Trickle Down to Our Goodbyes
Title: Trickle down to our goodbyes
Author: gretazreta
Fandom: J2 RPS (Jensen/Jared)
Summary: Jared is anxious about the future. Jensen makes breakfast.
Warning: Schmoop. No, really.
Rating: G
Words: ~5500.
Disclaimer: These characters are based on the public personae of two people I’ve never met. It’s completely fictional in all respects.
A/N: Written for ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
fluffandfold, for the prompt: Jensen making breakfast in the morning after a long day of shooting the previous night for Jared and him, the dogs at his feet, and Jared watching. . Thanks to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
wendy for the awesome early beta: comprehensive style, Americanisms and wtf-moment alerts without which this would be substantially less clear and even more self-indulgent. I’m more grateful than I can say. Title from Powderfinger’s “Whatever Makes You Happy”.
They’re heading toward the climactic finale of season three. Next week, Dean Winchester is going to hell. This week is the last, desperate attempt on the part of Sam to save him: it’s failure, and resignation, and finally, despair.
There’s nothing left to do but say goodbye.
**
It makes Jared sad, just thinking about it, a kind of slow mournfulness that’s unfamiliar to him. It’s curled into him over the last few weeks and made itself at home. Each time a new script is delivered, Jared flips straight to the end, like a discontented teenage girl with a romance novel, impatient to know the resolution.
The dynamic between Sam and Dean has become even more complex. Sam’s gotten angrier, and steadily darker, and as the weeks press on, he’s become increasingly desperate and tried more and more risky attempts to reverse the deal.
Jared thinks it works, as a story arc. It’s demanding for him as an actor. The work is grittier and more truthful. Maybe that’s the problem: it’s harder to shake off Sam’s black moods, which isn’t really surprising, because they’re Jared’s, really. His insecurities are Sam’s insecurities. His fears are Sam’s.
Work and reality merge too close for comfort. Sam’s terrified of losing Dean. Jared’s terrified of losing Supernatural, and everything it means to him. He loves being Sam Winchester, every thoughtful, conflicted, sulky, well-meaning, hell-raising inch of him. He loves the long working days, the camaraderie of a tight-knit crew. He loves Vancouver, cheap beer and his house and that freezing, almost horizontal rain that Jared’s never encountered anywhere else.
Most of all, he loves Jensen, and that’s the point, he supposes.
Jen’s totally the point.
**
It’s been easy between them from the start and maybe that’s the problem. They’ve never sat down and discussed what they’re doing, where they’re going. Jared can’t remember who kissed whom that first evening, only that it seemed inevitable and natural and better than anything he’d ever felt. He can’t remember who whispered “bedroom” first, anymore than he can remember whose idea it was to move in together a couple of months later. Ever since the beginning, they’ve been on the same page. Jared remembers looking across the table at Jensen at the first read-through, and watching Jen’s eyes crinkle in a shy half-grin back at him, and knowing with a heart-stopping, world-overturning, Deathstar-exploding certainty how it was going to be. And it was. It is.
But now it’s three years later, and for the first time, Jared doesn’t know what happens next. He’s scared of the future for the first time in his life.
Because they’ve never needed to talk about the future, and now Jared’s stupidly afraid to ask.
**
Sometimes filming is the best job in the world. This is not one of those occasions.
It’s raining at the crossroads, real, inevitable Vancouver rain that fucks with the lights and the cables. It’s goddamn freezing, but it’s atmospheric and cold and dark, and it works somehow. They’ve got a cherry-picker on hand with a sprinkler system in case it stops, but Jared’s pretty sure they’re not going to need it.
They shoot take after take after take.
They manage a good one, only to have a jet flying over wreck the sound recording. Another time feels good, but the handheld wobbles too much. Jared flubs his lines twice, losing focus and apologizing. There’s no laughter, no double-takes to camera for the DVD gag-reel. Just intense, focused work. Kim quietly is supportive, trusting them to do their thing, adjusting the angles and lighting, suggesting a movement here or there, but letting Jared and Jensen do what they’ve spent three years building up to.
