and at last I see the light
Title: Disney'd (1/3)
Author: veterization
Disclaimer: I do not own these people.
Rating: NC-17
Warning: N/A
Genre and/or Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Word Count: ~19,000
Summary: Jared kisses Jensen while watching Tangled. Jensen proceeds to be haunted by Disney.
Notes: I love this story simply because it inspired me to dig out out Disney classics and watch them all over again. It also reminded me why I love writing. I hope you get as much joy out of it as I did.
"All dreams are fulfillments of wishes." --Sigmund Freud
"Even miracles take a little time." --Fairy Godmother, Cinderella
Jensen swears this was not his idea or his DVD.
He wasn't even aware that Jared had a Disney movie collection so enormous until he had taken the time to browse through his DVD rack while Jared heated up leftover pizza and procured chilled beers, ranging from a 1937 version of Snow White to Tangled. Jensen snorts around his beer and waves the disk in Jared's direction.
"Jared, are you kidding me?"
Jared peers over from where's he's pinning a handful of napkins in between his teeth and carrying over a greasy pizza box that's balancing his own opened beer threatening to slosh over the slices of cheesy leftover pizza slices and douse their dinner plans in alcohol. He catches sight of the film in Jensen's hand, grins around the napkins, and sets down the pizza box on the coffee table.
"That movie's adorable, man, how could you not have seen it?" Jared asks around a mouthful of pepperoni, and Jensen reassesses the DVD. The cover's sporting the animated figures of a beautiful blonde woman with her hair running amok over the DVD alongside a studly man similarly enveloped in the woman's blond curls winking coquettishly. It's full of vivid colors and grass so lush and green it ceases to be realistic, a movie meant to be watched by young girls braiding their hair and cooing over Disney romance while gossiping with their friends over eligible junior high athletes. Jensen looks over at Jared, beer in one hand and pizza slipping from his other hand, and realizes that Jared gets away with owning movies like this because he happens to be graced with the epitome of manliness everywhere a body and mind can be graced with such traces, from burly muscles to a thick Texan accent that crawls out unannounced when Jared's boneless and exhausted after an endless day of shooting.
"Should I grab my sleepover stuff and my hairbrushes?" Jensen asks, reading the chipper blurb from the back of the DVD. Jared stuffs the last of his pizza slice into his mouth and nudges Jensen's shoulder into the DVD player with his foot.
"Put it in!" Jared says, "Real men watch Disney movies."
Jensen gives one last critical look to the cover before slipping the disk into the player and settling into the couch cushion by Jared. He's seen his fair share of Disney movies in his teenage years when Mac would watch The Little Mermaid on repeat and he would catch every word through the wall separating their rooms until he had the ability to recite and sing along to all of the tracks from the movie as well as his little sister.
Jared wrangles the remote out from in between the cushions and presses play. Jensen looks over at Jared's face, chasing a string of cheese connecting his mouth to the next slice of pizza with his teeth and eyes alight when the telltale Disney logo shines on the screen, and dully realizes that living with Jared is like living with a Disney character in the first place. His personality is vibrant enough to bounce out of television screens and his morale is unbreakable. If he can handle overwhelming hourly doses of Jared Padalecki, he can handle two hours of disgustingly sweet romance and syrupy singing.
Jensen shakes his head, snorts into his beer, and grabs a slice of pizza.
O O O O O
The pizza, a bit too oily and chewy after a spin in the microwave for thirty seconds, is gone with nothing but a gargantuan grease stain and bits of crisp, fallen pepperoni marring the box when Rapunzel and Flynn Rider are gallivanting through the city and preparing the boat to watch the lanterns. So far, the singing has been on key and the plot hasn't caused Jensen to throw his shoe at the television to punish it for its unbearable explosion of sugary sweetness. He's even laughed at a few bits of dialogue and found his foot swaying along to the thugs' rendition of I've Got a Dream, which earned him a hefty chuckle from Jared that lasted well until the end of the song.
On the screen, the lanterns begin floating into the sky and bobbing amid the boat, and when a mellow, soft tune picks up, Jensen knows he's in for the romantic moment. Mandy Moore's voice starts singing I See the Light as Rapunzel smiles and plays with the lanterns to send them gently sailing with the breeze while Flynn watches her endearing antics with a smile mirroring hers. The song is admittedly adorable, and when Jensen looks over, he finds that Jared's eyes are a little misty.
"Jared," he whispers, and Jared jumps when he realizes his watery eyes are busted and fixedly addresses the television, "Are you going to be able to handle the rest of the movie?"
