Entry tags:

fic, harlequin, jared/jensen, rps

FIC: Mr. Right Next Door (1/5)
For the summary and links to all parts of the fic, please see the master post.

Part One

Jared loved Saturdays. He and Chad usually went out on Friday nights, drank a few beers and played darts, and Sundays were always crack-down-and-catch-up-on-work days, but Saturdays, Jared got to relax. He usually slept in until nine or ten, which, considering he got up at five-thirty on school mornings, was really saying something. He'd make himself coffee, eggs and toast, and just hang out all day. Sometimes he, Chad and some other guys barbequed at night in the summer, but usually he just played some PS2 in the mornings and caught up on email.

On Saturday afternoons Jared called home, let his mom's voice wash over him while his dad just listened on, commenting occasionally. But mostly it was just his mom: Are you sure you're getting enough sleep, JT? They aren't working you too hard?

They'd had the same conversation so many times that Jared could recite his part of it without thinking, call and response, which was why it threw him so badly today when his mom got to the part where she asked, "So, you meet anybody yet?" and he realized his usual reply, "Come on, Mom, you know you and Megan are the only women for me," didn't fit. He thought about Sandy's tiny hands, how easily they'd slipped into his own; her smile, brightening when he caught her eye; her mouth pressed against his, urgent and wet, and he grinned at the memory of it.

"Actually," Jared said, "I have."

He'd gotten back from the Caribbean cruise, a Christmas present from his family, at two-thirty in the morning on Monday, less than six hours before he was supposed to be at school. He'd called home to let them know he was back, the cruise had been wonderful but he really needed to go to bed now, and he hadn't talked to them again until now. This week had been so busy he'd barely had time to sit down, let alone call home, so he still hadn't talked to them about the cruise.

"Way to go, JT!" his dad said. Jared could practically hear his parents smiling at each other.

"Well?" said his mom. "What's she like?"

Jared laughed. "Her name's Sandy. She's twenty-seven years old, likes long walks on the beach . . . "

"C'mon, now, none of that dating service crap," his mom interrupted. If Jared were at home, she would be swatting at him right now. "I mean, what's she like?"

Jared thought of Sandy's mouth against his ear. Things are kind of complicated for me right now, Jared. I might not be able to see you for a while. But -- her hands on his shoulders, warm brown eyes meeting his -- I want this. I want you. I'll find you when I can. Jared had slid his hands around her hips, pulled her in close, kissed her: I know you will, he'd said. I'll see you then.

"She's great, Mom," Jared said. "She's amazing. I think she's--" The one, was how Jared meant to finish the sentence, I think she's the one, but just then a pair of deafening yowls echoed through the house. Jared exhaled into the phone. "I think I need to go let Harley and Sadie out. They've been a real pain in the butt ever since I let Chad take care of them for the week."

"Bet he gave them milkbones every time they whined," his mom said knowingly.

"Bet you're right." Jared groaned. "I'll be right back." He put the phone down and headed towards the back door.

Harley and Sadie were really going at it, clawing at the back door. "What is up with you guys?" Jared shook his head. "I'm never leaving Chad in charge of you again."

Which was an enormous lie. Chad was his best friend, he lived right across the street, and on top of that he genuinely liked the dogs. Kristin claimed to, but Jared was pretty sure that Harley and Sadie actually scared the crap out of her and she was just saying that to be nice. He guessed he could always ask Eric, but it would feel kind of weird to ask his boss for that kind of favor.

Still, he really needed to talk to Chad about limiting the dogs' milkbone intake, because Harley and Sadie had been insane this week. It took him a couple tries before he could shove the dogs far enough back to even open the door, and once he did they were off like shots. Jared grinned after them, shaking his head. Dogs were nuts.

