.0104 - Just Keep Following the Heartlines on Your Hand
Jensen/Jared
2,984 words
Title from Florence and the Machine
Teaser: “We should watch your Valentine movie then,” Jared remarks sweetly. He's not all that surprised when Jensen's coat lands on his head with a heavy clunk, sending him nearly backward.
Making his way through the runaway jumble of limbs and tails and two over-excited fuzz balls, Jared opens the door and pauses, temporarily freezing right where he's standing.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Jensen damn near yells, sounding all cheery and excited although there is an edge to that enthusiasm, something quite innocent and small that suggests how hard it actually is to keep that grin on his face. He's standing on Jared's doorstep, nonchalant and cool like that's just where he's supposed to be right now, today, a set of footprints left in the white runner on the stairs behind him, and snowflakes melting on the brushes of his eyelashes.
“Jensen?”
“Hi-lo... Sorry, am I interrupting something?”
Jared looks down at himself, critically, at the faded, worn T-shirt with old stains of oil and tomato sauce, the loose jogging pants he's been wearing for a year too many, and arches his eyebrow quizzically. If there is something that Jensen's interrupting, then only his moping and overdosing on raspberry ice cream. Valentine’s Day sucks, in principle. Being single on that love and pathetism sugar-coated day sucks even a notch more. “Uh, n-no. Of course not, but-- What are you doin' here?”
Jensen lifts the two paper bags he's holding in his hands, showing the logo of their favorite Chinese restaurant on each. “Offering Chinese, beer and a Transformers marathon. Oh, I have some candy, too.”
“R-right.” There's some logic there, Jared is sure of that, because Jensen's got so many reasons to be right here at this moment, tonight. He just fails to actually see it yet.
Shaking his head, he steps aside to let Jensen in and takes the bags from him so he can actually stand a chance against the mass attack of the hyperactive, slobbery monsters heading his way. He ends up pressed to the closed door nevertheless, pinned to the maple wood by Harley's paws on his chest, while Sadie sniffs at his hands and pockets, looking for something good that Jensen never forgets to bring. He's spoiling them, unabashedly, has been from the very beginning, pulling them onto his side as if there was a divorce proceeding coming up and he was planning to keep them. Jared wants to be irritated, every time, thinks that he's got the right to be, because they are his and this isn't entirely fair, but instead he thinks it's kind of sweet. They seem to be just as much his as Jensen's. And it came in handy, at more than just one occasion.
Jensen gathers his equilibrium and pulls from the door, tugging two dog dental sticks out of the back pockets of his jeans. Which... canny. He throws them across the hall, deliberately missing both the expensive mirror Jared had never been fond of and the empty fish bowl where he gathers his mail, and the dogs follow, blindly and hungry like they didn't eat anything for the whole week. Maybe two. Corrupted.
“I thought you were with Danneel,” Jared notes, desperately trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone, his expression. It's been long, too long, and he should be over it, but... Saying that, he'd lie.
Jensen toes off his boots, the faded, worn out ones that Danneel would never let him get out in, and runs his fingers through his hair, shaking out the last bits of melted snow. He ruffles the short strands altogether, making them stand on one side and flattening them on the other, and Jared only barely resists the sudden desire to reach out and even them out a bit. Muss them up completely.
Jensen shrugs off his coat and drapes it over his arm, taking the bags back from Jared. “No.”
Jared finds himself waiting for some continuation, a little more of an explanation, but there's obviously none. Instead, Jensen marches down the hall, heading towards the living room.
“Because?”
“Because she ain't coming.”
“Wh-why not?”
Jensen stops and turns around to look at Jared, and something close to sadness, regret runs across his face, as brief and light as a shadow. He lifts the paper bags a bit, shaking them lightly, “Rice or noodles?” he returns, elegantly sidestepping that question.
“Rice. Jensen... why are you here?”
“I can go,” Jensen suggests, but Jared can see how little he really means it. “I just know how much you love Valentine's, so I thought you wouldn't mind some company.”
