Is it June yet??? No. Here's a fic to keep you occupied.
Title: Ante Up.
Author: truelyesoteric
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Jensen and Jared
Characters: All of the RPS people. Minus Chad.
Warnings: Personal assistant Jared, Rich Jensen. Drunk Jensen. Monolouging Jensen. Not quite practical situations. This is fluff people. This also makes me happy. Also I am posting this on a Thursday. Nobody is gong to read it, they’re all going to be watching the show.
Spoilers: RPS AU, nothing here.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them. Damn I wish that I did. I would never leave my house.
Word Count: 9000+
Summary: Jensen owns a lot of hotels all over the world. Jared is his personal assistant who has been with him all over the world. They come to Vegas a couple times of year. This time is a little different….
Jeff stood and looked at the bank of screens before him, showing him the lives of thousands of people.
This was Vegas. This was his empire.
He sipped his coffee.
His Chief Security Officer, Steve Carlson, and his chief operation manager, Christian Kane, were both glued to the screen.
"What is going on boys," he said in a gravely voice that everyone knew meant business.
Chris and Steve exchanged glances and hurriedly stood up.
"Padalecki is here sir," Steve said briskly, "I'll take care of this."
"I can handle it," Chris interjected.
Jeff sipped his coffee and looked at them calmly, "I'll take care of it myself."
"You don't have to bother sir," Chris said looking to the door.
Jeff smiled his white smile, "That is okay, this is one I need to do."
He walked out of the control room, both Chris and Steve looked at each other sadly.
"Well this sucks," Chris pouted.
Steve nodded in agreement.
***
Jared wasn't your normal visitor to a casino. He wore khaki pants and a white button down shirt and ties that were on the brink of bad taste. Constantly on his shoulder was a blue canvas messenger bag. He wasn't a smooth wealthy looking man and he didn't look like a tourist.
"JAAARRRED," three girls voices shrieked.
Sandy McCoy, casino host, Sophia Bush, hostess of the hottest club in the casino, and Daneel Harris, pit boss extraordinaire, came tramping at him as if they were thirteen-year-old girls.
"Your entourage is here," said the man next to him, a man who looked every inch the way a prestigious person should in a casino, dark suit, white shirt carefully pressed and a tie that was exquisite.
The girls surrounded him as if he were a rock star and other people in the lobby looked at Jared with curiosity.
The girls clamored after him and asked about his family and babbled on about their lives. It was clear from any point of view that they knew each other well.
"You know why they're really here don't you Jared?" an amused voice came from the well-dressed man.
Sophia rolled her eyes, "We like Jared, we don't have ulterior motives."
"So you wouldn't mind if he didn't bring the stuff this time?" the man asked with a little grin.
The three girls took on identical looks of horror.
"Don't tease them Mr. A," Jared said, pulling out two bags of cookies, "Of course I brought them for you."
The girl's grins grew and they each greedily grabbed for cookies.
"We made you spa appointments," Sandy said, in love with the cookies.
"You do know I'm the one with money," Jensen said with an amused smile as he looked at Jared, “I’ve been coming here longer, I bring Jared here, you should be catering to me.”
Jared ducked his head and smile, "Is it okay boss?"
Jensen grinned at him, "Course Jared. Have all the spa time with the girls you want."
Jared in return gave him a blinding grin.
Sophia took another cookie, "Doesn't matter 'bout money anyway, Jared brings us cookies. We choose Mamma Padalecki’s secret recipe over your stinkin’ money any day."
The girls nodded with smiles.
"I helped," Jensen laughed grinning at Jared.
Jared clutched the bags to his chest protectively, "You did not, you ate all the chocolate chocolate chip cookies and then you blamed me when you got crumbs on your precious papers."
Sandy poked Jensen, "You know he can't do everything for you, you have to do things like eat for yourself."
Jensen shrugged and Jared reached up and straightened his tie.
"Can't have you looking like a slob, boss," Jared said.
The girls just watched, as they had for the last seven years, because the two of them were a little oblivious to the fact that the sparks between the two of them could light the strip.
"You two are precious," an elderly lady, who was just checking in, said with a smile, "How long have you been together?"
"Seven years," Jensen said without thinking and without looking away from Jared, who was focused on Jensen's very nice tie.
"Seven years, two months and fourteen days," Jared replied, looking up as Jensen looked away.
Jensen snorted, "Its not a jail sentence J."
"Says the warden," Jared replied grinning, "Everything is set boss."
"Jenny," a lady's voice rang out.
Jared's face lost any of the happy go lucky that it usually contained and Jensen looked to the voice, his demeanor changing to something more staid.
The girls looked up in confusion.
"Sandy, Sophia, Daneel," Jared said in an empty voice, "Meet Joanna, the future Mrs. Jensen Ackles."
The girls were professionals in customer service and smiled, but the carefreeness that had been in the little group disappeared as the blonde curvy woman wrapped herself around Jensen.
The woman seemed oblivious to it.
"Jenny," the woman said, looking at Jensen and completely ignoring the other four people, "Lets do it here. Lets get married."
"You sure?" Jensen asked, crisp and polished, "I thought that you had your heart set on Bali."
"I'm inspired," Joanna said, "You're always traveling to your resorts, wouldn't it be wonderful to be married in a place where you don't have to worry about the fact that you own the place. Lets do it, it’s so romantic."
Jensen looked helplessly at Jared, "Can I be impetuous?"
Jared was standing straight and tall, "I'll plan it for you."
Jensen gave him a soft grin," What would I do without you."
Jared just stared at the ground.
Jensen might not have noticed the look of pain that went through his eyes, but Joanna did and her eyes narrowed to slits.
"Come on Jenny," Joanna said glaring at Jared and the women, "Lets go find our suite."
The three women watched Jensen dragged away and then looked to where Jared looked at the floor.
He looked up, not looking at them, just looking at the lobby and the casino.
"Everything major has happened here," Jared said slowly, "He interviewed me at the blackjack tables, I learned to surf in the pool here before he took me to Bali for the first time, you guys taught me proper table manners so I wouldn't embarrass him when we went to New York. Hell he was the first one in the real world that I told I was gay in the coffee shop over there. Everything major happened in this hotel, its only fitting that I give my notice here, that I leave him here."
Jared caught sight of somebody, "Gotta go girls, there is Jeff, he will be wanting his peanut butter cookies. See you tomorrow at our spa day."
The girls stood in place watching Jared try not to slump.
"Oh hell no," Sophia finally broke the silence.
The other two nodded.
"How do they not realize it?" Sandy asked sweetly, "Honestly, they live in each other's pockets."
"They're just used to it," Daneel said pinching the bridge of her nose, "I mean Jared probably still thinks he's in awe of Jensen and Jensen probably just thinks that Jared is the most amazing thing ever. They probably don't realize a long time ago that they were our role models for long term relationships."
They watched Jeff, stoic, scary probably ex-mob Jeff, melt under Jared's smile. The girls could see the moment Jeff asked after Jensen. Jared changed and started looking at the floor again.
"Ten bucks Jeff just asked about Jensen,” Daneel intoned.
“I’m pretty sure that nobody on the floor would bet against you,” Sophia agreed, “Jensen is the only thing that will make him look like that.”
“I'm pretty sure Jared knows he is head over heels," Sandy said softly, "I just don't think that Jared knows Jensen is."
"Jared probably doesn't even know that it is possible," Chris said coming up with Steve in tow.
"He still doesn't know about the thing?" Sophia asked exasperated, "I mean Jensen can barely tie his shoelaces together but he's been hiding THAT for five years?"
The five of them just stood, completely in bafflement of some people.
"We can't let Jensen get married without him knowing," Sophia decided.
Sophia looked at her co-workers and friends.
The five of them were as unlikely cupids as there ever were.
Chris grinned, "Why not, its a slow week."
"Dear lord," Steve muttered.
Sandy smiled, sweet and innocent like, "This is Vegas, where dreams come true!"
They all looked at her.
"Umm," Chris said scratching the back of his neck, "I think that is Disney World."
"Whatever Kane," she said dismissively, "We've got some work to do."
**
Jeff walked into his command center and looked at the monitors.
He saw Sandy and Sophia lead Jared into the spa. He saw Daneel and Chris talking with Jensen. He had to smile a bit because none of them were hiding a single thing. He saw everything.
Steve sat looking at his screen.
"Where is everyone," Jeff asked.
Steve shrugged, "Everyone has things to do."
Jeff looked at the two screens and he sipped his coffee and ate a cookie thoughtfully.
"You know we have ten years of footage in the archives," Jeff volunteered randomly.
Steve looked at him, trying to figure out the statement, "I know."
Jeff drank more of his coffee.
"These cookies are good," Jeff said, not offering Steve one, "How long has Jared been making them for us."
"Six years," Steve said, realizing what Jeff was saying.
Jeff nodded, "I'm going to be gone for the rest of the day. Feel free to use my office if you wish."
Steve looked at him startled.
Jeff just took a sip of his drink, "What? If Jensen marries that gold-digger he'll never come back here."
Steve looked at him skeptically, "You're such a softy."
Jeff looked at him harshly, "Just for that you get no cookies."
**
"Hmmm," Jared sighed as he came out from his massage dressed in a white bathrobe. Sandy and Sophia were already there dressed similarly. The girls were having their toes painted and Jared sat down next to them.
"Do you think Jeff will give me a job here?" Jared said leaning back and inhaling the fruity drink that he had been given.
Sophia raised an eyebrow.
"You've spent seven years traveling the world with that guy and you all the sudden are going to give him two weeks notice?" Sandy asked.
Jared shrugged and looked off into space again, "I've been working with him since I was nineteen. I've had a great adventure, but I've gotta go to the real world sometime."
"And you think that the real world is here?" Sophia snorted.
"I've gotta leave," Jared said almost disparately.
Sandy got up from her pedicure and walked to Jared. Her arms went around him. Three times a year for seven years made the people who worked here more family than the ones who raised him.
"Tell the truth," Sophia asked, "Just one time tell the truth."
Jared buried his head in Sandy's shoulder, "What will that do? It'll only make me hurt."
"Like you haven't been for awhile now," Sandy said softly.
"He knows were I am," Jared said wistfully, "I'm never anywhere that he can't reach, if it were something that was possible it would have happened. He's into something different, he's into blondes and boobs."
Sophia and Sandy looked at each other sharply.
Jared just smiled bravely, "I just want him to be happy, you know. Somewhere about a year into it stopped being an adventure and a paycheck. I would catch him smiling, like it was something new and shocking. I just wanted to see how much I could make him smile. Now he smiles all the time."
Sophia shook her head slowly, "No Jared he doesn't. He only smiles when you're in the room."
Jared just gaped at her, because no one had thought to ever tell him that much before.
Then Jared settled down under the weight of denial and looked at his hands, "I know that isn't true, but thanks for wanting to make me feel better."
Sophia and Sandy exchanged a glance, because Jared was making them want to strangle him at this moment.
**
"So married?" Chris said lounging next to Jensen as Jensen played blackjack.
"Seemed like the right thing to do," Jensen said tapping the felt for another card.
"You meet your soul mate or something," Daneel asked coming behind the dealer.
Jensen shrugged, "Nah, I just realized that it isn't fair to Jared to drag him around the world. The kid hasn't had a relationship in seven years. I've got to stop dragging him everywhere, you know help him settle down, be in one place long enough to kind some one that lasts longer than a month. Don't want him to be alone."
