Entry tags:

fic, harlequin, jared/jensen, rps

FIC: Mr. Right Next Door (2/5)
For the summary and links to all parts of the fic, please see the master post.

Part Two

After just a couple of days, it had already become a routine. Jensen would come outside at five-forty and Padalecki would be on the sidewalk in front of his house, stretching before they ran. Jensen would stretch a little, too, hamstrings and calves, and then they would take off. Jensen had been wrong about Padalecki's route, before: he didn't go the same way every day; he just started off in the same direction. Sometimes they went straight down Bacon Street, where the deserted sidewalks seemed strange in the pale morning light; other days they headed towards the park, running shoes crunching along the gravel. Padalecki was a good pacesetter, pushing just a little harder than Jensen would have pushed himself, which made him the best kind of running partner. They raced at the end of every run, too. Padalecki beat him once, but not easily, and he was breathing even more heavily than usual afterwards, which made Jensen grin. It was nice to know Padalecki hadn't actually been letting him win this whole time.

They hung out a couple of times at night that week, too, watched part of whatever game was on and drank a beer or two. It was an easy week at work, Padalecki said. The seventh graders had just started reading Of Mice and Men, so he didn't have as many essays to grade as usual, and Jensen could see the difference in the guy, the way he slouched more easily against the couch, huge hand curled around his beer, as opposed to the past few weeks when he'd spent most every night hunched over his desk grading essays at night. One of the cameras trained on Padalecki's house was trained on window of the computer room, and it had a good zoom lens: the book the seventh graders had read before Of Mice and Men had been The Old Man and the Sea. The camera wasn't good enough for Jensen to have been able to see just what the seventh graders had had to say about Hemingway, but he had been able to tell that Padalecki had given out a lot of Bs.

Jensen had the vague sense that he should feel guilty about spending time with Padalecki like this, but he pushed the feeling down. Technically he was still keeping the guy's communications under surveillance, wasn't he? He was just doing it from a little closer in, that was all.

The thing was, Jensen genuinely liked hanging out with Padalecki. They got along well together, and Jensen couldn't remember the last time he'd spent so many days straight grinning just at the fact of being in someone's presence. It felt like making the varsity baseball team or the first time he'd cracked a DEA case, but somehow even better, and if it this wasn't how he usually went about keeping someone's communications under surveillance, well, he tried not to think about it too hard.

It went on like that for a week or so, until Friday around noon Jensen's cell phone buzzed on his desk. Jensen scrambled to answer it, saw Padalecki's name flash across the screen and couldn't help but grin a little. "Yeah?"

"Hey man, it's Jared," Padalecki said. "Listen, what are you doing tonight, because some of the people I work with and I were thinking about going to Hart's, and I wanted to see if you wanted to come. Two dollar longnecks, man, and I think you'll really like these people, they're cool."

"Yeah, definitely," Jensen said unthinkingly into the phone. "What time?"

"Say, eight o'clock? I'll pick you up."

Jensen shook his head, amused. "You live right next door to me, dork."

"Yeah, I know, but my pick-up's totally cooler than your Honda," Padalecki replied.

"Hey!" Jensen said, outraged, but Padalecki just cackled into the phone and hung up.

It was a good thing McCoy didn't pick that afternoon to show up in Pembroke, because Jensen probably would have fucked up the whole case. He was jumpy all afternoon, like he'd drunk an extra pot of coffee, and all over nothing more than getting invited to go to a freaking two-dollar beer night at a bar. Maybe he was missing Mike and Tom and the rest of the DEA gang a little more than he'd thought he was, because he really didn't usually get this excited about the idea of cheap beer and shooting pool. Apparently four weeks away from L.A. was enough to make him regress to the age of thirteen and psyched about the chance of getting to hang out with the cool kids.

Jensen was outside a couple minutes before eight, just in time to watch Padalecki actually freaking pull his car out of the driveway and drive the thirty feet down the street to idle at Jensen's curbside. "You're ridiculous, dude," Jensen told him, getting in the passenger side.

Padalecki grinned, cocked his baseball cap at him. "You're welcome."

Jensen punched his arm and Padalecki drove off towards the bar.

Even at eight-fifteen, the place was already packed, but Padalecki pushed his way through the crowd with a combination of seeming to know everyone's first name and being freaking six-foot-five. Jensen followed him to a booth in the back where six people had wedged themselves in. They all flagged Padalecki down and started ragging on him: "Shit, Jared, what took you so long?"

