Entry tags:

fic, jared/jensen, rps

FIC: Lingering in the Golden Gleam (1/3)
part one | part two | part three | notes & acknowledgments | master post

Lingering in the Golden Gleam
i.

Jared's about to do a line of coke off a stripper's ass when his cell phone buzzes in his pocket. It's playing some song he's never even heard before, and when he pulls it out it says Unknown Caller. He flips it open and yells, "How'd you get this number, asshole?"

"Uh . . . Jared?"

"Look, I don't give out this number," Jared says, "so whoever this is—"

"Jared," the guy on the other end says insistently. The voice is familiar. Jared's this close to figuring out who it is when the guy continues, "Dude, it's Jensen."

Jared jerks his hand off the stripper's breast. "Jensen? Holy shit, hi! Sorry, I, uh—"

Jensen laughs. "It's cool. Long time, no see, man. Listen, I just read about your nomination and wanted to say congrats. Golden Globes, that's awesome."

"Yeah," Jared says, turning away from the stripper—Charlie? Candi? He's not sure.—and pushing his hair off his forehead. "Pretty crazy, huh?"

"No shit." Jensen's quiet for a second. "Hey, how you doing out there? You still loving it?"

"Yeah, man. It's the life. What are you up to right now?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's like, past midnight there, right? It's New Year's Eve, dude! Please tell me you're on a bed with a set of twins and a bottle of Andre right now."

Jensen laughs a little. "Yeah, not so much."

"What do you mean?" Jared yells into the phone. "Don't they let you party on Broadway?"

There's a pause. "Yeah. Sure they do. Hey, listen, I've got to go. You just— Good luck with everything, man."

"Hey, you too!" Jared says. "Call me if you're ever back in L.A., okay?"

"Sure," Jensen says. "I'll do that." There's another pause like maybe he's going to say something else, but then he just says, "See ya," and hangs up.

"Huh," Jared says to nobody in particular. "That was weird." He stuffs the phone back in his pocket and turns back to the stripper. Christie, he's pretty sure it's Christie. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"

She giggles and tips her ass up towards his face.

"Oh yeah, that's right." He bends over and snorts the line all the way up.

*

Jared's on a couch. It's made of this soft red leather and he's sinking all the way into it, like the only thing that's going to be left to see in a minute are his feet. He lets his head roll back and then forward again, and opens his eyes. Bad idea: he goes blind. He can't tell if it's the lights that are too bright, or if it's Chad's suit, sparkly gold to match his bling.

"I'm a one-man pussy patrol, bitch!" Chad says. "Check this shit out!" He's on the couch across from Jared, trying to booty dance with two strippers at once.

Jared rolls his eyes. He'd switched his drug of choice to gin earlier—hit that mellow quicker—but now he's too mellow. He needs more gin. The bar is far away though, like at least ten feet, and the couch is too good to leave.

A stripper Jared has never seen before walks down the line between Chad's couch and Jared's. "I wanna tap that ass, baby!" Chad yells, extracting a hand from between the strippers on the couch to slap the new girl on the butt.

"Just for that, I think I'm going to visit this other guy instead," she says, straddling Jared's lap. "Are you going to treat me like your buddy did?"

Jared gives her a long look. She's a Latina, all spilling black hair and rippling copper skin, pouty lips quirked up at one side. Hot as hell, no denying that, but for no reason he could possibly explain he says, "Nah. I just want a drink."

She lifts an eyebrow, stares at him and laughs after a moment, golden chuckling laughter. "Yeah," she says. "I guess you do. You know what? I've got something better. I'm going to give you a glimpse."

She produces a bright-blue drink from somewhere—possibly her g-string.

"What did you say this was called? A Glimpse?" he says, taking the glass from her and sniffing it. It smells like Curacao and maybe coconut rum. "What's in it?"

She smiles cryptically. "You'll just have to find out for yourself, won't you?"

"I guess I will." He tips the glass towards her, then swallows it all the way down.

*

Jared wakes up with something warm and slightly wet pressing against his mouth. He's hung-over as fuck, but eventually he realizes that the thing on his lips is someone else's mouth. Whatever, Jared can roll with that. He opens his mouth and whoever it is slides her tongue in, licking softly, and cups Jared's jaw with her hand. Even through the hangover it's a damned good kiss, and it takes Jared way longer than it should to notice that the weird sandpaper feeling against his face is stubble, and the pressure on his hip is a dick.

"Gyah," Jared says into whoever's mouth it is, scrambling backwards and opening his eyes as he goes. "What the hell is— Jensen?"

