RPF: You're like coming home, by madeofsequins
Title: You're like coming home, or, Five Times Jensen Doesn’t Sleep (and One Time He Does)
Author: madeofsequins
Pairing: J2
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1481
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Jared & Jensen belong to themselves & this is all made up. Okay.
Summary: Some things don't end when the series does.
On set for the last season, the end looms in the corner like a shadow that ruins the perfect take that was nine tries in the making. They’re pretty successful at ignoring it, except those odd few nights they spend on the couch, half watching the Cowboys game on TiVo, each nursing their fifth or maybe sixth beer. They don’t talk much outside of yelling at the TV, sitting close enough so their thighs brush with each small movement they make, but not making an effort for deliberate contact beyond that.
The Cowboys lose; the first six minutes of yesterday’s evening news starts up without them noticing. Subdued, a little maudlin, Jensen says into the silence, “Wasn’t going to be forever, Jay. We always knew that.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we did.” A pause, then, “you still talkin’ about the show, here?”
“Mmhm. Wait. You want me to be?”
“Yes. I mean no, but yes. Jen-”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing. Bed, yeah?”
Jared falls asleep quickly; he always does. Lucky bastard. His slow, heavy breathing that Jensen usually uses as a metronome to lull himself to sleep rings loudly in his ears and keeps him awake until the sky starts to lighten.
--
12:22 AM and they’re still on set. He and Jared are in the stationary Impala, waiting for tech to fix the night-filming equipment. They’d said fifteen minutes half an hour ago, but hey, it’s not like they have anything better to be doing.
Jared is angled toward him but gazing out the windshield for any sign of change. He runs his fingers slowly up and down Jensen’s tensed back, just a ghost of a touch, silently grounding him as he goes on talking Tayla from wardrobe and the drama with her new sort-of boyfriend. He knows Jensen’s exhausted, sore, overworked, about five minutes or one more tiny screw up from losing it.
Jensen leans into the touch, taking it in like a quad shot of espresso, a massage, and a long, hot shower all at once, and, yeah, he’s good to stay on set for another few hours now, at least.
--
After the last take, the very last one, they don’t go home. They go out with everyone, the rest of the cast, the crew, the people from the crew’s kids’ daycare, Tayla’s sort-of boyfriend’s cousin. They drink hard, talk a lot, laugh loudly, find each other’s eyes across the room every few minutes and know they’re not alone in feeling a gaping absence threatening to take up residence in their chests just beyond the imminent sunrise.
They finally go home as the gathering winds down, too drunk to fuck and too full of feeling to sleep. Jensen takes a long time slowly mapping the planes of Jared’s body with his hands, intimate but not heated. Jared cuddles into and around him, generating mass amounts of heat through his damp tee shirt, and murmurs a litany of nonsense words, affectionate, comforting, but he’s not making promises, not really saying anything at all.
--
He goes to his parents’ for a week after they wrap up for good. He smiles big and hugs his momma hard when he sees her, tells them how nice it is to be able to relax for a while, how good dinner is, yeah, yeah, these sheets are fine. His heart feels like it’s beating up against something empty in his chest and he wonders if that’s where Dean had been living all this time.
By the time he leaves the airport, gets to the house, eats, catches up, and takes some time after his parents finally settle in for the night, it’s late, and he’s averaged about three hours of sleep a night for the past week. He’s beyond exhausted, should be dead to the world in his old bed, but it’s too hot, too quiet. He misses the dogs.
He’s wiped out and keyed up. He thinks about calling Jared -- knows he’s awake, too -- but doesn’t. He checks his email about twenty times, watches Law and Order until it bleeds into infomercials. A Tempur-Pedic bed sounds nice, actually. Maybe it’d help him sleep.
He feels his shirt sticking to his back, swipes his phone out of his travel bag when he gets up to crack open a window. He sends off a quick, superficial text to Jared, the only thing he can think of to say: flight got in fine, home is good, m&d say hi. He stares at the phone when it rings thirty seconds later, tired eyes caught on the display glowing green, but he doesn’t pick up.
--
His apartment in LA smells like Lemon Pledge and Febreeze, emptiness and nobody. There’s a bill from a cleaning service from three days ago shoved under the front door. Nothing in it feels like home; he can’t remember the last thing he watched on the big TV, the last group of people who sat on the couch and chairs, the last meal he ate at the table -- or the kitchen counter, for that matter. He doesn’t have memories here, not striking, vivid ones, like Sadie tricking him into standing up with his paper napkin on his lap so she could catch it in her mouth before it feel to the floor and eat it, like grilling burgers on the deck in the pouring rain and kisses that tasted like sesame seeds and black angus beef, like grocery lists on the fridge door amended with stupid jokes in the margins and farm animal doodles by Jared’s scrawled “eggs” and “milk - NOT SKIM IT TASTES LIKE WATER OKAY?”
The sheets on the bed are crisp, too crisp, when he pulls them back to get in, some kind of Egyptian cotton with an astronomical thread count. In Vancouver, their bed had jersey knit cotton sheets from Target, $19.99 for the entire queen-sized set that felt -- and eventually smelled -- like an old, comfortable tee shirt of Jared’s.
