At Home, In Love!Verse #12
Title: At Home, In Love!Verse #12
Author:
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Spoilers: None
Warning: May contain schmoop, boytouching, and excessive people climbing
Summary: The boys reunite and get to working things out and explaining their behavior.
Five years ago Jared Padalecki came out to his parents and introduced his best friend as his boyfriend. There were mixed reactions. His mom kissed them both and told them she didn’t care what form it came in, because it was love. His father took the passive aggressive route and sat quietly eating his steak. Before the boys left Jerry pulled his son aside and asked him why he was doing what he was doing. He blamed it on Hollywood and all the long hours the boys worked together alone. Jared told him he was wrong. And then, just before Jared turned to walk out of the house, his father told him he had broken his heart.
Three years ago Jerry Padalecki came home from work, sat down in his favorite chair and died of something called SADS - sudden arrhythmia death syndrome. Jensen stood with Jared at the funeral and the Padalecki children took turns holding their mother together at the grave.
Seven months after the funeral Jared’s mother called him while he was waiting for Jensen on the set of his last movie. That was the phone call that changed Jared’s life. It removed from his life the loudest, most influential person he’d ever known. It effectively took away the only parent Jared had left without giving him a choice. One phone call over a bad connection in a trailer in the foot hills of North Carolina broke Jared’s heart.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
It was a long flight home from San Antonio, but Jared felt a lot lighter coming home than he had leaving. The taxi dropped him off in front of the house and he let himself in the front door, quietly, like he had done so many times before.
Harley was sleeping on his big green pillow that he, nightly, dragged across the floor to lay next to the fichus tree. Pizza boxes were stacked on the coffee table and Jensen’s laptop was sitting closed on the middle couch cushion. The whole place was draped in a quiet calm that felt like home and peace.
He climbed the stairs, two at a time, to get to Jensen. When he opened the bedroom door he could see Jensen’s sleeping form. He was on his back, his injured arm was laying on his chest with the light from the bedside lamp casting an awkward light on the room. His prescription bottles were sitting on the nightstand and papers were strewn across Jared’s side of the bed.
He stepped into the room and toed off his shoes in front of his closet. Carefully, he picked up all of the papers and laid them on the floor before turning off the lamp. He leaned over Jensen’s body and kissed him gently on the shoulder before walking to the huge papsan style loveseat in front of the window, where he curled up and sat watching Jen sleep.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Jensen woke up around seven to find Jared sitting across the room watching him. It took him just a moment to sort out where he was and that he wasn’t alone. He used one arm to pull himself up against the headboard then finally looked up at Jared.
A slight grin spread graced Jared’s face when Jensen looked at him. “Good morning”.
“Ahh…good - good morning”, Jensen reached for his glasses on the nightstand and slipped them on. “When did you get home?”
Jared looked at the watch on his arm and then back to Jen. “About four hours ago”.
Jared started to lean back in this seat, but Jen stopped him. “Can you sit with me?”
“Of course”, Jared made his way to his side of the bed and climbed in with his fiancé.
He gently touched Jensen’s well wrapped arm and felt sadness and concern wash over him. “Are you okay”, he asked softly.
“Better than I was yesterday”, he took Jared’s hand and laced their fingers together. “I need to tell you that I’m sorry”.
“Okay”, Jared just nodded and kept his head low.
“I’m sorry for what I did and who I’ve been lately”, he whispered.
Jared tried to schooch closer.
“Are you…I mean…is this just as stop or are you really home?” The question was so soft and timid, like he was as afraid to ask it as he was to get the answer.
“I’m home”, Jared squeezed his hand, “but we have to talk Jen”.
Jensen’s heart sped up, if only for a brief moment, “Yeah we do. I - Jay I’m”, Jensen couldn’t continue because he was fighting tears of relief.
“Just take a deep breath baby”, Jared told him, laying his hand over Jen’s heart.
Jensen followed the instructions, closing his eyes and breathing deep.