"Sorry, guys," Padalecki said, beaming, "but I want you to meet somebody. This is my friend Jensen." He slung an arm around Jensen's shoulders and pulled him forward. "Jensen, this is Chris, he's one of the P.E. teachers, and this is Steve . . ."

Jensen was trying to pay attention to the names, he really was, but it was loud in the bar and warm, and he somehow even managed to miss the name of the cute blonde girl. Jensen thought it started with a K -- Katherine? Kirkland? -- and he was pretty sure Padalecki had said she was an algebra teacher, and she was smiling at him shyly, sitting on the end. "Hey, let's make room for Jensen, huh?" she said.

"What, not for me?" Padalecki pouted.

"Definitely not," another of the girls said. "We know you."

"Hey!" Padalecki said, but he was grinning. "Hey Jensen, you want a beer?"

"Yeah, sure," Jensen said, sliding into the space next to the blonde girl. "I'll get yours next round."

"Sounds good to me," Padalecki replied, and headed towards the bar.

Jensen watched his retreating form for a moment, then turned to face maybe-Katherine.

"So, Jensen," she said, "you're Jared's friend?"

It was stupid, but Jensen had really liked Padalecki introducing him as his friend. Christ, he really had turned into a thirteen-year-old girl. "Yeah. I moved in next door to him a few weeks ago."

"Huh." She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I wonder why he hasn't brought you around before. Keeping you all to himself, that's really not fair."

Jensen could feel the corner of his mouth trying to tug outward in a smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name before when, uh, Jared was introducing everybody." He'd almost called him Padalecki; he smiled sheepishly to cover the fumble.

"Oh! It's Kristen. Kristen Bell." She held out her hand and Jensen shook it. She had a good grip, for a girl, but Jensen couldn't help comparing Padalecki's handshake that first afternoon Jensen had met him. Padalecki's grip was better.

"Jensen Ackles," he said. "Nice to meet you."

Kristen smiled at him. "Likewise."

Bottles slammed down on the table beside Jensen and he started a little, turned to see Padalecki right beside him. "Beers for the table!" Padalecki said, handing Jensen one of the longnecks. He picked up one for himself and clinked it against Jensen's bottle, took a sip. Jensen watched his throat working.

"Cheers," said Kristen.

Jensen turned back around. He felt half like he should apologize to her, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out why. "Cheers," he said, and took another sip.

Jensen had been right in thinking that Kristen was an algebra teacher, as it turned out. She hadn't really planned on sticking with teaching after the first couple of years, but she'd discovered that she actually really liked forcing eighth graders to learn math, after all. She came from Michigan, had two dogs, two sisters, and no boyfriend, and she kept smiling at Jensen.

Padalecki had managed to squeeze in on the other side of the table and was in the middle of telling some story about one of his seventh graders. Jensen kept catching snatches of it over his conversation with Kristen: "And then, you're not going to believe this, Rick said his dog ate the hard-drive out of the computer!"

Jensen laughed along with the rest of the table, even as Kristen quirked an eyebrow at him. "Are you even hearing a word I'm saying?" she asked good-naturedly.

"Yeah! Yeah," Jensen said quickly. "You were talking about your sister's dog. Go on."

Kristen pursed her lips. "Right. So anyway--"

"Jared! My man!" A scruffy blond guy butted up against Padalecki, threw his arm around his shoulders. "How you doing?"

Kristen rolled her eyes. "Chad," she said, and that was all the explanation Jensen needed.

"I've heard about all him," Jensen said, staring. Chad was wearing a white button-down shirt with the collar open and a gold chain around his neck, and had the kind of facial hair that looked like he'd been halfway through shaving then said, "Fuck it," and quit. From the way he was leaning against Padalecki, Jensen was willing to bet Chad was too drunk to stay upright otherwise.

"So what do you think, Jared?" Chad asked, spreading his arms wide. "Is tonight going to be the big night?"

"Oh God, not again," Kristen said quietly, smirking.

Jensen fielded a guess. "Proposal number seven?"

Kristen grinned. "Got it in one. You might be interested to know we have a pool for how long it takes before Sophia actually says yes."

Jensen took a long look at Chad. "Based on number of proposals or number of years?"

"Take your pick," Kristen said, sipping her beer. "The pool's up to a hundred bucks, if you want in on this."

"Let me think about it," Jensen said, watching Chad's head whip around and eyes narrow.