Jared turned to go back into the house, but something caught his eye: the thing that had gotten the dogs so worked up. Just on the other side of the fence, in the backyard of the rental place next door that no one had lived in for the past six months, was a guy. He was wearing a gray t-shirt and a baseball cap, and at the sound of Harley and Sadie's approach he turned away from where he was dumping a full Hefty bag into the trash can.

"Sorry about that!" Jared called out, following the dogs into the yard. "They're friendly, I swear."

The guy smiled at Harley's attempt to lick him through the fence. "It's cool. I like dogs."

"Their names are Harley and Sadie," Jared said.

"Good to know," said the guy.

"So, you just move in?" Jared was close enough now that he could read the embroidery on the guy's baseball cap: Rams Baseball.

"Yeah," the guy said, scratching absently at the junction of his shoulder and his neck. "I just got the keys on Monday."

Jared wondered for a moment why he hadn't seen any moving trucks or noticed that the "For Rent" sign was gone -- but right, it had been the week from hell. "Well, welcome to the neighborhood, then," he said. "I'm Jared Padalecki. I, uh, live here."

The guy grinned. "So I gathered. I'm Jensen Ackles." He offered his hand over the fence, and Jared took it.

"Nice to meet you, Jensen," Jared said. Jensen's grip was firm, the sort of grip Jared's dad approved of, and only then did he remember: "Oh, shit, my parents are on the phone right now. I'd better be getting back to them."

"Yeah, you do that," Jensen said.

Jared turned back towards the house, but called back over his shoulder, "See you around, though?"

"I do live here now," Jensen replied with a smile, and Jared couldn't help grinning back.

When he got back inside and picked up the phone, Jared said, "I'm sorry that took so long. A new guy moved in next door, I was just saying hi."

"He seem like a good guy?" Jared's dad asked.

"Yeah," Jared said, smiling a little. "He does."

"So where were we before the dogs interrupted?" said Jared's mom. "Oh, you were going to tell us all about this girl of yours."

"Oh, right," Jared said, and got his head back into the conversation.

*

Jensen sank down on the couch and cursed himself for being an idiot. It wasn't like he'd really expected he'd never meet Padalecki; he just hadn't thought it would be now, while taking out the freaking trash. It was just that the week's worth of pizza boxes and Chinese take-out containers had been starting to stink, and Padalecki had been on the phone with his parents, a cord phone, even, so it wasn't like it'd looked like he was going anywhere. Stupid overly curious dogs and their stupid sense of smell or hearing or whatever it'd been, and why couldn't Padalecki have just been thirty seconds slower at letting them out?

It wasn't really that big of a deal, and it wasn't like Jensen had been planning on never meeting Padalecki or anything. Considering that he was living next door in freaking Pembroke, Georgia, population 2,500, it would have been kind of hard not to run into Padalecki at some point. Jensen had just been caught off guard, was all. He'd done pretty well though, he thought.

Jensen walked over to the desk by the window and flipped open Padalecki's file. He'd already read it a dozen times. He had it practically memorized; it wasn't like he was going to find anything new in it now, but he read it again anyway.

Jared Tristan Padalecki. Born July 19th, 1982, which made him twenty-four years old. Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Straight-A student, soccer team, straight to UT with an academic scholarship. Majored in English, graduated with honors in 2004. Moved to rural Georgia straight out of college and got a job teaching English to at Bryan County Middle School.

Was given a ticket for a Royal Caribbean International cruise as a Christmas present from his family, for the dates of April 7-14, 2007. At a formal dinner on April 9th, 2007 he met Sandra McCoy, who was currently wanted in seven states and three foreign countries for cocaine trafficking and other related charges. Padalecki and McCoy spent most of the remainder of the cruise in each others' company. McCoy successfully evaded capture by the Drug Enforcement Agency for the entirety of the cruise, to the great embarrassment of all involved, but the agents were able to record a promise from McCoy to Padalecki that she would get in touch with him as soon as she could.

Which was why DEA Agent Jensen Ackles was sitting in a rental house in Pembroke, Georgia, listening to Padalecki extol the virtues of Sandra McCoy, cocaine trafficker, over the phone to his parents.