Chris quickly coughed to avert attention from Daneel's shocked expression.
"So you're settling down for Jared?" Chris asked distantly.
Jensen barely noticed, "Yeah. I got a place outside of Dallas. Jared picked it out; we were out there a few months ago. It’s a cute little place, we got horses and everything. We spent a week there. I was just sitting on the back porch with him staring out at the Texas landscape and I thought that you know I could do this, I could settle down."
Daneel was turning colors that typically should happen in nature.
"That is when you found Joanna?" Chris asked as carefully as possible.
"Yeah," Jensen said taking his winnings, "She was living with relatives in Dallas. She seemed to fit into the master plan. I figure Jared could find someone there, its a lot better than being in a different country every month.”
"You care about him," Daneel said softly.
Jensen looked her straight in the eye, "Of course I do. All kidding aside that I wouldn't know how function without him, it’s just great to have someone there. We spend so much time talking about everything. I have been selfish for long enough."
Chris and Daneel exchanged a look that was a long the lines of, "You think you've been selfish so you're marrying some girl for Jared's sake, please get a clue."
"How's Jared's sister?" Daneel asked.
Jensen finally looked up and grinned, "She graduated top of her class. She got into medical school, Columbia."
"Are you picking up the bill for that too," Chris asked pointedly.
"Shhh," Jensen said, looking around, "Jared still thinks that the Ackles Scholarship is something real. He's excited, you know since neither he nor his brother finished college. They're so proud of her. Mamma Padalecki is queen of my fan club. They're all kind of family now."
Daneel's mouth was a thin, thin line.
"Ya gonna be needing my help with anything," Chris offered in a way that was laced with suggestion.
Jensen looked at him quickly, "No... gonna spend my last days of a bachelor with J. I'll be fine. I think I'm done with that stuff."
Daneel looked at them curiously, but this was Vegas, you didn't make a big deal out of other people's secrets.
Jensen looked at his watch, "Gotta go clean up. Joanna's shopping for whatever it is she needs for the wedding. J and I are going to have lunch between his spa sessions."
Daneel stood behind the table and Chris collapsed on a stool.
"Is he kidding?" Daneel said, "How can he not realize that he hit madly in love with Jared like five years ago. If this doesn't work I'm joining a convent."
Chris looked horrified, "We cannot have that. How about when they get together you and I get together."
Daneel looked at him skeptically.
“Hey,” Chris said defensively, “I’m better than a convent.”
**
Jared was laying out the plans for Jensen’s wedding. Jensen was staring at his glass of lemonade.
“And the flowers should...” Jared was saying.
“What was that drink you liked in Italy,” Jensen said suddenly, “That one next to the museum that you nearly bit off the heads of the owners because they dared to put five hundred year old paintings in direct sunlight.”
Jared stopped. He was in full business mode. He didn’t want to go through this. He just wanted to be done with Jensen’s wedding. He just wanted to go through this on autopilot and walk away.
“Lemonchello?” Jared answered briskly.
Jensen looked up at him with a fond far away smile on his face, “That was a fun time. Lets go back to the resort and Italy and make up some kind of impromptu investigation.”
Jared swallowed because that had been one of a million best times with Jensen. Those lazy days where they had things to do, but the things that they had to do seemed to flow away and they just had time.
Jared had drank so much of the Lemonchello and had been in rare form. He had talked to everyone in the little café, and got them all to sing to Britney Spears through sheer charm and an unwillingness to accept no. Later that night they had been like two kids running through the little town on some mission that had only made sense to their drink addled minds.
He closed his eyes momentarily as he remembered that he had to lean on Jensen by the end of the night, partly due to the alcohol and mostly because he wanted to smell Jensen.
Later as he was throwing up in the toilet Jensen had been there and then had tucked him away into bed.
Jared looked up and shook his head, “I can’t do this boss.”
It was a hoarse whisper.
“Sure you can,” Jensen said with a lazy grin, “You make me all random and spur of the moment. Once after this wedding thing…”
“Jensen,” Jared said.
Jensen looked up because Jared never used his name.
Jared’s eyes were pleading and on the brink of tearing over.
Jensen’s mouth formed an ‘o’ and at that moment his heart constricted tightly.
Somehow they had avoided this conversation for seven years.
Jared shook his head and blinked too many times, “I can’t work for you any more, Mr. Ackles.”
Jensen put out a hand, as if Jared was going to disappear if he let go in the slightest.
“You’re leaving me?” Jensen said, his voice was so raw and confused.
Jared looked at the hand strangely, not understanding what was happening. Jensen was touching him. He looked up, totally and completely lost.
“Don’t leave me Jared,” Jensen said, his eyes begging, “Do you want the Hawaii resort? Somewhere in Europe? You can have any of them just don’t leave.”
And Jared gathered everything that he had, “I can’t. You’re getting married, you don’t need me anymore.”
Jensen dug his fingers into Jared’s arm, “Jared…”
Jared shook him off, “No Mr. Ackles. I can’t. I can’t plan your wedding. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
With that he got up and backed his chair into the table behind him. He didn’t notice because he was still looking into the stricken look in Jensen’s eyes.
He didn’t notice the waiter, the Pina Colada, the Cosmopolitan, and the Mudslide that all ended up mixed together among glass on the floor. He didn’t notice anything but the absolute pure need to escape.
With one last look back Jared ran.
**
Jared sat in the lobby with all his bags. He didn’t know where he was gong. He hadn’t planned for this. For years he had picked up at a moments notice and gone where ever he was needed to go.
And now he had nowhere that he needed to be.
Jensen had been the one steering the ship for so long he was a little lost as to what exactly he was supposed to do on his own.
Sophia and Sandy came up to him. They took one look at his broken face and sat down. Two impeccably sexily dressed women were sitting on either side of a guy who looked like he was attending his frat house’s alumni function.
“So it went well,” Sophia said, rubbing his back.
Jared was on the verge of tears.
Sandy took action, she stormed up to the front desk and after a few moments of brisk words she came back with a card.
“C’mon Jare,” she whispered sweetly, “You need a place to escape from all these people for a moment.
Jared was listless and followed Sandy and Sophia without complaint. He followed them up an elevator and down a hall and into a suite.
Jared looked around. It wasn’t a bad place, but he had seen hundreds of hotels, mostly Jensen’s hotels, all over the world and was desensitized to another foreign room.
Sandy pressed a card into his hand, “Its yours. For however long you want it. Its under my name, Jensen won’t be able to find you.”
Jared nodded and gave the weakest smile anyone had ever had given, “Its good to know the casino host.”
Sophia came and sat down on the bed, “You want to tell us about it?”
“Mr. Ackles wanted me to plan his wedding,” Jensen said tonelessly, “I quit. He offered me anywhere to stay. I knocked over a waiter and quite a few alcoholic beverages. I’m unemployed and smell like the floor of a club after hours. No biggie.”
His eyes were luminous.
Sophia and Sand put their heads on his shoulder.
“So you’re just leaving?” Sandy said, grabbing onto his arm.”
Jared nodded, “I should go home.”
“Where is home?” Sandy asked.
Seven years of constant moving gave Jared no idea. He had two apartments, one in New York and one in Dallas, but he probably couldn’t pick them out of a line up.
Home had been where ever he was. Home was where Jensen was.
Jared just stared at his hands.
“When is the last time that I gave you a birthday present?” Sophia said out of right field.
“Well that would be never,” Jared replied putting his arms around the girls.
Sophia popped up, “Then we must go shopping right fucking now.”
Jared shook his head, “I’m not really in the mood.”
“You might know this, being never actually breaking up with someone,” Sophia informed him, “However when you are dumped first you must shop and buy ridiculous things, then wear ridiculous things and go out.”
Jared pouted, “I’m not breaking up with him.”
Sandy put a hand on his arm, “Jared being dumb and totally oblivious is Jensen’s job. You’re so much more enlightened.”
Jared stared off into space, “Maybe this is something like being dumped. I thought that being dumped had something to do with eating lots of ice cream.”
Sophia grinned, “Honey, in Vegas things are a little different. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get married by the end of the night.”
“That is fabulous,” Jared muttered and let the tears slip out.
Sophia and Sandy put their arms around him.
“Maybe we’ll cry a little before shopping,” Sophia said softly.
And that is what happened.
**
Jensen was leaning back in a booth at one of the many restaurants, staring up at the mirrored ceiling.
As he had been doing for about four hours.
Chris slid in on one side of him and Steve slid in on the other.
“My friends,” Jensen slurred and motioned wildly for a waitress, “That is so very very vey very sad. My friends are paid people who like me because I pay them to be people.”
The drinks arrived and Chris looked at them skeptically, “You sure that you need those?”
“Yes,” Jensen said with a emphasis on the word, “I need drinks because I pay people to like me so if you don’t want to be around me you can quit to because you can because you are my paid people.”
Chris took a sip of his beer, “Jared quit?”
“Yes,” Jensen said hunching into his drink and sipping loudly from the straw, “I am a quittable person. People wake up one day and quit being my life.”
Chris just watched him and he didn’t have to say anything because Jensen was apparently a monolouging drunk.
“And you know what, no reason. NONE. Just in the middle they decide to go for no reason because Jared hates me for wanting to give him a life and he’s my best friend and I’m a sad sad sad person because my best friend I’ve paid to be my best friend and that means that he quits me.”
“Did you tell him he was a good friend,” Steve said gently.
Jensen jerked upright, “It is known.”
“Is it usually said,” Chris asked, “Sometimes things need to be said.”
“Fuck you” Jensen said curling around his glass again, “Put up or get off my crisis.”
Chris leaned back, “So you’re having a crisis now.”
Jensen was still leaned over, but he shook a finger in Chris’ face, “No, no, no, no, no.”
Chris watched the finger tick in front of his face and then he took the finger and placed it on the table.
“No what?” Chris asked.
“No, its not what you think,” Jensen pouted and then turned to Steve, “Not you either.”
“What do we think?” Steve asked slowly.
“I’m not stupid,” Jensen said curling around his glass again, “You’re stupid. Jared is stupid. Everything is stupid.”
That was hard to argue with.
Then Jensen sat up slowly and looked Chris in the eye, “I am not having a gay crisis.”
“No?” Chris asked raising an eyebrow.
“No, I’m not stupid,” Jensen said again, “Just because I am stupid about Jared and Jared is my best friend even though I have to pay him, he quit me.”
Which was even more of a challenge to argue with.
Jensen was silent and gloomy for a moment.
Chris and Steve looked at each other.
Then Jensen slowly sat up with the realization.
“Fucking hell in the hole,” he drawled out, “I’m having a hetero crisis.”
Steve and Chris looked at each other again.
Jensen squinted at them, “Did you know that I might possibly very well could want to be in feelings with Jared?”
“We might of guessed it,” Chris said dryly.
Jensen let out a long sigh, “Why don’t people tell me this. Why isn’t Jared telling me this. He’s a bastard.”
And just like that Jensen was hunched over his glass again. He mouthed the rim, “I hate the world. Nobody tells me anything.”
Steve sat up slowly and caught something out of the edge of his eye. Chris saw the look and looked over at the door.
Jensen for being piss ass drunk and painfully oblivious beyond belief noted their reaction and looked over at the door.
