Something of Forever- Chapter Four
<< Chapter Three
Jensen isn’t sure how exactly Chad finds his way into his mother’s living room, but one second Jensen is by himself, bundled in blankets and self-pity, and the next Chad is standing there, looming over him.
“Wha?” Jensen manages intelligently, squinting up at him.
“We need to talk,” Chad sighs, and Jensen is prepared to argue to the contrary that, no, they do not need to talk, because Jensen’s life has gone to shit in a matter of twenty-four hours and there’s no way talking will fix that.
Chad beats him to the punch. “That,” he says, letting the word hang in the air for a few seconds before continuing, “sucked.”
Jensen has to scoff at that. “Really? Cause it was pretty much the best moment of my life.”
“I mean, that was pretty much the worse possibly way that could have gone down,” Chad continues, ignoring Jensen’s sarcasm.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Man, it’s going to be okay.”
“Right,” Jensen rolls his eyes bitterly. “Everything is gonna be a-okay.”
“It will be. Dump Chris and apologize endlessly to Jared. Simple as that.”
“I think I just broke up with Chris.”
“Awesome.”
“Not awesome.”
“Uh, yeah it is. Chris is a piece of shit, dude.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“What is? You wanting to stay with the guy? Yeah, I’d say that’s bullshit.”
“You don’t get to do this,” Jensen snaps. “You’re the one who told me I should start dating again, who told me I should give Chris a chance. You don’t get to turn this around and hate me the second you decide it was a shitty idea!”
“Jesus, Jensen; no one hates you.”
“Really? Because like it or not Chris has been the one constant I’ve had in the past year, and I. I can’t. He was there. He was there for me.”
“Seriously? Holding it against Jared because he was in a fucking coma? That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. You’re gonna sit here and tell me you’re in love with Chris? Like you love Jared? I don’t know what defense mechanism you’re pulling here, but we both know that’s bullshit.”
“Why are you even here?” Jensen asks. “Seriously. Tell me. Jared hates me now… Hell, Chris probably does too.”
“He fucking loves you, you jackass!” Chad shouts, eyebrows furrowing together angrily. “Jared loves you and you love him and if you’re too stupid to see that, then… whatever. I feel sorry for you, man, I really do.”
“Don’t,” Jensen murmurs. “Made my bed, right?”
Chad sighs, lowering his voice. “You did the right thing, man. No one thought Jared would wake up, no one. And you deserved to be happy again, you know. To move on. But I’m telling you, Jensen, this is your chance and it’s a fucking miracle. You’re an idiot if you’re too scared to take it, and you damn well know it.”
“Jared’s better off without me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s- you know what? Fine. Maybe he is. But don’t you think he should be the one to decide that?” Chad huffs. “You’re not sitting here, being all miserable for the rest of the night while he’s over there being all miserable too. It’s a stupid damn idea and you’re not going to do it.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really. Come on, you’re going over to Jared’s.”
“No.”
“Jensen, does this really seem like a choice to you?” Chad snarls, leaning down in his face. “You’re going. And you’re talking to Jared. And you’re not hiding because you’re scared of losing him again, okay? If I had this chance with Sophia…” he trails off, voice gruff. “You’re doing this. Now come the fuck on.”
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Chad pulls into the Padaleckis’ driveway half an hour later, pointedly waiting for Jensen to gain the courage to peel himself from the leather seats. After he climbs out, Chad hits his hand on the door outside his driver’s side window, catching his attention.
“Hey,” he says. “I mean it, man. It will all work out.” Jensen nods though he doesn’t really believe him, and shuffles slowly up to the door, knocking timidly. Sherri answers, a different kind of surprise playing on her face this time.
“Jensen,” she says tightly, a forced smile on her face.
“Hi,” he mumbles shyly, cheeks burning red. “I… is there anyway I could see Jared?”
He can hear Sherri inhale sharply. “I don’t know if that’s such-”
“Mom,” a voice from upstairs sounds, causing Sherri to turn around. “It’s okay. Let him in.” Sherri smiles at Jensen, though it is not completely genuine, and reluctantly steps aside, letting him step into the house. Jensen swallows hard as he looks up the staircase to where Jared stands, slowly climbing the stairs as Jared turns into his bedroom.