Jensen gets smacked over the chest with a greasy palm for his mockery and grabs another beer that Jared promptly steals from his fingers as Rapunzel and Flynn nearly kiss among their sea of lanterns.
O O O O O
Jensen is on his fifth beer by the time Rapunzel is making the realization that Mother Gothel is an evil, diabolical villain with no biological attachment to her as Flynn dashes to Rapunzel's aid to her isolated tower on his noble horse. Jared is surrounded with a similar littering of empty bottles, one lolling sadly around his ankles. Neither of them bothered to peel themselves off the couch in order to flick on a light to soothe their eyelids, bathing both of them only in the illumination of the television. In their slightly hazy buzz of beer that would make itself apparent the moment they would try to balance themselves on their drunken feet upon standing up from the sofa, the deficit of light only creates a soothing glow from the television that doesn't hurt their retinas.
"You are so Flynn Rider," Jensen slurs, squinting at Jared through the dim light, "You really are. You have the same hair."
Jared rakes a hand through his unruly hair until it flops into his face like a ragged curtain. He shakes his head and blows up at his bangs until they're haphazardly blown from his line of vision. He grins at Jensen in a crooked, tipsy beam that tugs up at the left corner of his lips lopsidedly. Jensen blinks and reaches out to poke at the dip of Jared's dimple.
"But I don't own a horse."
"You could own a horse."
Jared pauses, as if considering Jensen's statement while Flynn jumps from his horse and urgently climbs Rapunzel's tower, and weighs his options of the pros and cons of owning an animal that needs a stable and daily oats under the compromise that he gets to gallop through fields and save damsels in distress on his studly horse.
"I could own a horse," he confirms with a slow nod that showcases just how much thought Jared is superfluously putting into this hypothetical situation, eliciting a snort from Jensen that comes out more like a slurred garble of a inebriated chuckle, "Now shut up for the good part."
O O O O O
Jensen doesn't know how they went through multiple cases of beer when their last grocery run only resulted in them agreeing that one pack would be adequate for the weekend, but as the credits swim languorously in front of his eyes, he realizes that by now, they certainly have no more alcohol left in the house. Drinking beer while watching a Disney movie is oddly gratifying and makes the thought of watching a corny romantic children's movie much more tolerable, and now as Jensen tries to push himself from the cushions and musters up no coordination or strength necessary to complete such a task, he wishes he had consumed a few bottles less.
"Goddamn great movie," he slurs instead, slumping onto the sofa and letting his chin rest on his chest.
"Told you," Jared says, voice honeyed and thick with the undercurrent of his sleepy Texan accent. It only makes itself apparent when he's sluggish from sleep or tipsy from too many shots, which, as Jensen looks over and spots Jared's eyelids resting at half mast and foggy with a film of incoherency that can only be attributed to a lack of awareness that works alongside with the effects of liquor, realizes has definitely victimized his friend.
"You're drunk, dude," Jensen says, and feels the need to poke Jared in the dimples itch at him once more. He indulges in himself and pokes. Jared giggles like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and suddenly, Jensen feels like he's sixteen again and watching Beauty and the Beast with his sister, pulse fluttering against his collarbone when he sees a sliver of forbidden skin ride up a boy's chest in the locker room.
"You're Rapunzel," Jared says, swatting at Jensen's prodding finger, turning on his side to stare at Jensen's face, eyes suddenly wide and awed. The gentle light from the television licks up the left hemisphere of Jared's face, outlining the strong curve of his jaw and the shape of his cheekbones to leave apples of luminescence on the patches of his cheeks that protrude when he smiles, tongue pinned in between his teeth. His eyes are very green, speckled with mollifying yellows and hazels that shine in the darkling light that stretches gray past the midnight horizon.
"I'm Rapunzel?" Jensen parrots, looking over at Jared.
"Yeah. But you'll have to grow out your hair before I can climb it," Jared leans over to tug on Jensen's hair, fingers knotting into his short strands and pulling with surprising strength for someone with a habit to get clumsy when inebriated, a trait Jensen only learned of with experience and the history of many broken objects.
"Get offa me, grabby hands," Jensen wrangles himself free from Jared's merciless yanks, petting at his hair before Jared slides his fingers into the bristles at the nape of his neck, this time gently and slowly to soothe the pain. "I thought you were Flynn."
"I am, and you're Rapunzel," Jared says, hands still in Jensen's hair. They feel like warm patches of soft heat, like trickles of a shower's hot spray after a tightly strung day wearing on Jensen's muscles, and when his fingertips start massaging and rubbing at Jensen's scalp, he tries not to whimper and loll into his touch.