Jensen’s pale, his make-up darkening under his eyes, a little more scruff that usual. His eyes gleam in the manufactured moonlight, and he’s completely intent. Jared can’t take his eyes off him, and doesn’t try. This is Sam and Dean’s last five minutes on earth together. How could Sam possibly look away?
**
“Promise me,” Dean says. “I… Sammy. I can only do this if I know you’re going to go on. All I ever wanted…”
Sam makes a sharp, silencing gesture with his hand.“Just, don’t.”
Dean’s in his face now, hand on his jaw, forcing Sam to look at him through the tears that he refuses to shed.
**
Jensen’s all about the Method, keeps a copy of “A Dream of Passion” in his trailer, complete with sticky notes. Jen’s fascinated by Strasberg, fascinated by his craft generally, works harder at it than anyone Jared’s ever met. Jared can imagine him, one day, shy and reserved and serious, on “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” and Jared really hopes that he’s there to help choose Jensen’s tie and sit in the audience making goofy faces until Jensen cracks a grin. He figures he’ll buy him a steak afterward, and reassure Jensen that he didn’t make a complete fool of himself. It’s kind of how they work. Yin and Yang and all that.
Right now, though, right now it feels like it’s all too much, the layers of their relationship piling on top of him until there’s nothing to distinguish brother from workmate from best friend from lover. This is the end of all of those things at once, and Jared feels untethered in his terror at any of his futures, fictitious or real, without any and all of the things that Jensen’s come to mean to him.
Jensen plays Dean’s emotion awkwardly, sincerity battling with uncertainty. His delivery is perfect, and Jared resents it so much he almost chokes and so Sam does too. It’s always this way: Jensen can hook the response out of him, making it impossible to respond with anything other than his best, most honest work, no matter that Jared’s distracted and unhappy.
**
“I don’t regret it.” Dean’s voice is quiet desperation. “You’re everything. I can’t ask you to understand or even forgive me, but the best thing I ever did in my whole entire life was make this deal. You gotta make it worth it, Sam. You gotta go on. You gotta live.”
**
That’s a cut, and there’s an endless wait as the lights are moved, cables shifted, cameras refocused. A P.A, anonymous under a huge orange rain-slicker, darts over and hands Jared a paper cup of coffee. The sweet bitter scalds his mouth, and he hands it off to Jensen, and they pass it back and forth between them. The rim of the cup tastes like Jen’s mouth. Jensen rubs at his wet face, almost dislodging a contact lens in the rain, and Sheri ducks over and checks his make-up. And then they’re just standing there, waiting in the rain-shadow of one of the crew trailers, side by side, not touching even as the cup moves between them, as the machinery of filming moves around them, setting up for the shot that Jared’s been dreading ever since he first read the sides some weeks ago.
And then, it’s just them, as much as it can be with twenty-something crew, three cameras, and Ronnie-the-grip trying to keep a diffuser steady in the wind to keep the light on Jensen’s pale face. The boom mike’s right in close, and there’s a barely audible argument between Tracy and Steve about keeping it out of shot in the crazy wind.
Jared tries to ignore them, tries to put himself there, SamSamSam, but really, this isn’t about Sam and Dean, not tonight.
It’s Jared and Jensen’s family that’s being torn apart, their life ending. Dean Winchester may be going to hell but he’s leaving Sam behind in his own, and leaving Jared Padalecki facing life after Supernatural. Life after Jensen.
There’s this whole speech by Sam, a nice piece of writing, really, eloquent and articulate and pleading. Full of Sam’s anger and determination to not let it go, to never let Dean go, to die fighting if he has to.
Jared can’t say it. The lines are clear in his head, but he can’t say them. His mouth simply won’t shape the words.
Jensen manages to look forlorn and endlessly weary, and fearful and brave and proud, all at once. Jared can’t find the motivation to say the words that will end this. He’s supposed to spit them out, and turn away, and the camera will swing around the crossroads, and Dean will be gone, vanished, plucked out of time. No tears, this time, no hug, just desertion and rain and empty roads stretching to nowhere.