"She's here," Chad said to Padalecki in the loudest stage whisper Jensen had ever heard. "Sophia. Just walked in the door." Chad started struggling to get himself fully upright again, and Padalecki gave him a helpful push, watched him teeter through the crowd.

"I'd better make sure that fool doesn't do anything too embarrassing," Padalecki said to the table at large, sliding out of the booth.

Kristen laughed. "I'm not sure how there could be anything more embarrassing than getting rejected seven times in a row, but if anyone could come up with what it is, it'd be Chad."

Jensen smirked. "Impressive." It was hard to see just what was going on through the crowd, but Jensen caught sight of Padalecki's head and followed that trajectory down to a pretty brown-haired girl who was standing with her hands on her hips who looked like she couldn't decide whether to be disgusted or amused. From what little he'd seen of Chad, Jensen was pretty sure the correct response was both.

Kristen watched along with him for a few minutes, but then she said, "Eh, it's not really different than it's been the first six times."

Jensen turned and stared at her. "Wait, you mean the last six times Chad proposed to her were all in this bar?"

Kristen grinned. "Yep. Just chock-full of class, ain't he?"

Jensen laughed. "No kidding." He tried to see if there was anything else going on, but the crowd had shifted now, obstructing his line of sight, and then there was a hand on his leg. Kristen's. Jensen swallowed and turned back to her.

"Hey," she said, smiling. "Do you maybe want to get out of here?"

Jensen took a long look at Kristen. She was pretty, for sure, tiny and blonde, and he'd liked talking to her. Her hand was warm on his leg and her smile was shy but open, and just like that he knew he was going to turn her down. He didn't have a single good reason for it, but something must have shown on his face, because she said, "Y'know, never mind, forget I asked," pulling her hand back.

Jensen stood up. He was all set up to apologize to her, to say he thought she was a great girl and he didn't know why he was acting like this, when Padalecki walked up behind him and slung an arm around Jensen's shoulders.

Jensen relaxed back into it automatically, and Kristen gave him the weirdest look, slow realization moving across her features. Jensen couldn't figure out what it was that she was thinking, what kind of realization she could be having. Then he turned a little, Padalecki's face came into his line of sight, and it clicked.

He wanted Padalecki.

Jensen didn't know when it had happened or how but he wanted him, wanted to lean back into Padalecki's arm and for Padalecki to pull him in, wanted Padalecki naked and hard against him, bucking into Jensen's hand--

Jesus Christ, Jensen needed to get out of here.

Padalecki hadn't missed the sudden tension in Jensen's shoulders, though. "You okay?" he asked, voice full of concern.

"I'm fine," Jensen lied. "Just don't feel so good. I think it might be something I ate."

Padalecki peered into his eyes. "You want me to take you home?"

"No!" Jensen said quickly. "No, it's fine, I'll catch a cab."

Kristen was watching the whole exchange with entirely too much interest. "I can drive you, if you want, Jensen," she offered.

"It's cool, I'll take him. I live right next door to him, so it's not like it's out of the way or anything." Padalecki waved her off before Jensen could get a word in edgewise. "Come on, I'll take you home."

If Kristen raised an eyebrow at that, Jensen didn't notice. He'd done pretty well with the cover story; he really did feel like he might puke all over himself any time now. Catching sight of Sophia slapping Chad on the way out of the bar didn't even help.

The air outside the bar was cool and not so stale, which made things a little better, but then Jensen was alone in the pick-up truck with Padalecki and his ribcage felt too tight over his lungs, obstructing his breath.

"If you need me to pull over or anything so you can throw up, just let me know," Padalecki said, eyeing him with concern.

"I will," Jensen replied, rolling down the window and hoping that Padalecki hadn't noticed he was trying to keep as far away from him on the bench seat as possible.

Padalecki didn't say anything else for the rest of the ride home, for which Jensen was grateful. Once he pulled up in front of Jensen's house, though, he said, "Do you want me to come in, make sure you're okay?"

"No!" Jensen said, too quickly. "I mean, no, it's probably just a stomach bug or something, should be fine if I sleep it off. Don't worry about it."

"You sure?" Padalecki said.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Jensen got out of the car. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem," Padalecki replied. "And hey, I'll check in around ten tomorrow morning, make sure you're not dead in there, okay?"

"Yeah, okay, sure," Jensen said, because coming up with a reason not to was too much work and if he didn't get away from Padalecki right now he was going to go insane.

"Good night!" Padalecki called after Jensen as he walked up the path.