Before Jensen had ever arrived in Georgia, the agency had been fairly certain that Padalecki himself wasn't a criminal, just a civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time. After a week of recording Padalecki's phone calls and observing him, and especially after having met him, Jensen could pretty much officially confirm that. And from the way Padalecki spoke about McCoy, Jensen would be willing to bet a good deal of money that he had no idea who she really was. It was going to suck for the guy no matter how the whole thing with McCoy played out, Jensen couldn't help thinking. From what Jensen had seen of him, he seemed like a good guy. It was unfortunate that he'd gone and gotten himself involved with McCoy; if there was one thing Jensen had learned in the past five years with the DEA, it was that this sort of operation didn't usually work out so well for the bait.

*

Padalecki, Jensen quickly learned, was a creature of habit. He got up at five-thirty every morning during the week and went for a long, looping run. He came back, showered, got dressed and ate a big bowl of cereal, sometimes two. He left at seven-thirty and drove a beat-up Ford pick-up to Bryan County Middle School, where he taught three classes of seventh grade English and one class of eighth grade English. He stayed at school grading papers and giving extra English help until five-thirty, when he came home and cooked himself dinner. After that he watched some of whatever game was on, worked on more papers -- lesson plans, as far as Jensen could tell -- and went to bed by ten-thirty. Nine of the eleven days Jensen had been observing Padalecki had been school days, and in those nine days Padalecki had not deviated from his routine once.

Which was why Jensen was so surprised when he ran into him at the grocery store at four-fifteen on the second Friday afternoon of his assignment.

Jensen had finally decided it was time to start cooking for himself. In the whole time he'd been in Pembroke, McCoy hadn't so much as sent Padalecki an email. He had no idea how much longer this was going to go, and he could only order General Tsao's chicken so many times before he never wanted to see the stuff again. When he'd left for the grocery store, Padalecki had been in his office with three seventh graders and their grammar homework. It was just after four o'clock; there hadn't been a chance Padalecki would get out of there for another hour. Jensen had been sure of it.

But here Padalecki was, in the middle of the produce aisle, and of course it was just Jensen's luck that Padalecki spotted him immediately. "Jensen! Hey!" he called, wheeling his shopping cart past the eggplants.

It didn't look like there was much chance of avoiding him, so Jensen stood his ground and waited for Padalecki to get closer than yelling distance. It didn't take long; about three strides and the guy could have been halfway across the grocery store, with legs as long as his.

"Hey!" Padalecki said again, and continued without waiting for Jensen to respond, "I feel like I haven't really seen you around this week. How've you been?"

"Uh, fine," Jensen said. "I've been kind of busy, I guess."

"Yeah, me too," Padalecki said. "Work's been kind of a bitch." He braced a little, leaned against the cart; Jensen watched the way the veins were raised on his arms, tan against the white of his shirtsleeves.

Jensen reached for a red pepper. It was the nearest thing, and it was something to do with his hands, something to distract Padalecki and let him get back to grocery shopping, but of course Jensen's luck wasn't going that way today.

"What are you making for dinner?" Padalecki asked curiously.

Jensen frowned. "I'm not really sure. Spaghetti, maybe?" He realized he was still holding onto the red pepper and put it in the cart.

Padalecki nodded. "Spaghetti's good. With meat sauce or something, right?"

"Uh, sure," Jensen said distractedly, picking up a prepackaged Caesar salad and sticking it in the part with the red pepper. He couldn't figure out why Padalecki cared what he was eating with his spaghetti. Jensen inched the cart a little further forwards. Padalecki moved with him. The guy was just like his damned dogs, that was it. Too curious about everything.

"I think I'm going to have steak," Padalecki said happily as Jensen put apples in the cart. He didn't even like apples. "Porterhouse on the grill, maybe, and baked potatoes and salad, yeah, that'd be good. Hey man, do you want to eat steak with me?"