Four more takes, and he still can’t do it. Jensen draws into himself, until he’s entirely Dean, and somehow that makes Jared even more lonely, even more anxious and sad. Finally, he stutters the words out not eloquent but halting and desperate, Sam at his utmost limit and Jared at his. He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, feels the cameras moving around him on the crane, and then the scene’s over.
God, it’s over.
He stays there, hands over his eyes, hearing the cameramen conferring with the sound guy and with Kim, and then Kim calls “Thanks, everyone” and it’s a wrap. Kim’s hand on his shoulder is reassuring, his voice wry and unexpectedly pleased, and he says gently, “That was a good piece of work, Jared. Not exactly what we discussed, but nonetheless… good. Good.” He hears, rather than sees, Kim shaking Jensen’s hand, and then Jensen’s arms are around him, solid and real and Jared only faintly hears Kim telling him to take Jared home.
**
After that, everything’s a bit of a blur. It’s the backass of three a.m. and he’s drenched. The mud on his wet jeans is up to his calves, and on Jensen’s it’s up to his knees. They don’t shower; they just want to get home. The driver takes them back into Vancouver, the radio spilling out sad songs of lost opportunities that fit Jared’s mood just fine.
He leans his damp head against the window; he feels Jensen’s knee against his own. Jensen doesn’t let go of his hand the whole way.
Jensen locks their door behind them, flicks on the hallway lamp, and that’s all there’s time for before they’re attacked by a whirling mass of dogs, noses into palms, Harley’s foot heavy on Jared’s toes, Sadie’s claws tick-tacking on the wood floor as she runs excitedly in a circle around them both. Jared clings to Jensen for balance, and Jensen lets it segue into a full-body embrace.
He’s quiet, Jensen is, private and kinda reserved. But he’s strong and smart and thoughtful and Jared thinks that maybe Jensen knows him better than anyone’s known him, ever. Jared’s not so quiet, full of words and analogies and stories and explanations, so full sometimes that he feels he could burst with it. But Jensen hears his silences as well as his words, and Jared knows that in this exact moment, he doesn’t need to explain himself, doesn’t need to find the words, because Jensen’s there, too. Jared’s understood.
They’ve spent the entire night speaking other people’s words for what they’re feeling, and right now all Jared wants to do is be held and listen to Jensen breathe, let their dogs chase each other round the house.
Then Jensen steps away, and Jared stays there, still leaning against the door, and hears Jensen letting his babies out into the yard, getting their food, and the chaos calms into quiet. It takes maybe ten minutes, and when Jensen returns, Jared still hasn’t managed to move.
“C’mon, sleepy,” is all Jensen says, and he leads Jared up the stairs like a child, hands clasped. He pushes him into the bedroom, hands sure and gentle on Jared’s shoulders.
Jared stands there, passively, tiredly, as Jensen pulls Jared’s hoodie off, and his shirt, and his t-shirt, then kneels and unbuckles his belt, pushes his jeans down his legs. Jared steps out of them, one hand on Jen’s shoulder for balance. It reminds Jared of that time after the crew party with the kegs, when the only thing that got Jared upright the next morning was Jensen’s brother’s gross college hangover cure with, raw egg and Tabasco.
But tonight, he’s not drunk. He’s just tired, bone-tired, cold, sad, and bereft. Jensen pushes him gently down on the bed, and yanks at his boots, one after another.
“Shower,” Jensen murmurs, and then he’s gone again, and there’s the sound of water, and when Jensen’s back and he drags Jared into the bathroom and pushes him under the stinging hot spray.
Jensen doesn’t get in with him, but he doesn’t leave, either. Jared ducks his head under the water, but he can still hear Jensen puttering with contact solution, washing his face and brushing his teeth. Jared’s seen it enough times to know the drill by heart. When Jensen pulls aside the shower curtain, his glasses immediately steam up from the heat, and Jared reaches out a shaky finger to wipe them. He’s done that a hundred times before, as well, and there’s something in that action that makes the tears in him spill over, relentlessly, the numbness in his chest building into pressure and then pain.
Jensen’s response is unhesitating. He whispers, “Jared, sweetheart,” and just like that, he’s in the shower too, clothes and all, glasses and all, holding Jared tight and strong, and Jared just clings to him shamelessly, and cries and cries.
