct feeling that she had planned to throw herself at him. That makes him uncomfortable; they have been friends for a few years and he has never felt any interest on her part before. Hell, she sometimes asked about Chad and he had thought he'd detected a certain interest in those inquiries.
She turns away from him and stares ahead and Jared feels like he should say something but he doesn't want to. Saying 'we are just friends' implies so much without directly saying it; telling her that he isn't attracted to her at all.
The silence between them is stifling, just as oppressive as the warm summer darkness surrounding them. After several minutes, Alexis springs to her feet and looks at him.
It's only polite to follow suit. When they reach the gate to the park, she stops and looks straight up at him, very determined.
"Give me your phone." This is a demand and he feels compelled to comply though he can't really think of a reason why she would need his phone. He's pretty sure her own phone is packed away in the purse she's carrying.
She pokes at the phone and Jared starts to wonder if he should be worried about her reading some incriminating texts, but her fingers are flicking through too fast for that.
"Goddamn, Jared, I can't understand your phone. Where's the phonebook?"
And he suddenly understands. Grabbing his phone back, he opens up the phonebook, scrolls through it and brings up the number he knows she's seeking.
As he's about to hand the phone back, she's busy rummaging around in her purse for her own phone. Keys jangle and cosmetics containers clash together as her rummaging grows almost violent.
Something falls out and when Jared sees what it is, his face heats up.
It's a condom. All wrapped up in a shiny foil.
Alexis doesn't seem to have noticed. She triumphantly grabs Jared's phone back when she has found her own.
"How did you know?" She asks as she sees Chad's number high-lighted on the screen of Jared's phone.
He doesn't really answer her; he's too busy pretending not to notice the condom lying on the ground.
When she hands him back his phone, he tries to make it seem as he's extremely interested in his phonebook. From the corner of his eye, he sees her sidestep a little.
"You gonna get going?" Her voice is definitely impatient. He fights a snort wanting to burst out of him.
"You don't want me to walk you home?" He asks, trying to sound all casual.
"Jared, I can take care of myself." Her voice is clipped and he couldn't go for broke here. He'd turned her down earlier, no need for him to let her know that he knew exactly how far she'd been expecting to go with him.
Turning on his heel, he walks away. Several yards down the street he turns and sees her, still standing at the park gates, the streetlights illuminating her.
Part 3 - Master Post
Maybe the rum from Chad's flask had been overkill but Jared is still lucid enough when they enter the party at Charlie's friend's house. He follows Chad inside and they hang out where living room meets the hallway, surveying the crowd. The place is absolutely packed. There are some kids there they know from school but mostly it's a peculiar mix of people, both young and old.
It's getting late, Jared notes, or maybe it's getting early. His head is too fuzzy to be clear on the semantics. All he knows is that if he hadn't told his parents he'd be staying at Chad's, his ass would be so grounded. It feels nice to be this numbed by the alcohol, smiling stupidly at the strangers around him at the party and not feeling as awkward as he'd felt at Alexis' party. Everyone is a stranger here and everyone is your friend. It's probably from this kind of atmosphere that peace movements and love-ins are born - if they were still stuck in the sixties. Maybe it's a little bit more sinister now but Jared doesn't care and the people who probably know he's too young to be out so late, so drunk, don't care either. They are even leering at him and still he keeps up his idiotic grin.
Chad is chatting with a couple of women. Jared suspects that they are closer to their mothers' age than their own but if Chad's interested in them, then more power to him. One of them hands him a shot glass as he walks up to them and then remarks on his height. He downs the shot which turns out to be Jägermeister and he's unable to fight the grimace on his face as he puts the glass away. The women laugh. Initially he thinks they are mocking them but then they start proclaiming that they've had a run-in with the law for their previous relations with underage boys. Chad looks at Jared in horror and they all but run to the other end of the dance floor. The women might have been playing a joke on them but neither of them has the desire to be roofied by some wannabe cougar.
As they are trying their best to hide on the other side of the living room, terrified that the pleasant drunken state they'd been experiencing is swiftly vanishing and some sobering helplessness creeping upon them, a girl wanders over to them. She's obviously older than them - Jared thinks she might be the same age as Jeff. She's short and chubby, with a pretty face and she seems determined to catch Chad's attention. Since Chad is relatively easy and probably happy he's met someone his side of thirty at the party, he's suddenly making out with the girl in a nearby sofa with the girl straddling Chad.
Jared blinks. He'd been standing right there. How had they gone from just standing there to Chad getting close to third base with the girl in what seemed merely seconds? He clearly is drunker than he'd thought. Not knowing whether to save Chad or not, he wanders around the living room and out into the hallway and into the kitchen, glancing at Chad every time he enters the living room again. At his sixth check, he doesn't catch a glimpse of Chad with his hand up the girl's skirt. Instead there's this guy staring at him and he has these intense looking brown eyes. It's like he's totally caught in his gaze and he doesn't notice him coming closer until the guy is almost in his face, well, at his chest, because he's almost a head taller than the guy. That doesn't matter to his alcohol-logged brain; Chad is getting off with some chick and why shouldn't he get off with random hot guys? The thought has hardly formed in his head when he's pulled down, his lips meeting other lips.
He finds himself backed against the wall and the other guy is kissing him, tongue and all. Leaning on the wall he bends his knees a little and the guy pushes his thigh between his legs, almost pressing on his crotch.