"Fuck," Jensen muttered to the front door. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

He should have figured this out before, Jensen thought as he let himself into his house. He should have known that there was something weird about how damned happy he'd been to be around Padalecki all the time, but he hadn't figured it out, might not ever have if Kristen hadn't done it first, and now that he'd figured it out he didn't know what to do with himself. Jensen needed to do something, get out of his own head, go on a run so fast and long that he couldn't think about anything but the pain in his muscles by the time he was done, but he couldn't do it. He'd told Padalecki something was up with his stomach, and it would be just his luck for Padalecki to be watching his house, make sure that Jensen wasn't trying to sneak out or something.

Watching Jensen's house. Jesus, that was rich, and didn't that just make the whole thing better? Jensen was supposed to be keeping Padalecki's communications under surveillance so that when his cocaine-trafficker girlfriend showed up, the DEA could come in and make the capture -- and Jensen had really gone and gotten himself into a big fucking mess with this one. He'd been able to convince himself it was okay when he'd thought he just wanted to be Padalecki's friend, thought it wasn't that big of a deal, that he could back off at any time, but this was a whole different ballpark. Because yeah, he'd known he liked Padalecki, but he hadn't had any idea he'd liked him -- and then Kristen fucking Bell had to go figuring it all out, making it seem like it was something so goddamned obvious. Had it really been that obvious? Who else knew? Did Padalecki know?

No way. Jensen could decide that one right away. No freaking way Padalecki knew. Padalecki had just been acting the same way he always had around Jensen, and there was no chance he'd be keeping that up if he knew. He must not have seen Kristen's face, or not made the connection between that and Jensen's sudden bullshit sickness, but anyway it didn't matter. Padalecki didn't know what had happened and Jensen was going to keep it that way.

Just in case Padalecki actually was trying to keep an eye on him, Jensen drew the blinds on Padalecki's side of the house before he turned off the lights and kicked off his shoes. Fuck, he really needed to go on that run. He laid down on the living room carpet and did a bunch of sit-ups, but that just wasn't cutting it. He was idly entertaining thoughts of sneaking out the back door and through the yard of the house that butted up against his before he realized that that was almost more ridiculous than the rest of this.

Jensen gave up after the third set of fifty sit-ups and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn't. He kept replaying the stupid scene in his mind: him knowing he was going to turn Kristen down but not knowing why, Padalecki's arm around his shoulders, the look sliding across Kristen's face . . . Fuck. Jensen was hard, and he couldn't do a damned thing about it. He didn't want to think about what image he'd have in his head when he came.

*

Jensen waited as long as he could stand it the next morning, and then he called his boss. "It's a good thing I'm already up at six a.m. or I'd be ripping you a new one," Jeffrey Dean Morgan said by way of greeting. "What's going on, Jensen?"

Jensen didn't bother talking his way around it. "I don't think I should be on this case anymore."

He could practically hear Jeff sitting up straighter over the phone. "You don't think what?"

Jensen repeated himself. "It's been nearly a month, Jeff. Do you really think that McCoy's going to contact Padalecki now if she hasn't yet?"

"She's one of the agency's top priorities at the moment," Jeff reminded him.

"Yeah, I know," Jensen said. "But don't you think she would have made a move by now if she was going to?"

"This isn't about McCoy, is it?" Jeff said slowly. "You want out for some other reason."

"Yes," Jensen said, then caught himself, frustrated. "No. Look, Jeff, is there anyone else you could possibly have trade places with me? As a personal favor?"

"Are you going to tell me just why you need out of there so badly if I say yes?"

"No," Jensen said.

"Then the answer's no. Look, Jensen, I know the lead's crap, but it's the only one we've got on McCoy right now. You're one of the best in the agency with this kind of work, and you're the one I want on the front line if she shows. It's as simple as that. Whatever this thing is that's got you wanting out of there, it's not going to affect the case, is it?" Jeff didn't wait for a reply. "Good. Then whatever it is, work through it."

Jensen ground his teeth together, said, "Yes, sir," and hung up the phone. "Fuck."

If he'd thought about it, he would have known Jeff wasn't going to just let him get out of this case so easily. No questions asked was pretty much the polar opposite of DEA policy in general and Jeffrey Dean Morgan policy in particular. And the real bitch of it was, Jeff was right. Jensen couldn't get out of the case if what was going on wasn't something that was going to directly affect the case, and this wasn't.