"Why am I a girl?"
"Ask yourself that, Ackles," Jared murmurs on a chortle, fisting his knuckles in Jensen's hair once more and scooting imperceptibly closer. Their feet are tangled at the ankles, something that must have occurred when Jared was singing along to Something I Want near the finale of the movie, and suddenly the feel of Jared's legs pressed into his own feels too hot, like a burning flame licking up his thighs. "You're Rapunzel." Jared repeats, and leans in to kiss him.
Jensen very eloquently responds with a muffled cry of protest that is stifled on the pressure of Jared's lips. Jared's lips. They're fused on his own, except they're not dead center and Jared's nose is jammed into his own, and the longer the kiss continues for, the more Jensen smells the overwhelming odor of beer and bad decisions. He stares at Jared's closed eyes as Jared's free hand slaps onto his cheek in what was clearly meant to be a gentle stroke, instead managing to sting his cheekbones. Jensen's frozen to his core and finding his reaction time to be severely lacking in reflexive swiftness as the kiss continues like the slow crumbling of a building landing directly on his skull and he sits, unresponsive, to all of it, as if suddenly catatonic as his inebriated brain rapidly tries to sort through his shouts and make sense of the fact that this best friend's mouth is on his own. And then, suddenly, Jared's tongue laps over Jensen's chin, catching the rough bristles of his evening stubble, and with his attempt to deepen the kiss stomped into the ground, reality snaps back into place like glass hitting the floor and shattering into broken shards. Jared jerks back.
Jared's saliva is drying on his jaw and his lips are tingling with the phantom sensation of insistent lips rubbing against his own. He looks at Jared, officially drained of a vocabulary that would be adequate in a situation so incredibly cumbersome it's almost like there's a gun digging into his ribcage, and watches Jared's incredulous expression with an equally speechless countenance.
"Fuck," Jared whispers, eyes even greener than before, and promptly twists off sofa, knocking their intermingled ankles together and vomiting gracefully on the rug.
This, Jensen thinks, is not what is supposed to happen after watching Disney movies.
Jared slurs curse words into his puddle of bubbling stomach acid and rancid chunks of pizza soaking into the carpet. The foul stench of digested dinner regurgitated over the floor assaults Jensen's nostrils, and when Jared finds the sober, dormant part of himself that harbors enough balance to pick himself off the floor and send himself careening into the bathroom to finish the emptying of the trembling beer pool of his stomach into the toilet, Jensen catches sight of his sick-slicked lips shining with saliva and bits of processed pepperoni and remembers that a mere moment ago, those lips were puckered against his own.
Jensen listens to the sound of Jared noisily retching in the bathroom and feels his own stomach begin to gurgle as the sick threatens to climb up his throat as well.
O O O O O
The next morning, is, without fail, incredibly awkward. Jensen wakes up, blinks vestiges of drunken sleep from his eyes as he pries his eyelids open to face the harsh morning light, swallows down the construction site drilling through his mind on a dry tongue, and is flooded with memories of sleek, animated blond hair, Jared's wet mouth, and a puddle of lumpy vomit bubbling by the couch as Jared's head of unruly hair deposited digested pizza onto the floor as it spilled from his throat.
Well, Jensen thinks, hand shielding his burning retinas from the relentless sunlight, shit.
Peeling himself out of bed and finding the center of his balance on his feet is a feat that pales in comparison to the cumbersome walk down to the stairs to the kitchen. Jared is sitting hunched on the kitchen counter, face buried in a coffee mug large enough to shield his entire face from the world as the epitome of the remorseful morning after picture.
"Morning," Jensen grits out. He doesn't exactly want to start conversation, partly because his throat is like sandpaper and partly because he knows that a discussion with Jared will inevitably lead to a cumbersome moment of dancing around words while one of them tries to awkwardly address last night's events and either take the blame, apologize, or dismiss the entire evening with a few uncomfortable albeit manly claps on the back to confirm the fact that their friendship still stands despite last night's disturbing encounter.
"Mornin'," Jared replies, tracing the rim of his coffee cup with his thumb. His eyes flit over to Jensen and return to the cup. As a man who isn't afraid to overuse eye contact, Jensen is slightly concerned. He feels like he should be reassuring Jared that everything's all right even if Jensen's stomach is still churning with unshed vomit at the memory of last night.
"Uh," Jensen starts, reaching for his own mug from the dish rack and pouring in the remainder of the tepid pot of coffee, "How's your head?"