“I was lying to you because I thought it would protect you”, he finally said. “And that was wrong, because no good comes from lying, no matter the intention”, he focused and looked Jared in the eye. “The most important thing a person can give another person is trust and I took your trust and threw it away. I thought that if I told you everything was okay with the company that you wouldn’t worry…that you would be happy. But what I was really doing was keeping your success with the movies separate from my failure as a producer because I was embarrassed”.
“Jen I don’t care if you act or produce or suck at both”, Jared argued.
“I know that. But that’s not how it feels. I felt ashamed of myself for not being able to go out and do this thing and provide for you like I’m supposed to”. His eyes fell down to their joined hands on the bed. Even now, after acceptance, he still felt shame over a shortcoming.
“First of all, you are not a failure and you shouldn’t feel ashamed. You’ll get your money and make your movies, it’s just a matter of time. And second…hey”, Jared reached for Jensen’s chin and turned his face so he could look in his eyes, “I don’t need you to provide for me. We are in this together…we provide for each other…celebrate my successes when they happen and yours when they come along”.
Jay was strong, but Jen was still so upset.
“If the money for groceries comes from something I’ve earned it doesn’t really matter. It’s all the same, we’re one…it’s not about who makes what money…none of that matters. Okay?”
Jensen looked at Jen with tears glassy on his eyes and wrapped his arms around Jared and really started to sob and shake and cry.
“I - I thought you weren’t gonna come back, that you were going to realize I wasn’t bringing anything to the table and you were jut gonna stay gone. I was - I’m so scared I’ll lose you”, he sobbed.
The last words really hit home for Jared and he squeezed Jen even tighter because of them.
“I wanna tell you about mama”, he whispered into Jensen’s hair.
“Okay. If you’re ready I’m ready to listen”, Jensen whispered back.
Jared pulled away and wiped at the tears in his eyes before reaching forward to take the glasses off of Jensen’s face and wipe the other man’s falling tears.
“Can we go downstairs to the kitchen?” Jared asked softly.
“Yeah, come on”. Jensen slipped out of the bed and stumbled two steps forward before Jared caught him at the waist.
“You okay, there?” Jared asked.
Jensen leaned back against Jay for just a second. “Too many pain killers”, he explained. “Spent all day with Maggie working on the computer, so it really hurt last night. Probably took too much”.
“Okay”, Jared said as he bent his knees, “so lets get some food in you and see if that doesn’t help”. He immediately lifted Jen off the floor and over his shoulder like a sack of grain. “What were you working on”, he asked casually.
“Now I feel like a woman, would you put me down”, Jensen giggled a little.
“Yeah, in the kitchen. What were you working on”, he pressed as they went carefully down the stairs.
“I was working on proposals. But we can talk about it after you tell me about your mom”.
Jared set Jensen down on the counter top and turned to the freezer for an icepack. “Well, it started after dad died”.
Jared placed the ice pack against Jen’s arm and got him his pop-tarts and coffee while he explained what his father had told him, then started in on the phone call his mom made that one night.
“Dad had been gone for six or seven months and she just reached her breaking point, Jen. He was the love of her life, the reason she did everything she did every day, and he was gone”. Jared ran a hand over Jen’s cheek as he chewed his pastry, “She made it all that time without him before the pain turned into…I don’t know…desperation. I wouldn’t have made it a month if you were gone”. All Jensen could do was look in his eyes and smile, because really that was more than he could even begin to comprehend. A world without Jared.
“Dad had said that I broke his heart when you and I got together. Then when the SADS got him…well mom took it literally. It was a moment of weakness and desperation and she blamed me, said that I had broken Dad’s heart and that’s what killed him”.
“Oh baby”, Jensen wrapped his arms around him, “you didn’t kill your Dad”.
“I know”, Jared sniffled and nodded as he stepped back, “and mom knows that too. She was upset when she called that night and in the morning she regretted it but couldn’t bring herself to say anything to me again for all the shame she felt”.
“And so what happened when you talked to her?” Jen asked.
“I told her how much it hurt that she wouldn’t talk to me and that she shouldn’t feel bad for needing a place to push her anger over Dad’s death. She should feel bad for not coming back and apologizing and telling me she was wrong”.
“And?”
