Half the Chance to Go [pg13?] Jared/Jensen
Title: Half the Chance to Go
Author: queenklu
Beta by: the drop dead gorgeous
shri_amato <3
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: pg13 *facepalm*
Warnings/ Summary: panic, Gilmore Girls references (again), cereal, schmoop, Jensen moving out.
A/N I blame all of my omg-Jensen-don't-move-out fics on macbyrne. ;PP Title stolen from William Fitzsimmons' song "It's Not True."
Jared’s in LA when Jensen moves out, something big and unavoidable his agent insisted on. “This next year’s it,” she says, tapping something on her palm pilot. Like he doesn’t know.
Get ur shit out of my house yet slacker? he texts while he’s behind the curtain on Ellen. Some dim part of his brain is trying to say the nausea he’s feeling isn’t just from nerves, but then he’s on stage dancing with DeGeneres’s coffee table, and he doesn’t get Jensen’s reply until he’s stubbing his toe climbing into the car taking him home.
No thanks to you.
Whatever Ellen fed him isn’t sitting so hot anymore.
~*~
He can’t go home.
He’s sitting in a cab outside his house and he can’t-he can’t get out of the car and go in and see Jensen’s things gone.
What the fuck was he thinking going to LA?
“Hey buddy,” the cabbie says, a lot nicer than Jared’s used to because this is Canada, and everyone’s nicer in Canada. The meter’s even off. “You got somewhere else you wanna go instead?”
His babies have their faces pressed to the window, Harley’s drool smearing the glass every time he barks.
“No, thanks.” Jared slips on what he’s pretty sure is a convincing smile and hopes whatever bills he shoves at the driver are enough, because there’s something wrong with his eyes right now.
Then he grabs his things and goes around back, lets himself in through the gate and back door and lets his dogs plow into his legs and knock him on his ass. Sadie licks his face and he scratches her behind the ears and Harley tries to eat his shoe right off his foot. Everything is normal.
Except.
When people ask him why Jensen’s moving-why Jensen moved-Jared usually cracks a joke like, “Hey, we’re not actually attached at the hip, you know?” and then changes the subject. And they pretend to let him.
He knows a lot of them think that all this could be fixed if he just sat Jensen down and asked, “Hey, so, why’re you moving out?”-except now it’d be, “Why’d you move out?”-and Jensen would blink and say, “Oh, you know, never thought about it. Seemed like a good idea at the time,” and then they’d get gay married or whatever those people thought was going on and raise two point five dogs and repaint the picket fence white instead of this cedar stain.
The truth is he knows what Jensen would really say if he asked: “I’m in love with Danneel, I have my own life, and your codependency issues are freaking me out. Need more reasons? I have a list.”
Well, fuck Jensen Ackles. Who needs him.
He’s just going to lie-or is it lay? Fuck-here. He’s going to stay here, lying-laying-reclining in a lateral position for a while.
If Jensen was here he’d probably know if it was lying or laying.
Jared’s phone is pressed against his ear before his numb fingers tell his brain he’s dialed, and he sucks in a breath, ready to hang the fuck up when-
Hey, it’s Jensen. Leave a message. Beep!
Fuck. “Fuck. Um.” He’s not answering, so-he’s probably hanging out with the people who actually stuck around to help him move. “I’m sorry, I- Hey.” Sadie whines nice and quiet, nudging his ribs, and it’s like he’s popped, like a balloon with a pin stuck in it leaking air everywhere. Or something. “Hey, just wanted to-check in. Um. I’m home and…you are too, you know, in your new…home and…um. Kind of pathetic really.” He even manages a laugh, suddenly focusing on how his hand is splayed over his stomach. “I’m…I’m missing my best friend and-wondering if, you uh, if you want to come over. Shit. I know it’s kinda late…”
Jared’s eyes squeeze shut tight so he can’t see how monumentally sad he is in every sense of the word, jerking upright shove the words out of his lungs. “I know I’m codependent, I’m needy and clingy and I eat all your cereal and sometimes I’m not quiet when I take the dogs for a run in the morning and I don’t-Jesus, Jensen, I don’t know why you left. And I should’ve-I should’ve blown off the Ellen DeGeneres thing and stayed to help you pack, you know? Because maybe I- Oh god.”
Jared stops, swallows, stumbles to his feet with grass on his jeans and in his hair and he can’t cry on the phone to Jensen. “U-uh, never. Never mind. Fuck. I’m pretty sure I saw this episode of Gilmore Girls. Shit, I might’ve been in this episode of Gilmore Girls. Talk to you later. Don’t-don’t come over, okay? I’m. I’m fine. No worries.”
He makes himself hang up, cringing with every muscle in his body and-“Fuck!”-kicking the grass with his hands in his hair as he turns to go inside.
Where Jensen is standing in the doorway. Eating a bowl of cereal.
“Hi,” he says.