When Jensen reaches Jared’s room, he’s seated with his back against the pillows on his bed, rigidly stretched out.
“Hey,” Jensen greets awkwardly, lingering uncomfortably in the doorway.
“Hi,” Jared says, gesturing slightly with his head. “You can come in.”
“Okay,” Jensen quietly nods, cautiously crossing the room to grab Jared’s old computer chair.
“You can sit on the bed,” Jared says, and Jensen stops still just like that. He nods reluctantly, awkwardly making his way to the bed to crawl across Jared’s legs and sit stiffly with his back against the headboard.
“So,” Jared begins, finally breaking the awkward silence. “You have a boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” Jensen agrees quietly, sadness in his tone.
“How long?”
“About six months.”
“So it’s serious,” Jared deducts coolly, no real emotion behind the statement.
“I guess. He’s… he’s been there for me a lot.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah,” Jensen agrees awkwardly. “Look, Jared, I don’t want you to think-”
“It’s okay, Jensen,” the younger interrupts, clearly irritated through a thin veil of forced patience. “I get it.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, you know. I’m good as dead, you move on with your life. Makes sense.”
“That’s not how-”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. You’re wrong, Jared. I waited for you. I’d have waited for you for the rest of my life if I had to. But everyone… everyone was worried. Everyone kept telling me I had to move on with my life, had to go do something for my damn self. And, you know, after a while I thought they might be right. But it was never because I fucking wanted to, Jared. It was never that at all.”
Jared sits silently, fiddling with his fingers like he always does when he’s nervous or uncomfortable.
“I’m serious, Jared.”
“I know,” Jared says so quietly Jensen is unsure if he imagined it. “I know. And I… I would want you to. To move on, I mean. I would want you to be happy. It’s just… just kind of hard, you know. To see.”
“I wouldn’t say I ever really moved on,” Jensen murmurs, thankful to hear Jared say he understands, that everyone that told him it was what Jared would have wanted wasn’t wrong. “You know. I got up and I went out and I did what I had to do, but. I never forgot. I never stopped praying.”
Jared is looking at him now, he can feel it, and he is too scared but too curious to keep from looking back. There’s a raw curiosity, there, some form of emotion that Jensen can’t quite interpret, but he knows, roughly translated, it’s love.
“God, Jen. I get… I get that it’s not a year ago, and I get that you’ve got your own life now, but,” Jared inhales deeply on the word, taking a second to build his composure. “I just can’t imagine getting up every day knowing you’re with someone else.” It hits Jensen, like an arrow to the heart, and he sways forward slightly at that, nearly touching Jared.
Leaning in, Jared narrows the proximity of their faces, meeting his eyes with such pain and intensity Jensen nearly has to look away. He ends up closing his eyes, though, and leans forward, gently tapping foreheads with Jared.
It’s sweet and potent, everything Jensen has been praying for the last several months in one innocent gesture. Jared turns it unexpectedly, though, just tilts his head and lowers it, skimming his lips over Jensen’s softly, still triggering a full body reaction from Jensen at the touch.
Jensen leans into the kiss at first, chastely deepening it with long, sweet locks of their lips. It’s everything he has wanted, everything he has missed, and suddenly it is altogether too much.
“We shouldn’t,” he whispers unsurely, pulling back. Jared’s eyes stay trained to his lips, though, a quiet heat there that makes it hard for Jensen to maintain the distance.
“We really should,” Jared mumbles, eyes flicking to his with a shy smile on his face that shatters Jensen’s defenses from the start. They meet in a deep kiss, more urgent than the previous with soft swipes of tongue and a shared soft moan as it opens into a wet duel, their tongues intertwining, needy, in the slick heat of their mouths. Jared deepens the kiss further, tracing a rhythm against Jensen’s tongue as he straddles his lap, pinning him with an impossible heat and welcomed weight.
Jensen twines his arms around Jared’s back, gasping as Jared casually rolls his hips downward against Jensen’s, the flickered pain igniting a need in him for more. More heat, more contact, more Jared.
