incredibly ordinary adventures
Write what you know, right? I know an awful lot about opticians' waiting rooms. I know less about what would happen if Jared and Jensen met in one. But apparently that didn't stop me. Um.
This is silly. This is so silly. I don't even know. I kind of want to write a sequel where Jared bumps into Jensen again and gives him advice on his frames.
So, um.
The Incredibly Ordinary Adventure of Jared and Jensen
In which Jared has trouble fitting into waiting room chairs, and Jensen's tie probably brings out the colour of his eyes.
Sometimes- only sometimes, mind- Jared kind of wishes he were a Smith or something.
It’s not that he doesn’t like Padalecki, don’t get him wrong. Padalecki is awesome. It’s the rest of the world that’s the problem. Sometimes people actually laugh in his face- right in his face- when he shares the name with them, and Jared’s a pretty easygoing guy, yeah, but that’s just plain rude. And probably unhygienic. God knows what germs laughter is full of. He’s lucky he hasn’t contracted polio, or whatever.
Anyway, the point is, Padalecki totally isn’t the weirdest name out there. Hell, it’s not even that hard to spell, once you get past all the syllables, but you’d think he went around declaring himself Adolf Hitler from the reactions he gets.
“Sir?” the receptionist says again, staring up at him. “Sir, I'm not sure I quite caught that. Could you repeat it, please?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, sorry, I spaced out a bit there.” Jared waves a hand sheepishly and grins down at her, and she relaxes, losing some of that ‘oh god it’s a crazy person’ tension. It’s always nice to see how many people can be put at ease with a simple smile. He grins a little wider. “Padalecki, ma’am. That’s p-a-d-a-l-e-c-k-i.”
“Thank you, sir.” She’s kind of blushing a little as she looks back down again, busying herself with typing things and that sort of stuff. That’s a bit weird, but it is pretty hot in here. “If you’d like to take a seat, one of the team will be with you presently.”
She points at the waiting area, and Jared suppresses a groan. It’s pretty busy, but it’s totally unfair to take out his displeasure on an overheated receptionist. Instead, he smiles at her again and says, “Thank you very much, ma’am. You should probably see about better air-con,” he adds as he walks away, and she frowns a little. It’s probably a frown of deep air-con related thought, so Jared allows himself an imaginary pat on the back at a job well done.
The waiting area chairs are pretty small and mostly taken, but at least they’re padded, and Jared totally appreciates the company’s attempts to make his wait a more pleasurable experience. He folds himself up onto a free seat, and it feels too much like gymnastics to be comfortable. His knees are somewhere around chest height. But at least he’s opposite a poster of frame-choosing tips, so he’s got something to look at while he waits. Never mind that it smells a bit.
It really does smell a bit though. More than a bit.
“It smells like ass in here,” Jared says. And claps a hand over his mouth, because wow he did not mean to say that out loud. A few people shoot him scandalised looks, and one old lady actually tisks, which he’s only ever seen his momma do before. It’s nice to discover something new, even if it is at the expense of offending innocent waiting-room-people. “Sorry,” he whispers placatingly.
The guy next to him snorts a little. It sounds amused rather than offended, but when Jared twists his head around to check, the guy’s looking down at his complimentary magazine, mouth set in a straight line of neutrality. He’s got freckles though, which is nice, and the chairs are so close together that Jared could probably count them all.
He’s got to seven and a half when he remembers that his momma’s always telling him staring at people you don’t know is totally rude, so he turns back to the eye-care poster instead. Apparently people with square faces should wear round frames to soften the angles. That’s good to know.
“It smells like ass because some old dude shat himself,” says a soft voice to his right. Jared whips his head around, but freckles-guy is staring intently at his magazine like optometry holds the cure to cancer. His lips are quirking up a little though. His lips are totally quirking up.
“No way,” Jared says.
Freckles-guy smiles down at an article on lens cleaning products. “Way. It was in that chair over there.” He tilts his head a fraction of an inch, towards a woman on the opposite row a few seats away. She doesn’t look too bothered by the smell, but then she’s nose deep in a book, so maybe she’s sniffing that instead. “It was pretty messy.”