Jared feels the guy's half-hard cock rub against his hip and somehow the idea he's obliged to do something about that pops up in his mind. While sucking on the guy's tongue he skates his right hand down the guy's sides, hiking up his shirt a little, feeling the hot skin underneath and running his fingers over his stomach. For some reason, he starts thinking of Jensen and feels like he's betraying him, like he's cheating on him. It's a strange feeling and his hearts hammers in his chest and even though the guy he's kissing is a pretty good kisser, Jared almost wants to push him away. Which would make him a huge cock tease and he really doesn't want to be one. Maybe he can just jerk the guy off right there and then never have to see him again. It seems like a good idea as he pushes his hand down the front of the guy's pants and the guy seems to like it, he shifts so Jared can better maneuver his hand. It's still an awkward angle and he doesn't get a good grip so it's more like the guy's humping his hand. So it wasn't a good idea after all. He pulls away from their kiss and the guy starts to lick his throat, which feels odd. Scanning the crowd Jared looks for Chad, hoping maybe he's done with the girl and might help him in some way.
Chad's leaving and he's leading the girl. So Jared isn't going to get to crash at his place. That's just great. Chad just smiles and gives him the thumbs up. Jared's stuck there now and his wrist is really starting to ache. Pulling his hand away, he looks at the guy who smiles and mouths something. The din of the music and the people at the party is too loud for Jared to hear so he leans closer to the guy to try to catch what he's saying.
"Wanna come home with me?"
There's a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him that going with the guy is a monumentally stupid idea and he will come to regret it. A bigger part of him wants to see where it leads and besides, if Chad is taking the girl home, he doesn't have a place to crash and there's no chance in hell he's going home in the state he is in.
He doesn't answer the guy, not verbally at least, just takes his hand and allows him to lead him outside. Everything is bathed in that gray light that precedes sunrise and there's a chill to the air. Jared pulls closer to the guy and it's only then he realizes that he doesn't know his name.
"What's your name?" He asks and winces at how childlike his voice sounds outside in the cold air.
The guy turns to him and looks up at him curiously like he wasn't expecting that question.
"Keith. So, what's yours?"
As they make their way through the almost deserted streets they fall into making small talk. Keith is few years older than Jared, old enough to be just out of college and starting his new job. A freaking grown-up really, but he doesn't seem too bothered with Jared being underage.
Keith's place isn't far off and Jared is almost relieved as he isn't sure he'd handle sobering up more than he already has before going to bed with Keith. Once they're inside, Keith doesn't appear to be one for ceremony and starts undressing. Jared follows suit and soon Keith is pulling him naked onto his bed.
They meet in a kiss, their lips crushing, but Jared feels like he should do something other than move his hands down Keith's torso so he straddles him and starts licking at his neck, down his chest, gently grazing the skin with his teeth. He isn't taking it slow, moving down Keith's body with almost maddening speed, not wanting to stop and think. So without thought, he takes Keith's almost flaccid dick in his hand, stroking it before touching the tip with his tongue. It tastes salty and bitter, slightly unpleasant but not so bad that he can't suck the cock into his mouth. It takes a bit of effort to keep his teeth out of the way, his lips pushing out instead of curling over the teeth. Then it hits the back of his throat and he inhales. He feels his throat spasm and he gags, feeling like an absolute idiot. Keith doesn't seem to think much of it, his head is thrown back as he rests on his elbows. So Jared braves taking him in his mouth again, keeping his hand wrapped around the base. He wants to get Keith off, he wants to know how it is to have someone else come because of something you did to them but it is taking a lot longer than he anticipated. It's not only his hand that is cramping; it's hard to kneel on the bed like he's been doing for this long and his mouth strangely is both numb and aching at the same time.
When Keith finally comes, Jared jerks his head automatically and only a tiny drop of Keith's release catches his lips, the rest ends up leaking down over his hand.
Jared raises himself up, sitting on his heels and feeling utterly unsure about what to do next. Keith seems to be a bit out of it, lying back with his arm raised over his head. As Jared starts to wonder if he should just get up and get dressed, Keith seems to come to and grabs him and pulls him down for a kiss. Perhaps it shouldn't be called a kiss, as they are rubbing their tongues together, their mouths open. It's something so obscene about it, some so dirty that Jared can't help but feel aroused. His dick is somewhere between half-hard and soft and it's definitely growing more interested. If he didn't have all this alcohol pumping through his veins, he'd be at full mast already. Keith appears to have some incredible recovery time as he's stroking his cock and it's almost hard again.
When they break the kiss, Jared feels the saliva all over his lips and kind of wants to wipe it off like a kid wipes off a kiss from an old aunt. He resists though as Keith is moving them around in the bed, pushing him higher in the bed, so he's kneeling on all fours. Not wanting to think about where this could be leading, he drops his head. Keith isn't much for touching him. Quickly he settles his hands on Jared's buttocks and pulls the cheeks apart. Jared doesn't know what to expect, perhaps spit-wet fingers pushing into him but then he has to fight back a yelp when he feels Keith's tongue on his opening. He wasn't born yesterday, he knows about rimming but he had always felt it had to be this intimate act between long-time lovers, not something you did with a guy you just picked up at a party. It feels weird and Jared knows he's tensing up, making it harder for Keith to push in but apparently he's not going to give up; he ends up somehow opening Jared up slightly with his tongue and one finger. It doesn't feel particularly good but not bad enough that Jared feels the need to ask him to stop. This goes on and Jared is kind of getting bored. Actually it feels like more he's a casual observer, like Keith isn't doing it to his body but to someone else's.