God damn it. This wasn't something that should have been a problem in the first place. So Jensen had met Padalecki, sure. That was fine. That had just been pure chance. The second time hadn't been entirely Jensen's fault, either, in the grocery store, but everything that came after it had been, starting from the moment he forgot to pay attention and ended up grilling those freaking steaks at Padalecki's house.

Jensen was responsible for everything from that moment on out. He hadn't meant to say yes to Padalecki's dinner offer, but he hadn't tried to get himself out of it, either. He hadn't tried to take the same route that Padalecki ran, but when he'd seen Padalecki running down that side street Jensen hadn't pretended not to see him, hadn't turned around, hadn't dissuaded Padalecki from running with him. He could have said he didn't like to run with other people, that he only ever ran alone. He could have said that, but he hadn't, and the thought of not running with Padalecki again those other mornings hadn't so much as crossed his mind.

This was supposed to be a surveillance case. It was a tiny town, sure, and Padalecki was living in the house next door, but this wasn't the kind of undercover job where Jensen was supposed to get friendly with the locals. If he'd just said hi to Padalecki once or twice, that would have been fine, but he was supposed to be hanging back, keeping an eye on things, not getting all caught up in it. Jensen was supposed to be more professional than this.

The fact that Jensen had been thinking of himself as being friends with Padalecki would have been plenty unprofessional enough, but then it had gone further. And then there was the whole other side to this, the one Jensen had been doing his best not to think about: Padalecki was a guy.

If Padalecki had been a woman, this whole scenario wouldn't have been any less unprofessional -- but things never would have gotten to this point if Padalecki had been a woman. Jensen would have recognized the way he grinned stupidly every time Padalecki was around, would have realized what the tightness in his chest when Padalecki invited him over to watch T.V. and drink a couple beers had meant. This wasn't the first time he'd ever liked someone; he knew the signs, but this was the first time the signs had ever pointed at someone who had a dick, and fuck, he was tailspinning, couldn't figure out what to do with himself.

So of course that's when the doorbell rang. Jensen's stomach did a slow roll, because there wasn't anybody else in this town who'd be coming to his door at nine-thirty on a Saturday morning, and really wasn't that just his luck? Jensen needed about five more hours before he could deal with seeing Padalecki again, or maybe days, or maybe he could just drop the case and flee the country; that sounded all right, too. He wondered for about thirty seconds if Padalecki would go away if he just didn't answer, but then Padalecki started knocking and called, voice muffled through the door, "Jensen, I know you're awake, I saw you walking around in there!"

Damn.

Jensen was still trying to figure out if there was some way he could get away with not answering when Padalecki yelled, "I just want to see if you're feeling better." There was real worry coloring his voice, and Jensen felt like a tool.

Jensen swallowed, walked up to the door and turned the bolt. He'd be fine, seeing Padalecki again. It would be like pulling a Band-Aid off quickly, a sharp pain, and then he'd be done with it, could get used to the idea of Padalecki again, could start figuring out how he was going to get over whatever this was. He opened the door.

"Hey man," Padalecki said, smiling a little, and fuck, he was on Jensen's doorstep, too big to be real, messy hair and laughter lines and dimples. Jensen's skin felt too tight for his body, the corners of his mouth were tugging outwards into a smile already and it wasn't like pulling a Band-Aid off at all because it just didn't stop. Jensen was fucked, completely fucked. He couldn't get his tongue to do anything but rest heavy in his mouth, couldn't form words.

Padalecki gave him a long look. "You look like shit, dude," he said finally, and that broke the moment, made Jensen laugh a little, the nervousness bubbling up and out.

"Yeah, sorry," Jensen said, moving to the side and leaning against the door. "I didn't get much sleep last night."

Padalecki nodded in sympathy. "Puking or what?"

"Yeah," Jensen lied. "Look, I'm pretty wiped, I was thinking I might head back to bed, try to get some rest--"

"Oh, sorry, sure," Padalecki said, shifting backwards. "I just saw you were up, wanted to make sure you were okay and all."

"No, I appreciate it, man, thanks," Jensen said quickly. His nerves were still firing, the urge to reach out and pull Padalecki closer was strong, and he needed Padalecki to leave, needed him to leave right now.

"Give me a call if you need anything, okay?" Padalecki said, turning and stepping away from the door.