A sharp dressed man walked in. The man was tall, wearing a suit that fit him to the point of sin, he walked up to another man who could be almost a twin.
“Can you get them for me?” Jensen said staring for all the world at their shoes, “I need that, please. Please I just want to forget and that is a good thing to help me forget.”
“It’s not going to help your gay crisis,” Chris said pushing another drink at Jensen.
Jensen took the second glass and pulled them to his chest, “Fucking not having a gay crisis. I’m having a hetro crisis. I don’t want to be hetero. I don’t want to get married. I want that. I want…”
Chris finally thought that Jensen was going to finally reach that realization, he thought hat finally the truth was going to come out of Jensen’s lips and maybe permeate his consciousness.
“Jared,” Jensen said with a squinting of his eyes.
Chris looked over and saw Jared smiling weakly at a tall shaggy man in front of him. The gorgeously dressed man that Jensen had been lusting over, the one in the suit that hugged an absolutely perfect body was Jared.
Jensen had seen Jared dressed up a million times, but there was something about him at that moment. He was wearing a suit that Jensen hadn’t picked out, he was in a place that Jensen didn’t expect him. It was as if he were seeing something for the first time.
And seeing this for the first time while talking to another man was not right. Jensen knew that Jared liked and did guys, but the proof in front of his eyes was not something he welcomed.
Not because he was against Jared dating, he was changing his entire life so Jared could date, but right now he wasn’t going to stand for Jared with someone else.
The man had his hand on Jared’s arm and in the second that Chris looked away Jensen disappeared from between him and Steve. He just wiggled under the table like a four year old covered in butter.
A second later Jensen emerged from beneath the table and made a beeline for Jared.
“Shit,” Chris drawled sitting back, “That guy is slick.”
Jensen stalked his way over to the two men.
He grabbed the other guy and looked him in the face. Then he turned on Jared.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Jensen said, wavering a little, “You can’t. He’s hooker Jared. Don’t be with a hooker Jared.”
Jensen turned back to the man, “Sorry Charlie, no offense.”
Jared looked at the slightly disheveled Jensen who had a napkin on his shoulder, “You know him?”
Jared looked at the two men again, “And you know he’s a hooker.”
“Of course,” Jensen said glaring at Charlie, then back at Jared, “You can’t be with a hooker, you’re too good and smart and funny. You need love. You should be with someone who thinks that you’re the most awesome thing in the world because you are the most awesome thing in the world and don’t go home with him, you deserve better.”
Jensen turned back to Charlie, “No offense.”
Charlie looked as if he was taking great offense.
“You didn’t seem to mind it,” Charlie spat out, “You seemed to rather enjoy fucking me, your hand around my cock.”
Jared’s eyes doubled in size and his jaw dropped.
Jensen waved a hand dismissively, “I’m not amazing. Jared deserves better than your ass. He can’t afford your ass, he should find an ass that doesn’t cost him and that won’t bend over for cash. No offense.”
Charlie’s face turned positively black.
All the blood had drained from Jared’s face.
“You fuck guys?” he said weakly, feeling a little lost, “Since when do you fuck guys.”
“Five years,” Jensen said waving his hand, still looking at Charlie, “Jared needs a someone who wants kids and a picket fence and not someone who is a fucking whore, no offense.”
Charlie snorted, “So you suppose he deserves someone who pays people to sleep with them.”
“No,” Jensen said leaning into his face, “I pay Jared to be my friend. Not to sleep with me.”
Charlie smirked, “So Jared is kind of your whore?”
Jensen didn’t even telegraph anything, his fist just shot out and decked Charlie’s perfect face.
Chris and Steve jumped up and grabbed Charlie, Jensen didn’t even notice, he turned back to Jared.
Jensen opened his mouth, “I need you. I need you to take care of me and to be with me.”
“What will I do without you?” Jensen wondered out loud.
Jared glared at him, “Fuck hookers, pay people to be your friend, I thought I knew you and you just don’t care. You just care because I’m something that does something for you.”
Jared’s face dissolved and beyond their conversation Charlie was trying to attack Jensen again.
Jared held out his hands to his side, “Why didn’t you just fuck me Jensen. I would have. You were already paying me anyway, why not just give me a bonus. That is all that this is anyway isn’t it. Just you getting what you need with a little green.”
With that Jared pushed back against him and left.
Jensen looked up at the ceiling again, and totally missed Charlie’s fist coming at him until it was too late.
Jensen fell backwards against the bar and the stools.
He looked up and caught sight of Joanna standing indignant at the edge of the crowd.
Jensen just started laughing and laughing. He looked up at Joanna who had appeared out of nowhere, “We can’t get married tomorrow. Jared didn’t finish the plans.”
He started laughing again, “And oh yeah I’m having a hetro crisis and I think I might be in love with Jared who quit as my best friend and apparently thinks that I’m a dirty whore fucker who wants to buy his ass.”
Jensen kept laughing.
Joanna lunged towards Jensen. Jensen kept laughing.
Daneel appeared and dragged Joanna away kicking and screeching as Jensen laughed himself to tears.
It was a Tuesday night in Vegas, nothing to see here.
**
Jared sat on his bed, tears streaming down his face. He heard the door click and figured it was the girls, hopefully they were bearing ice-cream this time because the whole shopping and going out thing was a sucktastic idea.
When the door opened it were Steve and Chris, much to his surprise.
Steve pushed Chris. Chris sighed and put out his hands, “I owe you an apology.”
Jared’s eyebrows reached his forehead.
Steve hit him again.
“I might have actually hired that guy to hit on you,” Chris mumbled and at another of Steve’s pokes he continued, “And I might have hired that guy for Jensen when he came to me with his gay crisis five years ago.”
Jared looked crestfallen.
Steve poked again.
Chris hit at his hand, “Stop it already. You know this is what we don’t do. We don’t tell one client about another clients business, but if you and the girls are going to blackmail me into this I’m going to do it, but I am going to do it my fucking way. Now stop the poking.”
Jared scrunched up his nose in confusion.
Steve poked again for effect.
“Fine,” Chris growled and turned to Jared and spat out, “Jensen realized five years ago that he was ogling your ass and he was curious and then he didn’t want to hit on you because he didn’t want to be a dirt bag boss and then turn into some asshole who fucked him and that he didn’t like dick so he asked for me to find him someone to experiment on and he had all these specification that he wanted a guy who was ridiculously tall, incredibly hot, and he absolutely had to have dark shaggy hair.”
Chris looked pointedly at Jared’s shaggy hair, “Sound a little familiar. Sound a little like anyone you know. Sound a little like he was testing the waters.”
Jared looked as if had been smacked.
“So are you just generally implying that Jensen wanted someone like me?” Jared asked, almost sadly hopeful.
“YES!” Chris yelled, “Just for the love of all fucking Christ, I am blatantly saying that Jensen was testing out the big gay waters. Specifically he’s been fucking the not-you for five years.”
Jared looked lost and confused, “Then why didn’t he ever say anything.”
Chris huffed, “Because the fucking guy has balls that are recessing into his fucking spine.”
Jared did not look convinced.
Steve held up a disk, “Do you want proof.”
“I don’t know exactly what to say,” Jared said slowly, because as much as he wanted to see Jensen naked, he did not want to see another body with him.
Steve smiled and put the disk into the hotel room’s DVD player and the big screen TV lit up, showing a camera taping the casino floor.
Jared watched as a him wearing a cheap suit and very badly cut hair walked up to a Jensen who was basically ignoring him.
Jared slowly leaned forward, “That was the day that I came here for my interview.”
He remembered that.
“Hi I’m…” Jared said nervously.
Jensen held up his hand, “I’ll care after I ask questions. I’ve had five assistants in the last year. I’ve interviewed twenty-six people in the last three days. I didn’t find anyone and Sam back at the office is going to send people to where ever I am. So lets do this as quickly as possible then you can enjoy your free trip to Vegas and I can get back to being on a Vacation in a place that I don’t own.”
“Oh-kay,” Jared said hesitantly.
“So I’m going to ask you questions, you’re going to answer then and we’re going to realize that there is no way in hell that you would want this job or no way in hell that you would put up with a prick like me.”
“Do you like to travel?” Jensen fired as he turned back to the cards.
“This is the first time that I’ve been out of Texas,” Jared said looking down at his shoes.
“Fabulous,” Jensen said as the dealer took his money, “What experience do you have.”
Jensen held out his resume, Jensen ignored the resume, “First rule of being a personal assistant, you assist, just give me the highlights.”
“I’ve worked in a nursing home since I was sixteen,” Jared almost stuttered, “It was my first job and I did it for two years.”
Jensen groaned as he lost more money, “And…”
“A year of college?” Jared squeaked.
Jensen groaned as the dealer got blackjack.
“What are you like twenty kid?” Jensen asked.
“Nineteen,” Jared said feeling suddenly defensive.
“Fucking hell,” Jensen swore as he lost another hand, “Sam is scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
“Fuck you,” Jared said angrily, “Sir,” he added because his mother had raised him right, “I don’t need your pity and I don’t need this job. I mean I just need to get money for college, but I’m not going be treated like this and you need to double down.”
Jensen looked up at Jared as if he was finally seeing him, seeing a tall guy who was still a kid, but was standing up to him, on a job interview nonetheless.
Jensen smiled, a real smile that reached his eyes and made the lines around his eyes crinkle.
“Double down,” Jensen said, still staring at Jared, looking at him as if he were trying to see him.
“Dealer busts,” was said somewhere behind Jensen’s shoulder, but Jensen was still looking at Jared.
“I’m sorry if I came off like a prick,” Jensen said, “I am taking my two day vacation and Sam is sending people here and I’m sorry that I was an asshole. I’m usually very charming.”
“I’m sure,” Jared said with a glare.
“Do you have a passport with you?” Jensen asked.
“I was told to,” Jared replied hesitantly, “What does that..”
“I like you,” Jensen said, “I’m going to Barbados tomorrow to check up on one of my resorts there. What to come as kind of a trial personal assistant run? You know to see if you like me. I mean think of the worst thing that could happen. The plane ticket and the hotel room are yours. If you don’t like me after the first day you can have six more on vacation, no strings attached.”
Jared just stared at him.
Jensen smiled a little more, “I’ll throw in new clothes.”
“New clothes,” Jared said in a daze.
“Yeah on me,” Jensen said, “And you can keep those too, cause I’m pretty sure that anything that you pick out to fit you won’t fit me.”
“Why? Why would you do this?” Jared asked skeptically.
Jensen shrugged, “I’m not sure. You’re just…you are just interesting.”
Jensen leaned forward, “I’ll take a chance if you will. What is the worst that could happen.”
Jared looked at him confused, “What is this?”
“This is your life,” Chris said making a grand gesture.
Steve poked him again.
Chris groaned, “This is your life. This is the past seven years. This is eight hours and seven minutes of Jensen looking longingly for you, seeing you and breaking into a grin and then promptly staring at something else while grinning.”
Steve finally stepped forward, “I recorded times you were here. It’s every time that he’s seen you over the last seven years.”
“And I don’t think I could sit through it,” Chris interjected and tried to leave, but Steve held him fast.
“But the thing is you need to watch this,” Steve told him, “You need to see Jensen looking at you, for you every time. You need to know, before you decide you need to know that you’re always what he is looking for.”