Jensen gives him a confused look. He's pretty much the same as Jared remembers: a little older, for sure, with graying temples and he's definitely put on a little weight since Jared last saw him. His voice is the same as Jared remembers, though, when he says, "Hey, Jared. You okay?"

Jared stares openly at him. Jensen's in bed with him, and neither of them is wearing a shirt. Jared might have the world's biggest hangover, but it doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out what happened here. How it happened, though? That's a good question. "Jensen, hey," Jared says, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "I thought you were in New York. How'd you end up out here?"

"Huh?" Jensen says, then he groans. "Dude, I knew I shouldn't have let you drink your own bottle of champagne last night, New Year's or no New Year's. Vancouver? Is not equal to New York. Now come on, we've got like t-minus-two minutes before Annie and Josh wake up, so if we're going to have sex we've got to do it right now."

"If we're what?" Jared says, trying to lunge out of the way as Jensen grabs his shoulder.

There's some kind of banging and thumping in the hallway; Jensen sighs and slumps his head over. "Too late," he says against Jared's chest.

"Too late for what?" Jared says, and then he screams: a dog, a little girl and an even littler boy are making straight for the bed.

"Daddy! Papa!" the little girl yells, jumping on top of the comforter.

"Hey, baby girl," Jensen says. The little boy is still standing by the baseboard next to the dog; Jensen reaches down and scoops him up, patting the dog's head as he goes. "How's Josh doing this morning?"

The kid squeals and grins at Jensen as he tickles his stomach, and Jared can't stop staring. "You've got kids?" he says incredulously, firmly backed against the headboard.

Jensen sighs heavily. "Dude, they're your kids too."

"They're my what?"

Jensen quirks an eyebrow at him. "Kids? Spawn?"

"Kids." Jared pretty much falls off the bed in his haste to get out of there. "I'm just, uh. I have to go somewhere. Right now."

He's already halfway down the hallway before he realizes: he actually is in Vancouver. He's in his old house there, the one he bought when Supernatural got picked up for a third season. He must have taken something fucking crazy last night, because how the hell else he could have gotten to Vancouver in the middle of the night, woken up in bed with Jensen and a couple of kids and—gross, now it sounds like he's Michael Jackson—anyway, lots of drugs, crazy ones. Probably Welling and Rosenbaum were involved. He snatches up the first jacket he sees and shoves his feet into the sneakers he finds by the door; at least he's already wearing sweatpants. Something flashes in the corner of his eye as he grabs a set of car keys from the countertop: he's got a bright gold band on his left ring finger, and isn't that just the funniest part of this whole thing? He tries to pull it off, but it sticks on his knuckle, and he can hear Jensen yelling from somewhere behind him: "Jared? Where are you going?" He'll get the ring off later. Right now he's out the door, unlocking the mini-van and zooming down the street.

It's been seven years since he sold this house, and the fact that Jensen bought it and is raising kids in it, that's really freaky, but anyway, he still knows exactly how to get to Rosenbaum's place. He makes it there in fifteen minutes flat, and in those fifteen minutes he's managed to get himself all the way convinced that Rosey's going to throw the door open and Welling will be passed out on the couch and Rosey will yell, "April Fool's!" and Jared will remind him that it's New Year's Day, bitch, not the first of April; and Rosey will tell him all about chartering that private jet in the middle of the night and those stewardesses, man, their legs were up to there.

So when Jared knocks and a fifty-year-old woman and her pet dachshund open the door and she says she hasn't heard of anyone named Rosenbaum in her life, unless wait, was he the guy who moved out nine years ago? Jared starts to get a little freaked out.

He spends a couple hours driving in one big loop through downtown and taking deep, calming breaths, trying to remember how to focus his qi or whatever that sex therapist he fucked three years ago liked to talk about, and he thinks maybe it's working, except for then he sees a woman with sleek brown hair and a business suit walking down the street outside one of the office buildings and he doesn't know how he knows it but he knows: it's the hooker from last night, the one that gave him that drink.

Jared slows the minivan down next to her and says, "Hey! You, I know you."

She lowers her sunglasses over her nose to take a better look at him. "Jared! It's fabulous to see you here." She speaks with a snooty British accent that Jared doesn't believe is real for a second.

"What the hell did you do to me?" Jared yells through the window.

She pauses, shifting her weight from one stiletto heel to the other. She's got amazing legs, he'll give her that. "It's a called a Glimpse," she says.

"So what, it's some kind of hallucinogenic drug thing that'll wear off in a few hours and then everything will be fine. Right? Right?"