He smooths the corner of the sheets back into place and abandons the oppressively empty bedroom in favor of the couch. He puts on the TV to cut into the silence that feels like it’s going to suffocate him, but he can’t focus on what it’s playing, or the book he started on the plane, or the mail he makes a short attempt at reading. The couch is uncomfortable as far as sleeping positions go, but it feels safe in that there’s no empty space beside him that he want to fill with Jared. He spends the next few hours in a half-sleep, dreaming or remembering past conversations, disappointed every time he regains full consciousness and remembers he’s still in LA, still alone.
--
Jared calls him again, at around the same time, late night or early morning, either/or when you’re not really asleep, anyway. He picks up this time.
“You’re in LA now, right?” Jared asks by way of greeting.
“Yeah, yeah. Just got in tonight. Oh, sorry, the flight got in okay.”
Jared laughs, quick and low. “Didn’t call to check up on you -- I’m not your damn mother -- but that’s good. You - you weren’t sleeping, were you?”
“Nah. The apartment’s weird. I don’t remember why I got it. Do you? I think I hate it.”
“You hate everything, Jen.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, would you… what are you… I’m not doing anything, can’t sleep. Any chance I can hate the apartment? With you?”
Jensen softens at the words, feels little pieces slipping back into place that haven’t been sitting right for a while. It’s not the end of everything. This is a change they can maybe make, and it doesn’t have to be a discussion, a big thing. Maybe. “Yeah, of course. C’mon over. You’re not too tired to drive?”
“Nah, and it’s not far. I’ll see you soon.”
Twenty minutes later, Jared is there, face translucent with tiredness in likely mirror of Jensen’s own. They stare at each other without speaking for a full minute before Jared moves, comes around behind him and wraps his big hands around Jensen’s hips, rests his chin on Jensen’s shoulder. Jensen doesn’t move, just stands there and lets himself be aware of every inch of Jared’s body against his.
Jared kisses his way up Jensen’s neck to his mouth. They make their way to the bedroom intertwined, tumble on the bed in a tangle of limbs and stiff cotton, and Jared pulls a face when his skin comes into contact with the sheets. He curls into Jensen under the offending covers and falls asleep right away, as always. Jensen burrows his head into the crook of Jared’s neck, adjusts his breaths to match Jared’s gentle snores. It takes all of four minutes for him to fall fast asleep. He doesn’t wake until late the next morning, warm and comfortable, Jared’s arm resting loosely across his hips.
Author: madeofsequins
Pairing: J2
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1481
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Jared & Jensen belong to themselves & this is all made up. Okay.
Summary: Some things don't end when the series does.
On set for the last season, the end looms in the corner like a shadow that ruins the perfect take that was nine tries in the making. They’re pretty successful at ignoring it, except those odd few nights they spend on the couch, half watching the Cowboys game on TiVo, each nursing their fifth or maybe sixth beer. They don’t talk much outside of yelling at the TV, sitting close enough so their thighs brush with each small movement they make, but not making an effort for deliberate contact beyond that.
The Cowboys lose; the first six minutes of yesterday’s evening news starts up without them noticing. Subdued, a little maudlin, Jensen says into the silence, “Wasn’t going to be forever, Jay. We always knew that.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we did.” A pause, then, “you still talkin’ about the show, here?”
“Mmhm. Wait. You want me to be?”
“Yes. I mean no, but yes. Jen-”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing. Bed, yeah?”
Jared falls asleep quickly; he always does. Lucky bastard. His slow, heavy breathing that Jensen usually uses as a metronome to lull himself to sleep rings loudly in his ears and keeps him awake until the sky starts to lighten.
--
12:22 AM and they’re still on set. He and Jared are in the stationary Impala, waiting for tech to fix the night-filming equipment. They’d said fifteen minutes half an hour ago, but hey, it’s not like they have anything better to be doing.
Jared is angled toward him but gazing out the windshield for any sign of change. He runs his fingers slowly up and down Jensen’s tensed back, just a ghost of a touch, silently grounding him as he goes on talking Tayla from wardrobe and the drama with her new sort-of boyfriend. He knows Jensen’s exhausted, sore, overworked, about five minutes or one more tiny screw up from losing it.
Jensen leans into the touch, taking it in like a quad shot of espresso, a massage, and a long, hot shower all at once, and, yeah, he’s good to stay on set for another few hours now, at least.
--
After the last take, the very last one, they don’t go home. They go out with everyone, the rest of the cast, the crew, the people from the crew’s kids’ daycare, Tayla’s sort-of boyfriend’s cousin. They drink hard, talk a lot, laugh loudly, find each other’s eyes across the room every few minutes and know they’re not alone in feeling a gaping absence threatening to take up residence in their chests just beyond the imminent sunrise.