“Why wouldn’t he say anything? Why is he marrying her? Why is it like this?”
Chris shrugged, “How am I supposed to know? Just watch the damned thing.”
Steve grabbed Chris’ arm, “Jared you know him better than anyone else. Why do you think that he didn’t tell you.”
Jared looked at the screen where Jensen was at a poker table. Jensen wasn’t paying a bit of attention to his cards, he kept looking at the door.
Then suddenly Jared appeared and the tense look on Jensen’s face split into a grin. Jared didn’t even know when this moment was. It could have been one of a million, but he watched the screen over and over as some guy with Jensen’s face waited for something and when Jared appeared that morose familiar stranger morphed into Jensen.
Jared’s Jensen. The one he knew.
Jensen never over extended himself. He never did something he couldn’t loose. He never did something that he hadn’t planned out.
And he had never planned on Jared.
“Oh,” Jared said, just watching.
**
“Housekeeping,” a far to chipper voice said.
Jensen prayed that the toilet would eat him up, but the toilet stayed passive under his cheek, the cold porcelain was the only comfort that he had in the world as his body was contorted and his head lay on the seat as it had for hours because he was in serious agony.
Sophia, Sandy, and Daneel all trouped into his rather lavish bathroom and looked at him on the toilet.
Jensen hated them.
A whole bunch of lots.
“G’way,” he muttered, hoping beyond hope that it would work.
“Whatcha doin’?” Daneel asked.
“Jared left me, my fiancé left me, now my internal organs are leaving me via my mouth,” Jensen muttered, “It’s awesome, please stay and watch.”
“How much of last night do you remember,” Sandy said, coming and putting a cool cloth on his neck.
Jensen turned and looked at her, as he was wearing an impressive shiner, “Every beautiful moment. Did you come for highlights? There was the official outing that I do dudes on the side. There was my official outing that I pay for sex. There was a lovely meeting of my ex-assistant to my hooker. Then the most wonderful moment where my hooker hit me for calling him a whore. If you are displeased with this retelling I am sure that most of the casino and my ex-fiancé saw it. I will never be president now and I have no friends and I would like to die so go away.”
“You talk a lot for a dying man,” Sophia commented.
Jensen closed his eyes and begged himself not to cry.
“Please go away,” he said quietly.
Sophia came and perched on the edge of the bathtub, Daneel sat on the counter and Sandy continued to rub the back of his neck with the washcloth.
“You told Chris that you weren’t an idiot last night,” Sandy said in her soft calming way, “Don’t turn into one now.”
“You’re a gambler,” Daneel pointed out, “Sometimes you’ve gotta take a chance.”
“I never gamble with anything that I can’t loose,” Jensen reminded them.
“You’ve lost sugar,” Sophia reminded him, “Its time to play a new game and sing a new tune.”
The girls moved and suddenly water and pills appeared.
“You really need to want to do this,” Sophia said both harshly and lovingly at the same time, “You actually are a idiot and you need to make us believe it before we set you loose on Jared.”
Jensen still was not all for lifting his head, but he took their balm to his stupidity.
“Never should have let him bring you cookies,” Jensen muttered, “You love him more and you know me longer.”
**
The whole disk did indeed take eight hours and seven minutes to watch. When it ended Jared was floored, Chris was asleep and Steve was reading a magazine.
When Jared moved to watch them again Chris huffed and walked out and Steve got a call that Jared barely noticed
He was watching the screen, because it was showing his life as he had lived it, but it was a whole new view.
It was the outsider perspective that he had never really seen.
Jared came to one singular conclusion.
Jensen was totally into him, missed him when he was gone and Jared didn’t know what to do with this information.
Jared’s mind raced as to what the hell that meant.
He was halfway through the DVD again when he heard the key card in the door. He turned, expecting Steve’s return.
Instead at the door stood Jensen. His hair was washed and he was wearing grey sweats and a white t-shirt. He looked a little worse for wear, but he also looked amazingly good. Jared just looked at him because this wasn’t his boss, this wasn’t his friend. This was a guy who he was allowed to look at.
Jensen swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck.
Then he looked up, his green eyes blinding. Jared couldn’t remember ever catching Jensen looking at him.
“Jensen,” Jared said, not moving from the bed, he just looked.
Jensen closed his eyes for a moment, his eyelashes brushing his cheek. Jared just looked at Jensen absorbed his name coming from Jared’s lips. Jared was just watching like a perv looking at an open window.
Jared wouldn’t look away.
Jensen’s eyes opened and he returned the look.
“Can I come in?” Jensen asked hesitantly.
Jared just nodded and slowly sat up as Jensen slipped into the room, holding a piece of paper.
Jensen fiddled with the paper and Jared just waited.
“I don’t need a personal assistant,” Jensen began in the middle of a conversation that only existed in his head.
Jared recoiled a little bit.
Jensen started pacing and not looking at Jared, “I mean when you came along my dad had died that year and Sam didn’t want me to go around the world by myself. Sam just wanted to make sure that I take care of myself and I wasn’t overwhelmed which is why I didn’t want anyone and why I really wanted you to come.”
Jared cracked his knuckles in a moment of silence because he just wanted to know where this one was gong.
Jensen looked back at him, “See the thing is that I made sure you had things to do. I gave you more responsibly than any personal assistant should have because I got used to you being there and I didn’t need you, but I’ve come to depend on you.”
He crumpled the paper in frustration and then held it up, “I was supposed to stick to the script, the girls made me write ‘101 Reasons Why I Love Jared Padalecki That Have Nothing To Do With Me.’ I only have about 67 because I think that they were getting sick of me and they figured that I was sober enough to come and actually talk to you.”
“You have a list?” Jared said, “That you want me?”
Jensen rubbed the back of his neck again.
“Besides,” Jensen interrupted, “I just want you to know that I don’t just want your ass and I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“You want my ass?” Jared asked, knowing that Jensen wasn’t probably going to respond to that one either.
“The thing is that I can take care of you too,” Jensen said lost to his pacing and completely oblivious to the amount of information that he was letting loose on an already overloaded Jared.
Jensen turned to him with a little faraway smile, “Remember that time that you got sick when we were in Argentina?”
Jared nodded slowly.
“See I can take care of you too,” Jensen told him, “I mean I didn’t make the soup but I ordered it and sat there and kept you cool and did all that stuff and watched you sleep and you didn’t die.”
Jensen looked at the list, “So maybe I’ll just read you the list, because this makes absolutely no sense. Number one…”
Jared got up quickly and pressed Jensen against the wall. Jensen looked up wide-eyed. Jared looked down at his lips and ghosted a thumb over those full plump lips. Without thinking about it he leaned down and that was all it took for the entire world to flip.
For all those things that they had hid from each other, for all those things that they thought were unattainable all that they had to do was reach in and press their lips together.
Jared moved his lips feeling Jensen’s lips for the first time. He knew what those lips looked like, what words sounded like over them, but feeling them, touching them was something like he had never experienced before.
They were soft and warm and parted in a gentle caress, it was a hello.
Jared held onto the back of Jensen’s head and feathered his hand through the short hairs at the back of Jensen’s neck, applying light pressure at his fingertips at the back of Jensen’s skull.
Jensen moved into Jared, his hands going around Jared’s waist, fingers snaking under his shirt, over the waistband of his jeans and finally over the sensitive skin on the inside of his hip.
Through Jensen’s parted lips his tongue darted out and traced Jared’ bottom lip.
Jared was on sensory overload, Jensen’s hands and his tongue and his lips were almost more than Jared could bear. He was instantly and almost totally hard and aching. It had been far too long since anyone had touched him. Now that it was Jensen it was as if seven years of pent up unrequited sexual tension.
Jared moaned low in the back of his throat.
Jensen smiled under Jared’s lips.
“I won’t be your sexual identity crisis,” Jared rasped out.
“I won’t be your sugar daddy,” Jensen said licking a swipe along Jared’s neck, nipping the soft skin there.
Jared pulled back and was smiling, grinning ear to ear. He looked at Jensen and then he searched Jensen’s eyes, looking for something.
He looked all the sudden very young and unsure.
Jared smiled.
That put everything back on kilter.
**
It was before noon and they all didn't have to be at work until five tonight, but they assembled outside of the door at eleven thirty.
Sandy was wringing her hands, "They haven't left. Jensen had all his stuff moved from his room to here."
Chris smirked, "They've been in there for two days. They've ordered room service for food twice and for 'personal items' three times."
"Personal items?" Daneel giggled, "They've put a huge dent in the condom and lube stash of the hotel."
Sophia raised her hand to knock on the door then she let it fall for a moment, "Do you guys ever feel as if we're in some weird Love Boat episode?"
Steve started laughing.
Chris just rolled his eyes and knocked on the door, "Housekeeping."
The door was opened after a little scrambling and there stood a partially dripping wet Jared Padalecki wearing nothing but a big fluffy white towel. For a second nothing moved except the droplets of water collecting on his dripping locks.
"Jared who is it?"
The voice came from the bedroom and Jensen appeared, wearing jeans and
nothing else. His hair still held the telltale trace of water.
Jared looked hesitantly back at Jensen. Jensen just leaned on the doorway from the bedroom and raised an eyebrow.
"We didn't order room service," Jensen said, trying to be stern.
"Jensen," Jared said in what was almost a whine, "They brought me food."
And Jensen was unable to contain a grin that totally and completely split his face. He tried to shake it off with a stern nod of his head, but it really wasn't going away.
"Put some pants on if you're going to entertain," Jensen said waving a hand to the bedroom.
Jared grinned at them, "Go sit I'll be right out."
The three women just watched them.
As Jared passed Jensen, their eyes never leaving the other, Jensen snaked out a hand and pulled Jared to him and gave him a kiss. When he pulled away Jared was a little dazed, he looked back at the newcomers to the room and then ducked his head. He was unable though to leave the room with out a glance back at Jensen.
Jensen just watched him go, smile on his lips.
"I think I'm going to fantasize about this moment forever," Sophia sighed.
The other two girls nodded in agreement.
"So Jensen," Steve said, pulling in one of two carts, "What is new?"
Chris smirked behind him, "Let me guess, you're not getting married tomorrow."
Jensen shrugged, "Not unless the laws in Nevada have changed radically."
Jared appeared bouncily into the room and plopped down on the couch, looking at the trays of food.
"I'm starving," he said and tore into the food.
"So you're dating your personal assistant," Daneel said coming to poke him, "How cliché."
"I am not dating my personal assistant," Jensen said haughtily.
Jared watched him through hooded eyes, "He's dating a college student."
“Wow Jensen, that seems a little cliché also,” Sophia smiled.
“We’re still working somethings out,” Jensen said moving to sit possessively next to Jared, “But J is going back to school and I’m going to not travel as much.”
“Except maybe to Vegas every once in awhile,” Jared said, his mouth full.
Chris smiled, “Everything happens in Vegas.”
Jensen’s eyes crinkled and he looked at Jared, “Yeah.”
**
Jeff looked at the screen.
Jensen and Jared were checking out.
They seemed to be totally and completely unable to keep their hands and their eyes off of each other.
He smiled.
Chris came up behind him.
“All good?” Jeff asked, behind his smile.
“Everything is how it should be,” Chris replied watching Jensen and Jared make out, “Nauseatingly so.”
Jeff smiled, “It all happens here son. This is the land of possibility.”