This view of his changes suddenly when he feels Keith raise himself up behind him and he feels something blunt and a lot broader than the fingers in the cleft of his ass. A part of him wants to cry no, no, no. But he doesn't get the words out, maybe because a bigger part of him wants to know how penetration actually feels. When it's a dick and not fingers, not his fingers or Keith's. The pressure feels strange, like his nerves are acting like transmitters, leading the sensation out into his body; this strange feeling of pressure and then pain that he feels almost up into his throat. And it grows and grows as Keith penetrates further. This has to end up feeling fucking fantastic at some point or on a subsequent try because who would want to do this if it felt like this all the time? He can't keep in the groans but they sound half strangled like he doesn't have any air in his lungs anymore.
His arms are beginning to shake and Jared tries his hardest to control the tremors, he doesn't really think much about whether Keith is getting off or not. He feels the stabbing, shallow thrusts and hears his grunts. There is a certain tinge of frustration to his grunts but he doesn't relent right away. The same feeling washes over Jared again, like he's waiting for a boring class to be over and the time just drags on and on.
Keith gives up. On the assfucking that is. As he moves away, Jared allows himself to drop down, hoping that it's over. He's been sobering up so fast that his head is spinning and he wants to go to sleep or even have a shower, but Keith is crawling up the bed in front of him, pushing his dick in his face. Jared's jaws are still aching from last time but he still opens his mouth to take Keith in. He is so tired and is longing so much for this all to be over that he grabs the length of the cock a little too hard and Keith gasps in pain, causing him to let go right away. Lifting his head, he looks up at Keith, wondering if he should dare to ask him to call it quits. But Keith pushes his dick in his face again and resting on his hands, Jared takes him again into his mouth. The pain in his jaws starts spreading over his face, his cheeks ache and he feels his breathing becoming even more labored. He wonders if Keith notices, if he thinks he's into it or something. Time begins to drag again and all he ends up feeling is the ache in his face and his arms that have begun straining under his weight. If only he knew how to stop in a polite way. After all, he had initiated the whole thing. Not the kiss but he could have broken that off. It was him who had reached down Keith's pants.
If Keith would just come already. Maybe he is just that bad, his blowjob technique that awful.
Lifting his head, slipping Keith's cock out of his mouth, Jared takes deep breath. His whole face smarts and he barely manages to catch himself before he falls completely down onto the mattress, completely drained.
And finally Keith catches on. Raising himself a bit up, he grabs his own dick and starts jerking off with fast strokes. Jared is so exhausted that he is able to keep the feeling of failure at bay. With great effort, he holds his head up, thinking about how these things always end up with money shot in porn.
It comes, the money shot that is. Not like in porn where it's usually great globs of come all over. Instead Jared feels slight wetness on his chin and nose. Reaching with his fingers, he wipes it off and then licks it off. Truth be told, he thinks his own come tastes better but then again he's pretty sure Keith smokes and he has read somewhere that makes ejaculate taste even bitterer. Not that he's going to tell him that.
He crawls up the bed and flops down besides Keith who apparently is feeling cuddly, pulling Jared towards him and throwing his arm around him. It feels strange that Keith is suddenly so attentive, seeing how he seemed to only care about his own release. Jared knows girls complain about this a lot but he'd believed that with two guys, there would be more familiarity with the plumbing so to speak. Not that he's dying to come or anything; he wants to sleep. Maybe shower first and then sleep for about a hundred years or so. There's no alcohol buzz lingering and he's probably going to wake up aching all over.
His eyelids flutter closed and his grasp on consciousness is slipping.
Keith doesn't seem to want him to sleep. He is pulling his face up for a kiss and Jared can't do it anymore. He turns his head away and pushes away from Keith. His guts are starting to twist with emotion and he wants away.
Getting up, he scrambles for his clothes, finding most of them in a heap on the floor next to the bed. He jumps around, trying to put them on, wanting to get away as fast as he can.
"Hey, slow down. No need to hurry, it's hardly morning yet."
Jared looks at Keith, wondering whether to admit to him that he feels that the whole thing was a huge mistake and at that moment he can't think of anything he regrets doing more. But he doesn't tell him. He simply squeezes his feet into his shoes and pats his pockets to see if he's got his belongings with him.
And then he leaves.
Thankfully Keith's place isn't that far from Chad's house. Jared reckons it would take him about twenty minutes to walk there, so he runs and makes it in ten. His body doesn't really have the energy for it but he pushes. His thighs ache and he wants to scream with the effort. But he also doesn't want to wake up the people in the houses that line the streets he runs, like he's a crazy morning jogger who forgot to put on a t-shirt and sweatpants.
His breath is short and he doubles over in effort to breathe deeper. Looking up at Chad's window, he doesn't see a light. Maybe he went home with the girl, maybe he's asleep but Jared needs to get inside. He's not going home in the state he's in.
Chad answers his cell almost immediately.
"Chad, you at your house?"
"Course I am. I thought … I'm coming to let you in."
Chad doesn't say anything when he lets Jared in, just gives him a sweeping look and frowns. Jared looks at his friend and wonders if he thinks he's a total idiot.
When they come up to Chad's room, Jared looks at Chad's en suite bathroom. He's bone tired and wants most of all to sleep for at least a century but he feels dirty and disgusting.
"Can I take a shower?"
Chad simply nods.