“Jared,” he pants, breaking from the kiss long enough to dust kisses over his collarbone through his thin t-shirt. Jared gasps, angling his head back so Jensen can suck a kiss to the underside of his jaw, in that spot that only he knows Jared goes weak for. Jared’s hands trail his sides, sketching over the soft ripple of ribs under Jensen’s shirt, so gently that Jensen shivers for more contact.
“Jared,” he repeats. “Maybe. Maybe we shouldn’t. I don’t.”
Jared responds by grabbing Jensen’s head in his hands, framing it on either side so he has to look at him. “Look at me,” he breathes. “And tell me you don’t want this.” And the thing is, Jensen can’t, so he answers him the only way he knows how, with a hard, passion-fueled kiss that makes Jared’s hands skim downward, playing at the hem of Jensen’s shirt.
Sweating, Jensen pulls back long enough to allow Jared to remove the cotton shirt, along with his undershirt.
“So hot,” Jared breathes, mouth finding its way to Jensen’s collarbone. “Even hotter, now.” Jensen gasps at that, grabbing blindly at Jared’s shirt in search of skin. Jared pulls back, a blissed smile on his face as Jensen helps him out of his shirt, then surges forward, so the expanses of their chests meet, forming one lean line of sweltering skin and rippled muscle.
“God,” Jensen whispers, hands roaming Jared’s skin endlessly. “Can I-” he starts, carefully lowering Jared to the bed, taking his nod as a sign to move for the button to Jared’s jeans. Jared rolls his hips upward, inviting Jensen to remove the fabric, and Jensen. Jensen is the luckiest person in the world, and this time he knows it.
He gets the jeans off without much trouble, moves for the waistband on Jared’s underwear before glancing up and locking his eyes in a heated agreement. He pulls them to Jared’s ankles in one smooth tug, sending Jared’s bony hips rocketing forward off the mattress. Leaning over him on his hands and knees, Jensen brings himself up to tangle with Jared in another deep kiss, so full of need and lust that his elbows nearly cave in holding himself up.
“Jen,” Jared pants as Jensen pulls back, starting to head back down to get his mouth around Jared. “No.”
Jensen freezes, eyes going wide. “No?”
“No,” Jared repeats, sweeping a hand around the back of Jensen’s neck and gently guiding him back up to meet his eyes. “If this is the last I get of you,” he inhales shakily. “Then I want all of you.”
Jensen can barely give a second thought to the pretense of this being the last time for anything, not with Jared swatting aimlessly towards his nightstand, somehow wrangling the drawer open.
“Jared, no,” he whispers, though his willpower is virtually nonexistent. “We shouldn’t… You’re not strong enough yet.”
“Bullshit,” Jared says, finally wrapping his hand around the bottle of lube and the sheet of condoms before shoving them at Jensen.
“Are you sure?” Jensen asks, though he’s already tearing open the condom and slicking his fingers in lube.
“Yes I’m sure,” Jared grunts as Jensen starts to stretch him open, pressing a firm kiss to his inner thigh as he works another finger in. At the third finger, Jared shakes his head, pumping his hips upward.
“Jus’ do it,” he demands, and Jensen hurries to prepare himself before sliding into the sweltering tightness, unable to keep the moan inside as he throws his head back at the sensation. Jared grasps at him blindly, arcing his back against the mattress.
“Are you okay?” Jensen asks, swooping his hand under Jared’s head as he leans down, inches from his face. “If you’re not, you gotta tell me.”
“Yes,” Jared hisses, nipping at Jensen’s jaw. “Move.”
At Jared’s command, Jensen surges his hips forward, giving him a moment to adjust before changing his angle, waiting until Jared starts to wither against him to plot his course. The first few thrusts are experimental, carefully done in a way he never did with Chris. But this isn’t Chris; this is Jared. This is love and passion and devotion, making love instead of just fucking. He slides a hand under Jared’s hips, gaining a careful leverage as he forms a tentative rhythm, gauging his success from the way Jared’s face changes.