“Indeed,” Chris replied.
Author: truelyesoteric
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Jensen and Jared
Characters: All of the RPS people. Minus Chad.
Warnings: Personal assistant Jared, Rich Jensen. Drunk Jensen. Monolouging Jensen. Not quite practical situations. This is fluff people. This also makes me happy. Also I am posting this on a Thursday. Nobody is gong to read it, they’re all going to be watching the show.
Spoilers: RPS AU, nothing here.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them. Damn I wish that I did. I would never leave my house.
Word Count: 9000+
Summary: Jensen owns a lot of hotels all over the world. Jared is his personal assistant who has been with him all over the world. They come to Vegas a couple times of year. This time is a little different….
Jeff stood and looked at the bank of screens before him, showing him the lives of thousands of people.
This was Vegas. This was his empire.
He sipped his coffee.
His Chief Security Officer, Steve Carlson, and his chief operation manager, Christian Kane, were both glued to the screen.
"What is going on boys," he said in a gravely voice that everyone knew meant business.
Chris and Steve exchanged glances and hurriedly stood up.
"Padalecki is here sir," Steve said briskly, "I'll take care of this."
"I can handle it," Chris interjected.
Jeff sipped his coffee and looked at them calmly, "I'll take care of it myself."
"You don't have to bother sir," Chris said looking to the door.
Jeff smiled his white smile, "That is okay, this is one I need to do."
He walked out of the control room, both Chris and Steve looked at each other sadly.
"Well this sucks," Chris pouted.
Steve nodded in agreement.
***
Jared wasn't your normal visitor to a casino. He wore khaki pants and a white button down shirt and ties that were on the brink of bad taste. Constantly on his shoulder was a blue canvas messenger bag. He wasn't a smooth wealthy looking man and he didn't look like a tourist.
"JAAARRRED," three girls voices shrieked.
Sandy McCoy, casino host, Sophia Bush, hostess of the hottest club in the casino, and Daneel Harris, pit boss extraordinaire, came tramping at him as if they were thirteen-year-old girls.
"Your entourage is here," said the man next to him, a man who looked every inch the way a prestigious person should in a casino, dark suit, white shirt carefully pressed and a tie that was exquisite.
The girls surrounded him as if he were a rock star and other people in the lobby looked at Jared with curiosity.
The girls clamored after him and asked about his family and babbled on about their lives. It was clear from any point of view that they knew each other well.
"You know why they're really here don't you Jared?" an amused voice came from the well-dressed man.
Sophia rolled her eyes, "We like Jared, we don't have ulterior motives."
"So you wouldn't mind if he didn't bring the stuff this time?" the man asked with a little grin.
The three girls took on identical looks of horror.
"Don't tease them Mr. A," Jared said, pulling out two bags of cookies, "Of course I brought them for you."
The girl's grins grew and they each greedily grabbed for cookies.
"We made you spa appointments," Sandy said, in love with the cookies.
"You do know I'm the one with money," Jensen said with an amused smile as he looked at Jared, “I’ve been coming here longer, I bring Jared here, you should be catering to me.”
Jared ducked his head and smile, "Is it okay boss?"
Jensen grinned at him, "Course Jared. Have all the spa time with the girls you want."
Jared in return gave him a blinding grin.
Sophia took another cookie, "Doesn't matter 'bout money anyway, Jared brings us cookies. We choose Mamma Padalecki’s secret recipe over your stinkin’ money any day."
The girls nodded with smiles.
"I helped," Jensen laughed grinning at Jared.
Jared clutched the bags to his chest protectively, "You did not, you ate all the chocolate chocolate chip cookies and then you blamed me when you got crumbs on your precious papers."
Sandy poked Jensen, "You know he can't do everything for you, you have to do things like eat for yourself."
Jensen shrugged and Jared reached up and straightened his tie.
"Can't have you looking like a slob, boss," Jared said.
The girls just watched, as they had for the last seven years, because the two of them were a little oblivious to the fact that the sparks between the two of them could light the strip.
"You two are precious," an elderly lady, who was just checking in, said with a smile, "How long have you been together?"
"Seven years," Jensen said without thinking and without looking away from Jared, who was focused on Jensen's very nice tie.
"Seven years, two months and fourteen days," Jared replied, looking up as Jensen looked away.
Jensen snorted, "Its not a jail sentence J."
"Says the warden," Jared replied grinning, "Everything is set boss."
"Jenny," a lady's voice rang out.
Jared's face lost any of the happy go lucky that it usually contained and Jensen looked to the voice, his demeanor changing to something more staid.
The girls looked up in confusion.
"Sandy, Sophia, Daneel," Jared said in an empty voice, "Meet Joanna, the future Mrs. Jensen Ackles."
The girls were professionals in customer service and smiled, but the carefreeness that had been in the little group disappeared as the blonde curvy woman wrapped herself around Jensen.
The woman seemed oblivious to it.
"Jenny," the woman said, looking at Jensen and completely ignoring the other four people, "Lets do it here. Lets get married."
"You sure?" Jensen asked, crisp and polished, "I thought that you had your heart set on Bali."
"I'm inspired," Joanna said, "You're always traveling to your resorts, wouldn't it be wonderful to be married in a place where you don't have to worry about the fact that you own the place. Lets do it, it’s so romantic."
Jensen looked helplessly at Jared, "Can I be impetuous?"
Jared was standing straight and tall, "I'll plan it for you."
Jensen gave him a soft grin," What would I do without you."
Jared just stared at the ground.
Jensen might not have noticed the look of pain that went through his eyes, but Joanna did and her eyes narrowed to slits.
"Come on Jenny," Joanna said glaring at Jared and the women, "Lets go find our suite."
The three women watched Jensen dragged away and then looked to where Jared looked at the floor.
He looked up, not looking at them, just looking at the lobby and the casino.
"Everything major has happened here," Jared said slowly, "He interviewed me at the blackjack tables, I learned to surf in the pool here before he took me to Bali for the first time, you guys taught me proper table manners so I wouldn't embarrass him when we went to New York. Hell he was the first one in the real world that I told I was gay in the coffee shop over there. Everything major happened in this hotel, its only fitting that I give my notice here, that I leave him here."
Jared caught sight of somebody, "Gotta go girls, there is Jeff, he will be wanting his peanut butter cookies. See you tomorrow at our spa day."
The girls stood in place watching Jared try not to slump.
"Oh hell no," Sophia finally broke the silence.
The other two nodded.
"How do they not realize it?" Sandy asked sweetly, "Honestly, they live in each other's pockets."
"They're just used to it," Daneel said pinching the bridge of her nose, "I mean Jared probably still thinks he's in awe of Jensen and Jensen probably just thinks that Jared is the most amazing thing ever. They probably don't realize a long time ago that they were our role models for long term relationships."
They watched Jeff, stoic, scary probably ex-mob Jeff, melt under Jared's smile. The girls could see the moment Jeff asked after Jensen. Jared changed and started looking at the floor again.
"Ten bucks Jeff just asked about Jensen,” Daneel intoned.
“I’m pretty sure that nobody on the floor would bet against you,” Sophia agreed, “Jensen is the only thing that will make him look like that.”
“I'm pretty sure Jared knows he is head over heels," Sandy said softly, "I just don't think that Jared knows Jensen is."
"Jared probably doesn't even know that it is possible," Chris said coming up with Steve in tow.
"He still doesn't know about the thing?" Sophia asked exasperated, "I mean Jensen can barely tie his shoelaces together but he's been hiding THAT for five years?"
The five of them just stood, completely in bafflement of some people.
"We can't let Jensen get married without him knowing," Sophia decided.
Sophia looked at her co-workers and friends.
The five of them were as unlikely cupids as there ever were.
Chris grinned, "Why not, its a slow week."
"Dear lord," Steve muttered.
Sandy smiled, sweet and innocent like, "This is Vegas, where dreams come true!"
They all looked at her.
"Umm," Chris said scratching the back of his neck, "I think that is Disney World."
"Whatever Kane," she said dismissively, "We've got some work to do."
**
Jeff walked into his command center and looked at the monitors.
He saw Sandy and Sophia lead Jared into the spa. He saw Daneel and Chris talking with Jensen. He had to smile a bit because none of them were hiding a single thing. He saw everything.
Steve sat looking at his screen.
"Where is everyone," Jeff asked.
Steve shrugged, "Everyone has things to do."
Jeff looked at the two screens and he sipped his coffee and ate a cookie thoughtfully.
"You know we have ten years of footage in the archives," Jeff volunteered randomly.
Steve looked at him, trying to figure out the statement, "I know."
Jeff drank more of his coffee.
"These cookies are good," Jeff said, not offering Steve one, "How long has Jared been making them for us."
"Six years," Steve said, realizing what Jeff was saying.
Jeff nodded, "I'm going to be gone for the rest of the day. Feel free to use my office if you wish."
Steve looked at him startled.
Jeff just took a sip of his drink, "What? If Jensen marries that gold-digger he'll never come back here."
Steve looked at him skeptically, "You're such a softy."
Jeff looked at him harshly, "Just for that you get no cookies."
**
"Hmmm," Jared sighed as he came out from his massage dressed in a white bathrobe. Sandy and Sophia were already there dressed similarly. The girls were having their toes painted and Jared sat down next to them.
"Do you think Jeff will give me a job here?" Jared said leaning back and inhaling the fruity drink that he had been given.
Sophia raised an eyebrow.
"You've spent seven years traveling the world with that guy and you all the sudden are going to give him two weeks notice?" Sandy asked.
Jared shrugged and looked off into space again, "I've been working with him since I was nineteen. I've had a great adventure, but I've gotta go to the real world sometime."
"And you think that the real world is here?" Sophia snorted.
"I've gotta leave," Jared said almost disparately.
Sandy got up from her pedicure and walked to Jared. Her arms went around him. Three times a year for seven years made the people who worked here more family than the ones who raised him.
"Tell the truth," Sophia asked, "Just one time tell the truth."
Jared buried his head in Sandy's shoulder, "What will that do? It'll only make me hurt."
"Like you haven't been for awhile now," Sandy said softly.
"He knows were I am," Jared said wistfully, "I'm never anywhere that he can't reach, if it were something that was possible it would have happened. He's into something different, he's into blondes and boobs."
Sophia and Sandy looked at each other sharply.
Jared just smiled bravely, "I just want him to be happy, you know. Somewhere about a year into it stopped being an adventure and a paycheck. I would catch him smiling, like it was something new and shocking. I just wanted to see how much I could make him smile. Now he smiles all the time."
Sophia shook her head slowly, "No Jared he doesn't. He only smiles when you're in the room."
Jared just gaped at her, because no one had thought to ever tell him that much before.
Then Jared settled down under the weight of denial and looked at his hands, "I know that isn't true, but thanks for wanting to make me feel better."
Sophia and Sandy exchanged a glance, because Jared was making them want to strangle him at this moment.
**
"So married?" Chris said lounging next to Jensen as Jensen played blackjack.
"Seemed like the right thing to do," Jensen said tapping the felt for another card.
"You meet your soul mate or something," Daneel asked coming behind the dealer.
Jensen shrugged, "Nah, I just realized that it isn't fair to Jared to drag him around the world. The kid hasn't had a relationship in seven years. I've got to stop dragging him everywhere, you know help him settle down, be in one place long enough to kind some one that lasts longer than a month. Don't want him to be alone."