Jensen had been kind of tuning him out, so it was only after he'd replied, "Yeah, sure," that he realized Padalecki hadn't been asking him if he liked to eat baked potatoes and salad with his spaghetti. Shit. Jensen was about to backtrack, make up a story about being busy or something, because there was no universe in which this wasn't a bad idea, and he hadn't meant to say yes; he'd been distracted, that was all.

But then Padalecki's face lit up. "Great! Oh man, it'll be awesome, we can grab some beers, too, and I've got a couple lawn chairs and it's nice out, we can hang out out back!"

Jensen had been right to compare the guy to a dog before: he couldn't think of a single thing that he could say to get out of this that wouldn't make him feeling like he was kicking a puppy in the stomach. And so Jensen found himself being dragged around Harvey's Supermarket in search of the perfect steak dinner fixings. Padalecki moved through the store with the ease of someone who'd been shopping there once a week for years -- which Padalecki probably had, if he was as much of a creature of habit here as he was when it came to everything else.

The guy kept up a running commentary all the way from the baked goods over to the milk and cheese on the far side of the store, never so much as breaking stride to throw cereal, rice, meat, eggs, laundry detergent and everything else in the world into his cart. Jensen suspected that he, on the other hand, was going to get home and discover that he'd bought nothing but salad and cereal. It was hard to concentrate on groceries while Padalecki was talking so goddamned much, and Jensen hadn't thought to write out a list or anything. He hadn't thought grocery shopping was going to be this difficult. Jesus.

Padalecki babbled all the way up to the checkout line and flirted with the cashier, who was good-looking and blonde. He even freaking introduced her to Jensen: "This is Tara! Tara, this is Jensen. He's my new next-door neighbor!"

Jesus Christ.

Tara smiled at him and said, "Nice to meet you," then turned right back to Padalecki and started chatting with him about somebody named Wade for a few minutes while Jensen just stood there gaping, because was Padalecki really this friendly with everybody? People skills like this just weren't natural. Maybe the guy really was a criminal.

Jensen was being ridiculous.

"Wade's one of my seventh grade students," Padalecki explained once they'd finally gotten through the check-out line. "Tara's his aunt."

"Ah," Jensen said articulately. For some stupid reason that made him feel better, like maybe Padalecki's people skills weren't actually as superhuman as he'd thought they were. That didn't really make sense, even in his head.

"So you want to come over in forty-five minutes or so?" Padalecki asked in the parking lot. "Give me a little time to get the groceries put away and start the grill?"

"Yeah, sure," Jensen said.

Padalecki grinned huge. "Great! See you then, man!"

Jensen couldn't have stopped himself from smiling back if he'd tried. That would have been enough of a problem right there, if it weren't for the fact that he couldn't get his breathing regular until he was behind the wheel of his car again. He couldn't figure out why. It was just that Padalecki was a force of nature or something. When the guy turned his full attention on you, it was like seeing the sun rise for the first time after a week of solid rain, warm and brilliant.

And he'd thought he was being ridiculous before. Jensen shook his head hard, trying to get himself together, and drove back to the rental house.

*

After nearly two weeks of watching Padalecki move around his house in his sweatpants, grading papers and watching T.V., it was weird to walk straight up to the front door and ring the doorbell. The dogs got there well before Padalecki did; Jensen could hear them scrambling through the house and careening to a halt behind the door, trying to bark his ears off. Jensen could hear Padalecki's footsteps, then his voice, muffled through the door: "Just let me let Jensen in, darn it!" The door opened, and Padalecki was trying to hold the dogs back with one of his legs. He wasn't particularly successful. One of them made a wild leap for freedom and the other slipped under Padalecki's leg while he was distracted, crashing into Jensen. The crazy one got loose a couple of seconds later, and tried to push up against Jensen, too, jockeying for position.