When the water starts to cool, Jensen turns off the faucet, and maneuvers Jared into a towel, stripping off his own drenched clothes, and shivering a bit as he dries them off. They’re still a little damp when they hit the bed, but Jensen draws up the comforter over them and doesn’t let go, not for a second.
Jared’s all out of tears but he’s making stupid sounding hiccups and Jensen pulls him closer, and quietly strokes his back.
They lie like that for a while until Jared can breathe again, silent, wrapped in each other.
”I’m sorry,” he manages, voice choky with old tears, and Jensen makes a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. Jensen’s heartbeat is regular and comforting beneath his ear. Everything is still, quiet.
“Jensen,” he asks, suddenly, a thought clear in his mind.
“Mm?”
“When you pray, do you pray for us getting renewed?”
He feels, rather than hears, Jensen’s surprised burr of laughter, and maybe it was a random question but Jared’s genuinely curious. And it’s not the first time they’ve had random conversations in the dark part of the morning, trying to come down from a hard night’s filming.
He can feel Jensen’s hand in his hair, smoothing the back of his head, and he can almost feel Jensen weighing his words. Jared wonders, suddenly, if it’s like a birthday candle wish, that you can’t tell anyone or it won’t come true.
“Not really,” Jensen replies, and Jared sucks in a breath, because that hurts, unexpectedly. He feels Jensen shake his head, and then he goes on, “It doesn’t really work like that for me. I guess I don’t usually ask for specifics. It’s more, y’know, praying for everyone to be safe and happy, and everything else is gravy. Thy will be done, and all that. Believing there’s a plan and everything will work out as it should.”
Jared thinks about that. He likes it, it’s very Jensen.
Jensen goes on. “And I pray when I see ambulances and fire trucks,” he murmurs. “But that’s more superstition. Since 9/11. And it’s more of a ‘go safely’ kind of thing.”
Jared’s silent for a long moment, feeling another question that he’s not sure if he’s got the right to ask.
”What is it?” Jensen asks, softly.
“Do you pray about me?” Jared asks, still a little snuffly.
Jensen’s smile is loud in his quiet, confident answer.
“Every night,” he returns.
Jared’s heart swells.
“Cool,” he answers. He feels Jensen’s lips on the top of his head, and he gives a wriggle, onto his stomach, so they’re chest to chest, and his mouth reaches for Jensen’s in the dark. It’s a slow, tired kiss that isn’t going anywhere; it’s the best kind. Jensen breaks it off, but Jared chases it with his mouth.
“I say, Our Father who art in heaven, please let Jared stop asking questions and get some sleep soon before I drop dead of exhaustion, and please let him not crush me in my sleep and drown me in drool,” Jensen whispers, and Jared snickers, and bites for Jensen’s lip, missing and getting a mouthful of chin instead. Jensen pushes him, and Jared rolls off towards crisp, cold pillows. Jensen follows him, arm lacing around Jared’s belly, and chin rough with stubble, tucked into Jared’s shoulder.
“What do you really say?” Jared asks, almost asleep.
Jensen’s hurrumph of fond irritation puffs against his neck. Jared figures he’s not going to answer – maybe the birthday candle wish thing is true after all – and he’s almost gone over into unconsciousness when he feels Jensen’s reply, right behind his ear.
“I say, thank you,” Jensen answers, and then Jared’s asleep.
**
He wakes in an empty bed, his face buried in pillows, and creases in the linen marking lines across his skin. Sunlight is squinting through the blinds: Jensen’s obviously drawn them to protect Jared’s sleep-in. And that’s crazy, because usually Jared wakes up and goes for a run and puts the coffee on before returning to wake Jensen up, enticing him out of crankiness with coffee and sex.
But the sun’s all funny, and Jared doesn’t have to look at the bedside alarm to realize it’s nearly noon.
He rolls onto his back, eyes shut, and listens to the house breathing around him. He can hear a slight clatter from the kitchen below, the soft cadence of Jensen’s voice, rising and falling. It’s like some kind of siren song. Or like Jared’s some cartoon character, Mickey Mouse lifted along by his nose by the scent of pie cooling on a windowsill. Jared rolls out of bed, pulls on his most comfortable sweat pants, and walks down stairs.