She laughs. It sounds a little bit like bells. "Oh, relax, darling. You did a good thing last night, not grabbing my ass. I thought one good turn deserved another."

"You call this a good turn?" Jared yells. "Kidnapping me in the middle of the night and taking me to another country and bringing in Jensen and some random kids—"

She looks at him curiously. "Is that what you think this is?"

Jared throws the car in park, gets out and walks up to her. "I don't have a damned clue what I think this is, so you'd better start making some sense right now."

She stares back at him, looking not at all intimidated. "I tell you what," she says slowly. "Come inside with me and I'll explain everything and it'll all be okay." She gestures toward the building behind her—a ritzy apartment building not unlike Jared's.

"You promise?" Jared says warily.

"Of course I do." She goes in through the door, holding it open for him. He only gets three steps into the lobby before two massive security guards are approaching him.

"What the hell?" he says.

"I'm terribly sorry, love, but these are the rules," she says loftily. "I'm afraid I won't be seeing you. And I don't recommend trying to fight these nice gentlemen. You'll lose."

The guards each take one of his arms and start frog-marching him back toward the door. "What the hell?" he yells at her. "I'm supposed to be in L.A. right now! I've got a lot of important things to do!"

"Of course you do," she says, stepping into an open elevator. "But I really think you'd be better off going right back to your house."

"No, fuck that!" Jared says. "I'm going straight to the airport and getting on a plane back to Los Angeles."

"For one, I don't think that would be a very good idea, since you'll find that things aren't exactly the same there as you're used to. And for two, just how are you planning on doing it without this?" She holds up brown leather wallet.

Jared checks his pockets for the wallet that'd been there before. "Oh, you bitch!"

"No need to be nasty, now," she says pleasantly. "Happy New Year's! And Jared? Do try to enjoy this."

The elevator doors close in front of her and the guards throw Jared out of the building before he manages to finish sputtering.

*

Jared drives back toward the house. He doesn't really know where else to go at this point. He'll just borrow some money off Jensen and pay him back once he's got his extra credit cards in L.A.; and shit, he doesn't have a photo ID, but he'll figure something out. He pulls onto the street and slows down near the driveway and just totally fucking gapes, because there's Chad running down the sidewalk toward his car. "Chad, you fucker!" Jared says. "What the hell is this for? Is it payback for when I told Kenzie you got crabs for the fifth time, because I swear—"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Chad says confusedly. "Do you have any idea how much Jensen's been worrying about you? He said you'd been acting kind of weird this morning, and then you ran out when last night you said you were going to take the kids to the ice skating rink and you've been gone for hours—"

"You know, the joke stopped being funny about eight hours ago, man," Jared says.

"Um, yeah," Chad says. "It really did. Look, you know what? Just get in there and let Jensen know you're all right so he can stop freaking out already."

It's all one big practical joke, Jared tells himself. It's all one big practical joke, and it stays that way right up until the second he goes back into the house and Jensen is there with the two little kids all red-eyed and puffy-faced, and Jensen gloms onto him and curls his fingers in Jared's jacket and says, "Where the fuck have you been?" and, "You know what, never mind, you're back, everything's okay, except for how Annie wouldn't stop crying for hours because she thought you hated her," and then it pretty much stops being a joke at all. Because Jensen's a fucking awesome actor, Jared knows that, but he's not this good. Nobody is. He doesn't have a damned clue what that means, other than that asking Jensen to spot him a couple hundred bucks to fly back to L.A. right now is probably not the best call. That's about all he knows.

It occurs to him somewhere around the time he's wiping Annie's snot off his sweatpants leg that the whole thing started with him waking up here; when he goes to bed, he'll probably wake back up in his own bed with three hookers fawning over him and this whole drug-induced hallucination or whatever the hell it is will be over and everything will be okay again. He feels a lot better about the whole thing after that. He's a lot better at dealing with Jensen and Josh falling asleep on the couch that afternoon with The Little Mermaid going in the background, and Annie making him paint watercolors with her when he thinks of it as something that will be over in the morning.

So he gets through the afternoon. They eat chicken and rice for dinner. Josh seems to think it's hilarious to throw rice at Jensen's head, which Jared completely agrees with right up until Jensen eyes him and says, "No way, dude, it's so your turn to take care of that." Jared's not quite so happy with the whole thing then, because seriously, if he's going to have a drug-induced hallucination, the rice should totally clean itself up.

Jensen takes care of putting the kids to sleep afterwards. He comes back into the T.V. room—which at least has a decent-sized screen, at least Jared's hallucination accounted for that—and they watch the Seahawks get clobbered and that's all pretty normal, anyway: watching a game with Jensen on the couch beside him. They used to do this all the time, back when Supernatural was still going.

