Fic: Surface and Symbol (Jared/Jensen, R)
Title: Surface and Symbol
Pairing: J2
Rating: R
Words: ~2,500
Summary: Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Disclaimer: This is, of course, a lie, and also an AU.
Notes: For my fictictactoe game against mistyzeo, for the prompt greed.
Jared sees him in the moonlight first, the boy whose eyes glint green and gold in flashes in his Roman-fresco face. He's perfect. Jared's heart hurts a little just at the lines of him, the way he holds himself, the set of his shoulders, his legs. Jared wants to strip him down to his skin and capture the stamp of him in charcoal; wants to strip him to his bones and learn the rush of his blood. Jared's an art major: he sees the world as a tessellated sequence of potential subjects, and among these, the green-eyed boy stands unparalleled as a pinnacle of natural beauty. Jared tells himself there and then, as he crosses the lawn at midnight, that he must have him, whatever way he can. Jared covets.
The boy's name is Jensen. Jared discovers this when classes start for the semester and he finds himself two desks away from him in Anthropology 101, where Jared knows nobody and Jensen is apparently joined at the hip to a girl whose breasts are a dazzling masterpiece of creation all of their own. She laughs, no artifice in it, and says, "Jensen, you suck," and Jensen laughs back at her, a white flash of teeth. Jared's heart surges, muscles in his wrists twitching in anticipation of replicating that smile in pencil on a page. Then Jensen puts his hand on the girl's thigh, and Jared's chest twists. His finger moves half-consciously over the exercise book open under his hand, demarcating the line of Jensen's profile, the devastating bow of his upper lip. Of course he's unavailable: of course. Jared's not surprised, but it doesn't lessen the pull.
Jared's never worked out whether it's creepier to ask modelling favours from friends or from complete strangers. It seems to depend on the person, and in Jared's experience it's impossible to predict the reaction he'll get when he says: please, I'd be honoured if you'd let me draw you. He used to think it was odd, at first, that anyone would feel anything but flattered by an artist's attentions, but then he thought: what would I think? And then it all rushed in, illuminating and unnerving: maybe it's my nose; they think someone better get that weirdness recorded for posterity or they probably want to practice drawing people with funny-shaped eyes. It's too easy, he realised then, to drum up a laundry-list of unflattering potential reasons behind an artist's interest in one's face; and since then, he's been more careful about asking. Creepier, perhaps, but direct.
He's direct with Jensen. He has to draw that face. There's a mathematical perfection to it that Jared's rarely seen outside of magazines, and sketching it from across the room on scraps of paper won't cut it. He needs it stilled for his attentions: he wants Jensen bent to his will. He waits a week, and then catches Jensen after class, catching his arm in the hallway. He says, "Hey, sorry - I know this is probably gonna sound a little weird, but - I'm an art major."
(Those are the magic words: I'm an art major. This Is For School.)
Jensen raises his eyebrows a little, curious, but not quite touching sceptical. Jared shoots him the smile he's been told is reassuring, all dimples and charm, and says, "I'd really like to draw you. You have such a perfect face."
Direct. No room for doubt and anxiety on Jensen's part; just a blush that creeps up fetchingly from his collar, and a downward duck of his head. Jensen laughs a little; brings up a hand to scratch at the nape of his neck. "Wow. Um. Thank you?"
God, his embarrassment is endearing. Jared was half-afraid he'd be an asshole, going through life looking carved out of marble like he does, but shit, he isn't, and Jared's stomach squirms with it, unprofessional and yearning. He fights to keep the fierce rush of fondness out of his voice. "Trust me: there isn't an artist alive who wouldn't love to draw you." He cocks his head. "Would you let me? I'd be really, really grateful if you'd model for me, man."
Heterosexual men, Jared has learned, respond favourably to subtle affirmations of their masculinity while being solicited for their beauty. Jensen fits pattern, mouth quirking up a little at the corners. "Well...I mean, I've never done it before, but..."
"Not a problem!" Jared assures him, quickly. "Seriously, not a problem. You just have to sit still and move your head when I tell you to, dude. Totally straightforward." He whips out a notepad from his backpack and scribbles down his room number and cell. "This is me. When's good for you? Maybe Sunday?"