Okay, so he’s more like holding a bowl of cereal, with his hair plastered to one side of his head and his clothes rumpled the way they get when he falls asleep on the couch. He’s got this look on his face, this do-you-really-think-I’d-move-out-and-not-be-here-when-you-got-back look, and Jared needs to go throw up.
“Hey,” he says a little shakily instead, waving the hand with the phone in it.
Jensen puts the cereal down on top of the barbeque, stepping forward on the porch until there’s only one waist-high railing and a few feet in lawn between them, and all Jared can see is the way his hands are shaking.
“I think it’s supposed to be weird,” Jensen tells the railing, dragging a trembling thumb along one of the scratch marks Harley’s left. “Wanting to be around you so much. You don’t think that’s weird?”
He’s telling him why he’s moving out, and Jared knows he should feel even worse that Jensen heard him losing his shit on the phone but he can’t. All he feels is this crushing sort of need to touch Jensen, and everything that’s keeping him from doing it.
“No,” he says, shaking his head hard enough to make his ears pound. And then, when Jensen expression shifts, he says it again, firmer, “No, I don’t,” because he’s never ever thought it was weird.
“Because I’ve lived with people before,” Jensen says like he hasn’t heard a word or maybe like he can’t believe it, “I’ve even lived with best friends before, and I never felt like it physically hurt when I left. Jared.” And Jared can’t stay away when Jensen says his name like that, closes the distance and lets Jensen’s hand fit around the back of his neck and pull the foreheads together. “What the fuck are we gonna do when Supernatural ends?”
Hope flares up in Jared’s chest, too bright to keep his mouth shut when it’s trying it’s best to smile. “So this was you trying to quit me?”
“Shut up,” Jensen orders, stern even though Jared is close enough to count every one of his freckles when he blushes. “I’m serious, Jared, if we don’t try to ease up on whatever surgical fusion is going on in our pelvic regions, we are going to be fucked all to hell when the show ends and you know it.”
“We’re going to be fucked anyway,” Jared counters, fingers curling tighter around Jensen’s biceps to keep him there. “No. Fuck. Jensen. We’ve got one more year. Please. And when the year’s over there are plenty of shows filming in Vancouver or if you wanted to focus on the big screen we could buy a big apartment in LA or whatever, Jensen, I don’t care. We have a year to figure it out. Please.”
“We should think about dating.”
Jared blinks. Backs off, but doesn’t let go. “Jensen. I’m the one with jetlag, here. You are dating.”
“No, I mean-” The sun’s setting behind him and it only makes Jensen’s blush darker. “I mean us. You and me.”
Jared keeps staring, shakes him a little. “You’re dating Danneel Harris. Have you seen Danneel Harris? Because you’re dating her.”
Jensen’s eyes wander down to where Jared’s hands are probably leaving marks on his arms and says, “She’s been making noise about breaking up for a while, now.”
“Oh.”
Jensen nods, and Jared’s been through an Ackles break-up to know that nod. “Yeah.”
“…You and me?” Jared asks, voice a couple octaves too high and his eyebrows tight together. “You aren’t shitting-you’re serious about this?”
“Maybe.” Jensen flinches. “I mean, no. Yes. I’m sure.”
“Oh.” Jared’s palms are starting to sweat, and he’s got butterflies like he’s auditioning for Spielberg. “Okay?”
“Okay, like okay?”
This is the weirdest conversation he’s had ever, and he’s had conversations with Chad. “…Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“Not tonight,” Jensen blurts, like it was an option.
“No. No. Of course. I didn’t think-but soon?”
Jared’s thought about it, you know, in a way that’s probably not as abstract as other people when they think about dating their similarly gendered best friend. It’s just. He’s around the guy 12 to 14 hours of every day; when his mind imagines them kissing (or other stuff), he gets a pretty detailed account.
Okay so he’s pretty much punch drunk and draining the last of his energy reserves on this manic rollercoaster of emotions, and he’s pretty much scraping the barrel after Jensen smiles and says, “We’ve got all year.”
Jared has a plan to keep Jensen occupied until it’s too late to do anything but stay over, which is pretty much shot when Jared can’t even say, “Good deal,” he’s yawning so wide.
“Okay,” Jensen laughs, thumb stroking absently over Jared’s ear when he pulls his hand away, and that’s another one of those things that should feel weird but doesn’t. “You need to go to bed before you crush someone falling over. Namely me.”
It’s two steps sideways for Jensen and two steps up for Jared and then he’s crushing him in a hug, like really crushing him, ribs straining and arms wrapped so tight he knows it hurts because Jensen’s crushing him right back and all he can do is take shallow little breaths and hold on.
“So fucked,” Jensen mumbles against Jared’s collarbone.
“So fucked,” Jared agrees, smiling into Jensen’s hair.
And maybe they are, but the covers on Jared’s bed are creased in a Jensen shape that Jared makes him sleep in, so maybe they’re fucked together.
Maybe Jared doesn't care as long as Jensen's cereal stays in the cupboard to steal.
Sequel here--> I Will Give You Fries With Steak Sauce