Chris quickly coughed to avert attention from Daneel's shocked expression.
"So you're settling down for Jared?" Chris asked distantly.
Jensen barely noticed, "Yeah. I got a place outside of Dallas. Jared picked it out; we were out there a few months ago. It’s a cute little place, we got horses and everything. We spent a week there. I was just sitting on the back porch with him staring out at the Texas landscape and I thought that you know I could do this, I could settle down."
Daneel was turning colors that typically should happen in nature.
"That is when you found Joanna?" Chris asked as carefully as possible.
"Yeah," Jensen said taking his winnings, "She was living with relatives in Dallas. She seemed to fit into the master plan. I figure Jared could find someone there, its a lot better than being in a different country every month.”
"You care about him," Daneel said softly.
Jensen looked her straight in the eye, "Of course I do. All kidding aside that I wouldn't know how function without him, it’s just great to have someone there. We spend so much time talking about everything. I have been selfish for long enough."
Chris and Daneel exchanged a look that was a long the lines of, "You think you've been selfish so you're marrying some girl for Jared's sake, please get a clue."
"How's Jared's sister?" Daneel asked.
Jensen finally looked up and grinned, "She graduated top of her class. She got into medical school, Columbia."
"Are you picking up the bill for that too," Chris asked pointedly.
"Shhh," Jensen said, looking around, "Jared still thinks that the Ackles Scholarship is something real. He's excited, you know since neither he nor his brother finished college. They're so proud of her. Mamma Padalecki is queen of my fan club. They're all kind of family now."
Daneel's mouth was a thin, thin line.
"Ya gonna be needing my help with anything," Chris offered in a way that was laced with suggestion.
Jensen looked at him quickly, "No... gonna spend my last days of a bachelor with J. I'll be fine. I think I'm done with that stuff."
Daneel looked at them curiously, but this was Vegas, you didn't make a big deal out of other people's secrets.
Jensen looked at his watch, "Gotta go clean up. Joanna's shopping for whatever it is she needs for the wedding. J and I are going to have lunch between his spa sessions."
Daneel stood behind the table and Chris collapsed on a stool.
"Is he kidding?" Daneel said, "How can he not realize that he hit madly in love with Jared like five years ago. If this doesn't work I'm joining a convent."
Chris looked horrified, "We cannot have that. How about when they get together you and I get together."
Daneel looked at him skeptically.
“Hey,” Chris said defensively, “I’m better than a convent.”
**
Jared was laying out the plans for Jensen’s wedding. Jensen was staring at his glass of lemonade.
“And the flowers should...” Jared was saying.
“What was that drink you liked in Italy,” Jensen said suddenly, “That one next to the museum that you nearly bit off the heads of the owners because they dared to put five hundred year old paintings in direct sunlight.”
Jared stopped. He was in full business mode. He didn’t want to go through this. He just wanted to be done with Jensen’s wedding. He just wanted to go through this on autopilot and walk away.
“Lemonchello?” Jared answered briskly.
Jensen looked up at him with a fond far away smile on his face, “That was a fun time. Lets go back to the resort and Italy and make up some kind of impromptu investigation.”
Jared swallowed because that had been one of a million best times with Jensen. Those lazy days where they had things to do, but the things that they had to do seemed to flow away and they just had time.
Jared had drank so much of the Lemonchello and had been in rare form. He had talked to everyone in the little café, and got them all to sing to Britney Spears through sheer charm and an unwillingness to accept no. Later that night they had been like two kids running through the little town on some mission that had only made sense to their drink addled minds.
He closed his eyes momentarily as he remembered that he had to lean on Jensen by the end of the night, partly due to the alcohol and mostly because he wanted to smell Jensen.
Later as he was throwing up in the toilet Jensen had been there and then had tucked him away into bed.
Jared looked up and shook his head, “I can’t do this boss.”
It was a hoarse whisper.
“Sure you can,” Jensen said with a lazy grin, “You make me all random and spur of the moment. Once after this wedding thing…”
“Jensen,” Jared said.
Jensen looked up because Jared never used his name.
Jared’s eyes were pleading and on the brink of tearing over.
Jensen’s mouth formed an ‘o’ and at that moment his heart constricted tightly.
Somehow they had avoided this conversation for seven years.
Jared shook his head and blinked too many times, “I can’t work for you any more, Mr. Ackles.”
Jensen put out a hand, as if Jared was going to disappear if he let go in the slightest.
“You’re leaving me?” Jensen said, his voice was so raw and confused.
Jared looked at the hand strangely, not understanding what was happening. Jensen was touching him. He looked up, totally and completely lost.
“Don’t leave me Jared,” Jensen said, his eyes begging, “Do you want the Hawaii resort? Somewhere in Europe? You can have any of them just don’t leave.”
And Jared gathered everything that he had, “I can’t. You’re getting married, you don’t need me anymore.”
Jensen dug his fingers into Jared’s arm, “Jared…”
Jared shook him off, “No Mr. Ackles. I can’t. I can’t plan your wedding. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
With that he got up and backed his chair into the table behind him. He didn’t notice because he was still looking into the stricken look in Jensen’s eyes.
He didn’t notice the waiter, the Pina Colada, the Cosmopolitan, and the Mudslide that all ended up mixed together among glass on the floor. He didn’t notice anything but the absolute pure need to escape.
With one last look back Jared ran.
**
Jared sat in the lobby with all his bags. He didn’t know where he was gong. He hadn’t planned for this. For years he had picked up at a moments notice and gone where ever he was needed to go.
And now he had nowhere that he needed to be.
Jensen had been the one steering the ship for so long he was a little lost as to what exactly he was supposed to do on his own.
Sophia and Sandy came up to him. They took one look at his broken face and sat down. Two impeccably sexily dressed women were sitting on either side of a guy who looked like he was attending his frat house’s alumni function.
“So it went well,” Sophia said, rubbing his back.
Jared was on the verge of tears.
Sandy took action, she stormed up to the front desk and after a few moments of brisk words she came back with a card.
“C’mon Jare,” she whispered sweetly, “You need a place to escape from all these people for a moment.
Jared was listless and followed Sandy and Sophia without complaint. He followed them up an elevator and down a hall and into a suite.
Jared looked around. It wasn’t a bad place, but he had seen hundreds of hotels, mostly Jensen’s hotels, all over the world and was desensitized to another foreign room.
Sandy pressed a card into his hand, “Its yours. For however long you want it. Its under my name, Jensen won’t be able to find you.”
Jared nodded and gave the weakest smile anyone had ever had given, “Its good to know the casino host.”
Sophia came and sat down on the bed, “You want to tell us about it?”
“Mr. Ackles wanted me to plan his wedding,” Jensen said tonelessly, “I quit. He offered me anywhere to stay. I knocked over a waiter and quite a few alcoholic beverages. I’m unemployed and smell like the floor of a club after hours. No biggie.”
His eyes were luminous.
Sophia and Sand put their heads on his shoulder.
“So you’re just leaving?” Sandy said, grabbing onto his arm.”
Jared nodded, “I should go home.”
“Where is home?” Sandy asked.
Seven years of constant moving gave Jared no idea. He had two apartments, one in New York and one in Dallas, but he probably couldn’t pick them out of a line up.
Home had been where ever he was. Home was where Jensen was.
Jared just stared at his hands.
“When is the last time that I gave you a birthday present?” Sophia said out of right field.
“Well that would be never,” Jared replied putting his arms around the girls.
Sophia popped up, “Then we must go shopping right fucking now.”
Jared shook his head, “I’m not really in the mood.”
“You might know this, being never actually breaking up with someone,” Sophia informed him, “However when you are dumped first you must shop and buy ridiculous things, then wear ridiculous things and go out.”
Jared pouted, “I’m not breaking up with him.”
Sandy put a hand on his arm, “Jared being dumb and totally oblivious is Jensen’s job. You’re so much more enlightened.”
Jared stared off into space, “Maybe this is something like being dumped. I thought that being dumped had something to do with eating lots of ice cream.”
Sophia grinned, “Honey, in Vegas things are a little different. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get married by the end of the night.”
“That is fabulous,” Jared muttered and let the tears slip out.
Sophia and Sandy put their arms around him.
“Maybe we’ll cry a little before shopping,” Sophia said softly.
And that is what happened.
**
Jensen was leaning back in a booth at one of the many restaurants, staring up at the mirrored ceiling.
As he had been doing for about four hours.
Chris slid in on one side of him and Steve slid in on the other.
“My friends,” Jensen slurred and motioned wildly for a waitress, “That is so very very vey very sad. My friends are paid people who like me because I pay them to be people.”
The drinks arrived and Chris looked at them skeptically, “You sure that you need those?”
“Yes,” Jensen said with a emphasis on the word, “I need drinks because I pay people to like me so if you don’t want to be around me you can quit to because you can because you are my paid people.”
Chris took a sip of his beer, “Jared quit?”
“Yes,” Jensen said hunching into his drink and sipping loudly from the straw, “I am a quittable person. People wake up one day and quit being my life.”
Chris just watched him and he didn’t have to say anything because Jensen was apparently a monolouging drunk.
“And you know what, no reason. NONE. Just in the middle they decide to go for no reason because Jared hates me for wanting to give him a life and he’s my best friend and I’m a sad sad sad person because my best friend I’ve paid to be my best friend and that means that he quits me.”
“Did you tell him he was a good friend,” Steve said gently.
Jensen jerked upright, “It is known.”
“Is it usually said,” Chris asked, “Sometimes things need to be said.”
“Fuck you” Jensen said curling around his glass again, “Put up or get off my crisis.”
Chris leaned back, “So you’re having a crisis now.”
Jensen was still leaned over, but he shook a finger in Chris’ face, “No, no, no, no, no.”
Chris watched the finger tick in front of his face and then he took the finger and placed it on the table.
“No what?” Chris asked.
“No, its not what you think,” Jensen pouted and then turned to Steve, “Not you either.”
“What do we think?” Steve asked slowly.
“I’m not stupid,” Jensen said curling around his glass again, “You’re stupid. Jared is stupid. Everything is stupid.”
That was hard to argue with.
Then Jensen sat up slowly and looked Chris in the eye, “I am not having a gay crisis.”
“No?” Chris asked raising an eyebrow.
“No, I’m not stupid,” Jensen said again, “Just because I am stupid about Jared and Jared is my best friend even though I have to pay him, he quit me.”
Which was even more of a challenge to argue with.
Jensen was silent and gloomy for a moment.
Chris and Steve looked at each other.
Then Jensen slowly sat up with the realization.
“Fucking hell in the hole,” he drawled out, “I’m having a hetero crisis.”
Steve and Chris looked at each other again.
Jensen squinted at them, “Did you know that I might possibly very well could want to be in feelings with Jared?”
“We might of guessed it,” Chris said dryly.
Jensen let out a long sigh, “Why don’t people tell me this. Why isn’t Jared telling me this. He’s a bastard.”
And just like that Jensen was hunched over his glass again. He mouthed the rim, “I hate the world. Nobody tells me anything.”
Steve sat up slowly and caught something out of the edge of his eye. Chris saw the look and looked over at the door.
Jensen for being piss ass drunk and painfully oblivious beyond belief noted their reaction and looked over at the door.