“I told her that you proposed and that I accepted. I showed her the ring and she cried. She wanted to call you and thank you for loving me, she said. But I told her about…”, Jared gently touched Jen’s arm, “all of this and she decided she would come up in a few weeks after we got settled. She loves both of us Jensen…she just had to see that it’s oaky even if Dad didn’t”.
“So you still wanna marry me?” Jensen asked shyly.
Jared just smiled as he stepped between Jensen’s legs. “You’re an idiot”, he mumbled. “Of course I’m gonna marry you. Haven’t you been listening? I’d end up a cranky old woman living in moo-moos and making cookies for no one if I didn’t have you”.
Jensen’s pastry hit the floor when he let go so he could wrap all of himself around Jared. He started kissing his face and his neck and his ears and his lips - anything he could reach - and just repeated himself over and over. “I love you, I love you, I love you”.
Jared pulled away just far enough to stop Jen, then cupped his cheeks and leaned in to kiss him properly on the lips. It was innocent and full of love, nothing more. When it broke, Jared kept his eyes closed and leaned his forehead against Jensen’s.
“Promise me you’ll never do that again? You hurt me and you scared me and I can’t do it again, Jen. I won’t survive it if you break me”.
Jensen stroked Jared’s cheek, “I’ll never lie, I swear. We’ll talk about everything and I’ll never treat you the way I did. I’m so sorry for all of it Jay. Just say you forgive me and we can put it all behind us and move on with our life”.
“Of course I forgive you”, Jared gave him that secret smile that was only for him.
“Okay, then we start the fixing portion now”, he pushed his hips forward and started to come down off of the counter top, Jared stepping away to make room.
“Where are you going?”
“Get the stuff I worked on last night. Just sit down I’ll be right back”. And with that Jen went up the stairs and Jared sat on the couch.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Jensen came back downstairs with the papers he left in the bedroom and his arm was back in the sling. The sight of the sling made Jared uncomfortable, remembering waiting in the hospital and taking his broken baby home smelling of antiseptic and sterilized dressings.
Jensen sat across from him on the couch and pulled one leg under the other before handing Jared the papers.
“What’s all this?”
“These”, Jensen said as he seprated the papers in front of Jared, “are the new proposals for the company and a list of auditions I intend to go on in a few months”.
“Auditions?” Jared looked confused as he picked up the pages and read them over.
“I knew I wanted to produce, that I wanted my ideas to get played out on screen my way, so I left my acting behind. But I realized this weekend that I’m always going to be an actor, that it drives me and helps me chase away the bad stuff and keeps me sane”.
Jared smiles and nods because he always knew that.
“So leaving acting behind was a mistake. I want to be in front of the camera, not just behind it. And to that end, when my arm heals I am going to start auditioning”. He smiled like a child, or Jared, on too much sugar.
“And the production company?”
“When I wrote the old proposals I wrote them as a man who had no idea that he could be rejected or passed over. I wrote them and no matter how many times I got rejected I refused to change them”.
“It was your passion, what you wanted and believed in”, Jared injected.
Jensen shook his head, “I was an idiot. I was just keeping myself from success”.
“So what? You give up what you wanted?”
“No, I’m being a grown up. Maggie and I re-wrote all of the proposals. I’m sticking with the goals and themes, just not asking so much, you know bending”.
“And that’s what you want?” Jared asked carefully.
“I went to church yesterday, just like Grandma always told me to do when there was turmoil in my life. And when I was kneeling in front of that pew I realized that I want you and these things in my life enough to give up the small things that I was holding on to”.
Jensen reached over and grabbed Jared’s hand. “I’m going to take a break from the production company for a while so I can start forever with my husband and then I’ll do a little acting and go back to the company later on”.
Jared leaned forward and kissed Jensen, long and slow, feeling all the pieces of their life that had broken coming back together.
A/N: Getting this out was like pulling teeth and I’m not that impressed with it. I think at this point I’m just posting it to get it over with. But I pledge that from this point forward it will get better. Aiden will make another appearance in the very near future and Mama Padalecki will come for a visit, too. Leave me feedback if you love me! Or cookies…and peanut butter…I love cookies and peanut butter. X0x0x - Lolee