The game ends and Jensen curls his hand around Jared's neck and says, "Hey, you ready to go to bed?"

With effort, Jared doesn't flinch out of the touch. "Um, yeah. Sure," he says. Somehow it's not until Jensen removes his hand and stands up that Jared notices the matching gold band on Jensen's left ring finger—and that's just one more thing on the very long list of things that isn't worth freaking out about, because this is all going to be over in the morning, anyway.

In the bedroom Jensen strips down to his boxers and gets in bed. "You mind getting the light?" he says.

"Um, sure." Jared flips the switch. The lamp on Jensen's side of the bed is still on, though. Jared considers leaving all of his clothes on—he could be cold or something—but he's slept in the same bed as Jensen before; it's not that weird. He takes his jeans off and, after some consideration, his shirt. It's really not that weird. He slides under the covers and Jensen shifts up next to him and tries to kiss him and okay, that's weird, and who tries to have sex with the lights on, anyway?

"I'm, uh. I'm really tired?" Jared offers.

"Really?" Jensen says, but he backs off. He's still looking at Jared, though. Even in the darkness, Jared's pretty sure he looks disappointed. "Okay. Good night, then," he says finally, rolling over to the other side of the bed and turning off the light.

"Good night," Jared says, lying flat on his back to stare at the ceiling. Everything's going to be okay in the morning; he keeps telling himself that. It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

*

Jared wakes up with a heavy arm flung across his chest and legs tangled up with his own that are far too hairy to belong to any hooker he'd pick up. He opens an eye cautiously, then lets out a huge sigh. It's still Jensen. He's still here.

He tries to disentangle himself without waking Jensen up, but it's no good: Jensen's grip tightens over his chest. "Five more minutes," Jensen mumbles against Jared's shoulder.

"Um," Jared says. "I really have to pee." He wriggles out from under Jensen's arm. Jensen makes a sleepy sort of complaining noise and burrows against the pillow Jared's head was just on. Jared goes into the bathroom and hyperventilates very quietly with his back against the door. He brushes his teeth slowly and splashes cold water on his face and he's still in Vancouver when he's done. He opens the door.

"You take long enough?" Jensen says, pushing past him into the bathroom. He's completely naked, and Jared's pretty sure his jaw is actually dropping. He swallows hard. Jensen picks up his toothbrush, and catches Jared staring. "You see something you like?" Jensen grins and shakes his ass a little. "Not that I'm opposed to you being hot for me or anything, but you do remember it's your morning to get the kids to school, right?"

That's enough to distract Jared from the naked. "My turn to get the kids to school?" he asks.

"It's a good thing you're really fucking good in bed," Jensen sighs, "because this whole clueless shtick? It's getting old."

"Could I maybe get some help with it?" Jared tries.

"Where by 'it' you mean 'the kids'?" Jensen says through a mouthful of toothpaste. "Dude, we've had them for four years. I think you know how to change a dirty diaper."

"Oh my God," Jared says weakly.

Jensen runs water in the sink and squirts shaving cream into his hand. "Look, I know Josh's recurring diarrhea isn't exactly the most awesome thing to deal with first thing in the morning, but I've got to be at school in forty-five minutes, so you're on your own today, kiddo."

Jared keeps staring at him.

Jensen waves a hand in front of his face. "Staff meetings all day long, is this ringing a bell? Anyone? Bueller?"

"Sure?" Jared says.

"Great," Jensen says. "You'd better get going, you know Mrs. Hammond's going to get pissed if Annie keeps showing up late. What are you waiting for?" He gets in the shower. It's an opaque glass door, and Jared can still see pretty much everything.

Jared says, "Right, going!" and turns away quickly so he won't keep staring. He goes into the hall and finds the dog whining low in its throat outside the door. Dogs, those he can deal with. He lets the dog out and feeds it and finds its collar on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

"Maggie," he reads off the dog tag. "That's your name, huh, girl?"

The dog wags her tail approvingly, then jerks her head up and runs across the kitchen to where Jensen's walking in, already wearing a coat and carrying a briefcase and saying, "All right, I'll pick Annie up after ballet, unless Tom Watson's a jackass and makes us talk about the basketball team for eight hours instead of actually discussing anything useful—again. I'll let you know if I need you to get her." He grabs a travel mug off the counter and fills it with coffee from the automatic-timer pot while he talks. "Don't forget to pack extra diapers for Josh, and I'll see you tonight, okay?"