Sunday, Jared has discovered, is often a good day to suggest. A session on Sunday won't get in the way of weeknight homework, but nor will it encroach on crazy Friday and Saturday nights of drinking and frat house parties. Sundays are long and boring. Jared thrives on this fact.
Jensen, evidently, is of like mind. He studies the torn-off shred of paper for a second and then rolls his shoulders, laughs and says, "Why not?" He grins up at Jared, and Jared's knees go weak at the easy beauty of it, the perfect synergy of lips and teeth.
"Two?" Jared manages, a little weakly. Jensen grins and nods.
"Two it is," he says, taking Jared by the elbow and squeezing. "See you then, man."
The imprint of his hand burns after him, warm firm imprint of fingertips throbbing in Jared's flesh. From anyone else, he might have thought the gesture flirtatious; but obviously, not from Jensen. Not from Jensen.
When Sunday comes, Jensen is punctual, maybe even a little early. Jared likes that about him. Jensen saunters into Jared's sloppy dorm-room, all casually '50s in a white tee, chucks and blue jeans, and Jared's heart thumps its approval like it's trying to burst out of his chest.
"So, where'd you want me?" Jensen throws out languidly, spreading his arms crucifixion-style.
God, he'd look good crucified. Maybe next time.
"On the bed, please," Jared says, stiffly. Stiffly, because his voice threatens to break over the words in the back of his throat, and his cock is stiffening too in his jeans at the look of easy-going willingness on Jensen's face. Fuck. Fuck, he's beautiful.
Jared's half-braced for Jensen to pull a face or protest, but he doesn't - just kicks off the chucks and shimmies up onto the bed as directed, leaning back against the headboard. "Here?"
"No, um - " Jared takes him tentatively by the shoulder, and the electricity of the contact shoots all the way up his arm like a heart-attack. "Down a little. Like that. Tuck your hands behind your head."
Jensen shifts obediently, sliding down on Jared's pillows and crossing his bare forearms behind his head. He turns his face towards Jared without being asked, lips slightly parted, head tilted back to emphasise the long line of his throat. "How's that?"
Jensen looks so perfect there that, for a second, Jared physically cannot speak. He imagines him, for a moment, spread out naked there, all golden skin and muscle shifting under it, but he doesn't dare ask that, not for a first sitting. He drags the words out of his throat. "Fine. Great."
"Should I take my shirt off?"
Jared pauses in the act of sitting down in the chair he set up by the bed in preparation, mind frozen in action. "I - "
"It's just," Jensen puts in, hurriedly, "I know you guys gotta submit a nude and everything. And it's easier to draw people when you don't have to contend with clothes all rumply and in the way, I just figured I'd ask, in case you were shy."
"Did you think I was shy?" Jared manages, through the shocked gape that wants to manifest on his face. "I told you I wanted to draw you because you were beautiful." The words sound unreal, hanging in the air like that, as if they can't possibly have emerged from him. Jared's ears are burning.
"Actually," Jensen corrects, gently, "you said I had a perfect face. But thanks, man." He crosses his arms over his chest, hands going to the hem of the t-shirt. "Shall I take that as a yes?"
Shit. Jared's cock twitches in his pants, swelling up against the seam. Jensen's hands are poised in readiness, shirt inching up incrementally to show a sliver of skin, and, fuck, Jared wants. Wants to map out all that skin with his pencil and his charcoals; wants to paint it over slick with his tongue. God, he wants everything, and he doesn't know what Jensen's offering, here. Something in him says it would be foolhardy to accept the scrap.
Simple greed overpowers it. "Yeah," he says, voice a little high-pitched. "Thanks, dude."
Jensen shrugs, and smirks, and, God, it's a smirk. Jared barely gets a second to consider it before the shirt's coming up, tenting on the peaks of Jensen's elbows for a moment before it's tossed to the floor. In its wake is Jensen, peaked nipples and delineated musculature that Jared could mark up anatomically; could mark up with his mouth. Jared clears his throat.
"Awesome," he says, hoping the strain doesn't tell.