“And you let her sit there?” Jared asks, aghast. He’s feeling chivalrous, about to get up out of his seat and offer to switch, when freckles-guy lays a warm hand on his arm.
“You don’t want to disturb her,” he says, glancing up to meet Jared’s startled gaze. His eyes are green. Really green.
“Um,” says Jared. Really, really green.
Freckles-guy flashes him a surprisingly bright grin, eyebrows raised, and he whispers, “She’s reading porn, dude.”
Jared whips back round to stare at her, which, ow. He’s probably given himself whiplash or something. Rubbing his neck, he cautiously twists his head to try and catch a glimpse of the book's cover. It looks pretty normal, although he isn’t really sure what book-porn would look like anyway. “’Hearts Aflame’,” he reads, and he shakes his head. “No, man, that’s just romance, isn’t it? My mom reads books like that.”
“It’s porn,” freckles-guy whispers, so close to Jared’s ear he feels rather than hears each word. “Lesbian porn.”
“No way,” Jared breathes, staring at lesbian-erotica-reader in something like awe.
Freckles-guy laughs, a soft little cut-off sound. “She looks about halfway through, so I’m betting the independent-yet-beautiful heroine is still in denial about her developing feelings for the soft-on-the-inside rebel. But she’s going to have sex with her anyway, and spend the next hundred pages freaking out about it.”
He’s smiling faintly when Jared turns to stare at him, like they’re making small talk about the weather, and he settles back in his seat with a murmured, “Lots of tight, wet heat and quivering thighs, I’d imagine.”
Jared stares a little more, because freckles-guy looks like a respectable businessman taking time out of his busy schedule to get his eyes checked over, not a secret devourer of lesbian erotica. He’s even wearing a suit. Not that lesbian-appreciators can’t wear suits, you understand, but still- it’s a suit. It’s a really nice suit, even, with a green tie that Jared’s momma would probably say brings out the colour in freckles-guy’s eyes. Jared’s never really been sure what that means, except that it sounds messy.
“Dude,” he breathes. “You’re wearing a suit.”
Freckles-guy blinks up at him in a tie-complementing manner. “What?”
“You know about lesbian porn books in a suit.” Jared grins at him, his best receptionist-easing grin, and adds, “That’s so cool.”
“Would it help if I undid some buttons?” Freckles-guy says, with another of those cut-off little laughs before his eyes go wide- like, deer-in-headlights wide- and he ducks his head back down to read his magazine.
Jared watches as the tips of freckles-guy’s ears turn a slow shade of red, and he turns a couple of pages like he’s totally fascinated and desperate to absorb all optical knowledge. The conversation has derailed abruptly, and he isn’t quite sure why. After a few minutes of silence, he clears his throat. “You don’t have to, er, undo your buttons, man.”
It sounds pretty lame, even if he isn’t sure what he did wrong. “I like your tie.”
Freckles-guy snorts, and kind of smiles a little. It’s tiny compared to a relaxing receptionist, but it makes Jared feel one hundred times more satisfied.
“It really brings out the colour of your eyes,” he continues cheerfully, ignoring the funny looks of the people surrounding them, and watches with pride as freckles-guy bites his lip like he’s trying not to laugh. It’s one of the best things he’s ever seen.
“Mr. Ackles?” calls out a lady from the doorway of one of the check-up rooms, clipboard in hand, and Jared doesn’t really pay her any mind until freckles-guy- Mr. Ackles, apparently- drops his magazine.
“That’s me,” he says, climbing to his feet. He’s stopped smiling now, looking kind of uncomfortable as a dozen or so bored gazes follow his path across the room, already nodding and murmuring something to the optician as she stands back to let him through the door.
Jared slumps back in his midget-sized chair, ready to reread the advice on frame-shapes a few more times, when Mr. Ackles turns again and catches his eye. He smiles, small and rueful and kind of hypnotic, and Jared gives him a thumbs-up, mouths “Good luck, man”.