The murmur becomes clearer as he approaches the kitchen. Jen’s singing, but not to himself.
We gave her everything we owned
just to sit at her table
Just a smile would lighten everything
Sexy Sadie she's the latest and the greatest of them all
Jared peeps round the door frame, and Jensen’s leaning against the counter, half-dressed, chopping up some kind of fruit in time with his song. Harley, as usual, lazy bastard, is asleep, taking up half the kitchen floor, and as Jen moves between the refrigerator and the sink, he’s forced to take a giant step over a prone pile of dog. Sadie’s wide awake, and expecting treats. She watches Jen intently, ears tipped forward, as if she’s trying to understand what it is he’s telling her.
Jen’s hair is tipped with gold by the stream of sunlight, and Jared’s content just to look for a moment. Their lives are so full, so busy so much of the time, and he doesn’t often get a chance to appreciate Jen. The muscled line of his back. The competent elegance of his hands, slicing and moving even as Jen’s attention is taken up with Sadie.
It’s Sadie who notices Jared first. She gives a high-pitched yelp of recognition that wakes up Harley, who sits up, bemused, and looks around to see what’s going on. They both rush him at once, and he’s only got two hands for petting, so when Jensen wanders over, all smooth freckled chest, bed hair, and tired morning smile of greeting, Jared has to bend to kiss him over a turbulent Bering Strait of dog.
Jen’s eyes are appraising, and Jared feels himself color. “I’m fine,” he says to the unasked question, and Jen dips his head in recognition.
“I know,” he answers, and “there’s coffee in the pot.”
Jared navigates himself between dog bodies and pours two cups, inhaling deeply. His body feels stiff, like he’s increased his reps with his trainer – he hasn’t. He sits down at their kitchen table, and the dogs rearrange themselves at his feet.
He takes a long pull of coffee, feeling the bitter chase the sweet around his mouth. He feels a little shy this morning. It’s an unfamiliar sensation. He’s Jared Padalecki, he’s not the shy one. He’s confident and competent, a people person, he’s at home with his emotions, he’s got his head screwed on right. Everyone says so, from his grandma to his agent to his stylist to goddamn Ausiello. And it’s Jen, and he’s never felt shy around Jen, not one day in their entire history of everything.
Jared looks up, and Jen’s looking at him, and Jared grins, sheepish.“I’m sorry. About last night,” he manages.
“You don’t have to be,” Jensen replies. “It was a long night. It’s been a long few months.” It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, but Jared doesn’t want to take it.
Jared takes a big breath and a stabilizing swig of coffee, and presses on, regardless. They’re not always good at talking, the two of them. Jared’s sometimes easily distracted, and Jensen’s not always scrupulous about using whatever diversionary tactics he deems appropriate.
“It was all mixed up in my head, last night” Jared confesses, looking up and meeting Jensen’s eyes, playing with his spoon against the edge of his coffee-cup. “I didn’t expect it to be so hard. It felt. Last night it felt like the end.” He can hear the plea in his voice, the reassurance that he’s longing Jensen to give him, and chickens out. “For Dean and Sam, I mean,” he rectifies.
“It should feel like the end,” Jensen answers instead. “Hell, it may be the end. Even if we get renewed. They couldn’t just cheat him out of it, not really.” Jared agrees. Dean had to go to hell, in his mind. The important question was always how they’d get him out once he was there.
“I bet if we get renewed, I get to go down and get you,” Jared proposes, and Jensen grins.
“Get away from him, you sons-of-bitches,” Jensen says in something vaguely resembling Jared’s voice. If Jared was, like, a member of Alvin and the Chipmunks. He isn’t, and never has been, grade school lunchbox to the contrary. “Or, I’ll go all emo on you and shoot you with my demon gun.”
Jared snickers, in spite of himself. “Dude, after all this time, I can’t believe you still buy that Sam’s the emo one. ‘Boohoo, I just want to be a family again, Boohoo, Dad’s dead and it’s my fault, Boohoo, Sammy, don’t leaaave me.’”