He kisses Jared quickly before Jared can think to move out of the way—just a quick brush of lips, the mint of his toothpaste—and then he's out the door. Jared touches his mouth, dazed. "Shit," he says to the dog. "What am I supposed to do now?"

The dog's ears prick again and Jared glances at the doorway. Annie's standing there with her thumb in her mouth, looking very much like she's going to burst into tears at any second.

"You're not really my daddy, are you?"

*

It's pretty much a goddamned miracle, but Annie doesn't actually start crying. She asks where her daddy is, and Jared tells her he doesn't know but he's sure that her daddy loves her very much and that he'll be back as soon as he can. She nods, sniffs a little and decides that Jared is an alien, which he's willing to roll with. After determining that he's not going to kidnap her and Josh and suck their brains out, she shakes his hand very solemnly and says, "Welcome to Earth." It would be completely hilarious if he weren't on the edge of minor hysteria.

It turns out that the kid knows her stuff, though. She directs him through changing Josh's diaper—which, gross, he really does have diarrhea—and the fact that apparently he should be wearing a suit and packing lunches and dropping Josh off at daycare and taking her to school and she tells him when he's supposed to pick them up. When she climbs out of the car, Jared notices that she's wearing two different shoes, but whatever, he still thinks he's done pretty well for himself.

What Jared really wants to do now is go back to the house and find some ID and get the hell out of there, but he's supposed to be picking up Josh at 3:30 and Annie at 3:45 and dropping her off at ballet at 4:00, and he doesn't like thinking about Annie crying when the alien who looks just like her daddy doesn't show up. And okay, Jared's already been missing for more than a day; it's not like another day's going to make that big of a difference. If anyone asks he'll just say he was in rehab or something. It's a lot more likely than that he's in some drug-induced alternate universe where he has kids with Jensen Ackles, high school drama teacher.

So instead of heading back toward the house he rolls down the window and says, "Hey Annie? What do I do now?"

Annie frowns. "Well, Daddy usually goes to work after he drops me off at school."

"Where does your daddy work?" Jared asks, and Annie tells him.

*

In whatever this crazy, drug-induced universe is, Jared is a fucking local weatherman. They tell him he's a little too exuberant with the gesturing today, and that he really needs to stop standing in front of the low-pressure front he's trying to talk about, but from the way everyone's talking, it sounds like both of these things are pretty normal occurrences, so he's fine.

The most terrifying part about it? It's actually, in some intensely bizarre way, kind of fun.

*

Jared picks Josh up from preschool and drops Annie off at ballet. He even gets her there five minutes early. "You're not entirely terrible at this," she tells him when he pulls the car up. "Daddy's almost always late."

Jared's still grinning at the praise when he gets back to the house and realizes that he hasn't actually thought of going back to L.A. in hours. The thing is, that stripper had said something about L.A. being different than he's expecting, and he doesn't know why he gets the idea in his head, but after he puts Josh down on the couch in front of 101 Dalmatians, Jared sits down in front of the desktop computer he finds across the room and IMDBs himself.

His filmography basically ends after five seasons of Supernatural. There are a couple of guest spots after that on shows he's never heard of, and a few more mentions of himself on talk shows, but that's it. There are supposed to be a solid dozen more entries in each of the sections, at least: ten more feature films and a line about his Oscar nomination for The Fallen in his biography. There's nothing like that, just so much empty space.

Jared doesn't know why, but he knows after that. He already kind of knew on some level, but now he really knows: he can't fix this by just flying down to L.A. He can't fix it, and he doesn't have a damned clue of how to get out of here, whatever 'here' is. There's really nothing for it but to sit tight and hope he wakes up before the Oscars, because seriously, being in a coma all the way through February? That would really fucking suck.

*

Jensen walks in with Annie a little after five-thirty. He drops his briefcase by the door and walks right over to Jared. "I hate basketball," he says. "I hate basketball and football and the entire math department, they so do not need new calculators, and I have to sit through a whole 'nother day of this tomorrow." He moves toward Jared like he's going to kiss him and Jared's going to move out of the way, he really is, but Annie's in the background shaking her head frantically—so Jared stays right there and lets Jensen lay one on him. It's a lot like the kiss that morning, quick and closed-mouthed, so there's not really anything for Jared to freak out over. Jensen slumps against his chest afterwards and Jared pats his back awkwardly, unsure of what he's supposed to do. Annie's making the thumbs-up sign in the background, though, so probably he isn't totally fucking up.

"Please tell me you started cooking dinner," Jensen mumbles, shifting away from Jared's chest. He looks at the unlit stove—some kind of complicated gas top thing, definitely not the stove Jared remembers. "Dude, come on, you've been back since four!"

