Muffins 'Verse | #06; Locks Of Love
Title: Locks Of Love
Author: cocoplumb
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Jared/Jensen. angst. hair stuffs.
Warnings: cancer. mentions of chemo.
Word Count: 5000
Summary: Jensen has been released from hospital and is left feeling insecure. Jared stumbles upon a little thing called Locks Of Love.
Notes: I’m bored in hospital ya’ll, so I wrote this. It was the only thing keeping me sane and occupied from strangling the woman in the bed across. They put an IV in my finger (yes, finger! My main typing finger) and I still had to write this, that’s commitment guys! Released from the hospital ya'll! :)
Previous Parts: #01 | #02 | #03 | #04 | #05
Jared and Jensen were lying in bed. Jared stroked his thumb over Jensen's head in a soothing rhythm, lulling him into sleep. A peppermint candle melted beside them, the scent filling the room faintly and the flame flicking shadows on the ceiling.
“I wanna do something for you,” Jared told him, his voice quiet and confident.
“Not necessary. I have everything I’ll ever need right here.” Jensen's voice was scratchy. He would never admit to having been crying, but Jared could hear the cracks in his words. Jensen had been off chemo for three weeks now as his stomach healed, but some days the utter wreck of his body would prove otherwise. He had grown a tiny bit of hair though around his hairline, that was something.
“I want to show you how much I…” Jared looked down mid sentence to see Jensen's jaw slack, his body completely relaxed, a tiny bit of drool escaping his cracked lips as he slept. Neglecting the rest of his sentence, Jared slipped his arms tighter around Jensen's body and pulled him close and protected before proceeding to fall asleep himself.
-
The next morning, Jared woke up alone. He opened his eyes and moved a hand over to the other side of the bed, expecting to feel Jensen's soft chest under his fingers. He did it every morning they woke up together, which was most mornings since Jensen got discharged of the hospital. Jared just liked Jensen's steady heartbeat to be the first thing he heard when he woke up.
That morning however, Jared felt nothing but the cool bed sheets and a crumpled pillow.
“Jensen?” he called, his voice not caught up with his mind just yet, still sounding half unconscious. He rubbed a hand over the sleep in his eyes and swung his legs out from under the covers. He heard rustling from Jensen's bathroom next door and went to investigate. He was panicked some, Jensen shouldn’t still be hurting as much as he was and he absolutely shouldn’t be waking up puking.
“Jen?” Jared said once again, tapping on the bathroom door.
“It’s unlocked,” Jensen muttered from the other side of the door and Jared let himself in, hearing the hidden invitation.
Jared opened the door to see Jensen sitting on the closed toilet seat in his sweatpants and a white t-shirt that had once fit.
“Hey, you okay?”
Looking wistful, Jensen nodded. He was fiddling with something between his hands of which Jared recognised as a pair of clippers.
“What’s up?”
“I was just…” Jensen sighed and put the clippers on the sink. “Never mind. I’m fine. Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t wake me.” Jared eyed the clippers, still confused as to what Jensen was doing with them. “Do you need help with something?”
“No I-I, I can do it, I just wasn’t sure if…I really don’t know.”
Jared took a sympathetic breath and knelt down in front of his sick boyfriend, placing a hand on his knee. “Jensen, what’s wrong?”
Jensen ran a hand through Jared’s hair, moving it away from his face. He chuckled, but it was full of sadness and almost hurt Jared physically to hear. “I used to have hair like yours. When I look at how right it is on you, I realise how much of a tool I must have looked, like why didn’t any of my friends tell me ‘dude, you look like a moron, get your friggin’ hair cut’.”
Jared knelt there in front of Jensen, unmoving, refusing to squirm under Jensen's continuous finger combing. A few months ago he never would have been able to come up with an explanation as to why he might wake up every morning and feel guilty for having hair.
“I got it cut short the day I got diagnosed. I didn’t want to have to deal with chemo and cleaning out the drain every time I took a damn shower,” Jensen's voice was quiet and void of much emotion, utterly distant from the words he was saying.
Jared put his hand over Jensen's still running through his hair and stopped him from torturing himself any further. “Jensen, what’s going on? Talk to me.”
“These stupid baby hairs, they’re the only thing that grows back whenever I have a break from chemo. Nothing else gets a chance.”
“O’kay…”
“I usually just shave them off.”
Jared thought was finally starting to get it, the clippers, the reminiscing. “So do you need help?” he guessed, wondering why Jensen hadn’t done it already.