Jensen rolls his eyes. “Nuh-uh,” he objects. “Dean’s… nuanced.”
“Nuanced, huh?”
“Nuanced.” Jensen turns and taps the whisk on the edge of the bowl. “Owing to my awesome acting skills.”
Jared cackles, and Jensen casually flips him the bird while mixing the milk into the eggs.
The sun’s clear and warm on his back, and he feels himself beginning to unwind. Sadie gets up, turns around three times and sits again, whuffles her head into Jared’s lap. He traces the long dent of her skull and scratches behind her ears. Her eyes close in blissful appreciation, and her tail makes a slow steady thump against the floor. Jared watches Jen work, each movement precise and practiced, negotiating his way between the stove-top and the refrigerator like it’s some long choreographed fight sequence. Only Jen doesn’t end up in a broken pile of bookcase fragments, so in some ways it’s nothing like that at all.
“He is,” Jared says, after a moment.
Jensen’s melting butter into the pan, and he gives Jared a quick glance.
“Who’s what?” he asks.
“Dean. He’s… nuanced. You’re a great actor, Jen. I don’t even think you know how great.” Jensen’s eyes are still on the butter, letting it melt and brown a little without burning, but Jared can see he’s got his attention, can see the tips of Jensen’s ears turning pink, like they do when he’s surprised or pleased.
“You’re just saying that because I’m making you French toast,” Jensen says, and Jared chuckles under his breath.
“That’s right, bitch, and get a move on,” he replies, and Jensen grins at him, before dipping a piece of bread into the batter and lowering it into the bubbling butter.
The aroma is amazing, savory and rich, and Jared can feel himself salivating. He’s starving. Just like Jen knew he would be, when he got up early and started cooking Jared’s favorite thing in the world.
Sometimes it’s the little things that bring life into focus, when all the big things throw it out of whack.
“I love you,” he says, awkward and shy again, and there’s really no excuse for it, because Jared’s loved a lot of people in his life, and he’s said those words freely to his family, to his friends, to lovers.
The thing is, this time it’s different. It’s not just something you say, something people expect, at Christmas, or after you’ve been sleeping together for a couple of months, or hanging up the phone on your mom’s birthday. It’s different, because he means it differently. He feels different. He is different. And Jared thinks that maybe Jen doesn’t get it. How much Jared needs him. How much Jared feels like Jen’s the best person he ever met, the one really all-the-way good person that Jared knows. How well they fit together. Complementary. How much this means.
Jared’s having a crisis, and Jensen’s … cooking.
“Damn straight,” Jensen replies, hands a blur of activity as he flips French toast with one hand and chops a lemon with the other. “I’m awesome, and I cook you stuff.”
Jared shakes his head so vehemently that Sadie looks up at him with grumpy, wounded eyes.
“No, Jensen.” There’s something in his own voice then, something raw, something left over from last night, and Jensen sets aside the pan and turns to look at him. Jen’s so goddamn dorky, with his hair spiked out on one side and flat on the other, his glasses slightly askew, eyes a little puffy, with his freckles defined across his nose and the high blade of his cheeks. His pants are hanging off his hip bones, the sort of plaid sleeping pants that Jared’s only ever seen his grandfather wear. Jared loves him, deeply and urgently and desperately and forever.
He can feel the emotion heavy and sharp behind his eyes, like he might cry again, but he’s determined not to.
“I don’t want this to be over,” he says, and it’s hard to say, to lay it all out there. “I want this, I want us. If there’s no Season 4. If there’s no nothing. Or even if there is. I want you. And me. And Sadie and Harley.” He blinks hard. “I want us to keep the place here. I want us to stay together in L.A. I want to go and do the second part of the dumb painter film and I want to come home and you to be there.”
Jensen stills, and there’s a long pause. Jared looks at his hands, then back up to meet Jen’s eyes.
“Did you think this was just about convenience, Jared?” Jensen asks, softly, a crease down his forehead like he really doesn’t understand. “Did you think this was about proximity?”
Jared doesn’t know what to say to that. Because, no, not really.. When Jensen puts it like that.
”A little,” he answers, because Jensen deserves the truth, always. “I was scared that it might be.”