"Tell me if you need me to move," Jensen says, and subsides.
Jared's fingers tremble finely when he picks up his charcoal, but the stick slides over the page like water, carving Jensen out in shadow and space. The line of his shoulders, his clavicle, the muscles in his arms, all sketched out lovingly; and then his face, the line of his nose, his brows, his eyes. He'd been afraid, almost, of those eyes, but they're striking enough, in the event, that they come through clear and visceral, burned onto the page as they brand Jared. Jensen shifts a little, a shadow sliding over his flank, and Jared chases it, follows it down the centre of his chest to his navel, and lower. At the waistband of Jensen's jeans, Jared hesitates, charcoal poised over the paper. He's sweating, he realises, fine beads of it crawling over the nape of his neck, and God, he hates those bluejeans; hates the way they lie lazily over the gentle swell at Jensen's crotch, the way they keep him out. Without them, the line of his charcoal could continue uninterrupted over skin, over Jensen's thighs, to his knees, to the arches of his feet. Jared frowns down at the paper, brow furrowing.
"Jeans?" Jensen ventures.
It's soft, so soft that Jared isn't quite sure of having heard it correctly. He blinks; glances up. "Sorry? You're not uncomfortable, are you?" He's suddenly aware of having lost track of time, somewhere in the dip of Jensen's navel.
Jensen shakes his head slightly, and there's a blush, Jared notes in amazement, creeping up over his cheekbones, pink under the freckles. "I said, do you want the jeans gone? You were frowning at 'em like they just killed your dog, dude."
"Um." Jared's stomach lurches, heat blossoming there and shoving downwards to pool in his crotch, pushing out the front of his pants. He should say no. Shit, he should say no. "Please, yeah. If you're sure, man."
Jensen shrugs. The gesture is self-consciously nonchalant, but there's tension, now, in the lines of his forearms as he fumbles with the button of his jeans, shoves down the zipper, and Jared can't place it, or is afraid to. When Jensen's thumbs slip under the waistband of his underwear, Jared gasps aloud, but Jensen says nothing about either it or the blush that surges up after it; only shoves two-handed, peeling jeans and shorts together over his hipbones, over his thighs. Off.
Fuck.
He's half-hard, cock dark and interesting in the fork of his legs. Jared stares, hand still poised over the paper, and Jensen laughs a little nervously.
"This okay?"
"Shit, yes," Jared says. It's too obvious, he realises the moment the words are out, but if anything, Jensen seems to relax at the sound of his eagerness, thighs falling open a little on the bed.
"Awesome," he says; rolls his shoulders a little. "Come on, then; finish me off."
And, shit, Jared wants. It's pooling under his tongue, wet and desperate; it's pulsing between his legs and in the throb of heat low in his stomach. He licks his lips half-consciously, stabilising himself, and tries to breathe. He wants to spread Jensen wide at the thighs with his palms; wants to lick him from root to tip and then suck him in deep. He wants to fuck him till Jensen feels Jared's signature all over himself.
"Okay," Jared says - slips down into the shadowy place below Jensen's navel; begins to stroke over his pubic area. "Okay," he says, and he draws.
It's unreasonably difficult. In certain ways - in essence, even - it's shockingly easy, the charcoal sliding sensuously over the smooth lines of Jensen's body, shading his thighs, his knees, his long shins. His ankle bones, and the arches of his feet. Jensen has a body like art come to life, and to art it returns unresistingly. With every pull of the stick, though, Jared's tongue curls helplessly with the need to follow, to slip into the spaces the charcoal can only hint at. His breathing is short, laboured, and Jensen's chest is shifting visibly, too, sweat licking along the hollow of his collarbone as his cock fills slowly against his thigh. It's fucking distracting, and Jensen's toes deserve more attention than Jared gives them, but Jared needs to finish him off, in whatever way he can, before the want drives him mad. Before - something.
By the time he throws down the charcoal, they're both panting. Jensen's flush has spread all the way down from his cheekbones, into the hollow of his throat and over his chest, and his green eyes are bright, glittering.
"Finished," Jared tells Jensen, hoarsely, the word catching in his throat.
"No, you're not," Jensen shoots back, and holds out his hand.