Jared chuckles, amused. “Like you actually like it.
“I do not. I think it's stupid... You hate it, I hate it, I suggest sabotage.”
“We should watch your Valentine movie then,” Jared remarks sweetly. He's not all that surprised when Jensen's coat lands on his head with a heavy clunk, sending him nearly backward.
They're somewhere in the middle of the movie, tires screeching, oil burning and half the city in ruins, and Jared has finished his dinner. Half an hour ago. He's sipping on his second beer, watching Jensen over the rim of his bottle, curious, worried. Jensen doesn't eat, Jared doesn't think he had more than just a few bites, mostly, he was just twirling the noodles around his chopsticks, pushing them from one side of the paper box to the other. He feels kind of keyed up, sitting there beside him, stiff, and emitting nervous, edgy energy. It's quite subtle, though, Jared is sure that if he didn't know him that well, all his ups and downs, all the moodiness and hints of depressions they've gone through, he wouldn't even notice.
Sometimes he actually wishes it was exactly like that. That they weren't so close, so connected and capable of reading each other, sensing when something was great, or completely wrong. Most of the times, he wishes things more vain, selfish; for Jensen, to be less pretty and sexy, be dumb or arrogant, have no sense of humor or a really bad one, nowhere close to Jared's own. Don't be so damn faithful. Not to look so unfairly hot in the tight, washed out T-shirt with a barely visible American eagle on the front and ripped jeans that have seen better days. Many of those. For himself, to just love him a little bit less.
Jensen leans forward to pick up his beer and the light from the floor lamp catches on the chain necklace hanging around his neck. It's a quick movement, a brief flash of silver, but Jared’s fairly sure that there's something missing. Jensen shifts backward and it's gone again, the chain sliding and skidding back behind the neckline of his T-shirt.
Intrigued, Jared reaches out and touches his hand to Jensen's neck, slipping his fingers under the tiny balls of the chain, and Jensen jerks slightly in surprise. But instead of stopping Jared's hand, trying to push him away, he only stares, watching, completely baffled, as Jared tugs the necklace from behind his T-shirt and runs his thumb across the place where two silver pendants usually hang. It's empty now, and when Jared looks up, meeting Jensen's eyes that just scream, Busted. Guilty., he is afraid that he already knows what it means.
Jensen and Danneel have, had, the same ones, though Jared had never really figured out what was on them, or what they meant. They were kind of like an engagement ring, having almost the same meaning, just less official. A symbol that was just theirs. Secret.
Jared lets the chain slide off his finger and pulls back, and doesn't comment on it. He knows that Jensen's waiting for it, that he's expecting him to say it, something, but he doesn't. He doesn't really know how to approach it.
It's been a while since they went out together, the three of them, to see a movie, have a dinner at some place nice, Jared noticed, but he couldn't say he minded or that he was disappointed. Seeing them together hurt a lot more than plain knowing they were together; watching a movie, snorkeling, dining, making love... It was almost easy to dislike her, hate her for having what he wanted, when she was gone, when she wasn't standing right in front of Jared. Be mad at her. But it was downright impossible with her there, smart and witty, sexy and beautiful, making Jensen happy. Jared suddenly cannot remember the last time he saw Danneel on the set, or here, in Vancouver.
In the end, he starts simply, bluntly. “Jensen, when was the last time that Danneel was really here?”
Jensen's hand pauses midway to his mouth, although the chopsticks are empty, and he arches his eyebrow. “Really here?” he echoes, puzzled.
“Yeah. You know, when she was physically here, not only in your words.”
“I don't--” Jensen wants to lie, Jared can clearly see it, make up another faked reality or whatever the hell he's been doing for the last few months, but then he doesn't. He shoves the chopsticks into the box and puts it back on the coffee table next to his half-empty beer. “In October? I think.”
“But why didn't you--” Say something. “Why'd you lie?”