They hold each other’s gaze until the optician closes the door on it.
This is silly. This is so silly. I don't even know. I kind of want to write a sequel where Jared bumps into Jensen again and gives him advice on his frames.
So, um.
The Incredibly Ordinary Adventure of Jared and Jensen
In which Jared has trouble fitting into waiting room chairs, and Jensen's tie probably brings out the colour of his eyes.
Sometimes- only sometimes, mind- Jared kind of wishes he were a Smith or something.
It’s not that he doesn’t like Padalecki, don’t get him wrong. Padalecki is awesome. It’s the rest of the world that’s the problem. Sometimes people actually laugh in his face- right in his face- when he shares the name with them, and Jared’s a pretty easygoing guy, yeah, but that’s just plain rude. And probably unhygienic. God knows what germs laughter is full of. He’s lucky he hasn’t contracted polio, or whatever.
Anyway, the point is, Padalecki totally isn’t the weirdest name out there. Hell, it’s not even that hard to spell, once you get past all the syllables, but you’d think he went around declaring himself Adolf Hitler from the reactions he gets.
“Sir?” the receptionist says again, staring up at him. “Sir, I'm not sure I quite caught that. Could you repeat it, please?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, sorry, I spaced out a bit there.” Jared waves a hand sheepishly and grins down at her, and she relaxes, losing some of that ‘oh god it’s a crazy person’ tension. It’s always nice to see how many people can be put at ease with a simple smile. He grins a little wider. “Padalecki, ma’am. That’s p-a-d-a-l-e-c-k-i.”
“Thank you, sir.” She’s kind of blushing a little as she looks back down again, busying herself with typing things and that sort of stuff. That’s a bit weird, but it is pretty hot in here. “If you’d like to take a seat, one of the team will be with you presently.”
She points at the waiting area, and Jared suppresses a groan. It’s pretty busy, but it’s totally unfair to take out his displeasure on an overheated receptionist. Instead, he smiles at her again and says, “Thank you very much, ma’am. You should probably see about better air-con,” he adds as he walks away, and she frowns a little. It’s probably a frown of deep air-con related thought, so Jared allows himself an imaginary pat on the back at a job well done.
The waiting area chairs are pretty small and mostly taken, but at least they’re padded, and Jared totally appreciates the company’s attempts to make his wait a more pleasurable experience. He folds himself up onto a free seat, and it feels too much like gymnastics to be comfortable. His knees are somewhere around chest height. But at least he’s opposite a poster of frame-choosing tips, so he’s got something to look at while he waits. Never mind that it smells a bit.
It really does smell a bit though. More than a bit.
“It smells like ass in here,” Jared says. And claps a hand over his mouth, because wow he did not mean to say that out loud. A few people shoot him scandalised looks, and one old lady actually tisks, which he’s only ever seen his momma do before. It’s nice to discover something new, even if it is at the expense of offending innocent waiting-room-people. “Sorry,” he whispers placatingly.
The guy next to him snorts a little. It sounds amused rather than offended, but when Jared twists his head around to check, the guy’s looking down at his complimentary magazine, mouth set in a straight line of neutrality. He’s got freckles though, which is nice, and the chairs are so close together that Jared could probably count them all.
He’s got to seven and a half when he remembers that his momma’s always telling him staring at people you don’t know is totally rude, so he turns back to the eye-care poster instead. Apparently people with square faces should wear round frames to soften the angles. That’s good to know.
“It smells like ass because some old dude shat himself,” says a soft voice to his right. Jared whips his head around, but freckles-guy is staring intently at his magazine like optometry holds the cure to cancer. His lips are quirking up a little though. His lips are totally quirking up.
“No way,” Jared says.
Freckles-guy smiles down at an article on lens cleaning products. “Way. It was in that chair over there.” He tilts his head a fraction of an inch, towards a woman on the opposite row a few seats away. She doesn’t look too bothered by the smell, but then she’s nose deep in a book, so maybe she’s sniffing that instead. “It was pretty messy.”