“I can do it.” Jensen had yet to meet Jared’s gaze this entire conversation. Jared lifted his chin so he could finally see Jensen's eyes; there he saw fresh tears welling. “I just wasn’t sure if you were okay with it. I haven’t had to worry about whether or not someone appreciates my appearance in a long time. I mean…you’d prefer me with hair right?”
Jared gave it to him straight. “Yes, I’d prefer you with hair. Of course I would.” He saw Jensen's eyes redden and wiped away a tear that fell. “I’d prefer you with hair because that would mean you were healthy. I want you healthy Jensen, but its okay to be bald in the meantime.”
Jensen made a pained face with a teary smile. “You think so?”
“I do.” Jared kissed him on the forehead. “Now come on, let’s do this.” He picked up the clippers from the sink and turned them on and off a few times, testing how they worked. “Tell me if I press too hard.” Jared knew how sensitive Jensen's skin was; he didn’t want to hurt him.
He brought the vibrating blades to Jensen's head and it took less than a minute to get rid of the tiny fluffs of fuzz around Jensen's forehead. There wasn’t much, but Jared could understand why Jensen would feel embarrassed by the tiny line of useless hairs when the rest of him was still so utterly bald.
“Thank you,” Jensen said when it was done.
Jared smiled and put the clippers away in Jensen's bathroom cabinet. “You’re welcome.”
Jensen looked up at him. “I wasn’t talking about the clippers.”
“I know, and you’re still welcome.” Jared brushed the few hairs from Jensen's t-shirt. “You wanna go back to bed?”
“Nah, figured I get some work done today for the band.”
“You’re still on bed rest, Jensen.” The doctor hadn’t quite worded it that way but he had told Jensen to stay off his feet and keep movement to a minimum for at least a week.
“I’m not a pregnant women with swollen feet.”
“No, but you whine like one. Come on, you can call Chris later, just go get some more sleep. If you’re good I’ll make you breakfast in bed.” Jared held both of Jensen's hands and helped him stand. He was stiff and sore and leaned on Jared heavily. “Yeah, you’re completely energized for the day.”
“Shut up, pancakes.”
“Is that a new pet name? Because I like it.” Jared guided Jensen from the bathroom and back into bed.
Jensen pulled the covers up and punched his pillow into shape. “No, pancakes for breakfast, you lovable moron.”
“Okay, princess, pancakes it is. Now go to sleep. I’m gonna sweep the bathroom floor and take the trash out.”
“What did I ever do without you?” Jensen smirked.
“Not clean?” With a snort, Jared dodged the flying pair of dirty boxers and went to go make himself useful with Jensen chores.
-
By the end of the week Jensen was feeling much better and planned to spend the weekend with Chris and the band at rehearsals. Jared had reluctantly returned to his apartment for clean clothes. He took a shower as soon as he got home when Genevieve told him he stunk of three-day-old underwear.
He and Jensen spoke on the phone at least three times a day for the weekend they were apart. Jared still missed Jensen like crazy. He didn’t sleep, just lay awake for two nights wondering how Jensen was, if he was cold without his personal furnace teddy bear as he liked to call Jared, if he was hurting for no reason like he did sometimes, if he had cried at all like earlier in the week when Jared heard him sobbing in the bath the day after he got released from hospital because he was just so damn tired of everything.
Jared busied himself with knitting over the weekend, it didn’t relax him as he’d hoped it had, but it kept him occupied enough.
Now he was sitting on the couch watching terrible Sunday TV, feeling like an exhausted insomniac, gathering up the courage to ask Genevieve something he’d been thinking about for a long while now.
“Hey, Gen, have you ever heard of a charity called Locks Of Love?”
Genevieve came from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn in her hand. “Yeah, course, they give wigs to kids with cancer. My sister did it in college with a bunch of her friends. Why?” She plonked herself on the couch beside Jared and offered him her snack bowl.
Jared took a handful of popcorn, making a mental note to brush his teeth before he went back to Jensen's and accidentally made him sick with the smell in his teeth. “I’m thinking of donating. Shave my head for a wig.” He chewed the sickly sweet junk food and waited for a response from his roommate, be it hysterical laughter or gasps of horror.
“I’m pretty sure ten inches is the minimum you can donate. That’ll take at least a year to grow out. Can you wait that long?” Genevieve’s tone was kind and sincere. For a moment Jared was shocked, then he remembered Genevieve wasn’t Chad. He’d chosen to confide in the right person for once.
“Ten inches, really?”
She nodded. “If you wanna do something for charity, you need to come up with something else, like running marathon.”
To say he wanted to match with Jensen would be somewhat creepy, but the whole idea of shaving his head was to make a point, a statement, to Jensen more than anyone else.