For a moment, a few heavy, silent seconds, Jensen says nothing. He just stares at Jared, his gaze penetrating but unreadable, making Jared feel almost naked underneath the force of it. “Because you'd been asking why. And I... I didn't have the right answers.”
“The right answers?” Jared repeats dumbly. “You don't have just... answers?”
“I-I think we're breaking up.”
Given the lack of promise on the chain around his neck, Jared thinks they have been broken up for some time.
“You think.”
“I'm pretty certain,” he admits hesitantly.
“I'm sorry.” And it's not a lie. At least, Jared hopes it's not.
Jensen nods, looking down at the tattered hole in the denim on his knee.
“Why?”
“See?” Jensen asks, glancing up again. “This is exactly why I didn't tell you before. Because I knew you'd just keep on askin'.” Jared assumes that it's supposed to be a reproach; it is in Jensen's words, his tone, but not in his eyes. He's nowhere as irritated as he pretends to be.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, I'm... I think that whatever that was ever between us is just...” His eyes skip up to Jared's, for the shortest moment. “You know, gone.” He pauses, scratching at his chin, the few days old stubble there, but Jared doesn't ask, doesn't say anything. He doesn't push, because he can tell that Jensen's about to continue, that he's just looking for the right words and ways. He looks far more than just a bit guilty now, sad, too. “There's someone else.” And there is definitely a dot at the end of the sentence this time.
“Hers?” Jared asks softly. “Or... yours?” Please, no. Not yet. Not now. Danneel was hard enough, hurt enough.
“Both. I guess... Mine.” He shrugs, unsure. “She doesn't know... I like her. I do, but... There's someone else. Someone I... love.”
Jared swallows thickly, forcing the dinner back down. Something inside him pulses, grows, threatening to burst, with disappointment and pain, and his hands shake. “So, why--” he starts, only to have his voice crack at the second word. Clearing his throat, he makes himself go on. “Why do you sound so sad?”
“Because I don't know if he feels the same.”
Jared is sure he's hearing wrong. Jensen is straight. Right?
“He?”
Jensen nods, like it's just as simple as that. His eyes look so damn huge now, deep enough to let someone drown in them. Jared. “I mean, I'm... quite sure that he feels something. I… I just don't know if it's enough. The same.”
Jared wants to tell him to be quiet, to shut up for crying out loud, because he doesn't want to hear that, doesn't want to listen to Jensen talking about someone else, about some other guy. But there is that undeniable undertow of playfulness in Jensen's tone, a hint of something more that stops him. Jared had never considered himself naïve or extremely positive, he had never been looking for something that obviously wasn’t there, but he wants to hope, just this once. Wants to be stupidly foolish.
“How do you know?”
“'Cause he's, you know. Always looking. Always there. Caring... He says he's happy that I'm not alone, but...”
“B-but?”
“But I think he's not being really honest. That maybe he thinks I'd be happier with someone else. With... him.”
Jared is going to throttle him. Honestly. His co-star, friend. His beautiful Jensen. If he's only teasing him, making fun of him, only to tell him afterward that he's in love with Misha, or Jeffrey, or freaking Sebastian, he's gonna kill him.
“And what do you think?”
“That he'd be right,” Jensen replies, and his voice hadn't sounded so serious, so hopeful yet.
“You know, maybe he does feel the same. Maybe he's been just scared. Not as brave as you. To say it. Aloud.”
Jensen hums in response, considering it.
“Do I... know him?” Jared questions, feeling like he's walking on a really thin piece of ice, on a melting iceberg which the thawing progress makes spin round and round, pop up and down.
“You should.” Jensen's voice is quiet now, soft and dripping like honey. He doesn't shift an inch closer, just leans forward slightly, gaze intent and glued to Jared's, mischievous. “Better than just about anyone else.”
Jared does move closer, hooking his finger behind Jensen's necklace again and dragging him resolutely nearer. “Then he does feel the same.” Jensen's lips are warm underneath his, smooth, pliant. “Probably more.” Jared nudges them a bit, pleading them apart. “For longer.”