"I was watching 101 Dalmatians with Josh," Jared says defensively. And he had been, after he shut the computer back down. He's pretty sure he might have fallen asleep for a little while in there, because he definitely doesn't remember how exactly all the Dalmatians got covered in soot. "I didn't want to wake him up!"

Jensen snorts. "Right, because making Riceroni, that's so loud."

Jared's ears perk up. "We're having Riceroni?"

"It's your night to cook," Jensen says. "Of course we're having Riceroni."

"I love that stuff!" Jared says, opening the cabinet and staring at all the glorious boxes. "Dude, and Hamburger Helper?"

"Annie," Jensen says solemnly to the kid, "I'm pretty sure your daddy has actually gone insane."

For about half a second Jared's terrified that Annie's going to blow his cover. When he started thinking of this as a James Bond-style mission, he's not entirely sure, but he doesn't know what the hell he's going to do if Annie's quivering bottom lip goes all the way over into crying. But she gets her act together and says, "Don't be silly, Papa. He just really things that are easy to make!"

"Hmm," Jensen says. "This is true."

"Just because they're stupidly easy to prepare doesn't mean they're not delicious," Jared says. He's having a really hard time deciding between Chicken Teriyaki and Mexican Style.

"Just pick one before we all die of hunger," Jensen says, stepping up behind him and resting his head on Jared's shoulder.

Jared slips out of the touch as subtly as he can and turns to Annie, a box in each hand. "Hey, Annie, which one?"

She deliberates very carefully and then points to his left hand. "That one!" she says.

Mexican Style. "The kid's got good taste," Jared says.

Annie clings to Jensen's leg and beams up at Jared. "Dude, her taste in Riceroni? That's all from you."

"She's not actually my kid," Jared says. "Er, I mean. Is she, like—"

Jensen rolls his eyes and says, "Well yes, she's adopted, but that didn't mean she didn't get it from you anyway." He's looking at Jared with an annoyed sort of fondness as he says it.

For the briefest of seconds, something clenches in Jared's stomach, then Jensen isn't looking at him anymore and the moment has passed.

"I'm going to go wake up Josh and change his diaper," Jensen says. "Unless you already did it?"

"No, sorry," Jared says. He breathes easier once Jensen's out of the room. Annie's still there, though, looking up at him. "Uh," he says. "I don't guess you know how to turn on the stove, do you?"

Annie shakes her head. "Nope."

Jared prays he doesn't blow up the house and starts fiddling with the dials.

*

The kids both fall asleep right after dinner, and Jensen puts hockey on TV. There's a big leather chair next to the L-shaped sofa; Jared goes straight for the chair while Jensen's getting something out of the kitchen.

"Oh, no way," Jensen says when he walks into the room. "Get on the couch."

"What are you—"

Jensen grabs him by the arm and pulls him out of the chair. There's plenty of space on the couch, enough space that they could both spread all the way out and probably still not be touching, but Jensen parks Jared right next to him and says, "Okay, you're stressed, I get it. Look, I'll make you a deal: I'll give you a backrub if you promise not to change the channel."

"Um, I don't really—"

Jensen covers Jared's mouth with his hand. "Oh yeah, also? No talking."

"Mmph," Jared says. Jensen's already kneading Jared's right shoulder with his free hand, though, and the thing is? It feels really fucking good. Jensen removes his hand from Jared's mouth and waits until Jared says, "Okay."

"Good," Jensen says, shifting up against Jared's back. "But I mean it, dude, if I look at the screen and it's on Shark Week or something, I'm going to be seriously pissed."

"Shark Week's in August," Jared says, but then Jensen's got both hands on Jared's shoulders and whatever he's doing, it's seriously awesome: digging his fingers deep into Jared's muscles and working the tension. He keeps finding the balls of stress in Jared's back before Jared can even feel them all the way, and the pleasure that moves through him when Jensen releases them is like—he doesn't even know what it's like. Something totally fucking amazing.

When Jensen slides his hands down Jared's back and rucks up his shirt, Jared's pretty sure he's supposed to protest. He's pretty much boneless, though, melted into the couch, and Jensen's already got his hands on Jared's skin anyway, concentrating his thumbs on each of Jared's vertebra. There's not much point in protesting now, so he relaxes into it.

Jensen's fingers get even better the moment Jared does that. Jared's pretty sure that Jensen's relieving stress that doesn't even exist yet, stress that won't be here until five or ten years down the line and maybe not even then, because if Jensen keeps doing this long enough, Jared's not going to remember what stress even is.