It's in the shower Jared tries to assess what the hell he'd been doing. Touching his body, he thinks about Keith's hands, mouth and dick. He hadn't said no, he had allowed Keith to touch him, to fuck him. He'd even given him a blowjob and yet the regret is burning a hole in his stomach and the tears are starting to sting his eyes.
Stepping out of the shower he haphazardly dries himself off with a towel he presumes is clean and grabs sweatpants he knows Chad won't mind lending him.
"So you went home with that guy?"
Chad is waiting for him, sitting on his bed with his legs crossed like he's waiting for a good explanation. Jared turns to him and then away to drag forth Chad's sleeping bag from his closet. He's used that sleeping bag countless of times when he's stayed over at Chad's and it fills him with comfort to have something so familiar and something so connected to him being just a kid, an innocent freaking kid who doesn't make monumentally bad decisions.
"What do you think?" Jared says as he rolls out the sleeping bag.
"I was just asking … Jay, did something happen?"
"Why do you think that?" He says, the words rushing out of his mouth.
"Jay …"
"OK, stuff happened. I lost my freaking virginity to a guy I'd only know for a couple of hours tops. Just my finest hour really." Jared grabs a large pillow from Chad's bed and throws it to the floor.
Chad is silent and Jared can't stand the way he's looking at him.
"What about you? What about that girl?" Jared asks, hoping to shift Chad's attention.
"She just went to her place, I suppose. I kind of have the feeling she realized just how young I was when we went outside. But Jay … you sure you're okay?"
He doesn't lie to Chad. He's never lied to Chad and there's no reason to start now since Chad has never judged him - not ever.
"I don't know. I just … didn't expect to be like this."
"What, over too fast or something?"
"Oh, lord no. Chad, it was like it took forever. I mean, for him to get off. First I blew him and it was so hard … I …" Jared falters, wondering how much detail Chad can handle. He wants to tell him everything, he wants to tell someone.
Chad seems to sense there's something more and keeps silent.
"So yeah, he comes and is almost ready to start again right away and he … he tries to fuck me." Jared chokes on the words, it feels stupid to use that word, fuck, about himself. "It's like … 'cause I've never … and it's tight and it hurts and he can't really get it in … you know what I mean. But he keeps going for the longest time … and then he stops … and Chad, I don't know why … I blew him again. After he'd been in my ass. I just … so fucking stupid … god, no condom." He hides his face in his hands. He is fucking stupid, colossally moronic.
Lying on the sleeping bag he turns away from Chad. He can't fight the tears, he's too exhausted. The sobs he does try to fight but when he feels Chad's hand on his shoulder, he lets go.
There's a quiz bowl team meeting on a Sunday, because the final is looming on the horizon and they need to be prepared.
Prepared isn't what Jared's feeling right now. He feels achy, his head throbs despite the Tylenol Chad gave him and most of all, he just wants to die. His chest literally hurts with his disappointment in himself. He definitely doesn't want to see the other quiz bowl kids. Not Sandy who seemed to have the good sense to stay the hell away from Alexis' party. Not Alexis herself; he's still feeling a bitter towards her and how she mostly ignored him all night at the party. Not Danneel, though he does have the urge to tell Danneel what happened. And least of all does he want to see Jensen and be reminded that he probably blew every chance he'd ever had with Jensen by being too chicken-shit to even talk to him at Alexis' party and then of course by having a stupid one night stand.
Yes, he wants to die.
He walks to the school, hoping that some fresh air would make him feel at least physically better.
Big, fat fucking chance.
He has to sit down like an old man with a hemorrhoid and Danneel looks at him like she can't decide whether to laugh at him or go get him a cushion.
The meeting itself goes pretty well. Alexis obviously wants to keep it short and Jared is betting that she's almost as hung over as he is. Apparently he's not bad at answering questions and being his walking encyclopedia self even though his brain is trying its best to divorce his skull and every muscle in his body is protesting loudly.
To his massive relief, Jensen doesn't show up. He's nauseated as it is and having Jensen there would probably make it feel worse.
When they finally escape the meeting, Danneel practically drags him into her car.
"Jared Tristan Padalecki, please don't tell me that you are coming down with the flu so close to the final. Please tell me that you are simply hung over."
He looks at her, not knowing what expression he's giving her but the look on her face changes from annoyed and concerned to something that could only be called compassion.
"Oh, sweetie. What happened? What did you and Chad do after you left Alexis' place?"
Knowing that he could trust Danneel and considering how miserable he is still feeling, he starts telling her what happened.
She listens solemnly, very much like Chad and doesn't inject anything until she senses he's said what he wanted to say. He shifts in the passenger sheet, trying to find a comfortable position and trying to stifle the sobs he's about to burst into.
Without speaking a word, Danneel pulls him into a hug, her hands stroking his back and he can't help but burrowing his face in her hair, unable to stifle his tears.
What he's really crying about, he still doesn't understand, but he's glad that neither Chad nor Danneel want to press him for any more details. He's getting snot and tears all over Danneel's shirt but she simply takes it in stride and he can hear her murmuring almost inaudibly that things will be okay. That's something he knows; sleeping with someone you don't know all that well isn't going to end the world. It may very well be the single most stupid thing he's ever done but it's over and done with now and he can't take it back.
"You okay?" Danneel asks him when he's finally stopped.
"For now," he says, trying to wipe away the wet spots on Danneel's shoulder.
"Leave it. I'm gonna take you home now and you are going to go to bed. I'm not promising that this will be all better tomorrow but at least you won't be hung over then."
"Yeah. Danny, did Jensen leave with that guy he came with?"