Jared submits to avarice.
Pairing: J2
Rating: R
Words: ~2,500
Summary: Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Disclaimer: This is, of course, a lie, and also an AU.
Notes: For my fictictactoe game against mistyzeo, for the prompt greed.
Jared sees him in the moonlight first, the boy whose eyes glint green and gold in flashes in his Roman-fresco face. He's perfect. Jared's heart hurts a little just at the lines of him, the way he holds himself, the set of his shoulders, his legs. Jared wants to strip him down to his skin and capture the stamp of him in charcoal; wants to strip him to his bones and learn the rush of his blood. Jared's an art major: he sees the world as a tessellated sequence of potential subjects, and among these, the green-eyed boy stands unparalleled as a pinnacle of natural beauty. Jared tells himself there and then, as he crosses the lawn at midnight, that he must have him, whatever way he can. Jared covets.
The boy's name is Jensen. Jared discovers this when classes start for the semester and he finds himself two desks away from him in Anthropology 101, where Jared knows nobody and Jensen is apparently joined at the hip to a girl whose breasts are a dazzling masterpiece of creation all of their own. She laughs, no artifice in it, and says, "Jensen, you suck," and Jensen laughs back at her, a white flash of teeth. Jared's heart surges, muscles in his wrists twitching in anticipation of replicating that smile in pencil on a page. Then Jensen puts his hand on the girl's thigh, and Jared's chest twists. His finger moves half-consciously over the exercise book open under his hand, demarcating the line of Jensen's profile, the devastating bow of his upper lip. Of course he's unavailable: of course. Jared's not surprised, but it doesn't lessen the pull.
Jared's never worked out whether it's creepier to ask modelling favours from friends or from complete strangers. It seems to depend on the person, and in Jared's experience it's impossible to predict the reaction he'll get when he says: please, I'd be honoured if you'd let me draw you. He used to think it was odd, at first, that anyone would feel anything but flattered by an artist's attentions, but then he thought: what would I think? And then it all rushed in, illuminating and unnerving: maybe it's my nose; they think someone better get that weirdness recorded for posterity or they probably want to practice drawing people with funny-shaped eyes. It's too easy, he realised then, to drum up a laundry-list of unflattering potential reasons behind an artist's interest in one's face; and since then, he's been more careful about asking. Creepier, perhaps, but direct.
He's direct with Jensen. He has to draw that face. There's a mathematical perfection to it that Jared's rarely seen outside of magazines, and sketching it from across the room on scraps of paper won't cut it. He needs it stilled for his attentions: he wants Jensen bent to his will. He waits a week, and then catches Jensen after class, catching his arm in the hallway. He says, "Hey, sorry - I know this is probably gonna sound a little weird, but - I'm an art major."
(Those are the magic words: I'm an art major. This Is For School.)
Jensen raises his eyebrows a little, curious, but not quite touching sceptical. Jared shoots him the smile he's been told is reassuring, all dimples and charm, and says, "I'd really like to draw you. You have such a perfect face."
Direct. No room for doubt and anxiety on Jensen's part; just a blush that creeps up fetchingly from his collar, and a downward duck of his head. Jensen laughs a little; brings up a hand to scratch at the nape of his neck. "Wow. Um. Thank you?"
God, his embarrassment is endearing. Jared was half-afraid he'd be an asshole, going through life looking carved out of marble like he does, but shit, he isn't, and Jared's stomach squirms with it, unprofessional and yearning. He fights to keep the fierce rush of fondness out of his voice. "Trust me: there isn't an artist alive who wouldn't love to draw you." He cocks his head. "Would you let me? I'd be really, really grateful if you'd model for me, man."
Heterosexual men, Jared has learned, respond favourably to subtle affirmations of their masculinity while being solicited for their beauty. Jensen fits pattern, mouth quirking up a little at the corners. "Well...I mean, I've never done it before, but..."
"Not a problem!" Jared assures him, quickly. "Seriously, not a problem. You just have to sit still and move your head when I tell you to, dude. Totally straightforward." He whips out a notepad from his backpack and scribbles down his room number and cell. "This is me. When's good for you? Maybe Sunday?"