“Yeah,” Jared whispers. “Yeah, Jensen, come on.” Jensen smiles, leaning to press sweaty kisses to Jared’s stomach. He shifts his other hand beneath him, stalling his hips as he grasps onto Jared tightly, cautiously lifting him and navigating backwards, so that he’s sitting and Jared is straddling him. Jared wraps his arms around Jensen and moans as the new position slides him deeper, sending whited stars over Jensen’s vision.
“C’mon baby,” he breathes against Jared’s neck, grasp tight around him as he helps to lift Jared up in the slow, heavy thrusts that send intense shockwaves through Jensen’s body. He can tell it’s good for Jared too, in the way he undulates into it, in the way he knows Jared’s body.
“So fucking gorgeous,” Jensen smiles against Jared’s lips, upholding the rhythm as Jared crushes him deeper into the kiss, entangling them inseparably in every possibly way.
Jensen’s thrusts become erratic and more shallow as he can feel himself drifting close to the edge, but Jared takes Jensen’s lack of work and simply grinds himself downward harder, gasping kisses against Jensen’s forward as the pleasure pulsates through him.
“God, Jared,” Jensen pants wetly, licking the words onto Jared’s pallet, carving and whispering the words “I love you” with his tongue so that Jared will never, ever forget.
Jared swallows back Jensen’s tongue as he gasps, tightening around him before moaning and shuttering, gasping out little “oh’s” that Jensen collects, pumping his hips upwards until he too skids over the edge.
In the aftershocks, Jensen somehow has the mind about him to lower Jared back onto the bed. His weight falls heavy on the younger man, though Jared hardly seems to mind. He wraps his arms around Jensen as he pulls out and clumsily ties off the condom. Engulfing Jensen in a hug, he pulls his limp body upwards, firmly whispering “I love you,” with a kiss to his temple before allowing him to roll off of him and curl around his body.
Exhausted, Jensen sucks gently kisses over Jared’s protruding vertebrae in his neck, soft and lazy as Jared drifts off. Jensen, with his slack lips still against Jared’s skin, isn’t that far behind.
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Jensen wakes up with the beginnings of a sunlit dawn, the outlines of Jared’s room just such that he doesn’t have to think about the warm body under skin, knows instantly who it belongs to. Smiling softly, Jensen peels himself from Jared, carefully easing out of his bed as not to wake him. Once standing, he pulls on his discarded boxers, foot hitting something on the floor. Bending down, Jensen finds the old white binder on the floor where he had left it, red Sharpie still hooked over the outer cover. Jensen works his fingers around the marker, staring at it in determined wonder before grasping it in his palm and pulling it away.
Carefully, he makes his way over to the side of the bed, to where Jared lays sprawled on his stomach, left hand dangling over the mattress. Close enough to heart Jared breathe, Jensen kneels down on one knee, delicately taking Jared’s ring finger between two of his own. Thankful that Jared has always been a light sleeper, Jensen admires the small tattoo with a hitch in his throat, taking care to ease the cap off the Sharpie before painting the color within the lines. It takes just a second, to fill that tattoo with red, and Jensen slides the cap back on before Jared has any idea.
Smiling, he gets up and pads off to the bathroom, when he returns, he wraps himself back around Jared and whispers, “It’s alright, baby,” when Jared stirs slightly.
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Jensen wakes up in earnest a few hours later, when Jared attempts to ease himself off the mattress without waking him. Jensen smiles as he stretches his arms over his head, watching as Jared pulls on a pair of flannel pants.
“Hey.”
Jared jumps a little at that, but turns back to him with a smile. “Hey. Sorry to wake you up.”
“No, man, you’re fine.”
“I’m gonna,” Jared smiles shyly, forking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the bathroom. Jensen nods and watches him leave, resting his chin on his forearm as he waits for him to come back.
It doesn’t take long. A couple minutes later Jared comes ambling in, a perplexed look on his face. He’s holding up his hand, the tattoo, and gesturing at it vaguely with the other hand.
“Did you…?” he questions.
“Maybe,” Jensen shrugs, though the coy grin on his face gives him away.