"Jason? Yes, but I actually think he's Jensen's roommate so that's nothing weird." She winks at Jared and he can't help but laughing.
Then the quiz bowl final is upon them and Jared puts what happened with Keith into the back of his mind and concentrates on having all the facts figured out.
Jensen is very impressed with him at their last one-on-one meeting for the final when Jared manages to name all the presidents and the vice-presidents of the USA without ever hesitating.
"You've got this down to an art," he remarks and Jared can't deny that his heart jumps just a tiny bit at that remark.
When it's finally the time for the final itself, Jared feels the exactly right amount of tension and Danneel seems to be in the same place. Sandy is ultra focused as always. For the first half of the competition everything is looking up for them. The other team is good and no one can really claim to have the lead at this point. But Lady Luck is a flighty mistress and at the second to last question, the tide turns.
"Thanks to information theory and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the possibility of its existence was disproven in the 20th century. What controls a trap door that opens for fast molecules from one side and slow molecules from the other? This imaginary creature was dreamed up to question the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Name this diabolical entropy-increasing entity imagined by the same person who unified theories of electromagnetism."
Jared and Sandy look at Danneel who is in charge of the chemistry and physics knowledge. Judging by the look in her eyes, she isn't sure. Jared feels he should know this as well but somehow all his science knowledge has been channeled away.
And the other team gets the buzzer and gives the answer which is Maxwell's Demon. It's like the lights go out in Danneel's eyes. If they get the next question, they'll tie.
Maybe because of Danneel freezing up and maybe because he couldn't handle the pressure of being in the quiz bowl finals, Jared doesn't realize that the last question is being read until he hears the last words of it.
"…by this author who also wrote Foucault's Pendulum."
He panics. Are they asking for the author or for another book title? Danneel looks at him and so does Sandy. Actually Sandy seems more like she's trying to extract the answer from him with some kind of mind reading as she's probably assuming that the same brain freezing that was affecting Danneel is affecting Jared.
The other team hits the buzzer and of course they were asking for a title, Name of the Rose. Jared can't help but groan. It's one of his favorite books, maybe because it took him about a month to get through it.
Fuck, they've lost. Sandy's determined face crumbles into dismay, Danneel mutters a curse word under her breath and Jared can't help but feel that this is all his fault. Only if he'd done a little bit better and focused more.
Alexis, Mr. Rosenbaum and Jensen are also rather forlorn when the team comes off the stage.
"This could have gone better," Alexis says, trying to look stern but her disappointment is discernible.
"What happened with you, Danny?" Jensen asks softly and Danneel just shrugs in surrender.
"Sometimes you can't bring it," Jared says and Jensen nods.
They all stand there silently for a minute or two while the other team and their entourage skip off singing their school anthem.
Life miraculously returns to normal.
Sure, their schoolmates are a little disappointed that they should lose the final but that's all forgotten the next week when the basketball team loses the chance to get to the state championships.
Somehow that's a bigger blow to the student population than a few nerds not knowing the answer to some questions in a quiz bowl showdown no one attended any way.
Not that Jared takes much notice. The teachers had apparently been sparing him homework before and now they are piling it on. A presentation and yet another essay from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Jared is certain he must have done something terrible to James Joyce in his former life when he writes about the symbolic meaning behind Stephen Dedalus's name.
Then the summer holidays are upon them and Jared has many weeks of no school ahead of him.
Thankfully he manages to procure himself a summer job. Last summer he didn't have a job and besides the lack of money, it was really boring to hang around all day and having to make your own fun. It's fun for a couple of weeks but not the entire summer holidays. Not when your parents have to work and all you have for company is your kid sister. Jared loves Megan dearly but knows that another summer like that might've put a damper on his affections.
So instead he is employed by Erasmus's Necessities, an independent bookstore that supplies college students and the anti-establishment types. This college town has more than enough of those and amongst them is Misha, one of Jared's co-workers.
Jared doesn't have a crush on Misha. It's more like he thinks Misha is the coolest guy ever to walk the planet. He is definitely the guy Jared wants to be when he gets into his twenties. Got his college degree early and then spent a few years globe-trotting and obviously learning few things on the way.
Like Tibetan throat singing and the Faroese language.
He even has the habit of greeting costumers in Faroese. "Góðan dag. Hvussu gongur?" When you are the store manager, you can obviously allow yourself to be quite silly to the customers.
All in all, Jared really likes his job. Sometimes it's crazy hectic and he has to run around the entire day looking for copies of The Last Unicorn when he's not recommending Kierkegaard to someone who wants to read something that makes them think.
Other days can be so slow that all they can to do, to kill time, is to take stock and tidy the store up.
And somewhere between the self-help section and the travel guides, Jared becomes friends with Misha.
"Hand me all the Canada books," Misha prompts when they are dusting the shelves in the travelling section on a very slow day. "Say, tell me something interesting. What does Jared Padalecki like to do? Besides the whole trivia buff thing, I mean."
"Just stuff." Jared shrugs and almost drops a book about Ontario on the floor.
"Please, feel free to elaborate on this 'just stuff'. Does it involve something scandalous like writing dirty emails to the heads of state in small European countries or do you use your powers for good and help run a shelter for blind sea monkeys?"
"Oh, we can't all be as exciting as you, Misha."
"Any torrid affairs in your past? You secretly someone's trophy wife? You had a drunken one night stand and woke up next to your school's mascot?" Despite the jest in Misha's voice and the light tone of their conversation, Jared clearly isn't completely over what happened after Alexis' birthday party and the mention of a drunken one night stand is enough to invoke that memory. Misha doesn't miss the slight wince Jared does.