"Sorry about that," Padalecki said sheepishly. "Uh, welcome to my house?"

It took a little while, but eventually the dogs let Jensen actually make it off the stoop and into the house. The dogs were a little crazy, but Jensen didn't really mind them.

He hadn't really been able to tell from the surveillance tapes, but the place actually looked a lot like Jensen's rental inside, except for the fact that it looked like someone actually lived here: pictures on the walls, rugs over hardwood floors and shoes stacked in a neat pile. It was almost enough to make Jensen feel guilty about his half-unpacked duffel bag and accumulating stacks of papers and AV equipment.

"I could give you the grand tour, if you want," Padalecki offered, but then his stomach growled. He looked down, corners of his mouth quirking to the side. "Or we could go ahead and get those steaks on the grill."

"You can give me the tour after dinner," Jensen said, smirking.

"Great! I'm freaking starving. The baked potatoes should be done in fifteen minutes, I put them in the oven right when I got back, so if we give it another few minutes we can put the steaks on, and there's salad in the fridge," and Jensen would've thought that the guy would have ruptured something by now, but clearly Padalecki didn't actually need to breathe. "Oh, and there's beer in the fridge," Padalecki added, "if you don't mind grabbing a couple."

"Sure." Jensen opened the fridge and damned if he didn't really like this guy: Padalecki stocked Corona. Jensen's mouth was watering a little. "Tell me you have limes."

"I've got limes," Padalecki said, reaching behind himself and lobbing one towards Jensen.

Jensen caught it neatly out of the air. "Cutting board and knife?"

"In that drawer and on the counter." Padalecki gestured.

Jensen cut the lime thin and popped the tops of the bottles, sticking a slice of lime in each. He handed one of the beers to Padalecki and picked up his own. "Cheers." He took a long pull and sighed happily. "Shit, that is good."

Padalecki's eyebrows shot upwards. "Wait a minute. You're not from Texas, are you?"

Jensen had never really had much of an accent to begin with, but what accent he did have only tended to come out when he was very tired or drunk. Or, apparently, when faced with his first Corona with lime in a while.

Jensen took another sip of beer. "Yeah. Outside of Dallas. Richardson." He stared at Padalecki curiously.

"It was the look you gave that beer," Padalecki explained. "You only learn that kind of appreciation for beer in Texas."

There were plenty of DEA agents in L.A. who appreciated Corona with lime just fine, but Jensen didn't say so. "Gave me away, did it?"

Padalecki grinned toothily. "Sure did." He picked his beer up off the counter and said, "Hey, let's get those steaks going."

It turned out that Padalecki grilled a damned good steak. It also turned out that once you got a couple beers in him, Padalecki calmed right down and let Jensen get a few words in edgewise. And it was a good conversation, too, filled with easy banter. Jensen wasn't entirely sure how it happened but he found himself staying and helping to clean up the dishes, then moving out back to sit in the lawn chairs, drink another beer and shoot the shit. Dusk snuck past without him even noticing it, and it was a warm night, comfortable, crickets chirping in the dark. It wasn't until well after ten o'clock that Jensen looked at his watch and realized with a strange warmth in his stomach that, in the past five hours, he hadn't thought of the case. Not once.

*

Around seven on Saturday night, Jared went over to Chad's to watch the Orioles game. Jared usually tried to avoid spending time at Chad's house at all costs, since Chad kind of lived in squalor -- Jared was pretty sure that at least one of the times Sophia had broken up with Chad, it had been because of the state of his house -- but Chad had a flat-screen T.V. and had ordered pizza and, well, it turned out that Jared was easily persuaded.

The game was going pretty well so far, with Cleveland up three to one at the top of the fourth inning. Chad kept looking at him, though, all suspicious and squinty-eyed, and okay, the squinty-eyed part wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but the staring was a little weird. "What's going on?" Jared said finally.

"Sandy didn't call or anything did she?" Chad said out of nowhere.