"Took some painkillers," Jared says. He catches Jensen's eyes again, nothing but a mere a quick and awkward glance, and sighs as he sets his cup down. "About last night-"
"Forget about it," Jensen dismisses as swiftly as he can without seeming touchy about the subject. He swirls around his coffee cup. He's managed to catch the dredges at the bottom of the pot, now floating as muddy globs in the midst of his fluid caffeine.
"Um. I mean. Maybe I should explain-"
"It didn't mean anything, so it's fine," Jensen tells him. He dumps the coffee in the sink without a single taste and deems the morning to be the precursor to an inevitably doomed day of awkward encounters and inedible food.
"Jensen?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
Jensen stares at his grounds of coffee clumping in the sink disposal and looks back at Jared's concerned face. He's worried, which makes the situation that much worse for Jensen to endure, mostly because Jared is the one person who can't fix it but rather seems to be the original cause of the whole debacle.
"I'm fine. Just need some breakfast in me to get rid of this goddamn headache." Jensen rubs at his temples and catches sight of a collection of beer bottles still strewn about the living room floor. Jared's vomit, he's glad to see, has been removed from the floor, whether it was the work of Jared's dogs finding it digestible in the middle of the night or Jared's hasty attempt to remove any evidence that might remind either of them of their beer-hazed kiss, Jensen doesn't even want to know. He sets his soiled mug back into the dishwasher and spends the entire afternoon holed up in his room reading over next week's script and trying valiantly to use it as a distraction.
Instead of distracting him, Jensen falls asleep with crinkled papers in his left hand, half-eaten sandwich in his right hand, and his head cocooned against his pillow right when Jared's calling him downstairs for dinner.
O O O O O
When Jensen awakens, it's to the gentle tune of Arabian music softly playing and the smell of rice tickling his nose. Oddly enough, the scent is warm and tasty, unlike what odorous stinks usually assault Jensen's nose when he's subject to Jared's cooking. He shifts on his bed and realizes that he's not on a bed at all, but rather a plush blue couch adorned with a silky satin throw, and then, that there is a tiger lounging gracefully three feet away.
Jensen's first instinct is to scream, scream for Jared to take this animal back to the zoo or to take poor Harley out of the embarrassing costume, but before he can manage to vocalize such urgent pleas, the tiger yawns, showcasing an even set of sharp teeth, and blinks up at him in warm brown eyes.
Jensen tries to find purchase on the sofa armrest, hands digging into soft, velvety cushions. That's not right either. His couch is lumpy and still smells vaguely of cheese from when Jared's botched fondue attempt spilled into the crevices of the couch and turned into an all night cleaning session complete with the steamer Jensen's mother took the liberty to send to him a few months earlier. This sofa is plush, soft, smooth when he runs his fingers over the upholstery.
"JARED!" Jensen bellows, snapping his eyes shut and refusing to take in more of these bizarre, psychedelic oddities that are surrounding him. He wonders, briefly, if he's still drunk, still asleep, or someone felt permitted to spike his dinner with a cocktail of illegal drugs that now have him seeing tigers.
Jared does not come to the rescue. Instead, the tiger shuffles forward. A giant paw comes out of nowhere and lands gingerly on Jensen's thigh. The tiger's claws are long and sharp, but the pads of his paw are tender and soft on Jensen's pants. He looks at the tiger incredulously and finds an expression of mollifying consolidation etched over its furry features. It whines.
It's then when Jensen realizes that he's wearing a baggy pair of satin, light blue pants that are so exotic and silky he's positive they did not originate in his closet. His vest, an equal shade of chipper blue, covers little of his chest and caresses his torso in a way only the finest of silk could manage.
He looks up from his glamorous pants and realizes that aside from the comforting smell of spicy rice, the tiger, the pants, and the couch, he also appears to be in an entirely different house. He fell asleep on the bedraggled mess of his sheets he hadn't bothered to tidy in the morning, stomach whining with the upset of too much snacking before bed, and he by no means remembers sleep walking to Agrabah in the meantime.
Agrabah, Jensen thinks faintly. His memory is sparked with the sounds of Robin Williams' colorful voice wafting through the wall separating his and his sister's room and Mackenzie going through a brief phase in which she begged their parents to plan a vacation including an Arabian street market. He looks around the room, walls layered with elegant green curtains, the tables wrapped in golden tablecloths that hum around the floor, intricate rugs tickling Jensen's feet on the floor, and a shimmering curtain billowing gently with the warm nighttime breeze.
"Oh my god," Jensen says feebly, brain wobbling as if floating along as a buoy in the ocean and getting vaguely seasick in response, "This is Aladdin."