"Anything you want to tell me? I'm curious but if you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to talk about it." The tone in Misha's voice makes Jared want to tell him - there's concern and understanding and Jared knows that Misha won't judge him.
"That's okay. I had just had a very stupid drunken one night stand not so long ago. I'm mostly over it though."
"Oh. Aren't you seventeen? That's kind of young to be having stupid drunken one night stands."
"Seventeen next month actually."
"Oh, kid," Misha says softly.
"You don't have to be sorry for me."
"That wasn't convincing."
"Okay, I wasn't ready for it at all and I kind of did it because I was drunk and stupid and a little heartbroken. And the sex itself was awful." Jared isn't quite sure why he's feeling like sharing and hides his face behind 100 Exciting Hiking Trails in Alberta. "I think I went against everything everyone tells you your first time should be like. An unprotected drunken one night stand with a complete stranger. What, that ticks about four don'ts, doesn't it?"
"We all do things we shouldn't do," Misha says as he leans against the shelves. "Stop beating yourself up."
"You know, I think I'm most angry at myself for allowing it to go as far as it went. It could have been a drunken make-out and a bad hand job at the most. I just didn't want to be a cock tease."
Misha doesn't seem to be thrown off at all, knowing that Jared had his one night stand with another guy. He merely quirks his eyebrows and looks Jared straight in the eyes.
"You are sixteen. You are supposed to be a cock tease. You are supposed to say enough when you think it's enough. Please never think that you owe someone something in bed because you flirted with them, kissed them, got a hand job from them…"
"No, I gave him a hand job," Jared hastens to say, like he feels that Misha must not get the wrong impression.
"Kid, seriously. You control your own body. Sure, sex is kind of a mutual thing where people try to pleasure each other but it's not like every orgasm comes with an IOU."
Jared looks back down on 100 Exciting Hiking Trails in Alberta. He knows all this - it's another matter whether or not he believes it.
"Yeah," he sighs. "I suppose you are right."
Misha slaps him on the back and tells him that he must go and alphabetize the Europe section - preferably by their official titles in the native languages.
"Let them know it's called Magyar Köztársaság."
In the summertime all of his friends scatter like cockroaches when you turn on the light. Danneel goes away for couple of weeks to Mexico with her family and Chad goes off to some kind of basketball camp. Jared finds himself almost left alone because he isn't going anywhere during the summer. He does learn that he isn't completely alone when Jensen calls him up one night, mostly just to chat. Jensen has a summer job as well, at the local paper. He bitches to Jared about doing pieces about the local craft fair and the new recycling plan that the city council is installing.
"I know it's a great experience and there's only a slim chance I'll ever become a journalist at a major paper but why did they make me write about The Summer Delight Perfect Garden Competition? I think I've learned more about geraniums in the last two days than I ever wanted to know about anything."
"Hey, at least you'll appreciate it more when you get to cover the more exciting stuff, like a bocce tournament or something."
"Hilarious, Jared, you slay me. I thought you'd be sympathetic. Is there no one who understands my plight? Jason told me earlier as he was going out with his girlfriend that I should be glad my job is at least related to what I'm studying. 'Cause he and his girlfriend are music majors and they are both working at the golf club."
He can't help it. As soon as Jensen mentions that Jason has a girlfriend, he does a little fist bump into the air. Not that Jason having a girlfriend makes it any more likely that Jensen will fall for him but it does kindle a spark of hope.
"You can complain all you want to me. I work in retail now, I'm used to it. Just today a customer, a fifty year old man, asked why we didn't display the Twilight books more prominently. Your complaints can't be more stupid than that."
"Please tell me you said something snarky. Seriously, did the guy really think a store called Erasmus's Necessities would actually flaunt the fact that you can buy shitty books about sparkly vampires there?"
"You actually think people get the name of the store?"
"No, perhaps not."
They continue their phone conversations over the next weeks. Jared who normally isn't very quick to answer his phone has started to knock things down in his haste to get to his phone when it rings, so whenever it's Chad or his mom calling, he gets a tiny bit disappointed.
It's July before he knows it and Chad is back from the basketball camp and has started dropping hints that Jared should celebrate his birthday in style.
"I don't have my birthday until August and we need a party now, not after a billion weeks. It doesn't have to be big. Just get your geek squad and that dude you are working with and can't shut up about. Dude, if I didn't know you were still all in love and shit with Jensen, I would be so sure you had your next big gay crush."
Jared laughs. He has the feeling that Chad might be jealous because he's been talking so much about Misha.
Throwing a party isn't going to a problem, not when his parents have already suggested he should bring his friends over for his birthday. He's sure that the difference between him and Jeff sometimes throws them off. Before Jeff went off to college, his huge horde of friends drifted through the house on a regular basis and Jared is certain his parents think he's lonely, despite all the time he has spent on the quiz bowl team, with Chad, and everyone else.
So getting their consent for a party was the easy thing. They even plan to be away for the duration of the night.
Inviting people isn't a big deal either, except Jared seems to be unable to extend an invitation to Jensen.
They've been calling each other once a week or so, sharing stories about their jobs and such and it shouldn't be an impassable obstacle for Jared to pick up the phone and invite Jensen. All he can see in his mind's eye is some kind of a nightmare scenario where Jensen laughs derisively at him when Jared invites him and tells him there's no way in hell he'd ever show up at some pathetic high school party. Logically he knows that Jensen would probably be super nice if he had to turn down the invitation but logic isn't enough at the moment.