A sharp dressed man walked in. The man was tall, wearing a suit that fit him to the point of sin, he walked up to another man who could be almost a twin.
“Can you get them for me?” Jensen said staring for all the world at their shoes, “I need that, please. Please I just want to forget and that is a good thing to help me forget.”
“It’s not going to help your gay crisis,” Chris said pushing another drink at Jensen.
Jensen took the second glass and pulled them to his chest, “Fucking not having a gay crisis. I’m having a hetro crisis. I don’t want to be hetero. I don’t want to get married. I want that. I want…”
Chris finally thought that Jensen was going to finally reach that realization, he thought hat finally the truth was going to come out of Jensen’s lips and maybe permeate his consciousness.
“Jared,” Jensen said with a squinting of his eyes.
Chris looked over and saw Jared smiling weakly at a tall shaggy man in front of him. The gorgeously dressed man that Jensen had been lusting over, the one in the suit that hugged an absolutely perfect body was Jared.
Jensen had seen Jared dressed up a million times, but there was something about him at that moment. He was wearing a suit that Jensen hadn’t picked out, he was in a place that Jensen didn’t expect him. It was as if he were seeing something for the first time.
And seeing this for the first time while talking to another man was not right. Jensen knew that Jared liked and did guys, but the proof in front of his eyes was not something he welcomed.
Not because he was against Jared dating, he was changing his entire life so Jared could date, but right now he wasn’t going to stand for Jared with someone else.
The man had his hand on Jared’s arm and in the second that Chris looked away Jensen disappeared from between him and Steve. He just wiggled under the table like a four year old covered in butter.
A second later Jensen emerged from beneath the table and made a beeline for Jared.
“Shit,” Chris drawled sitting back, “That guy is slick.”
Jensen stalked his way over to the two men.
He grabbed the other guy and looked him in the face. Then he turned on Jared.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Jensen said, wavering a little, “You can’t. He’s hooker Jared. Don’t be with a hooker Jared.”
Jensen turned back to the man, “Sorry Charlie, no offense.”
Jared looked at the slightly disheveled Jensen who had a napkin on his shoulder, “You know him?”
Jared looked at the two men again, “And you know he’s a hooker.”
“Of course,” Jensen said glaring at Charlie, then back at Jared, “You can’t be with a hooker, you’re too good and smart and funny. You need love. You should be with someone who thinks that you’re the most awesome thing in the world because you are the most awesome thing in the world and don’t go home with him, you deserve better.”
Jensen turned back to Charlie, “No offense.”
Charlie looked as if he was taking great offense.
“You didn’t seem to mind it,” Charlie spat out, “You seemed to rather enjoy fucking me, your hand around my cock.”
Jared’s eyes doubled in size and his jaw dropped.
Jensen waved a hand dismissively, “I’m not amazing. Jared deserves better than your ass. He can’t afford your ass, he should find an ass that doesn’t cost him and that won’t bend over for cash. No offense.”
Charlie’s face turned positively black.
All the blood had drained from Jared’s face.
“You fuck guys?” he said weakly, feeling a little lost, “Since when do you fuck guys.”
“Five years,” Jensen said waving his hand, still looking at Charlie, “Jared needs a someone who wants kids and a picket fence and not someone who is a fucking whore, no offense.”
Charlie snorted, “So you suppose he deserves someone who pays people to sleep with them.”
“No,” Jensen said leaning into his face, “I pay Jared to be my friend. Not to sleep with me.”
Charlie smirked, “So Jared is kind of your whore?”
Jensen didn’t even telegraph anything, his fist just shot out and decked Charlie’s perfect face.
Chris and Steve jumped up and grabbed Charlie, Jensen didn’t even notice, he turned back to Jared.
Jensen opened his mouth, “I need you. I need you to take care of me and to be with me.”
“What will I do without you?” Jensen wondered out loud.
Jared glared at him, “Fuck hookers, pay people to be your friend, I thought I knew you and you just don’t care. You just care because I’m something that does something for you.”
Jared’s face dissolved and beyond their conversation Charlie was trying to attack Jensen again.
Jared held out his hands to his side, “Why didn’t you just fuck me Jensen. I would have. You were already paying me anyway, why not just give me a bonus. That is all that this is anyway isn’t it. Just you getting what you need with a little green.”
With that Jared pushed back against him and left.
Jensen looked up at the ceiling again, and totally missed Charlie’s fist coming at him until it was too late.
Jensen fell backwards against the bar and the stools.
He looked up and caught sight of Joanna standing indignant at the edge of the crowd.
Jensen just started laughing and laughing. He looked up at Joanna who had appeared out of nowhere, “We can’t get married tomorrow. Jared didn’t finish the plans.”
He started laughing again, “And oh yeah I’m having a hetro crisis and I think I might be in love with Jared who quit as my best friend and apparently thinks that I’m a dirty whore fucker who wants to buy his ass.”
Jensen kept laughing.
Joanna lunged towards Jensen. Jensen kept laughing.
Daneel appeared and dragged Joanna away kicking and screeching as Jensen laughed himself to tears.
It was a Tuesday night in Vegas, nothing to see here.
**
Jared sat on his bed, tears streaming down his face. He heard the door click and figured it was the girls, hopefully they were bearing ice-cream this time because the whole shopping and going out thing was a sucktastic idea.
When the door opened it were Steve and Chris, much to his surprise.
Steve pushed Chris. Chris sighed and put out his hands, “I owe you an apology.”
Jared’s eyebrows reached his forehead.
Steve hit him again.
“I might have actually hired that guy to hit on you,” Chris mumbled and at another of Steve’s pokes he continued, “And I might have hired that guy for Jensen when he came to me with his gay crisis five years ago.”
Jared looked crestfallen.
Steve poked again.
Chris hit at his hand, “Stop it already. You know this is what we don’t do. We don’t tell one client about another clients business, but if you and the girls are going to blackmail me into this I’m going to do it, but I am going to do it my fucking way. Now stop the poking.”
Jared scrunched up his nose in confusion.
Steve poked again for effect.
“Fine,” Chris growled and turned to Jared and spat out, “Jensen realized five years ago that he was ogling your ass and he was curious and then he didn’t want to hit on you because he didn’t want to be a dirt bag boss and then turn into some asshole who fucked him and that he didn’t like dick so he asked for me to find him someone to experiment on and he had all these specification that he wanted a guy who was ridiculously tall, incredibly hot, and he absolutely had to have dark shaggy hair.”
Chris looked pointedly at Jared’s shaggy hair, “Sound a little familiar. Sound a little like anyone you know. Sound a little like he was testing the waters.”
Jared looked as if had been smacked.
“So are you just generally implying that Jensen wanted someone like me?” Jared asked, almost sadly hopeful.
“YES!” Chris yelled, “Just for the love of all fucking Christ, I am blatantly saying that Jensen was testing out the big gay waters. Specifically he’s been fucking the not-you for five years.”
Jared looked lost and confused, “Then why didn’t he ever say anything.”
Chris huffed, “Because the fucking guy has balls that are recessing into his fucking spine.”
Jared did not look convinced.
Steve held up a disk, “Do you want proof.”
“I don’t know exactly what to say,” Jared said slowly, because as much as he wanted to see Jensen naked, he did not want to see another body with him.
Steve smiled and put the disk into the hotel room’s DVD player and the big screen TV lit up, showing a camera taping the casino floor.
Jared watched as a him wearing a cheap suit and very badly cut hair walked up to a Jensen who was basically ignoring him.
Jared slowly leaned forward, “That was the day that I came here for my interview.”
He remembered that.
“Hi I’m…” Jared said nervously.
Jensen held up his hand, “I’ll care after I ask questions. I’ve had five assistants in the last year. I’ve interviewed twenty-six people in the last three days. I didn’t find anyone and Sam back at the office is going to send people to where ever I am. So lets do this as quickly as possible then you can enjoy your free trip to Vegas and I can get back to being on a Vacation in a place that I don’t own.”
“Oh-kay,” Jared said hesitantly.
“So I’m going to ask you questions, you’re going to answer then and we’re going to realize that there is no way in hell that you would want this job or no way in hell that you would put up with a prick like me.”
“Do you like to travel?” Jensen fired as he turned back to the cards.
“This is the first time that I’ve been out of Texas,” Jared said looking down at his shoes.
“Fabulous,” Jensen said as the dealer took his money, “What experience do you have.”
Jensen held out his resume, Jensen ignored the resume, “First rule of being a personal assistant, you assist, just give me the highlights.”
“I’ve worked in a nursing home since I was sixteen,” Jared almost stuttered, “It was my first job and I did it for two years.”
Jensen groaned as he lost more money, “And…”
“A year of college?” Jared squeaked.
Jensen groaned as the dealer got blackjack.
“What are you like twenty kid?” Jensen asked.
“Nineteen,” Jared said feeling suddenly defensive.
“Fucking hell,” Jensen swore as he lost another hand, “Sam is scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
“Fuck you,” Jared said angrily, “Sir,” he added because his mother had raised him right, “I don’t need your pity and I don’t need this job. I mean I just need to get money for college, but I’m not going be treated like this and you need to double down.”
Jensen looked up at Jared as if he was finally seeing him, seeing a tall guy who was still a kid, but was standing up to him, on a job interview nonetheless.
Jensen smiled, a real smile that reached his eyes and made the lines around his eyes crinkle.
“Double down,” Jensen said, still staring at Jared, looking at him as if he were trying to see him.
“Dealer busts,” was said somewhere behind Jensen’s shoulder, but Jensen was still looking at Jared.
“I’m sorry if I came off like a prick,” Jensen said, “I am taking my two day vacation and Sam is sending people here and I’m sorry that I was an asshole. I’m usually very charming.”
“I’m sure,” Jared said with a glare.
“Do you have a passport with you?” Jensen asked.
“I was told to,” Jared replied hesitantly, “What does that..”
“I like you,” Jensen said, “I’m going to Barbados tomorrow to check up on one of my resorts there. What to come as kind of a trial personal assistant run? You know to see if you like me. I mean think of the worst thing that could happen. The plane ticket and the hotel room are yours. If you don’t like me after the first day you can have six more on vacation, no strings attached.”
Jared just stared at him.
Jensen smiled a little more, “I’ll throw in new clothes.”
“New clothes,” Jared said in a daze.
“Yeah on me,” Jensen said, “And you can keep those too, cause I’m pretty sure that anything that you pick out to fit you won’t fit me.”
“Why? Why would you do this?” Jared asked skeptically.
Jensen shrugged, “I’m not sure. You’re just…you are just interesting.”
Jensen leaned forward, “I’ll take a chance if you will. What is the worst that could happen.”
Jared looked at him confused, “What is this?”
“This is your life,” Chris said making a grand gesture.
Steve poked him again.
Chris groaned, “This is your life. This is the past seven years. This is eight hours and seven minutes of Jensen looking longingly for you, seeing you and breaking into a grin and then promptly staring at something else while grinning.”
Steve finally stepped forward, “I recorded times you were here. It’s every time that he’s seen you over the last seven years.”
“And I don’t think I could sit through it,” Chris interjected and tried to leave, but Steve held him fast.
“But the thing is you need to watch this,” Steve told him, “You need to see Jensen looking at you, for you every time. You need to know, before you decide you need to know that you’re always what he is looking for.”
“Why wouldn’t he say anything? Why is he marrying her? Why is it like this?”