“The last time I ran for a marathon, I broke my leg.” Okay, two laps around the school football field wasn’t a marathon, but he was fourteen years old and he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet. Two laps of a football field in the freezing cold on stubby little legs certainty felt like a marathon at that age. “This is pathetic and lame and so uncool and just desperate but I think those words sum me up well when it comes to Jensen because he’s so friggin’ perfect and I’m just this dumb tall guy who wants to wrap his arms his sick boyfriend and feed him magic gummy bears until he’s better.”
Genevieve stared at him. “Have I been living with you too long? Because all of that actually made sense.”
“Gen, I wanna…I want to do something more for Jensen per say than for charity. The charity is just kind of a bonus. Like I said, lame, desperate, pathetic, blah, blah, blah.”
“Then you should do a sponsored head shave or something to profess your undying love for him. It’s the statement you wanted to make, right? And bonus, you get to help out a charity. Not to mention I would pay good money to see the shape of your bony ass skull under there.” She ruffled his hair and smiled.
“I can’t decide whether you’re a great friend or you just like manipulating people.”
She shrugged. “I can’t be both?”
He laughed with her through the awful programs, ate most of her popcorn and then went to his room to pack another few days’ worth of clothes for Jensen's place. He brushed his teeth and flossed for good measure. When he got back to Jensen's, he was greeted at the door with a long slow kiss. “You smell good.”
“I’ve missed you. I know we talked on the phone but its not the same, I missed your cold hands and your too small bed and those peppermint candles you say work but I know they don’t,” Jared told him.
Jensen smiled fondly. “Glad to have you back home too. You look like crap.”
“And they say chivalry is dead,” Jared joked. He knew how he looked, the dark circles under his eyes, his limp hair and slumped posture. Jensen actually came across as the healthier one in the relationship for once. There was life in his cheeks and joy in his voice.
“You hungry? I’m making dinner.”
“You made dinner?” Jared asked, baffled. He’d never known it. Jensen always ate out or ate little to nothing at all.
“I am capable of using an oven and the stove,” Jensen mocked offence.
“No, no of course. I didn’t mean you couldn’t, I’ve just never seen you do…that. Because I always think you need to eat more but you just bitch at me that you’ll puke it back up in an hour or two which I guess is mostly always true but its better to try and puking food has got to be better than puking acid which is how you wound up in the hospital last time. And God, I really didn’t mean to remind you of puking or hospitals while you’re trying to cook and obviously you’re feeling really good today and I just totally ruined it didn’t I?” Jared wanted to flush his head down the toilet.
“God, I’ve missed you.” Jensen pulled him closer by the front of his shirt and kissed him once more. “I made sirloin burgers with a surprise,” Jensen smiled at him. “I stole the recipe from Chris so we can blame him if they’re bad.”
“Homemade sirloin burgers, you spoil me.”
Jensen’s -or rather Chris’s- burgers were amazing. Who would have thought goats’ cheese surprise would be so amazing inside a burger with jalapenos.
Half way through dinner filled with compliments and mouthful grunts of pleasure from Jared, he finally got around to asking Jensen what his favourite charity was. It was an out of the blue question Jared would admit, and he wasn’t surprised when Jensen looked at him as though he might possibly have two heads.
“Okay, random,” was Jensen's response. “I’ve never really thought about it I guess. Why the sudden curiosity?”
“Well…” Jared’s cheeks flushed. “I’m thinking of doing something sponsored for charity, whatever charity you choose.”
“Something sponsored? Like what?” Jensen drank his orange juice, sipping it through his straw. He always complained how unmanly it was and Jared only bought them at first as a joke but at some point Jensen learned it helped his chapped lips by not swilling acidic juice over them drinking out of a cup the conventional way.
Jared took another bite of his burger and talked with his mouthful. “You have to tell me what your favourite charity is first, and then you have to promise me you won’t try to talk me out of it if I tell you what I wanna do.”
“Okay, I promise,” Jensen said, utterly baffled. “Favourite charity, um…I guess something for cancer, I’ve heard some really good stuff about Hats Off For Cancer at the hospital, it’s a kids charity.”
“Okay, then I guess I’m shaving my head for hats off for cancer.”
Jared smiled at him completely innocent, like he’d just mentioned the weather or something utterly mundane. He counted the beats of dead silence in his head until Jensen finally shouted, “WHAT?” Jensen spat his straw out. “Please tell me you’re joking, that this is a joke for me getting all weepy about my hair last week.”
Jared raised his eyebrows. “You said you wouldn’t try to talk me out of it.”
“This isn’t me trying to talk you out of it, this is me not believing you. You cannot be serious, you’ll look…” Jensen searched frantically for the right word.
“Ridiculous?”