When he finally bites the bullet and calls Jensen, he can hardly hear Jensen's greeting for the thundering in his ears.
"Jay, was about to call you. They finally gave me something with substance to write about. Local history, murder mystery, family tragedy, the works, mostly because there aren't more garden shows to write about and they had to have me do something. Of course that means I've been spending the last couple of days at the city archives with old court documents. So please tell me something fun that doesn't involve a coroner's report." Jensen sounds a bit like he hasn't had the pleasure of talking to another human being for a long time.
"I... I'm going to throw a birthday party and I was wondering whether you wanted to come. You don't have to. It's not a big deal or anything, not a billion people you've never met. Chad, Danneel, maybe Sandy if she isn't busy and Alexis and maybe my brother and a few other friends." He rushes everything out and waits for Jensen's answer.
"Oh cool, when is your birthday?"
"On the 19th but the party will be on Saturday."
"I'm there. Believe me. Anything I should bring? Need someone to visit the liquor store for you?"
"Great. I do think we have the booze covered. There isn't going to be a lot of it. My parents are nice enough to allow the party and I don't want anything to get out of hand."
"I'll help you. I'll control Sandy. You take the rest." He could hear the laughter in Jensen's voice.
"You are kind of a jerk, did you know that?"
Jared tries his best to fight the nerves. He shouldn't be nervous - there are just few of his good friends coming over but he feels he must give a good impression, like he's a corporate hot shot who needs to suck up to his bosses in hopes of getting a promotion.
Uncharacteristically Chad is the first one to arrive and he takes one look at Jared's face and bursts out laughing.
"Dude, this is a party, not your funeral. Lighten up and tell me where you are keeping the snacks. I'm starving."
Chad plants himself on the living room couch with his feet on the coffee table and a bag of Doritos.
"Where's the party music? I need to get my swerve on here."
"While sitting on the couch, Chad?"
"Hey, I'm saving it. Can't go and spend it all in one go. Go and put some Britney on, bitch."
"Shut up and eat your Doritos."
Danneel and Sandy show up together. Sandy has her laptop with her but Jared has known her for years and knows that Sandy hates idle moments. Her latest pet project, apparently, is making a searchable database of quiz bowl questions.
As Jared dares to bring out the drinks his brother was so kind to buy for him, Misha shows up and he's the first one who seems to have bothered with a birthday present.
"Here, I thought you might need one of those." Misha's present is a t-shirt that reads: 'Save water, shower with me.'
"Thanks, I guess," Jared says, eyeing the t-shirt suspiciously. He's never been into funny t-shirts and Misha doesn't seem to be the type either. The message on the t-shirt almost feels ominous.
Jensen shows up shortly after that and Jared hastens to hide the t-shirt, not sure exactly why he's doing it though. Like Misha, Jensen comes bearing a birthday present.
"Sorry, didn't know what to give you," Jensen says as he thrusts couple of hastily wrapped shot glasses into Jared's hands.
"Awesome. My first pair of shot glasses," Jared says, trying his uttermost to play it cool. He puts the glasses away in a safe place.
Being a host is kind of tiring, even if all he's doing is serving a little more than a handful of people drinks and making sure there's enough dip on the table and that Chad is not putting his fingers into it. He can't really engage in the conversation, only catching bits here and there.
Misha and Danneel seem to hit it off and Jensen is sitting with Sandy and her laptop and the database project of doom. Chad and his other friends are laughing and probably discussing basketball while Alexis sits by them and listens. She's somehow so awkward sitting there, like she really wants to talk to Chad and the guys but has no idea how to enter the conversation.
"Hey, Alexis, wanna come and help me in the kitchen?" Jared asks in the spur of the moment. She smiles and nods but gives a lingering look back at Chad and the guys before entering the kitchen with Jared.
Jared's mother had prepared pigs-in-a-blanket and some sort of mini pizzas that Jared has to heat up and Alexis helps him. Not much, as she's about five times slower than Jared moving the mini pizzas to the baking tray.
"So, Chad is serious about the basketball?"
"Hmm, I guess so," Jared says, finishing off the first tray.
"Is he aiming to get a scholarship or something like that? Like you know, to State or something?"
"I don't know. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know himself. Why are you wondering?"
"Oh, just curious, you know," she says, poking at the food processor on the counter.
"Okay." Jared keeps on getting the food into the oven. Alexis watches him for a while and then disappears back into the living room.
As the evening progresses, Jared hasn't really had the opportunity to sit down. He does manage to drink a couple of beers while flitting about, though.
"Hey," Jensen comes up to him as he's changing the music - the party playlist apparently wasn't long enough. "So Sandy has put a lot of work into that database. Like a crazy amount."
Jared nods as he scrolls through his iTunes playlists, trying to find something fun. He has way too much classical music on there because he likes listening to it when he's studying.
"You are like the most responsible host I've ever seen," Jensen says.
"Hmm?" Jared says, feeling a bit distracted as he hurries to scroll quickly over the playlist he uses when he's feeling a particularly lovesick.
"I mean, most people would have brought out a couple of bags of chips and a big bag of Skittles and thought it would be quite adequate but you have this whole Betty Crocker thing going on. I'm impressed, I have to say."
"Oh, Mom just thought I couldn't let my guests starve. I want this to be a nice party."
"This is your seventeen year old birthday party, dude. All you should be thinking about it having fun and getting laid."