Jensen looks at him, and pushes his glasses up his nose in a curiously endearing but slightly irritated gesture that leaves a faint fingerprint smear of butter on the lens.
“I hate to break it to you,” Jensen says, gentle drawl belying the harshness of his words, “but I’m not Dean Winchester. You’re not Sam. Maybe we’ll get renewed, maybe we won’t. But this…”
He makes a gesture indicating the space between them. “Nobody writes this but us. This isn’t the end unless we want it to be, you understand me? No one gets to send this whole thing to hell except for us.”
Jared feels a clench of emotion: gratitude, love, fear.
“What if it’s not the same?” Jared asks. “You and me, like this.”
Jensen grins then, scratches the back of his head and just smiles.
“Maybe it’ll be better,” he suggests. “Maybe when we’re eighty we’ll look back and say, our first three years together, how did we survive them?”
Jared’s struck by the thought of it.
Looking across the breakfast table, he can picture Jensen in fifty years time. He can imagine Jensen with grey hair, with the lines at his eyes dug deeper by years, still broad of shoulder, still stubborn of jaw, still his. Maybe his old-man pajamas will be cool in half a century. Jared doubts it.
“I want that,” Jared says, and maybe Jen’s right, he is the emo one, because his voice is thick with emotion, and his throat hurts.
Jensen takes three careful steps toward him, shifting Sadie out of the way with a soft nudge of his foot, and crouches in front of Jared’s chair. He strokes Jared’s hair out of his eyes, and leans up to capture Jared’s mouth.
“I want that, too, you great big dumbass. You mean everything to me, you know that,” Jensen says, still irritated, still fond, like it’s self-evident.
And of course it is, it always has been, everything between them they’ve never really talked about because they both just knew, and Jen’s right, Jared does know. He’s known all along, since that first day. They’re meant to be together, no expiry dates, no time-limits. Always.
“I mean it,” Jared says, clutching onto Jensen’s hand, just in case Jen didn’t get it. “I want eighty.”
“You’ll theoretically be seventy-six,” Jensen reminds him, like the fussy eighty-year-old mega-nerd he already is.
“So I’ll be your toy-boy,” Jared says, crossly, and then grins, because yeah. He likes that idea, a lot. The two of them, sitting in this or another sunny kitchen, with their dogs, and their arguments, and the best French toast known to man. Jensen with his glasses perched on his nose reading out the horoscopes, Jared frowning over the cryptic crossword.
Forever has a really kinda nice ring to it, when nobody’s going to hell.
Jensen tugs Jared’s hair, just on the edge of too hard, kisses the tip of his nose, and pads over to the stove to rescue the last piece of French toast just on the wrong side of crispy. Jared watches Jensen think about it, and then tear the slice in half, dropping one to Harley and one to Sadie.
“They’ll get fat,” Jared says. Jensen raises an eyebrow at him, and maybe Jared missed the part where Jensen became more protective of Jared’s dogs than even Jared is.
“So will we,” Jensen replies, and places a huge plate of French toast and bacon and bananas and syrup in front of Jared.
“Excuse me, we’ll be perfect,” he says, mouth full, suddenly confident again, a drip of syrup running down his chin. God, he feels like he hasn’t eaten in a month. Maybe more. Maybe a year. Maybe he’s never eaten, only dreamed it, like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Somewhere he’s all hairless and slimy with tubes running out of him, and robots mining him for his fluids. There’s realistically no other explanation for how fucking awesome his life is. He opens his mouth to tell Jensen, but closes it again, because they’ve kind of got a moment going on, and he doesn’t want to wreck it. He’ll tell him later. He’s got time.
Jensen’s foot touches Jared’s under the table; Harley starts snoring again; Sadie, looking up hopefully, rests her nose on Jared’s knee. He feeds her a piece of banana, and she moves it around her mouth as if she’s not quite sure what to make of it, but is unwilling not to eat it, nonetheless.
The sun shines in.
“Yeah,” Jensen replies, syrupy, happy, for once without a trade of irony in his voice; it’s a promise of everything and more to come. “Perfect.”
**END**