“Yes! No…okay, yes, you’ll look completely ridiculous with a shaved head,” Jensen all but shrieked. “Come on man, your hair is your thing!”
“So you’re saying you wouldn’t wanna go out with me anymore if I shaved my head?” Jared mocked upset.
“Of course not you insane Sasquatch, I’m just saying… This relationship doesn’t need two baldies. Please, Jared, don’t. I know why you’re doing this but you really don’t have to prove a point to me, I get it, I do. Don’t do this for me.”
Jared shrugged with a smirk. “Too late, I knitted us matching hats already. And I really wouldn’t wanna overheat with all this damn hair.” Jared pulled out two identical hats from his jacket pocket hung on the back of the chair, both hats had ludicrous strings and an ugly monkey face.
Jensen picked up the one closest to him, he stammered at the pouting lips of the monkey. “J-Jared…”
“Juh-Jensen.”
“Please.”
“My minds already made up. Now eat your burger, we’ve got sponsor sheets to print out this evening.” Jared smiled smugly and gave himself a pat on the back. Those hats were pretty awesome.
-
An hour later, despite Jensen's reluctance, they were both on their cells, calling up friends and family -in Jensen's case, just friends- asking them to donate as much as they could to Hats Off For Cancer. Much to Jared’s surprise, his old friend Chad donated the most, though he did pretty much say the same thing as Gen had, he would pay some hella cash to see Jared bald.
An old family friend of Jared’s -Jeffrey Morgan- offered to do it in his shop. Jared had planned to just cut it in Jensen's bathroom alone but Jeff brought up the point that making it more public would encourage more people, not just friends and family, to donate. He talked about videoing it and posting it online, spreading it around the world so anyone and everyone could donate. Suddenly the inspiration into the world of charities started to make sense and Jared understood how many more people he was doing this for than just Jensen and a feel good bonus.
After a good few hours on their phones to pretty much every person they knew, Jared and Jensen were finally alone, relaxing in front of the TV, Jensen's head on Jared’s chest. Cooking was apparently exhausting. “So I’m a dumbass.”
Jared chuckled a low rumble. “Noted.”
“I know I sounded pretty hysterically earlier but…I wanted you to know how proud I am that you’re doing this.”
“Just wait until we’re walking around with matching monkey hats, you might not feel so proud then.”
Jensen laughed. “Trust me, I will be.”
“I love you,” Jared blurted out.
Jensen stopped short, all signs of sleepiness dissipating in a beat. He sat up to face Jared who was shocked by own words too. “What?”
Jared swallowed, trying to collect his thoughts. “I-I…I love you. You don’t have to say it back, if you’re not, or if you’re just not ready, or if your head is just in a different place than mine because you are in a completely different place than I am most times, and that stands to reason. I mean you’re sick and you have bigger things to worry about than loving a idiot like me but I-, I’m so sorry we can’t go one day without me bringing that up, that I know you’re sick, I’m sorry, I just…I’m sorry. I love you and I can’t stand to think about what might happen if something happened to you and you…”
Jensen calmly put a finger over Jared’s lips to stop him from his painful ramblings. “Jared, I think I am, I’m just…”
“You have better things to worry about right now,” Jared ended for him, repeating himself.
“No, not exactly. Like you said, my heads in a different place. I’m trying to get out of that place, and believe me when I say you’re the one person, the only person that has been able to bring me out of it for even a short period of time. But I’m going to work on it okay? Someday, maybe soon or maybe in long while, I’ll be able to say it. But not right now, okay?”
Jared nodded, teary. “God, how many times have we both cried this week?” he chuckled, wet and snotty.
“Too many,” Jensen answered truthfully. “Wanna go to bed?”
Jared’s ears pricked up. “Bed, or bed?”
Jensen just winked at him and left for the bedroom, Jared rushed to follow.
Epilogue
“You ready for this, kiddo?”
Jared eyed the clippers in Jeff’s hand and gulped. “Not really,” he squeaked. He thought he was so prepared, so ready, and maybe even excited about this day coming. They had raised almost one thousand dollars thanks to generous from loved ones, Jeff ‘s customers and a few towns’ people who had heard about the fundraising event. But now he was sat in the beat up leather chair, seconds away from losing his hair, Jared felt a sudden rush of sorrow for what Jensen and every cancer patient went through along with the disease itself. And he was doing it voluntarily.
Jared looked through the mirror in front of him and saw the collection of his friends watching, some for support, others for the comedy. He found Jensen in the center of the small audience in the barbers shop and locked eyes on him. The terror must have been obvious because Jensen left the crowed and came to stand behind the chair, linking their fingers together.