Sunday, Jared has discovered, is often a good day to suggest. A session on Sunday won't get in the way of weeknight homework, but nor will it encroach on crazy Friday and Saturday nights of drinking and frat house parties. Sundays are long and boring. Jared thrives on this fact.
Jensen, evidently, is of like mind. He studies the torn-off shred of paper for a second and then rolls his shoulders, laughs and says, "Why not?" He grins up at Jared, and Jared's knees go weak at the easy beauty of it, the perfect synergy of lips and teeth.
"Two?" Jared manages, a little weakly. Jensen grins and nods.
"Two it is," he says, taking Jared by the elbow and squeezing. "See you then, man."
The imprint of his hand burns after him, warm firm imprint of fingertips throbbing in Jared's flesh. From anyone else, he might have thought the gesture flirtatious; but obviously, not from Jensen. Not from Jensen.
When Sunday comes, Jensen is punctual, maybe even a little early. Jared likes that about him. Jensen saunters into Jared's sloppy dorm-room, all casually '50s in a white tee, chucks and blue jeans, and Jared's heart thumps its approval like it's trying to burst out of his chest.
"So, where'd you want me?" Jensen throws out languidly, spreading his arms crucifixion-style.
God, he'd look good crucified. Maybe next time.
"On the bed, please," Jared says, stiffly. Stiffly, because his voice threatens to break over the words in the back of his throat, and his cock is stiffening too in his jeans at the look of easy-going willingness on Jensen's face. Fuck. Fuck, he's beautiful.
Jared's half-braced for Jensen to pull a face or protest, but he doesn't - just kicks off the chucks and shimmies up onto the bed as directed, leaning back against the headboard. "Here?"
"No, um - " Jared takes him tentatively by the shoulder, and the electricity of the contact shoots all the way up his arm like a heart-attack. "Down a little. Like that. Tuck your hands behind your head."
Jensen shifts obediently, sliding down on Jared's pillows and crossing his bare forearms behind his head. He turns his face towards Jared without being asked, lips slightly parted, head tilted back to emphasise the long line of his throat. "How's that?"
Jensen looks so perfect there that, for a second, Jared physically cannot speak. He imagines him, for a moment, spread out naked there, all golden skin and muscle shifting under it, but he doesn't dare ask that, not for a first sitting. He drags the words out of his throat. "Fine. Great."
"Should I take my shirt off?"
Jared pauses in the act of sitting down in the chair he set up by the bed in preparation, mind frozen in action. "I - "
"It's just," Jensen puts in, hurriedly, "I know you guys gotta submit a nude and everything. And it's easier to draw people when you don't have to contend with clothes all rumply and in the way, I just figured I'd ask, in case you were shy."
"Did you think I was shy?" Jared manages, through the shocked gape that wants to manifest on his face. "I told you I wanted to draw you because you were beautiful." The words sound unreal, hanging in the air like that, as if they can't possibly have emerged from him. Jared's ears are burning.
"Actually," Jensen corrects, gently, "you said I had a perfect face. But thanks, man." He crosses his arms over his chest, hands going to the hem of the t-shirt. "Shall I take that as a yes?"
Shit. Jared's cock twitches in his pants, swelling up against the seam. Jensen's hands are poised in readiness, shirt inching up incrementally to show a sliver of skin, and, fuck, Jared wants. Wants to map out all that skin with his pencil and his charcoals; wants to paint it over slick with his tongue. God, he wants everything, and he doesn't know what Jensen's offering, here. Something in him says it would be foolhardy to accept the scrap.
Simple greed overpowers it. "Yeah," he says, voice a little high-pitched. "Thanks, dude."
Jensen shrugs, and smirks, and, God, it's a smirk. Jared barely gets a second to consider it before the shirt's coming up, tenting on the peaks of Jensen's elbows for a moment before it's tossed to the floor. In its wake is Jensen, peaked nipples and delineated musculature that Jared could mark up anatomically; could mark up with his mouth. Jared clears his throat.
"Awesome," he says, hoping the strain doesn't tell.
"Tell me if you need me to move," Jensen says, and subsides.