"Prince Jensen!" A voice calls, wafting through the fluttering curtain, and Jensen peers through the shimmery material as his eyes fall upon the blurry outline of a tall, male figure climbing up the balcony.
"I'm Jasmine," Jensen repeats, and the tiger whines once more in support.
"Prince Jensen!" The voice calls again, and Jensen feels the need to send away the disturbance that only continues to add to the eccentric freakishness that is this entire evening. He pushes himself from the couch, steps a large circle around the tiger rubbing against the carpet, and sticks his head out the glossy curtains leading to the patio.
"Oh god," Jensen bemoans, and tries not to pitch himself off the patio.
This is all so very wrong, so far from reality that Jensen aches to return to his normal life where he isn't a Disney character living his life as Arabian royalty. And if he's Jasmine, then Jared's-
"It's me, Prince Jared Padalecki!" Jared announces from atop the railing, jumping to the patio with a flourish. He's wearing an ivory turban, for goodness sake's, adorned with a skinny feather and shimmery jewels. He looks lanky and out of place in his billowing pants and garish headpiece, and that's when Jensen remembers that in the movie, Prince Ali was nothing more than a street rat hoping to seduce the elegant Princess Jasmine.
"Oh god, go away," Jensen whines, and shuts the curtains. They do little to distance him from Jared, who through the translucent drapes, looks crestfallen.
"No, no, please, Prince! Please listen to me!"
Jensen's dependable tiger prowls to its feet and crawls under the hem of the curtain to deliver a few throaty growls that sound eerily similar to Chris' voice after a concert of rigorous singing for an eager crowd. He watches as the tiger stalks toward Jared with rippling shoulders that do an adequate job of intimidating the man and sending him scrambling up the patio rail once more. He yanks his turban from his head and waves it over the tiger's head like he's offering fresh slabs of meat. It's oddly endearing, and Jensen finds himself watching him with chuckles itching at his throat that always threaten to spill from his throat whenever Jared does something particularly rib-tickling or rolls around on the floor with his dogs like a fellow canine.
"See? I'm not just a prince," Jared says, acutely aware of the laughter tickling Jensen's tongue, who promptly rolls his lips into his mouth, "I'm funny, too."
The tiger sends him a cynical look. It's surreal. Jensen's been to the zoo, and the most complex expression any animals have ever displayed in front of gawking humans has been utter indifference. This tiger is apparently the exception. Jensen takes it all in stride with the rest of the bizarre encounters currently thoroughly teasing his brain.
"Are you trying to woo me?" Jensen realizes, and Jared colors pink. It's adorable how desperately he's attempting to be a charming prince that fits the bill of being both suave with his attitude, graceful with his movements, and sophisticated with his charisma. Jared does fine on his own with his energetic laughter and toothy grin without moonlighting as a prince.
"Why, is it working?" Jared says, grinning and leaning on the railing. The turban slides down his forehead and threatens to slip over his eyes. When Jensen chortles at his lack of eloquence, Jared's face falls. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be trying to woo you like you're some prize to be won. I'll… I'll go."
Jensen doesn't remember exactly what happens in Aladdin with the exception that there was a genie and a triumphant ending complete with sugary romance, but he's almost positive the original script never involved suicide, which is what he's currently witnessing as Jared crawls on top of the railing and takes a dramatic leap forward.
"Jared!" Jensen shouts, and rushes forward to the railing with his tiger in tow. He takes a deep breath, clenches his fists around the railing in desperate hope that he isn't going to find a bloody mass of Jared's mangled limbs pooling on the ground below, confirming that Jensen actually can ruin a Disney classic with his pessimism, and peers over the edge.
His heart slides back out of his throat when he sees Jared sitting innocently on a carpet bobbing along the air as if kept there by an invisible force capable of defying gravity. The carpet glides up smoothly to brush against the tip of the railing. That's when Jensen's memory clicks into place and once more supplies him with recollections of the magic carpet that is the precursor to a moonlit ride through the sky examining shimmering constellations, and then, vocalizing all of their thoughts of the dazzling stars and velvety expanse of the sky through a song.
Jared navigates the carpet to glide over the patio. It's intricate, soft under Jensen's fingers when he reaches out to stroke the tassels hanging from the corners, and above all, undoubtedly magical. Jensen blinks hard. When he opens his eyes, there's still a carpet swaying gently in front of him, Jared crawling forward to scoot closer to Jensen.
"It's a magic carpet," he whispers, as if sharing a secret, "You don't want to go on a ride, do you? We could get away from the palace? See the world?"
"This can't be real," Jensen protests adamantly, still stroking the carpet. He works daily on the set of a show revolving around paranormal occurrences and supernatural activity, but never before has evidence confirming the existence of the supernatural in reality sprung up under his nose like this before.