Chris shrugged, “How am I supposed to know? Just watch the damned thing.”
Steve grabbed Chris’ arm, “Jared you know him better than anyone else. Why do you think that he didn’t tell you.”
Jared looked at the screen where Jensen was at a poker table. Jensen wasn’t paying a bit of attention to his cards, he kept looking at the door.
Then suddenly Jared appeared and the tense look on Jensen’s face split into a grin. Jared didn’t even know when this moment was. It could have been one of a million, but he watched the screen over and over as some guy with Jensen’s face waited for something and when Jared appeared that morose familiar stranger morphed into Jensen.
Jared’s Jensen. The one he knew.
Jensen never over extended himself. He never did something he couldn’t loose. He never did something that he hadn’t planned out.
And he had never planned on Jared.
“Oh,” Jared said, just watching.
**
“Housekeeping,” a far to chipper voice said.
Jensen prayed that the toilet would eat him up, but the toilet stayed passive under his cheek, the cold porcelain was the only comfort that he had in the world as his body was contorted and his head lay on the seat as it had for hours because he was in serious agony.
Sophia, Sandy, and Daneel all trouped into his rather lavish bathroom and looked at him on the toilet.
Jensen hated them.
A whole bunch of lots.
“G’way,” he muttered, hoping beyond hope that it would work.
“Whatcha doin’?” Daneel asked.
“Jared left me, my fiancé left me, now my internal organs are leaving me via my mouth,” Jensen muttered, “It’s awesome, please stay and watch.”
“How much of last night do you remember,” Sandy said, coming and putting a cool cloth on his neck.
Jensen turned and looked at her, as he was wearing an impressive shiner, “Every beautiful moment. Did you come for highlights? There was the official outing that I do dudes on the side. There was my official outing that I pay for sex. There was a lovely meeting of my ex-assistant to my hooker. Then the most wonderful moment where my hooker hit me for calling him a whore. If you are displeased with this retelling I am sure that most of the casino and my ex-fiancé saw it. I will never be president now and I have no friends and I would like to die so go away.”
“You talk a lot for a dying man,” Sophia commented.
Jensen closed his eyes and begged himself not to cry.
“Please go away,” he said quietly.
Sophia came and perched on the edge of the bathtub, Daneel sat on the counter and Sandy continued to rub the back of his neck with the washcloth.
“You told Chris that you weren’t an idiot last night,” Sandy said in her soft calming way, “Don’t turn into one now.”
“You’re a gambler,” Daneel pointed out, “Sometimes you’ve gotta take a chance.”
“I never gamble with anything that I can’t loose,” Jensen reminded them.
“You’ve lost sugar,” Sophia reminded him, “Its time to play a new game and sing a new tune.”
The girls moved and suddenly water and pills appeared.
“You really need to want to do this,” Sophia said both harshly and lovingly at the same time, “You actually are a idiot and you need to make us believe it before we set you loose on Jared.”
Jensen still was not all for lifting his head, but he took their balm to his stupidity.
“Never should have let him bring you cookies,” Jensen muttered, “You love him more and you know me longer.”
**
The whole disk did indeed take eight hours and seven minutes to watch. When it ended Jared was floored, Chris was asleep and Steve was reading a magazine.
When Jared moved to watch them again Chris huffed and walked out and Steve got a call that Jared barely noticed
He was watching the screen, because it was showing his life as he had lived it, but it was a whole new view.
It was the outsider perspective that he had never really seen.
Jared came to one singular conclusion.
Jensen was totally into him, missed him when he was gone and Jared didn’t know what to do with this information.
Jared’s mind raced as to what the hell that meant.
He was halfway through the DVD again when he heard the key card in the door. He turned, expecting Steve’s return.
Instead at the door stood Jensen. His hair was washed and he was wearing grey sweats and a white t-shirt. He looked a little worse for wear, but he also looked amazingly good. Jared just looked at him because this wasn’t his boss, this wasn’t his friend. This was a guy who he was allowed to look at.
Jensen swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck.
Then he looked up, his green eyes blinding. Jared couldn’t remember ever catching Jensen looking at him.
“Jensen,” Jared said, not moving from the bed, he just looked.
Jensen closed his eyes for a moment, his eyelashes brushing his cheek. Jared just looked at Jensen absorbed his name coming from Jared’s lips. Jared was just watching like a perv looking at an open window.
Jared wouldn’t look away.
Jensen’s eyes opened and he returned the look.
“Can I come in?” Jensen asked hesitantly.
Jared just nodded and slowly sat up as Jensen slipped into the room, holding a piece of paper.
Jensen fiddled with the paper and Jared just waited.
“I don’t need a personal assistant,” Jensen began in the middle of a conversation that only existed in his head.
Jared recoiled a little bit.
Jensen started pacing and not looking at Jared, “I mean when you came along my dad had died that year and Sam didn’t want me to go around the world by myself. Sam just wanted to make sure that I take care of myself and I wasn’t overwhelmed which is why I didn’t want anyone and why I really wanted you to come.”
Jared cracked his knuckles in a moment of silence because he just wanted to know where this one was gong.
Jensen looked back at him, “See the thing is that I made sure you had things to do. I gave you more responsibly than any personal assistant should have because I got used to you being there and I didn’t need you, but I’ve come to depend on you.”
He crumpled the paper in frustration and then held it up, “I was supposed to stick to the script, the girls made me write ‘101 Reasons Why I Love Jared Padalecki That Have Nothing To Do With Me.’ I only have about 67 because I think that they were getting sick of me and they figured that I was sober enough to come and actually talk to you.”
“You have a list?” Jared said, “That you want me?”
Jensen rubbed the back of his neck again.
“Besides,” Jensen interrupted, “I just want you to know that I don’t just want your ass and I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“You want my ass?” Jared asked, knowing that Jensen wasn’t probably going to respond to that one either.
“The thing is that I can take care of you too,” Jensen said lost to his pacing and completely oblivious to the amount of information that he was letting loose on an already overloaded Jared.
Jensen turned to him with a little faraway smile, “Remember that time that you got sick when we were in Argentina?”
Jared nodded slowly.
“See I can take care of you too,” Jensen told him, “I mean I didn’t make the soup but I ordered it and sat there and kept you cool and did all that stuff and watched you sleep and you didn’t die.”
Jensen looked at the list, “So maybe I’ll just read you the list, because this makes absolutely no sense. Number one…”
Jared got up quickly and pressed Jensen against the wall. Jensen looked up wide-eyed. Jared looked down at his lips and ghosted a thumb over those full plump lips. Without thinking about it he leaned down and that was all it took for the entire world to flip.
For all those things that they had hid from each other, for all those things that they thought were unattainable all that they had to do was reach in and press their lips together.
Jared moved his lips feeling Jensen’s lips for the first time. He knew what those lips looked like, what words sounded like over them, but feeling them, touching them was something like he had never experienced before.
They were soft and warm and parted in a gentle caress, it was a hello.
Jared held onto the back of Jensen’s head and feathered his hand through the short hairs at the back of Jensen’s neck, applying light pressure at his fingertips at the back of Jensen’s skull.
Jensen moved into Jared, his hands going around Jared’s waist, fingers snaking under his shirt, over the waistband of his jeans and finally over the sensitive skin on the inside of his hip.
Through Jensen’s parted lips his tongue darted out and traced Jared’ bottom lip.
Jared was on sensory overload, Jensen’s hands and his tongue and his lips were almost more than Jared could bear. He was instantly and almost totally hard and aching. It had been far too long since anyone had touched him. Now that it was Jensen it was as if seven years of pent up unrequited sexual tension.
Jared moaned low in the back of his throat.
Jensen smiled under Jared’s lips.
“I won’t be your sexual identity crisis,” Jared rasped out.
“I won’t be your sugar daddy,” Jensen said licking a swipe along Jared’s neck, nipping the soft skin there.
Jared pulled back and was smiling, grinning ear to ear. He looked at Jensen and then he searched Jensen’s eyes, looking for something.
He looked all the sudden very young and unsure.
Jared smiled.
That put everything back on kilter.
**
It was before noon and they all didn't have to be at work until five tonight, but they assembled outside of the door at eleven thirty.
Sandy was wringing her hands, "They haven't left. Jensen had all his stuff moved from his room to here."
Chris smirked, "They've been in there for two days. They've ordered room service for food twice and for 'personal items' three times."
"Personal items?" Daneel giggled, "They've put a huge dent in the condom and lube stash of the hotel."
Sophia raised her hand to knock on the door then she let it fall for a moment, "Do you guys ever feel as if we're in some weird Love Boat episode?"
Steve started laughing.
Chris just rolled his eyes and knocked on the door, "Housekeeping."
The door was opened after a little scrambling and there stood a partially dripping wet Jared Padalecki wearing nothing but a big fluffy white towel. For a second nothing moved except the droplets of water collecting on his dripping locks.
"Jared who is it?"
The voice came from the bedroom and Jensen appeared, wearing jeans and
nothing else. His hair still held the telltale trace of water.
Jared looked hesitantly back at Jensen. Jensen just leaned on the doorway from the bedroom and raised an eyebrow.
"We didn't order room service," Jensen said, trying to be stern.
"Jensen," Jared said in what was almost a whine, "They brought me food."
And Jensen was unable to contain a grin that totally and completely split his face. He tried to shake it off with a stern nod of his head, but it really wasn't going away.
"Put some pants on if you're going to entertain," Jensen said waving a hand to the bedroom.
Jared grinned at them, "Go sit I'll be right out."
The three women just watched them.
As Jared passed Jensen, their eyes never leaving the other, Jensen snaked out a hand and pulled Jared to him and gave him a kiss. When he pulled away Jared was a little dazed, he looked back at the newcomers to the room and then ducked his head. He was unable though to leave the room with out a glance back at Jensen.
Jensen just watched him go, smile on his lips.
"I think I'm going to fantasize about this moment forever," Sophia sighed.
The other two girls nodded in agreement.
"So Jensen," Steve said, pulling in one of two carts, "What is new?"
Chris smirked behind him, "Let me guess, you're not getting married tomorrow."
Jensen shrugged, "Not unless the laws in Nevada have changed radically."
Jared appeared bouncily into the room and plopped down on the couch, looking at the trays of food.
"I'm starving," he said and tore into the food.
"So you're dating your personal assistant," Daneel said coming to poke him, "How cliché."
"I am not dating my personal assistant," Jensen said haughtily.
Jared watched him through hooded eyes, "He's dating a college student."
“Wow Jensen, that seems a little cliché also,” Sophia smiled.
“We’re still working somethings out,” Jensen said moving to sit possessively next to Jared, “But J is going back to school and I’m going to not travel as much.”
“Except maybe to Vegas every once in awhile,” Jared said, his mouth full.
Chris smiled, “Everything happens in Vegas.”
Jensen’s eyes crinkled and he looked at Jared, “Yeah.”
**
Jeff looked at the screen.
Jensen and Jared were checking out.
They seemed to be totally and completely unable to keep their hands and their eyes off of each other.
He smiled.
Chris came up behind him.
“All good?” Jeff asked, behind his smile.
“Everything is how it should be,” Chris replied watching Jensen and Jared make out, “Nauseatingly so.”
Jeff smiled, “It all happens here son. This is the land of possibility.”
“Indeed,” Chris replied.