“You can do this,” Jensen promised him.
“I kind of have to,” Jared said, a quiver in his voice. He really should have done this at home in front Jensen's mirror.
Jeff stepped in to offer his own words of wisdom, clamping a hand on his shoulder and squeezing for support. “Jay, all you gotta do is remember why you wanted to do this in the first place.”
Jared’s eyes immediately went to Jensen again and he smiled. He was back on chemo and having surgery in less than a week. He was completely bald again, wearing his monkey hat, holding Jared’s in the hand that wasn’t being squeezed lifeless by Jared’s sweaty fingers.
Jared felt honoured to know someone so strong, who had been through so much as still had a huge feet to go, cutting his hair was nothing in comparison. Jensen's bravery was breathtaking.
Without another moments hesitation, Jared said, “Okay, I’m ready.”
Jared’s friends clapped and whooped behind him, cheering him on. Jensen bent down and kissed him on the lips and behind them the cheers turned into pervy ‘oooh’s and whistles.
Jeff cut through the noises with his low gravely voice. “Here you go,” he passed a pair off scissors to Jensen with an encouraging smile. “First cut is the most memorable, go for it.”
Jensen let go of Jared’s hand and put the hat on his boyfriends lap, freeing both his hands. He took the scissors from Jeff and looked at Jared through the mirror. “I love you,” he whispered into Jared’s ear. It had taken him longer than Jared to find his way to a place where he could say that, where he could allow himself to believe it, but had got there eventually and that was all that mattered to Jared.
Jensen took an inch piece of hair from the front of Jared’s bangs and took a breath. Jared’s friends shouted encouraging chants. Jensen closed the scissor blades close to Jared’s scalp. With the silky chunk of hair between his fingers, he kept hold, not letting the strands flutter to the floor.
Jeff handed him a small cut of random string and tied a knot around the hairs for Jensen to keep. He stroked the inch of locks in his fingers for a few moments and once again repeating to Jared that he loved him before he put it in his pocket.
Jeff took over from that point on. He pulled Jared’s hair back and started in the center of his hairline. He cut away the first strip and the strands fell through the air, fluttering down over Jared’s shoulders and some sticking to his nose. He and Jensen had linked hands again, more in mutual affection this time. Jeff moved to the next precise strip, Jared watched as his long waves fell to the floor. He was astonished how calm he felt now it was happening, he was so utterly unfazed, he just looked at Jensen and saw the pride in his wide eyes and nothing else seemed to matter.
Before he knew it, Jeff switched off the clippers, his friends were cheering once again and Jensen was brushing his shoulders from the long hairs that had fallen there. Jeff tapped his newly shorn head lightly and gave Jared a proud grin.
Chad broke through the cheers of pride with an assessment of his own. “I can’t wait to see your brothers face when he realises he encouraged his best man to shave his head three months before he’s getting married. Did he even think about the wedding photos?”
“Ha-ha,” Jared rolled his eyes and looked at himself. It was weird, like it was him but it wasn’t him, a familiar stranger starting back at him in the mirror. “Does it look that bad?” He wasn’t completely bald, not down to the skin, Jeff had made sure he had something a little longer than a convict cut.
“I think it’s sexy,” Jensen winked at him. He touched the short bristles, they were both soft and sharp. He picked the pouting monkey up from Jared’s lap and pulled the hat over his head. “I’m so turned on right now.”
Jared pulled Jensen into his lap and they shared a long tender kiss. A few of the crowed moaned and groaned. Thankfully, with the help of Jeff, they eventually cleared from the shop and gave Jared and Jensen some privacy.
Jared pulled off his hat and ran a hand over his head, it was kind of cool, he wasn’t used to feeling breeze on his neck and ears. “So what do you really think now Chad’s left the building?”
“I think I’m not so sure about the hair, but I know I love you.” Jensen wrapped his arms around Jared’s neck and Jared put his own around Jensen's waist.
“Good answer,” Jared chuckled.
“Crap.”
“No, it was a good answer.”
“No, I mean…crap.” Jensen turned an insipid parlour of green before he pulled from Jared’s lap and ran for the trashcan.
Jared chuckled quietly once more with a sigh, shaking his head. He left the barbers chair and knelt down behind to rub Jensen's back.
“Did I just ruin today?” he groaned when he was finished.
Jared pulled him back into his lap, this time with the both of them tangled on the floor covered in Jared’s hair. “Not a chance, what’s an amazing day without a couple of bald heads and some puking?”
The days in which baldheads and vomit were par for the course have been the best days of Jared’s life thus far.
The End.
Please comment, I'm ever so BORED!!!! What should happen next?