Jared's fingers tremble finely when he picks up his charcoal, but the stick slides over the page like water, carving Jensen out in shadow and space. The line of his shoulders, his clavicle, the muscles in his arms, all sketched out lovingly; and then his face, the line of his nose, his brows, his eyes. He'd been afraid, almost, of those eyes, but they're striking enough, in the event, that they come through clear and visceral, burned onto the page as they brand Jared. Jensen shifts a little, a shadow sliding over his flank, and Jared chases it, follows it down the centre of his chest to his navel, and lower. At the waistband of Jensen's jeans, Jared hesitates, charcoal poised over the paper. He's sweating, he realises, fine beads of it crawling over the nape of his neck, and God, he hates those bluejeans; hates the way they lie lazily over the gentle swell at Jensen's crotch, the way they keep him out. Without them, the line of his charcoal could continue uninterrupted over skin, over Jensen's thighs, to his knees, to the arches of his feet. Jared frowns down at the paper, brow furrowing.
"Jeans?" Jensen ventures.
It's soft, so soft that Jared isn't quite sure of having heard it correctly. He blinks; glances up. "Sorry? You're not uncomfortable, are you?" He's suddenly aware of having lost track of time, somewhere in the dip of Jensen's navel.
Jensen shakes his head slightly, and there's a blush, Jared notes in amazement, creeping up over his cheekbones, pink under the freckles. "I said, do you want the jeans gone? You were frowning at 'em like they just killed your dog, dude."
"Um." Jared's stomach lurches, heat blossoming there and shoving downwards to pool in his crotch, pushing out the front of his pants. He should say no. Shit, he should say no. "Please, yeah. If you're sure, man."
Jensen shrugs. The gesture is self-consciously nonchalant, but there's tension, now, in the lines of his forearms as he fumbles with the button of his jeans, shoves down the zipper, and Jared can't place it, or is afraid to. When Jensen's thumbs slip under the waistband of his underwear, Jared gasps aloud, but Jensen says nothing about either it or the blush that surges up after it; only shoves two-handed, peeling jeans and shorts together over his hipbones, over his thighs. Off.
Fuck.
He's half-hard, cock dark and interesting in the fork of his legs. Jared stares, hand still poised over the paper, and Jensen laughs a little nervously.
"This okay?"
"Shit, yes," Jared says. It's too obvious, he realises the moment the words are out, but if anything, Jensen seems to relax at the sound of his eagerness, thighs falling open a little on the bed.
"Awesome," he says; rolls his shoulders a little. "Come on, then; finish me off."
And, shit, Jared wants. It's pooling under his tongue, wet and desperate; it's pulsing between his legs and in the throb of heat low in his stomach. He licks his lips half-consciously, stabilising himself, and tries to breathe. He wants to spread Jensen wide at the thighs with his palms; wants to lick him from root to tip and then suck him in deep. He wants to fuck him till Jensen feels Jared's signature all over himself.
"Okay," Jared says - slips down into the shadowy place below Jensen's navel; begins to stroke over his pubic area. "Okay," he says, and he draws.
It's unreasonably difficult. In certain ways - in essence, even - it's shockingly easy, the charcoal sliding sensuously over the smooth lines of Jensen's body, shading his thighs, his knees, his long shins. His ankle bones, and the arches of his feet. Jensen has a body like art come to life, and to art it returns unresistingly. With every pull of the stick, though, Jared's tongue curls helplessly with the need to follow, to slip into the spaces the charcoal can only hint at. His breathing is short, laboured, and Jensen's chest is shifting visibly, too, sweat licking along the hollow of his collarbone as his cock fills slowly against his thigh. It's fucking distracting, and Jensen's toes deserve more attention than Jared gives them, but Jared needs to finish him off, in whatever way he can, before the want drives him mad. Before - something.
By the time he throws down the charcoal, they're both panting. Jensen's flush has spread all the way down from his cheekbones, into the hollow of his throat and over his chest, and his green eyes are bright, glittering.
"Finished," Jared tells Jensen, hoarsely, the word catching in his throat.
"No, you're not," Jensen shoots back, and holds out his hand.
Jared submits to avarice.