Jared was usually very good at following Chad's sideways logic. Chad had been his best friend pretty much since the moment he'd moved to Georgia, and if Jared hadn't been fluent in Chad by this point, it would have been a long three years. But for the life of him he couldn't figure out where Chad had come up with that one.

Jared just stared at him and said, "If Sandy had called, you would have known about it right after she did. What makes you think she called?"

Chad drained his Miller Lite and crushed the can. "I dunno. You're acting all weird and jittery."

Jared's knee-jerk urge to deny it would have been more effective if he hadn't realized just then that his left leg had been involuntarily shaking for the past inning and a half. "Huh," he said.

"So there's really nothing up with you?" Chad asked.

Jared shook his head. "Not that I know of."

"Weird," Chad said. "Hey, speaking of weird, why weren't you at the bar last night?"

"Oh!" Jared perked up. "Sorry, I was going to come, but I ran into Jensen at the grocery store and we ended up grilling steaks and hanging out and you know Jensen, right? The guy who moved into the rental place next door?"

Chad considered. "I think I've seen him around, maybe. Kinda tall, likes to wear baseball caps?"

"Yeah, that's him. Anyway, we were still hanging out around eleven, and I was kind of tired and I'd already had a few beers, didn't really want to drive into town at that point. How was it, though?"

Chad groaned. "Sophia was there, man. She got there kind of late, after I'd already had a few beers, and I really shouldn't have even talked to her, but I couldn't help it!"

Jared had heard variations on this theme enough times that he could probably recite what had happened at the bar word for word. "What'd you say?"

Chad exhaled and muttered, "I bought her a beer and asked her to marry me."

Jared was trying his best to be a good friend, he really was, but he couldn't help himself, a little bit of laughter might have slipped out. "Dude, she broke up with you three weeks ago!"

"I know, all right?" Chad snapped. "I didn't mean to ask her but I just couldn't help myself!"

And now Jared was really laughing, because when Chad went on the defensive he reminded Jared of a terrier with its back hair up, all disgruntled and yipping.

Chad scowled at him. "It's really not funny!"

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry," Jared said, struggling to get himself under control and succeeding, barely. "So what'd Sophia say?"

"She said, 'Never in a million years', and threw her beer on me," Chad muttered to the T.V. screen, and Jared couldn't have stopped himself from laughing again if he'd tried. Which he didn't.

"Better luck next time, dude," Jared managed to get out through his wheezing. "Maybe the seventh time really is the charm." Really, that was one of Sophia's better rejections. Throwing the beer on Chad was classic.

"I really, really hate you," Chad said.

Jared grinned and Chad lobbed the empty Miller Lite can at his head. By the seventh inning stretch Jared had finally gotten the laughter more or less out of his system, and he went into the kitchen to get more beer.

"So Sandy really hasn't called you yet?" Chad said at the top of the eighth. "Because, like, you're still doing this whole weird overly happy thing."

"I'm always happy," Jared said. "Sophia threw her beer on you. I will never stop being happy."

"I still hate you," Chad informed him. "But really, you're sure nothing's up with you? You didn't, I don't know, get to throttle some annoying kid at work or something?"

Jared chucked the crushed-up can back at Chad. "Naw, they don't ever let you do that. I'm just in a good mood, is all."

And it was true, Jared realized, sinking back into the couch. It had been nearly two weeks and Sandy still hadn't called, and it should really be getting to him more than it was. No matter what he'd told himself about being patient, he'd spent the first week after the cruise thinking it was going to be Sandy every time the phone rang, and every time it had turned out to be someone else he'd had to swallow down a little disappointment. But now, for whatever reason, Jared didn't feel the same urgency about it as before. He was sure she was going to call, and he couldn't wait until she did, but he was doing just fine in the meantime, too.