Then he remembers he's in a Disney movie trapped as Princess Jasmine, looks down at his billowing blue pants, and back up to Jared's expectant smile.
"Do you trust me?" Jared asks, extending a broad hand. Jensen's heart swells. Even in an alternate universe such as the bizarre world of Aladdin, Jensen still feels like he's looking at his gawky best friend. After a few years of learning how to read each other's every emotion, spending every waking minute running lines, drinking beer, and filming the show, and intuitively being aware of one another's thought process, Jensen trusts him fiercely. He looks at Jared's outstretched hand and his broad grin.
"Yes," Jensen says, and it feels like a death wish coming out of his mouth. He grabs Jared's hand, clambers onto the carpet, and almost instantly, feels it soar into the sky so swiftly he almost topples backward, Jared's strong arm winding around his waist keeping him steady as they ascend into the sky. A soft wind combs through Jensen's hair as stars seem to barely graze him by and underneath him, the lights and round domes of the roofs and city below him are almost startling to see when he's not lodged in a plane to Vancouver at the window seat feeling groggy and feebly ill with Jared playing Tetris in the seat next to him.
A warm mouth presses gently into the curve of his ear as the strong hand firmly wrapped around his waist squeezes his hip and tucks Jensen into the curve of his side, "I can show you the world," Jared whispers, voice gentle and honeyed as he murmurs in Jensen's ear, "Shining, shimmering, splendid."
A gentle shiver courses through Jensen's bones as Jared sings into his ear, soft and slow, and as he stares down at the lakes and towns they're soaring over, he starts to understand why Disney princesses are always so love struck after performing ballads with their princes. A soft thumb brushes over his chin until Jensen turns to face the origin of the caress and finds Jared smiling fondly, less than an inch and two seconds away from his face, while he shrinks the distance separating them down to nothing.
Jensen sucks in a shaky breath moments before Jared's lips, soft, ginger, and tasting of curry rice and Arabian spices, press against his own.
Then Jensen's thighs are warm and wet, and that's when he wakes up to the feel of sticky, come-slicked sheets sliding against his legs while he drools into the pillow.
A dream, Jensen thinks breathlessly, shifting his thighs and grimacing at the feel of rapidly cooling come beginning to crust on his thighs as he throws off the covers, dries his thighs, and promptly deposits his soiled sheets into the washing machine to cleanse off the memories of his Disney nightmare with a quick spin of three a.m. laundry.
O O O O O
It's long after his washing cycle is done ridding his bedspread of evidence of his horrifying dream when Jensen allows himself to fall asleep again on his bed, sans the sheets, for another few restless hours of slumber before morning awakens him. He hangs his sheets up on his shower rod to dry while he sleeps atop his bare mattress until a few invasive rays of sunlight filtering through his window wakes him up from his thankfully dreamless second slumber. He rubs the sleep from his eyes, checks to reassure himself that he's woken up in his own house far away from magical cities of Agrabah, and stumbles into the bathroom only to find Jared, towel slung low over his damp hips and turban curved atop his head.
"Oh god," Jensen says, "Is that a-"
Jared's head snaps up, strands of hair peeking out from underneath a towel twisted shapelessly around his wet mop of hair. Jensen is immensely glad to see that it isn't a turban. He exhales in relief at the fact that he's still lodged in a safe reality where there are no magic carpets or romantic rendezvous. He then rapidly makes the realization that he's in a bathroom with Jared while he's bare in nothing but a towel held up by his hipbones, canal of his chest damp and forehead dripping with cool beads sliding down from his hair. It's like something out of a pornography Misha might send him for giggles.
"Jensen," Jared says, hand fisting around his towel to assure it won't be slipping from his hips and causing more mayhem than what already exists. Jensen already knows what it's like to have his best friend's tongue lick over his face; he's almost positive that if he were to catch a glimpse of Jared's favorite body part he might be inclined to resort to suicide. "Do you need something?"
"Didn't hear the water run," Jensen says, trying hard to stare at anything that isn't Jared's defined abdomen muscles or toned calves. He stares at his hair towel. It still looks like a turban. "Didn't know you were in here. Showering."
"Oh. You okay?" Jared asks. He takes a step closer to Jensen and Jensen almost trips over his feet taking a sizable step back. He tells himself to get a grip. He's a grown man who's not afraid of cooties anymore, and kiss or no kiss, Jared is still his best friend who Jensen has seen plenty of times scantily clad on accident simply because those incidents occur after living in each other's pocket for a few years. Jensen tries not to think about the magic carpet ride where Jared hooked their fingers together and sang in his ear. Jensen tells himself that were any of that real, Jared's horrendous singing would have ruined the moment before it would have had any opportunity to make Jensen swoon.