Jensen is smiling against his mouth; Jared can feel it like a line of warmth and some kind of a closure, relaxing into his touch. All the tight muscles and hard bones seem to be melting against Jared's body, yielding into him. Jensen's fingers are cold at the nape of Jared's neck, gentle as they glide through his hair, tugging lightly to angle his head just right to turn the innocent peck into a real, proper kiss. All hot and moist, soft tongue that maps and tastes, and sharp teeth grazing Jared's bottom lip.
It's not Jared's first kiss with a guy, far from it, but now he actually wishes it was, because Jensen's the first one who matters. Who's more than just a curiosity, hot, quick touches somewhere dark when no one's looking. Needy. Careless. It hits him then, how deep that feeling goes, how bitter, and that he doesn't want it like that again. Not with Jensen. Not now that he's too old to make the same stupid mistakes.
They're moving forward, nevertheless, through skipped paragraphs and chapters, hands and knees, and too long legs that get in the way, and stopping is suddenly much more difficult than five minutes ago. Jared pauses with his fingers on the buckle of Jensen's belt, looking down at him; breathy and flushed, lips swollen and spit-slick, dark eyes tracking every one of Jared's movements. He looks like he's just fallen out of Jared's dreams, and yet, Jared's too nervous to continue, push this any further.
“Hey,” Jensen asks, touching his hand to Jared's face, fingers curling around his jawline, gentle, careworn. “You with me?”
Jared smiles and turns his head to kiss the delicate skin of Jensen's inner wrist, somewhat sentimental all of a sudden. Happy. He can feel the beat of Jensen's heart underneath his lips, hasty, skittish. Nervous. Too. “I am but, I... I. Jen, I don't want to. Rush it. Can we just. Like...” He trails off, making unwillingly these strange gestures that in no way describe what he really means.
Jensen sits up and grins, all soft and sweet, not mocking, and presses his mouth to Jared's ear, nipping his way lower, over the column of Jared's throat, to his collarbone. “You wanna cuddle, Jare?” He slides his hands down Jared's sides, tickling, anchoring them on his hips, warm, sure pressure, his thumbs drawing unrecognizable patterns over Jared's hipbones. “Because that we can. We totally can.”
Jensen is half asleep, sitting on the couch with his leg curled underneath the other and Harley's head in his lap, his breathing slow and eyelids heavy.
Jared sits down beside him, nudging him awake gently. “Don't sleep yet.”
“I'm not,” Jensen mumbles unconvincingly, rubbing on his eyes. “Where ya been?”
“Lookin' for something.” For some reason it sounds more like a question instead of an answer. “Here… this is for you.” He reaches for Jensen's hand and turns it over, dropping a small pendant into his palm.
“Wha-? But--”
“It's not for Valentine's,” Jared assures him. “Sabotage, remember? I just… I saw it in Paris, years ago. Back when you and Kim were only talking about directing, and...” He touches his neck, pointing his finger to Jensen. “It feels empty.”
Jensen looks down at the bare ball chain hanging around his neck like he's forgotten, then back at the silver film reel in his hand.
“You don't... You don't have to wear it. If you don't like it. I just... I saw it and thought of you.” Jared shrugs like it doesn't matter. Wishes it didn't.
But Jensen takes the necklace off and slides the pendant on it, lets the chain curl around his palm as he raises his hand into the light, studying it for a moment, before he puts it back on. “It's beautiful, Jare. Thank you. But, I... I have nothing for you.”
'Sabotage', Jared wants to repeat, but then he doesn't. Instead, he puts his hand on Jensen's thigh, slides his thumb over the worn denim, and shifts closer. “Dinner is nothing? Candy is nothing? You bein' here is nothing?” Jensen opens his mouth, no doubt to raise an objection, but Jared silences him with a finger pressed resolutely against his lips. “Be my Valentine?”