*

Three weeks into the assignment, Jensen was really starting to wonder if McCoy was ever going to contact Padalecki at all. Padalecki didn't seem too worried about it, from what he'd been telling people over the phone -- "She said she was going to need some time, and it's only been a few weeks" -- but Jensen was starting to go a little stir-crazy. The job was always filled with long hours of grunt work and surveillance, only broken up by the occasional arrest or drug bust. He should have been used to it by now, but three weeks of sitting around in a house in the middle of nowhere, Georgia, was starting to get to him.

Part of the problem was that he hadn't been working out, Jensen knew. When he was in Los Angeles he usually went to the gym a few times a week to lift weights. He ran on the odd days and kept up with his judo, but when he was on surveillance cases working out made him nervous, like the case was going to break during that one hour or so he was gone. It wasn't likely, and especially with this particular assignment it wouldn't be that big of a deal; it wasn't like McCoy was going to call Padalecki thirty minutes before she showed up in Pembroke, so the DEA would have all the information they'd need to be able to capture her on the recordings, anyway. But Jensen still felt better devoting all of his attention to the case. The thing was, assignments like this didn't usually last so freaking long. If McCoy weren't one of the DEA's top priorities at the moment, there wasn't a chance in hell he'd still be here.

Three weeks in, Jensen broke. Padalecki went for an hour-long run every morning at five forty-five; it wasn't like he was going to be responding to any communications McCoy sent during that hour. Jensen decided to run then, too; if he kept it short enough that he got back before Padalecki did, it should be fine.

Jensen pulled on a t-shirt and shorts and laced up his running shoes. Padalecki ran the same route every morning, up Poplar Street towards Camelia Drive and back down in a long loop, so Jensen checked his watch and headed in the other direction. He figured he'd just run straight for twenty minutes and then turn back, which should give him plenty of time to get back to Pine Street before Padalecki did.

It was the beginning of May and a good morning for running, cool with a low-hanging fog. Jensen had missed this, the shock of the pavement beneath his sneakers and the slow-building burn in his legs, and the tension in his chest started to unfurl.

Five minutes into Jensen's run the road curved. The fog was thicker here, reducing the world to shadow and movement, but to the left up ahead was another road with a figure loping along it, taking long, easy strides--

Padalecki. Of course it was.

Jensen thought about turning back, but chances were that if he'd seen Padalecki, Padalecki had seen him, too. Dang it. Jensen really needed to stop making assumptions about Padalecki sticking to his daily routine; he was getting sick of those assumptions coming back to bite him in the ass.

Padalecki came up towards the intersection right about the same time Jensen did, and waved Jensen down. "Hey! I didn't know you ran." He slowed to match Jensen's stride.

"I haven't since I moved in," Jensen replied, picking up the pace a little and enjoying the strain of his muscles.

"It's a good habit to be in, though," Padalecki said, speeding up with him.

Padalecki didn't say anything after that. Jensen didn't think he'd ever heard Padalecki so quiet, but it was a good silence, one he didn't feel any compulsion to break. The houses on the streets were quiet, too; there was nothing to be heard but their footfalls on the pavement and their breathing in the cool morning air.

Padalecki led him along side streets, gradually turning to the left until they were back on Gorham Street, a few blocks down from their houses. "I usually pick up the pace for the end," Padalecki said. "You wanna race?"

There was no way in the world Jensen was going to back down from that kind of challenge. "You're on."

Padalecki grinned. "My driveway's the finish line. Start from that tree," he said, pointing. "Ready . . . go!"

Padalecki might have had freakishly long giraffe legs, but Jensen didn't like losing. Padalecki was ahead of him right up until Jensen put on a burst of speed to catch him at the very end. They gradually slowed down to a walk, then Padalecki stopped and bent over with his hands on his thighs. After a couple moments he looked up through his hair -- the guy really needed a haircut -- and said, "Hey, that was fun. You wanna do that again tomorrow?"

Jensen couldn't have said no if he'd tried.


Part Two