"Yeah," Jensen says, and reaches for the door handle, "I should go."
"Jensen, wait," Jared says, reaching out with his occupied hand and almost resulting in a dangerous slip of his towel, "Maybe we should talk about-"
Jensen worms out of the bathroom and slams the door shut. "Sorry!" he calls through the door. "We can talk later!"
When I can't see the bulge of Satan's shovel through your towel, Jensen adds mentally, and runs downstairs so fast he almost trips gracelessly down the stairs. He grabs his coat, his keys, and doesn't bother to put on pants he didn't sleep in before he drives to the nearest Waffle House and stays there digesting breakfast all the way until lunch.
At night, he steers clear of the greasy snack foods, avoids the tempting bowl of chips sitting on the coffee table, and doesn't let himself watch any questionable television before he goes to bed. He snuggles into his sheets, presses his face into the pillow, and tries very hard to focus solely on innocuous and banal thoughts like how long filming will take on Monday and how he plans on eating pancakes tomorrow for breakfast.
It takes him three hours and twenty-seven minutes to finally persuade his mind into sleeping, and by then it's an uneasy slumber at best, full of distant singing playing on repeat through his mind like a scratchy record.
O O O O O
When Jensen wakes up, his first assumption is that he's overslept horribly. His hair feels like it hasn't been washed in weeks, his jaw rough with unshaven stubbles, and he isn't overhearing the routine sounds of the morning of Jared the clinking and clanking with the dishes as he attempts to create breakfast.
Jensen opens his eyes. This, he realizes, is not reality.
He's sitting, crouched in warrior position, on a rock perched between a collection of unkempt bushes and a lake gently misted by a waterfall pitter-pattering into the pond underneath it. It's the middle of uncultivated nature, free of the destructive imprint of man, and that's when Jensen realizes that something is wrong.
Through the mist of the waterfall, a figure clutching a weapon in the form of a clunky gun blends into the bushes on the opposite side of the stream, eclipsed by the dim light of the dusk settling over the land. There's a disturbance amid the beauty, human interference among the native plants and trees surviving for centuries among the earthy soil and untouched waters, and Jensen feels the strong urge to protect his habitat course through his veins. A gentle rustle of greenery startles him and has him reflexively reaching for the leather pocket of handmade arrows slung over his bank. Jensen takes a moment to rewind.
His hands search down the length of his spine until the sharp point of a freshly made arrow pokes him in the palm. He hisses and draws his hand back, eyes peering over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the peaks of three crudely crafted arrowheads sticking out from the pouch resting against his backside.
That's when he notices his hair. It's longer than usual, curling by his ear, kissed by the sun into a lighter hue than normal, scraggly and matted when Jensen rubs it in between his forefinger and thumb. His hands are rougher, calloused on the palms and crusted with dirt and blood at the knuckles. On his forearm, a dark brown tattoo curls around his arm. It furls around his flesh in soft, natural curls that resemble the rush of an ocean's waves, and when Jensen examines it, it looks vaguely synonymous with a trademark pattern gangs might use to differentiate themselves from neighboring cults.
Past the stream, the foliage rustles once again. Jensen perks up. His perplexity at his new caveman-esque lifestyle is momentarily forgotten as his human impulses take charge and overwhelms his need to decipher the meaning of his dream. His legs don't let him stop and ruminate, however, propelling him past the stream as he dexterously dances past the rush of the stream, leaping from protruding rocks to halcyon jets of water caressing his muddy feet, overused and bruised at the sole. He crosses the river, pulse pounding against the vein of his neck as he follows the lengthy footprints of his land's intruder, as if tracking a criminal or locating a trespasser.
Jensen peers between the stalks of a verdant plant growing in the middle of the path. In between his ankles, a raccoon slinks alongside Jensen's footsteps, tail dripping from where it dipped into the stream when it followed Jensen. It reminds Jensen of his tiger accomplice, a loyal sidekick following him through an adventure, and Jensen can't bring himself to shut his eyes, count to ten, and run away from the potentially aggressive animal like a frightened piece of prey.
A drive much stronger than his internal fear encourages him to follow the muddy footprints in the path, eyes zipping along the impressions of shoes as his feet carry him faster, closer to the prowler of Jensen's territory, when suddenly, a tree overhead shakes and a six foot tall man comes leaping from the lowest branch into Jensen's way.