The End
// Notes:
The Film Reel pendant
2,984 words
Title from Florence and the Machine
Teaser: “We should watch your Valentine movie then,” Jared remarks sweetly. He's not all that surprised when Jensen's coat lands on his head with a heavy clunk, sending him nearly backward.
Making his way through the runaway jumble of limbs and tails and two over-excited fuzz balls, Jared opens the door and pauses, temporarily freezing right where he's standing.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Jensen damn near yells, sounding all cheery and excited although there is an edge to that enthusiasm, something quite innocent and small that suggests how hard it actually is to keep that grin on his face. He's standing on Jared's doorstep, nonchalant and cool like that's just where he's supposed to be right now, today, a set of footprints left in the white runner on the stairs behind him, and snowflakes melting on the brushes of his eyelashes.
“Jensen?”
“Hi-lo... Sorry, am I interrupting something?”
Jared looks down at himself, critically, at the faded, worn T-shirt with old stains of oil and tomato sauce, the loose jogging pants he's been wearing for a year too many, and arches his eyebrow quizzically. If there is something that Jensen's interrupting, then only his moping and overdosing on raspberry ice cream. Valentine’s Day sucks, in principle. Being single on that love and pathetism sugar-coated day sucks even a notch more. “Uh, n-no. Of course not, but-- What are you doin' here?”
Jensen lifts the two paper bags he's holding in his hands, showing the logo of their favorite Chinese restaurant on each. “Offering Chinese, beer and a Transformers marathon. Oh, I have some candy, too.”
“R-right.” There's some logic there, Jared is sure of that, because Jensen's got so many reasons to be right here at this moment, tonight. He just fails to actually see it yet.
Shaking his head, he steps aside to let Jensen in and takes the bags from him so he can actually stand a chance against the mass attack of the hyperactive, slobbery monsters heading his way. He ends up pressed to the closed door nevertheless, pinned to the maple wood by Harley's paws on his chest, while Sadie sniffs at his hands and pockets, looking for something good that Jensen never forgets to bring. He's spoiling them, unabashedly, has been from the very beginning, pulling them onto his side as if there was a divorce proceeding coming up and he was planning to keep them. Jared wants to be irritated, every time, thinks that he's got the right to be, because they are his and this isn't entirely fair, but instead he thinks it's kind of sweet. They seem to be just as much his as Jensen's. And it came in handy, at more than just one occasion.
Jensen gathers his equilibrium and pulls from the door, tugging two dog dental sticks out of the back pockets of his jeans. Which... canny. He throws them across the hall, deliberately missing both the expensive mirror Jared had never been fond of and the empty fish bowl where he gathers his mail, and the dogs follow, blindly and hungry like they didn't eat anything for the whole week. Maybe two. Corrupted.
“I thought you were with Danneel,” Jared notes, desperately trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone, his expression. It's been long, too long, and he should be over it, but... Saying that, he'd lie.
Jensen toes off his boots, the faded, worn out ones that Danneel would never let him get out in, and runs his fingers through his hair, shaking out the last bits of melted snow. He ruffles the short strands altogether, making them stand on one side and flattening them on the other, and Jared only barely resists the sudden desire to reach out and even them out a bit. Muss them up completely.
Jensen shrugs off his coat and drapes it over his arm, taking the bags back from Jared. “No.”
Jared finds himself waiting for some continuation, a little more of an explanation, but there's obviously none. Instead, Jensen marches down the hall, heading towards the living room.
“Because?”
“Because she ain't coming.”
“Wh-why not?”
Jensen stops and turns around to look at Jared, and something close to sadness, regret runs across his face, as brief and light as a shadow. He lifts the paper bags a bit, shaking them lightly, “Rice or noodles?” he returns, elegantly sidestepping that question.
“Rice. Jensen... why are you here?”
“I can go,” Jensen suggests, but Jared can see how little he really means it. “I just know how much you love Valentine's, so I thought you wouldn't mind some company.”