Jared's so thoroughly at one with the couch that he doesn't even notice Jensen's touches becoming gradually lighter and lighter until finally he pulls his hands out from under Jared's shirt and presses a kiss to the back of Jared's neck. Jared doesn't even think about moving. That would require a level of brain function so high he cannot actually remember what it is.

"Come here," Jensen says, shifting backwards and pulling Jared's head down onto his lap. Jared's got enough room on the couch that he can stretch his legs all the way out, so he does. The leather of the sofa down by his legs hasn't been warmed with body heat, but Jensen's hand is moving absently over his hair, stroking his head, and everything is pretty much okay.

*

Jared actually wakes up before the alarm goes off in the morning. There's a fraction of a second of doubt where he thinks that he might be back in his normal life, but he's registered the flannel sheets and the baby monitor on the nightstand and by then he's out of bed and heading for the shower because he doesn't actually remember when the last time he got to take a shower was.

The shower's different than it was when he bought the house, too, but the controls aren't really that tricky. He's under the spray and just getting to the point where he's starting to feel like something of a human being again when he notices that there's a second showerhead on the wall opposite him.

About two seconds after that, the bathroom door opens and then the shower door, and Jensen steps into the shower with him. Jared tries to scramble backwards but there's really nowhere to go; it's big enough for the two of them but definitely not as big as, say, Antarctica. And if Jared could be there right now, that would be awesome; it might actually be far enough away.

"I thought the bathroom door was locked!" Jared sputters.

"Please, like you've actually forgotten the time Annie barfed all over the hall because you didn't want her to walk in on us fucking in the shower," Jensen says, turning on the second showerhead.

Jared gapes. "We fuck in the shower?"

"Yes, Jared," Jensen says, packing more sarcasm into those two words than Jared even knew was possible. "We fuck in the shower."

For about half a second, Jared thinks Jensen's going to grab him and do—he doesn't know what, but something—with him right then. Instead Jensen just reaches past him for the shampoo and starts showering.

This is okay. Jared's shared showers with guys before; he can do this. And okay, so it was in high school, and it was huge open group showers instead of ones in an enclosed space with just one guy, but he's done it before, and it was fine. It's going to be totally fine. Jensen's acting like this is something that happens all the time, that they just shower together, and probably Jensen and this other universe Jared do, and nobody freaks out about it.

So Jared washes his hair and scrubs his shoulders with a washcloth and doesn't at all watch the way Jensen tilts his head up under the spray to rinse the soap off his face. Jared instead concentrates very hard on scrubbing between his toes and on not looking up, but after a while he does look up; he can't help it. And it's ridiculous: Jensen's hair is flattened down against his skull, and he's freaking scrubbing under his armpits. There couldn't possibly be anything sexy about it, so Jared really doesn't know why a flash of want moves through him when he looks at Jensen right then. Jensen's so fucking close to him—half a step and Jared could touch him—and it occurs to him that in this place, whatever it is, he can touch him; he's allowed.

Jared swallows and takes that half step and kisses Jensen: closed-mouthed at first, but then Jensen groans against his mouth and opens his lips under Jared's. Jared opens his mouth and lets Jensen's tongue slip in. It feels way better than it has any right to, the rough scratch of Jensen's stubble against his cheek. Jared fits a hand to Jensen's hip, holds him steady—so that he'll stay there, Jared realizes, so that he won't move away. It's the first time he's had that thought.

Nothing else happens, though. Jensen doesn't try anything. Nothing happens except that they kiss in the shower until their lips are fat and red.

*

Jared takes the kids to school again. It's raining a little this morning, so Annie makes him walk all the way to the door with her under the golf umbrella she finds in the backseat, even though she's already got on a bright yellow raincoat and rubber boots.

"I don't have ballet today," she says, "but you'll still remember to come get me, right?"

"At 3:45?"

"Yup," Annie says. She glances toward the door, then grabs his leg. "I miss my daddy," she says.

Jared pats her awkwardly on the head and quickly says, "I'm sure he misses you too and he'll get back to you as soon as he can. But you've got to help me out until then, okay?"

Annie sniffs and releases his leg. "Okay."

Jared exhales. "Okay. Good. I'll see you at 3:45."

"And get Josh at 3:30." She wipes her nose with her hand.

"Right," Jared says. "Him too. Got it."

"Okay, see you then!" Annie turns and runs into the building, and Jared drives to work.

It turns out that Chad works at the TV station too. He's one of the producers; Jared's not entirely sure what, but he isn't on camera at any rate, and the fact that he isn't is quite possibly the best thing Chad has ever done for society. Chad talks him through everything he's supposed to be doing that morning: "You're coming on after the third story instead of the fourth, the research people are saying that'll help our ratings?"