Jensen's first impulse is to scream. He can feel the scared little girl running in frantic circles inside his ribcage, but despite the jolt of fright that alarms Jensen's body, he holds his ground and doesn't allow his mouth to utter a sound, even upon the dreadful realization that he's staring down the barrel of a gun brushing the tip of his nose. A pit of consternation forms in Jensen's stomach even though he intuitively knows that his fingers are more nimble, reflexes more rapid, and arrows more precise than this unreliable technology. He meets the eyes at the bottom of the gun, bright green and wide in astonishment, and slowly, he lowers the gun.
"You, again," Jensen murmurs under his breath and rolls his eyes as he catches sight of Jared, equally gruff in his appearance. He thought he'd kicked the habit of permitting Jared to worm into his dreams after the horrendous incident that was the Aladdin catastrophe of last night. This Jared, however, is not an accurate depiction of the current version. He looks rougher around the edges, as if accustomed to living on scarce resources and in brutal conditions, facial hair scruffy on his jaw and brown hair flowing past his ear, long overdue for a haircut. Jensen resists the urge to reach out and feel it in his fingers, especially when Jared's equipped with a gun.
"It's okay," Jared tells him, lowering the gun, but oddly enough, Jensen's brain doesn't comprehend the words. They don't process correctly, only vaguely familiar to him, as if the words are in an exotic language he can't understand. He tries to understand, and Jared seems to catch onto his bewilderment. He puts the gun on the soft earth beneath them and raises his hands, defenseless to the pack of arrows peeking out over Jensen's shoulders, and tries to earn Jensen's trust with a genuine smile that pierces through Jensen no matter how little he understands of his words.
There's something very frustrating about not speaking the same language as Jared. Jensen encounters it almost every day in his life when he tries to decode infamous Padalecki-isms and Jarednese that only after years of spending time alongside Jared almost constantly has Jensen become fluent in, but this is different than just translating Jared's eccentric vocabulary; it's a whole language separating them. What's more frustrating, however, is not being able to tell Jared that this is all nonsense. He knows this is a dream. It's vivid and hardly blurry around the edges, so real Jensen feels every twitch and emotion wrack his bones, but there's something surreal in the air. Something familiar, like Jensen's seen it all before.
"My name," Jared says slowly, articulating his words with innocuous gestures to help Jensen understand, "is Jared Padalecki."
John Smith, Jensen's mind helpfully suggests, and then he makes the connection, which is an appalling one.
He's seen it all before on his television. It's another Disney movie. Another Disney movie with animated people, culturally relevant settings, and guaranteed fluffy endings. Promised romance that will melt the hearts of all humans who own them. Strangers meeting in unconventional circumstances, fireworks sparking and love blossoming, obstacles being surpassed and love conquering all. Plus, furry sidekicks. Jensen sneaks a glance at the raccoon at his feet. It sends him a wink.
"I'm Jensen," Jensen says, and Jared seems to understand despite the language barrier separating their communication. Jared's hand, just as calloused as Jensen's trained hunter hands-Pocahontas hands, Jensen reminds himself miserably-extends into an expectant handshake. Jensen looks down at his outstretched hand, and for a second, even the concept of a simple, banal handshake seems foreign. He catches Jared's eyes, warm, trusting, and innocent in intent as the gun rests motionlessly between their feet, and Jensen reaches out to slide his fingers into his.
It is, quite simply, like a moment lost in time, like in the movies when slow motion puts a brake on the clocks as two people lock gazes and share pasts all in the blink of an eye. The wind picks up, brushing leaves from the ground and gliding them in a smooth circle around their bodies, intertwined at the hands, and Jensen would be inclined to believe it was a coincidence if he didn't remember that he's trapped inside a Disney movie, where all mysterious gusts of wind have meaning hidden in the breeze.
The handshake goes on longer than necessary, as if their fingers are fused together. Jared looks transfixed at the sight of Jensen's face, tanned from the sun, freckled at the cheeks, smeared with dirt at the left temple. Comparing Jensen's ratty handmade clothes to Jared's tailored pants is already a stark contrast, and Jensen can only imagine how different their pasts, cultures, and families are in this dream.
Before he gets the chance to find out, however, the handshake ends, Jared pulls away his warm, comforting grip and Jensen snaps back into consciousness.
O O O O O
Jensen wakes up to Jared looming over his bed after he slept through his alarm alerting him to get dressed for work and swallow down a frozen waffle, and his hair looks so unreasonably long from this angle Jensen's first deduction is that he's landed directly in Beauty and the Beast.
Turns out, Jared just needs a haircut.
Part II.