Jared chuckles, amused. “Like you actually like it.
“I do not. I think it's stupid... You hate it, I hate it, I suggest sabotage.”
“We should watch your Valentine movie then,” Jared remarks sweetly. He's not all that surprised when Jensen's coat lands on his head with a heavy clunk, sending him nearly backward.
They're somewhere in the middle of the movie, tires screeching, oil burning and half the city in ruins, and Jared has finished his dinner. Half an hour ago. He's sipping on his second beer, watching Jensen over the rim of his bottle, curious, worried. Jensen doesn't eat, Jared doesn't think he had more than just a few bites, mostly, he was just twirling the noodles around his chopsticks, pushing them from one side of the paper box to the other. He feels kind of keyed up, sitting there beside him, stiff, and emitting nervous, edgy energy. It's quite subtle, though, Jared is sure that if he didn't know him that well, all his ups and downs, all the moodiness and hints of depressions they've gone through, he wouldn't even notice.
Sometimes he actually wishes it was exactly like that. That they weren't so close, so connected and capable of reading each other, sensing when something was great, or completely wrong. Most of the times, he wishes things more vain, selfish; for Jensen, to be less pretty and sexy, be dumb or arrogant, have no sense of humor or a really bad one, nowhere close to Jared's own. Don't be so damn faithful. Not to look so unfairly hot in the tight, washed out T-shirt with a barely visible American eagle on the front and ripped jeans that have seen better days. Many of those. For himself, to just love him a little bit less.
Jensen leans forward to pick up his beer and the light from the floor lamp catches on the chain necklace hanging around his neck. It's a quick movement, a brief flash of silver, but Jared’s fairly sure that there's something missing. Jensen shifts backward and it's gone again, the chain sliding and skidding back behind the neckline of his T-shirt.
Intrigued, Jared reaches out and touches his hand to Jensen's neck, slipping his fingers under the tiny balls of the chain, and Jensen jerks slightly in surprise. But instead of stopping Jared's hand, trying to push him away, he only stares, watching, completely baffled, as Jared tugs the necklace from behind his T-shirt and runs his thumb across the place where two silver pendants usually hang. It's empty now, and when Jared looks up, meeting Jensen's eyes that just scream, Busted. Guilty., he is afraid that he already knows what it means.
Jensen and Danneel have, had, the same ones, though Jared had never really figured out what was on them, or what they meant. They were kind of like an engagement ring, having almost the same meaning, just less official. A symbol that was just theirs. Secret.
Jared lets the chain slide off his finger and pulls back, and doesn't comment on it. He knows that Jensen's waiting for it, that he's expecting him to say it, something, but he doesn't. He doesn't really know how to approach it.
It's been a while since they went out together, the three of them, to see a movie, have a dinner at some place nice, Jared noticed, but he couldn't say he minded or that he was disappointed. Seeing them together hurt a lot more than plain knowing they were together; watching a movie, snorkeling, dining, making love... It was almost easy to dislike her, hate her for having what he wanted, when she was gone, when she wasn't standing right in front of Jared. Be mad at her. But it was downright impossible with her there, smart and witty, sexy and beautiful, making Jensen happy. Jared suddenly cannot remember the last time he saw Danneel on the set, or here, in Vancouver.
In the end, he starts simply, bluntly. “Jensen, when was the last time that Danneel was really here?”
Jensen's hand pauses midway to his mouth, although the chopsticks are empty, and he arches his eyebrow. “Really here?” he echoes, puzzled.
“Yeah. You know, when she was physically here, not only in your words.”
“I don't--” Jensen wants to lie, Jared can clearly see it, make up another faked reality or whatever the hell he's been doing for the last few months, but then he doesn't. He shoves the chopsticks into the box and puts it back on the coffee table next to his half-empty beer. “In October? I think.”
“But why didn't you--” Say something. “Why'd you lie?”