They finally go home as the gathering winds down, too drunk to fuck and too full of feeling to sleep. Jensen takes a long time slowly mapping the planes of Jared’s body with his hands, intimate but not heated. Jared cuddles into and around him, generating mass amounts of heat through his damp tee shirt, and murmurs a litany of nonsense words, affectionate, comforting, but he’s not making promises, not really saying anything at all.
--
He goes to his parents’ for a week after they wrap up for good. He smiles big and hugs his momma hard when he sees her, tells them how nice it is to be able to relax for a while, how good dinner is, yeah, yeah, these sheets are fine. His heart feels like it’s beating up against something empty in his chest and he wonders if that’s where Dean had been living all this time.
By the time he leaves the airport, gets to the house, eats, catches up, and takes some time after his parents finally settle in for the night, it’s late, and he’s averaged about three hours of sleep a night for the past week. He’s beyond exhausted, should be dead to the world in his old bed, but it’s too hot, too quiet. He misses the dogs.
He’s wiped out and keyed up. He thinks about calling Jared -- knows he’s awake, too -- but doesn’t. He checks his email about twenty times, watches Law and Order until it bleeds into infomercials. A Tempur-Pedic bed sounds nice, actually. Maybe it’d help him sleep.
He feels his shirt sticking to his back, swipes his phone out of his travel bag when he gets up to crack open a window. He sends off a quick, superficial text to Jared, the only thing he can think of to say: flight got in fine, home is good, m&d say hi. He stares at the phone when it rings thirty seconds later, tired eyes caught on the display glowing green, but he doesn’t pick up.
--
His apartment in LA smells like Lemon Pledge and Febreeze, emptiness and nobody. There’s a bill from a cleaning service from three days ago shoved under the front door. Nothing in it feels like home; he can’t remember the last thing he watched on the big TV, the last group of people who sat on the couch and chairs, the last meal he ate at the table -- or the kitchen counter, for that matter. He doesn’t have memories here, not striking, vivid ones, like Sadie tricking him into standing up with his paper napkin on his lap so she could catch it in her mouth before it feel to the floor and eat it, like grilling burgers on the deck in the pouring rain and kisses that tasted like sesame seeds and black angus beef, like grocery lists on the fridge door amended with stupid jokes in the margins and farm animal doodles by Jared’s scrawled “eggs” and “milk - NOT SKIM IT TASTES LIKE WATER OKAY?”
The sheets on the bed are crisp, too crisp, when he pulls them back to get in, some kind of Egyptian cotton with an astronomical thread count. In Vancouver, their bed had jersey knit cotton sheets from Target, $19.99 for the entire queen-sized set that felt -- and eventually smelled -- like an old, comfortable tee shirt of Jared’s.
He smooths the corner of the sheets back into place and abandons the oppressively empty bedroom in favor of the couch. He puts on the TV to cut into the silence that feels like it’s going to suffocate him, but he can’t focus on what it’s playing, or the book he started on the plane, or the mail he makes a short attempt at reading. The couch is uncomfortable as far as sleeping positions go, but it feels safe in that there’s no empty space beside him that he want to fill with Jared. He spends the next few hours in a half-sleep, dreaming or remembering past conversations, disappointed every time he regains full consciousness and remembers he’s still in LA, still alone.
--
Jared calls him again, at around the same time, late night or early morning, either/or when you’re not really asleep, anyway. He picks up this time.
“You’re in LA now, right?” Jared asks by way of greeting.
“Yeah, yeah. Just got in tonight. Oh, sorry, the flight got in okay.”
Jared laughs, quick and low. “Didn’t call to check up on you -- I’m not your damn mother -- but that’s good. You - you weren’t sleeping, were you?”
“Nah. The apartment’s weird. I don’t remember why I got it. Do you? I think I hate it.”
“You hate everything, Jen.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, would you… what are you… I’m not doing anything, can’t sleep. Any chance I can hate the apartment? With you?”
Jensen softens at the words, feels little pieces slipping back into place that haven’t been sitting right for a while. It’s not the end of everything. This is a change they can maybe make, and it doesn’t have to be a discussion, a big thing. Maybe. “Yeah, of course. C’mon over. You’re not too tired to drive?”
“Nah, and it’s not far. I’ll see you soon.”
Twenty minutes later, Jared is there, face translucent with tiredness in likely mirror of Jensen’s own. They stare at each other without speaking for a full minute before Jared moves, comes around behind him and wraps his big hands around Jensen’s hips, rests his chin on Jensen’s shoulder. Jensen doesn’t move, just stands there and lets himself be aware of every inch of Jared’s body against his.
Jared kisses his way up Jensen’s neck to his mouth. They make their way to the bedroom intertwined, tumble on the bed in a tangle of limbs and stiff cotton, and Jared pulls a face when his skin comes into contact with the sheets. He curls into Jensen under the offending covers and falls asleep right away, as always. Jensen burrows his head into the crook of Jared’s neck, adjusts his breaths to match Jared’s gentle snores. It takes all of four minutes for him to fall fast asleep. He doesn’t wake until late the next morning, warm and comfortable, Jared’s arm resting loosely across his hips.