Jared almost chokes on his beer and ends up accidentally inhaling it into his nose.
"Oh, youth. So sweet and innocent."
Jared can't help but blush.
"Very funny," he mutters as he wipes his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.
"Hey, Jared!" Alexis slides up to him. "Is there something more I can do?" She seems very eager to help now.
"Uhm, you could help me a bit more in the kitchen. I need to put stuff away," Jared says reluctantly, looking down at Alexis.
There isn't much that needs to be done in the kitchen so Alexis ends up sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of beer in her hand and looking like she wanted Jared to sit next to her.
Warily he sits down with her, also with a beer in hand which would be his fourth that evening. She starts telling him all about her first year at college, down to how many lecture notes she wrote down in one of her lectures and exactly how many pages there are in her Introduction to Engineering textbook. Since Jared has never planned on ever studying engineering, his interest is limited. Still, he feels like Alexis must need to get this off her chest and have a sympathetic ear listening to her. He just wishes it wasn't his sympathetic ear, at least not on his birthday.
They end up sitting there for a long time because when Jared gets up to get his sixth beer, Danneel, Sandy and Jensen all poke their heads into the kitchen.
"So we were thinking of heading home. Early start for some of us and stuff."
Jared springs up. Seeing that it's almost two in the morning, he knows he can't make them stay but he didn't plan spending almost the whole evening hearing about how hard the freshman year in Engineering is.
Seeing Danneel, Sandy and Jensen leaving, Chad and the others head home as well and finally it's only Misha and Alexis who are left.
"Hey, I'm going home. Alexis, isn't it? Want a ride or something?" Misha asks.
"No, no. I live close by. Jared, maybe you can just walk me home? I mean, the weather is so nice and you can sober up a bit."
Misha looks at Jared with a raised eyebrow but Jared can't do anything but shrug. He's not sure exactly why Alexis wants him to walk her home but she does live close by. It's only three blocks away and Jared isn't too good to walk her home.
Jared has no idea how they ended up in the park instead of in front of Alexis' house. The park is submerged in the heavy and hot summer darkness. As they make their way into it, it feels like the park will swallow them whole. Somewhere far in, somewhere between the big oak tree and the gazebo in the heart of the park, Alexis stops.
"Let's sit down here," she says and sits down on a backless bench. Jared sits down, the bench almost uncomfortably low for him; his knees almost at chin level.
The alcohol is still buzzing in his veins, so he really doesn't think much of it, after they have sat there for few minutes in a strange sort of silence, when Alexis takes his hand, weaving her delicate fingers with his large ones. He merely stares at their hands and through the drunken haze marvels at the difference in size. Alexis' hand feels like a child's hand even though she's older than him. He's so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't have time to react when Alexis pulls down his face and kisses him. It's not a sweet little peck, no, it's a teeth-clicking, tongue-shoving French kiss and while his first instinct is to bite the tongue invading his mouth, he does possess enough presence of mind to just push her gently away.
"No," he says in a clear voice. He really wants to say 'I'm gay' but that's almost not relevant. "We are just friends."
Alexis looks at him. She doesn't exactly look hurt, rather slightly confused. Jared gets the distinct feeling that she had planned to throw herself at him. That makes him uncomfortable; they have been friends for a few years and he has never felt any interest on her part before. Hell, she sometimes asked about Chad and he had thought he'd detected a certain interest in those inquiries.
She turns away from him and stares ahead and Jared feels like he should say something but he doesn't want to. Saying 'we are just friends' implies so much without directly saying it; telling her that he isn't attracted to her at all.
The silence between them is stifling, just as oppressive as the warm summer darkness surrounding them. After several minutes, Alexis springs to her feet and looks at him.
It's only polite to follow suit. When they reach the gate to the park, she stops and looks straight up at him, very determined.
"Give me your phone." This is a demand and he feels compelled to comply though he can't really think of a reason why she would need his phone. He's pretty sure her own phone is packed away in the purse she's carrying.
She pokes at the phone and Jared starts to wonder if he should be worried about her reading some incriminating texts, but her fingers are flicking through too fast for that.
"Goddamn, Jared, I can't understand your phone. Where's the phonebook?"
And he suddenly understands. Grabbing his phone back, he opens up the phonebook, scrolls through it and brings up the number he knows she's seeking.
As he's about to hand the phone back, she's busy rummaging around in her purse for her own phone. Keys jangle and cosmetics containers clash together as her rummaging grows almost violent.
Something falls out and when Jared sees what it is, his face heats up.
It's a condom. All wrapped up in a shiny foil.
Alexis doesn't seem to have noticed. She triumphantly grabs Jared's phone back when she has found her own.
"How did you know?" She asks as she sees Chad's number high-lighted on the screen of Jared's phone.
He doesn't really answer her; he's too busy pretending not to notice the condom lying on the ground.
When she hands him back his phone, he tries to make it seem as he's extremely interested in his phonebook. From the corner of his eye, he sees her sidestep a little.
"You gonna get going?" Her voice is definitely impatient. He fights a snort wanting to burst out of him.
"You don't want me to walk you home?" He asks, trying to sound all casual.
"Jared, I can take care of myself." Her voice is clipped and he couldn't go for broke here. He'd turned her down earlier, no need for him to let her know that he knew exactly how far she'd been expecting to go with him.
Turning on his heel, he walks away. Several yards down the street he turns and sees her, still standing at the park gates, the streetlights illuminating her.
Part 3 - Master Post