“Why?” Jared asks, eyes still on his hand as he plops down next to Jensen on the mattress.
“Remember, how we got just the outline,” Jensen starts, suddenly less confident. “And said we’d get it filled in.”
“Yeah,” Jared squints, like he honestly can’t form the connection.
“Well. You know. Figured it was the best way.”
“Best way for what?” Jared asks, incredulous. Jensen glances pointedly towards Jared’s hand, a patient smiling on his face as he watches Jared make the connection.
“Wait.”
“I meant it when I said I wasn’t giving up on you, Jared. I haven’t worked out all the finalities yet, but I’m yours as long as you want me.”
Jared’s mouth is still agape, eyes glazed with shock. “But. You. You’re not? With Chris?”
“No.”
“But. You love him.”
“I love you, you idiot,” Jensen grins fondly.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
A smile stretches wide across Jared’s face, life sparking in his eyes and bursting out as he laughs happily, strong and well.
“God, Jen, I. I seriously thought,” he laughs disbelieving, shaking his head. “Thank you. Seriously. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, you weirdo,” Jensen laughs around the kiss Jared presses to his cheek, nestling into his arms. “If anyone needs to be thanked, it’s you. For finally waking the fuck up.” Jared doesn’t need to respond to that with words, as he slips a deep kiss to Jensen’s mouth, grasping at him like he never plans on letting go.
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“You gonna tell me what that is you keep tripping on?” Jared asks him that evening, as Jensen nearly faceplants it for about the eighth time that night. Sighing, Jensen reaches to grab the old binder on the floor, inhaling deeply at the knowledge that, sooner or later, Jared is going to read it. He’s becoming a fan of this whole instant gratification thing, of just ripping the band-aid off and dealing with the pain.
“Yeah.” He grasps onto the notebook tightly as he scales his way back into bed again, resting his head against Jared’s shoulder as he rests it in his lap.
Jared stares at it for several second before softly asking, “What is this?”
Jensen swallows the threat of a lump in his throat. “It’s, um. Kind of like a yearbook? Or a scrapbook,” he says, clearing his throat. “You know. Like we all wrote in it. While you were sick.”
Jared nods, leafing through it, “Jen, I can’t really-”
“What?”
“I can’t really read good. Well. Yet,” Jared admits, his cheeks igniting in embarrassment. Jensen’s mouth forms into an O, immediately kicking himself for his ignorance.
“Oh, yeah. Of course. Sorry.”
“S’okay,” Jared says, pausing for a second before adding, “could you read me something?”
Fear of the exposure spikes his heartbeat, and all Jensen can do is nod. “Yeah, yeah, sure.”
“Let’s see,” he says, flipping through the pages. “Um. This one is from Chad.”
“One from you,” Jared clarifies softly. “If you don’t mind.”
“I, uh. No. Of course,” Jensen laughs nervously, shaking his head. “I, um. Okay.”
He settles on the first entry he finds, something fairly short that he doesn’t let himself read through before reading it aloud to Jared.
“I keep thinking the longer time goes the easier it will get, but it never does. I met this guy, recently, at Tech. His name is Chris. He’s nice. Kind of looks like you. He makes me laugh. Everyone keeps saying I should go out with him, that I should take a chance and move on. But I pray every night, and sometimes every day, and I just can’t let go, not yet. I miss you. So much. So fucking much that I don’t go see you anymore, because I’m afraid if I did I might never leave. It’s hard, really fucking hard, but I think it’s the right thing to do. I’m not giving up on you. I’m NOT. So don’t you even think about giving up. I love you.”
Jensen finishes the entry with tears in his eyes, ones which match the ones in Jared’s.
“I… are you sure you’re okay?” Jared asks tentatively. “With leaving Chris? I mean-”
Jensen can do little more than laugh at the absurdity of that question. “What part of I am totally and pathetically in love with you aren’t you understanding?”
“The part where it’s now and it’s real,” Jared answers honestly, an overtone of awe to his tone as he presses a firm kiss to Jensen’s temple.
“Yeah,” Jensen smiles. “That’s the part I’m having trouble with grasping, too.”