For a moment, a few heavy, silent seconds, Jensen says nothing. He just stares at Jared, his gaze penetrating but unreadable, making Jared feel almost naked underneath the force of it. “Because you'd been asking why. And I... I didn't have the right answers.”
“The right answers?” Jared repeats dumbly. “You don't have just... answers?”
“I-I think we're breaking up.”
Given the lack of promise on the chain around his neck, Jared thinks they have been broken up for some time.
“You think.”
“I'm pretty certain,” he admits hesitantly.
“I'm sorry.” And it's not a lie. At least, Jared hopes it's not.
Jensen nods, looking down at the tattered hole in the denim on his knee.
“Why?”
“See?” Jensen asks, glancing up again. “This is exactly why I didn't tell you before. Because I knew you'd just keep on askin'.” Jared assumes that it's supposed to be a reproach; it is in Jensen's words, his tone, but not in his eyes. He's nowhere as irritated as he pretends to be.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, I'm... I think that whatever that was ever between us is just...” His eyes skip up to Jared's, for the shortest moment. “You know, gone.” He pauses, scratching at his chin, the few days old stubble there, but Jared doesn't ask, doesn't say anything. He doesn't push, because he can tell that Jensen's about to continue, that he's just looking for the right words and ways. He looks far more than just a bit guilty now, sad, too. “There's someone else.” And there is definitely a dot at the end of the sentence this time.
“Hers?” Jared asks softly. “Or... yours?” Please, no. Not yet. Not now. Danneel was hard enough, hurt enough.
“Both. I guess... Mine.” He shrugs, unsure. “She doesn't know... I like her. I do, but... There's someone else. Someone I... love.”
Jared swallows thickly, forcing the dinner back down. Something inside him pulses, grows, threatening to burst, with disappointment and pain, and his hands shake. “So, why--” he starts, only to have his voice crack at the second word. Clearing his throat, he makes himself go on. “Why do you sound so sad?”
“Because I don't know if he feels the same.”
Jared is sure he's hearing wrong. Jensen is straight. Right?
“He?”
Jensen nods, like it's just as simple as that. His eyes look so damn huge now, deep enough to let someone drown in them. Jared. “I mean, I'm... quite sure that he feels something. I… I just don't know if it's enough. The same.”
Jared wants to tell him to be quiet, to shut up for crying out loud, because he doesn't want to hear that, doesn't want to listen to Jensen talking about someone else, about some other guy. But there is that undeniable undertow of playfulness in Jensen's tone, a hint of something more that stops him. Jared had never considered himself naïve or extremely positive, he had never been looking for something that obviously wasn’t there, but he wants to hope, just this once. Wants to be stupidly foolish.
“How do you know?”
“'Cause he's, you know. Always looking. Always there. Caring... He says he's happy that I'm not alone, but...”
“B-but?”
“But I think he's not being really honest. That maybe he thinks I'd be happier with someone else. With... him.”
Jared is going to throttle him. Honestly. His co-star, friend. His beautiful Jensen. If he's only teasing him, making fun of him, only to tell him afterward that he's in love with Misha, or Jeffrey, or freaking Sebastian, he's gonna kill him.
“And what do you think?”
“That he'd be right,” Jensen replies, and his voice hadn't sounded so serious, so hopeful yet.
“You know, maybe he does feel the same. Maybe he's been just scared. Not as brave as you. To say it. Aloud.”
Jensen hums in response, considering it.
“Do I... know him?” Jared questions, feeling like he's walking on a really thin piece of ice, on a melting iceberg which the thawing progress makes spin round and round, pop up and down.
“You should.” Jensen's voice is quiet now, soft and dripping like honey. He doesn't shift an inch closer, just leans forward slightly, gaze intent and glued to Jared's, mischievous. “Better than just about anyone else.”
Jared does move closer, hooking his finger behind Jensen's necklace again and dragging him resolutely nearer. “Then he does feel the same.” Jensen's lips are warm underneath his, smooth, pliant. “Probably more.” Jared nudges them a bit, pleading them apart. “For longer.”