"Sure," Jensen said, and it came out funny, the word half-caught in his throat, but Padalecki didn't seem to notice. He turned his head and waved again as he cut across Jensen's yard, and Jensen smiled at him, then went back into the house, closed the door and slumped against the wall. Jesus Christ. He had a boner the size of Russia and he wasn't even sure when he'd popped it, but either way Padalecki didn't seem to have noticed anything and that right there was a goddamned miracle.

But the fact remained that Jensen was hard because of Padalecki, blindingly hard, and something needed to be done about it. He still couldn't believe he'd let himself get blindsided by the whole thing like this. He'd thought seeing Padalecki again might help, might help him get a little perspective on the whole thing, but instead Padalecki's presence had only made it worse. That made the solution easy enough: he'd just have to stay away from Padalecki. He could do that. If he just stopped thinking about Padalecki entirely, didn't see him, didn't hang out with him, everything would be fine.

For about four minutes, that seemed like it might work, until Jensen remembered one thing: he couldn't keep from watching Padalecki. Keeping Padalecki under surveillance was his job.

Jensen was so fucked.

*

The rest of the day sucked. If it'd been a weekday, Padalecki would have been out of the house forcing middle schoolers to read until dinnertime, but since it was Saturday the guy was around for the whole damned day. Jensen wasn't going to watch Padalecki. He wasn't, but Padalecki was there and Jensen couldn't help it: Padalecki just kept walking past the windows where Jensen could see him, and the rest of the time Jensen could see him on the surveillance cameras. So Jensen had to spend the whole day watching Padalecki cook himself breakfast, watching Padalecki answer emails, watching Padalecki talk on the phone with his parents. Padalecki mentioned him in passing -- "You remember my next-door-neighbor, Jensen? Yeah, he got sick last night, really didn't look so good this morning." -- and something turned in Jensen's gut at the way his name rolled off of Padalecki's tongue, the syllables thick with Texas.

To make things worse, Jensen had been hard all day long. It had sucked, but he'd made it this far, and he might have made it through the rest of the day, too, if it hadn't been for Padalecki's goddamned dogs.

Around two-thirty in the afternoon, after Padalecki got off the phone with his parents, the dogs started whining and would not shut up. It was making Jensen insane, hearing it over the audio, which meant it had to be a billion times worse up close. Padalecki was trying to watch something on T.V.; the angle was kind of bad, but Jensen was pretty sure it was Pimp My Ride, and if things weren't so fucked up right now Jensen would have planned on giving him hell for that one. The dogs were rubbing up against Padalecki, picking up toys and dropping them on his lap, the whole while keeping up the most annoying high-pitched whining Jensen had ever heard, peppered with a few barks. Even after thirty seconds of hearing it over the microphone, Jensen was seriously beginning to consider hitting the mute button, but Padalecki lasted nearly ten minutes before he groaned, "Fine! Fine. I'll play fetch with your dumb asses." He stood up and stretched, his t-shirt riding up and exposing a strip of skin. Jensen's cock twitched with interest.

It turned out Padalecki's brand of fetch involved less standing still and throwing a tennis ball and more keeping the tennis ball in his hand and letting the dogs chase him around the yard, tackle him to the ground and steal the ball. Padalecki was in good shape, but it was the beginning of May now and warm outside, and by the time the dogs finally lost interest in playing fetch Padalecki was sweating through his shirt. He left the dogs in the yard and went back into the house, walked down the hall and out of the line of sight of Jensen's camera, then stopped right in front of the window facing towards Jensen's house and pulled off his shirt.

Padalecki wasn't doing it on purpose, Jensen knew that; he wasn't even facing towards the window. But however it happened Padalecki paused right there in front of the window, and Jensen watched him in profile as he curled his fingers under the edges of his shirt, pulled it up and over his head. Jensen watched the play of sunlight on Padalecki's side, watched his stomach muscles contract, watched the line of his jaw emerging from the shirt, and before he could think about what he was doing, Jensen ground the heel of his hand down on his cock.

He groaned at the pressure of it but it wasn't enough, not nearly enough, and he fumbled with the zipper of his jeans and shoved his hand down his boxers. It felt like he'd been hard for a year and Padalecki was half-naked thirty feet away and Jensen couldn't take it anymore, a few pulls and a flick of his wrist and he was coming so hard he nearly knocked himself out on one of the LCD monitors, a sticky mess all over his hand and his jeans.

By the time Jensen recovered enough higher brain function to look back over there, Padalecki had moved away from the window, and only then did everything really register. Jensen had just jerked off to the sight of Padalecki shirtless, had just done it without even thinking about it, and fuck, he was screwed.


Part Three