“And you let her sit there?” Jared asks, aghast. He’s feeling chivalrous, about to get up out of his seat and offer to switch, when freckles-guy lays a warm hand on his arm.
“You don’t want to disturb her,” he says, glancing up to meet Jared’s startled gaze. His eyes are green. Really green.
“Um,” says Jared. Really, really green.
Freckles-guy flashes him a surprisingly bright grin, eyebrows raised, and he whispers, “She’s reading porn, dude.”
Jared whips back round to stare at her, which, ow. He’s probably given himself whiplash or something. Rubbing his neck, he cautiously twists his head to try and catch a glimpse of the book's cover. It looks pretty normal, although he isn’t really sure what book-porn would look like anyway. “’Hearts Aflame’,” he reads, and he shakes his head. “No, man, that’s just romance, isn’t it? My mom reads books like that.”
“It’s porn,” freckles-guy whispers, so close to Jared’s ear he feels rather than hears each word. “Lesbian porn.”
“No way,” Jared breathes, staring at lesbian-erotica-reader in something like awe.
Freckles-guy laughs, a soft little cut-off sound. “She looks about halfway through, so I’m betting the independent-yet-beautiful heroine is still in denial about her developing feelings for the soft-on-the-inside rebel. But she’s going to have sex with her anyway, and spend the next hundred pages freaking out about it.”
He’s smiling faintly when Jared turns to stare at him, like they’re making small talk about the weather, and he settles back in his seat with a murmured, “Lots of tight, wet heat and quivering thighs, I’d imagine.”
Jared stares a little more, because freckles-guy looks like a respectable businessman taking time out of his busy schedule to get his eyes checked over, not a secret devourer of lesbian erotica. He’s even wearing a suit. Not that lesbian-appreciators can’t wear suits, you understand, but still- it’s a suit. It’s a really nice suit, even, with a green tie that Jared’s momma would probably say brings out the colour in freckles-guy’s eyes. Jared’s never really been sure what that means, except that it sounds messy.
“Dude,” he breathes. “You’re wearing a suit.”
Freckles-guy blinks up at him in a tie-complementing manner. “What?”
“You know about lesbian porn books in a suit.” Jared grins at him, his best receptionist-easing grin, and adds, “That’s so cool.”
“Would it help if I undid some buttons?” Freckles-guy says, with another of those cut-off little laughs before his eyes go wide- like, deer-in-headlights wide- and he ducks his head back down to read his magazine.
Jared watches as the tips of freckles-guy’s ears turn a slow shade of red, and he turns a couple of pages like he’s totally fascinated and desperate to absorb all optical knowledge. The conversation has derailed abruptly, and he isn’t quite sure why. After a few minutes of silence, he clears his throat. “You don’t have to, er, undo your buttons, man.”
It sounds pretty lame, even if he isn’t sure what he did wrong. “I like your tie.”
Freckles-guy snorts, and kind of smiles a little. It’s tiny compared to a relaxing receptionist, but it makes Jared feel one hundred times more satisfied.
“It really brings out the colour of your eyes,” he continues cheerfully, ignoring the funny looks of the people surrounding them, and watches with pride as freckles-guy bites his lip like he’s trying not to laugh. It’s one of the best things he’s ever seen.
“Mr. Ackles?” calls out a lady from the doorway of one of the check-up rooms, clipboard in hand, and Jared doesn’t really pay her any mind until freckles-guy- Mr. Ackles, apparently- drops his magazine.
“That’s me,” he says, climbing to his feet. He’s stopped smiling now, looking kind of uncomfortable as a dozen or so bored gazes follow his path across the room, already nodding and murmuring something to the optician as she stands back to let him through the door.
Jared slumps back in his midget-sized chair, ready to reread the advice on frame-shapes a few more times, when Mr. Ackles turns again and catches his eye. He smiles, small and rueful and kind of hypnotic, and Jared gives him a thumbs-up, mouths “Good luck, man”.
They hold each other’s gaze until the optician closes the door on it.