"What, you mean if people get to see my face earlier they're more likely not to change the channel?" Jared asks.

"Or something," Chad says. "They're also going to have to Katherine Wortham with you for the desk slot." He makes a face.

"Is that . . . bad?" Jared fields, but someone needs Chad across the room and they're calling Jared to get into makeup, anyway, so he doesn't even know find out Katherine Wortham is until they're about to go live and Jared's sitting down at the desk next to a hot blonde and she's following his, "I'm Jared Padalecki," with, "And I'm Katherine Wortham. It sure has been a wet one this morning, hasn't it, folks?"

Jared doesn't think he's imagining it: Katherine Wortham keeps sneaking looks at him. He catches her at it a couple of times while they're on camera, but she's doing it way more after they wrap up their slot and the newscasters take back over.

"It's so lovely to be working with you again, Jared," she says, beaming. "I can call you Jared, right?" She lays a hand on his arm as they walk toward the water cooler.

"Sure you can," Jared says, smiling at her. He takes a good long look at Katherine: tall, leggy, nice rack—just the kind of woman he likes. And oh man, this is easy; he doesn't even have to think about this. This is just the kind of normal he's needed and hasn't gotten in days. "How long have we known each other?"

She laughs lightly. "Nearly five years now. You came to the station just after I did." Without ever actually rearranging her top she's somehow managing to show way more cleavage than she was three minutes ago. "I was so excited to hear that we were going to be getting to work together directly again. It's been such a long time."

"Yeah, it really has," Jared says. "Hey, I think it's nearly time for lunch. If you're free, maybe we could, you know. Get to know each other a little better?"

Her eyes light up with surprise and pleasure. "Oh, of course, Jared, that would be—"

"I'm sorry, he forgot he's already got lunch plans," Chad says, wedging himself between Jared and Katherine. "Come on, buddy, we're going to be late."

"You sure we can't cancel and do this another day?" Jared says, glaring at him.

Chad glares right back. "I'm sure. Come on."

Jared catches Katherine's face, tight and confused, out of the corner of his eye. As soon as they're around the corner and out of earshot Jared hisses at Chad. "What the hell are you doing?"

"What the hell am I doing?" Chad still hasn't let go of Jared. He's got Jared's arm in something of a death grip, and his fingers only dig in deeper. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I totally had a chance to get with her!" Jared says.

Chad doesn't say anything at all for a long moment; he just stares at Jared with his jaw working. "Are you even hearing yourself talk here, man? Because okay, in case you missed this? You're married." He grabs Jared's hand and okay, Jared knew it before—there aren't that many things a pair of matching gold rings can mean—but no one had ever straight-up said it to him before, and so he'd been able to ignore it. But now he can't; he can't ignore it.

Chad's still talking. "And look, I know you went through this when you and Jensen first got together, the whole freaking-out-about-being-gay thing, but damn it, Jared, that was ten years ago! I thought you were over that by now!"

"Um," Jared says.

"Look," Chad says. "You remember what you said to me when I told you I was thinking about breaking up with Sophia and getting with Kenzie?"

"What?" Jared says.

"You said you weren't going to let me fuck up the best thing in my life just because I wanted some new pussy. And I'm telling you the same thing now: I get that taking it up the ass has got to be weird as hell—"

Jared blanches. "I take it up the ass?"

"That is more than I ever wanted to know about your and Jensen's sex life," Chad says. "But look, Jensen loves you, and you've got kids, and getting some action with Katherine Wortham is so not worth losing all that, you know? If you're having problems with Jensen, you want to talk to him about it, not just go bang random women."

"We're not having problems," Jared says quickly.

"So it's really just about missing the pussy then? All right, man, I get it, I really do. Pussy's awesome. But let me just say, I really don't think you would have stayed with Jensen for the past ten years if, y'know," he gestures vaguely, "the sex wasn't good."

"Oh my God," Jared says.

There's a moment of silence during which they both contemplate the fact that they just talked about Jared's sex life.

"Right, so just so we're clear," Chad begins. "You're not throwing away your marriage and your kids just so you can sleep with Katherine Wortham. Or anyone else."

"Um." It's not even Jared's marriage, or Jared's kids, but he still pretty much feels like the biggest asshole in the world. "No, I'm not."

"Good." Chad relaxes visibly. "Now can we please never talk about this again?"

"Oh God, yes," Jared says.

*

part one | part two | part three | notes & acknowledgments | master post