Jensen is smiling against his mouth; Jared can feel it like a line of warmth and some kind of a closure, relaxing into his touch. All the tight muscles and hard bones seem to be melting against Jared's body, yielding into him. Jensen's fingers are cold at the nape of Jared's neck, gentle as they glide through his hair, tugging lightly to angle his head just right to turn the innocent peck into a real, proper kiss. All hot and moist, soft tongue that maps and tastes, and sharp teeth grazing Jared's bottom lip.
It's not Jared's first kiss with a guy, far from it, but now he actually wishes it was, because Jensen's the first one who matters. Who's more than just a curiosity, hot, quick touches somewhere dark when no one's looking. Needy. Careless. It hits him then, how deep that feeling goes, how bitter, and that he doesn't want it like that again. Not with Jensen. Not now that he's too old to make the same stupid mistakes.
They're moving forward, nevertheless, through skipped paragraphs and chapters, hands and knees, and too long legs that get in the way, and stopping is suddenly much more difficult than five minutes ago. Jared pauses with his fingers on the buckle of Jensen's belt, looking down at him; breathy and flushed, lips swollen and spit-slick, dark eyes tracking every one of Jared's movements. He looks like he's just fallen out of Jared's dreams, and yet, Jared's too nervous to continue, push this any further.
“Hey,” Jensen asks, touching his hand to Jared's face, fingers curling around his jawline, gentle, careworn. “You with me?”
Jared smiles and turns his head to kiss the delicate skin of Jensen's inner wrist, somewhat sentimental all of a sudden. Happy. He can feel the beat of Jensen's heart underneath his lips, hasty, skittish. Nervous. Too. “I am but, I... I. Jen, I don't want to. Rush it. Can we just. Like...” He trails off, making unwillingly these strange gestures that in no way describe what he really means.
Jensen sits up and grins, all soft and sweet, not mocking, and presses his mouth to Jared's ear, nipping his way lower, over the column of Jared's throat, to his collarbone. “You wanna cuddle, Jare?” He slides his hands down Jared's sides, tickling, anchoring them on his hips, warm, sure pressure, his thumbs drawing unrecognizable patterns over Jared's hipbones. “Because that we can. We totally can.”
Jensen is half asleep, sitting on the couch with his leg curled underneath the other and Harley's head in his lap, his breathing slow and eyelids heavy.
Jared sits down beside him, nudging him awake gently. “Don't sleep yet.”
“I'm not,” Jensen mumbles unconvincingly, rubbing on his eyes. “Where ya been?”
“Lookin' for something.” For some reason it sounds more like a question instead of an answer. “Here… this is for you.” He reaches for Jensen's hand and turns it over, dropping a small pendant into his palm.
“Wha-? But--”
“It's not for Valentine's,” Jared assures him. “Sabotage, remember? I just… I saw it in Paris, years ago. Back when you and Kim were only talking about directing, and...” He touches his neck, pointing his finger to Jensen. “It feels empty.”
Jensen looks down at the bare ball chain hanging around his neck like he's forgotten, then back at the silver film reel in his hand.
“You don't... You don't have to wear it. If you don't like it. I just... I saw it and thought of you.” Jared shrugs like it doesn't matter. Wishes it didn't.
But Jensen takes the necklace off and slides the pendant on it, lets the chain curl around his palm as he raises his hand into the light, studying it for a moment, before he puts it back on. “It's beautiful, Jare. Thank you. But, I... I have nothing for you.”
'Sabotage', Jared wants to repeat, but then he doesn't. Instead, he puts his hand on Jensen's thigh, slides his thumb over the worn denim, and shifts closer. “Dinner is nothing? Candy is nothing? You bein' here is nothing?” Jensen opens his mouth, no doubt to raise an objection, but Jared silences him with a finger pressed resolutely against his lips. “Be my Valentine?”
The End
// Notes:
The Film Reel pendant
