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What a Fool Believes - Chapter 5
When Jensen wakes up again it's daylight, but still snowing. The white-out outside the windows is still blowing, and he pulls the blankets around himself instinctively as he moves to sit up, holding his head against the throbbing ache there.
Jared's asleep, sprawled across an armchair on the other side of the room, his head tipped back, exposing his long neck, covered with another day's beard. He's wearing some loose-fitting jeans that are too short for him, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pullover sweater and heavy wool socks.
He looks a little ridiculous in the ill-fitting clothes, but it warms Jensen's chest to see him looking so vulnerable and wiped out. It's a rare thing to see his hyper-energetic co-star actually sleeping, and Jensen doesn't mind the view one bit.
He reaches for the glass of water on the table, wincing against the soreness in his muscles, the tingling in his fingers and toes. He holds one hand up in front of his face, wiggles the fingers experimentally. Everything still works, he's grateful to see, and he can even feel the tips of his fingers. At least on the right hand. The left is calloused from guitar playing, so that's just normal. The fingers look a little red with cold, and they itch a little, but it's not bad. Same with his toes, he finds as he lifts the blanket to take a look. Somebody put heavy wool socks on his feet, and they actually feel warm, not too itchy or tingly either, so he figures he's good.
Dodged the bullet. Again.
Luck does seem to follow him around, Jensen thinks, considering all the good things he has to be grateful for.
Nothing like poor old Dean Winchester, the schmuck.
"You're awake!"
It's Donna, coming into the room from the kitchen with a plate of sandwiches. She smiles at him, puts down the plate and a glass of milk on the coffee table.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better," Jensen croaks, then clears his throat and tries again. "Better. Uh -- thank you. For everything."
Donna shrugs, gestures dismissively.
"You don't have to thank me," she insists. "Nobody but a monster would've let you boys freeze to death out there. I'm just glad you found my house. That feels like some kind of miracle, I gotta say. I'm back from the road a ways. Nobody ever finds this place."
Jensen reaches for the milk, takes a sip, realizes he's starving and puts it down so he can reach for the sandwich. The blankets slip down and he realizes he's not wearing a shirt. He doesn't remember getting that naked, and he blushes a little.
"Your color is coming back," Donna notes, then recognizes his discomfort for modesty and smiles. "Your clothes are in the dryer. So are his, so I gave him some of my husband's old clothes. I'll go get you some if you're ready to get dressed."
"Thank you," Jensen says through a mouthful of the best sandwich he's ever tasted in his entire life, even if it does have turkey and cheese on it.
Donna smiles, nods toward Jared.
"He was up most of the night, just watching you," she says softly, so as not to wake Jared. "You're pretty important to him, anybody can see that."
She leaves again, to rustle up some clothes for Jensen, and he finds himself enjoying his non-vegan meal way too much, so that he's not even aware that Jared's awake and staring at him until he finally lifts his eyes from his plate as he finishes the food and reaches for the milk again.
"You're eating meat," Jared states, like it isn't obvious. "And dairy."
"Starving," Jensen answers defensively. "Starving men can't afford to be picky about what they eat."
Jared snorts, shakes his head, and mutters something about how he "never believed it anyway."
Donna comes back with a shirt and sweater and another pair of jeans for Jensen, then leaves again, making some comment about trying the phone to see if it's working yet.
"She has a phone?" Jensen asks as he pulls on the clothes, wincing only a little as they rub against his sensitive skin.
"Land line," Jared nods. "It's been down, though. She thinks she can take her snowmobile and head down the mountain for help once the snow stops."
Jensen gazes silently out the window for a minute, then looks back at Jared, clears his throat.
"I guess you sort of saved my life last night, like the song says," he notes awkwardly. "Thanks."
"You don't ever have to say that," Jared deadpans. "Not to me."
Jensen feels his face crack into a smile, looks down at his hands, shakes his head a little.
"Yeah, well, I do, actually, because you're not Sam, and you didn't have to do what you did."
"Yeah, I did," Jared answers firmly. "Jensen, I know I've been an asshole these past few years, but you have to understand, I never stopped caring about you. I -- "
He hesitates for a second, and Jensen looks up, watches Jared's face as he struggles to find words to express his mixed-up feelings.
"You are probably the most important person in my life, okay?" he says finally, catching Jensen's eyes so he knows Jared's being completely honest. "I think you always have been. I've just been too stupid and stubborn to admit it. Especially to myself. So -- "
Jared huffs out a laugh, stares out the window for a minute as he composes himself, and Jensen just watches him, thinking he will never grow tired of watching him.
"So this is me apologizing, okay? This is me saying I'm sorry for being such a jerk all those years. It was a really bad habit and I let it get too easy and it was just wrong, man. And I'm sorry if I hurt you -- "
"Shut up," Jensen says, putting a hand up to stop Jared's babbling, which is getting damned embarrassing. "You sound like a Taylor Swift song now."
Jared's face collapses into the most glorious grin, all dimples and sunshine, and Jensen has to struggle to keep from smiling right along with him.
Jared shakes his head, still grinning shyly for another minute, then lifts his eyes to Jensen. His eyes soften when he reads Jensen's expression, and he nods almost imperceptibly.
"So we're good?" he asks.
Jensen nods, squaring his jaw and raising his eyebrows in a look he's fairly sure Jared knows well.
"We're good," he agrees firmly, and he means it.
*
The snow finally stops mid-afternoon, and Donna bundles up and heads out on her snowmobile, leaving them with more sandwiches and instructions to keep trying the phone but for godssake to stay put.
Jared and Jensen play cards, Jensen does his yoga exercises, Jared goes outside -- bundled in appropriate borrowed outerwear this time -- and brings in more wood for the fire. They eat sandwiches and drink water, re-hydrating themselves thoroughly. They sit close at the kitchen table and rub shoulders when they move.
Jensen can't imagine sleeping anymore, but when Jared starts reading aloud to him from a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver he nods off, wakes up an hour later with his head on Jared's shoulder, almost cuddling with Jared on the couch in front of the wood stove.
It's getting dark, but Donna still hasn't returned.
Then the phone rings. The land-line phone in Donna's kitchen.
It's Donna, and she's fine, but the mountain road is closed and they're not letting her come back up, so she's going to stay in town for the night with her sister.
"There's plenty of food and water," she tells them. "And even a little whiskey in the cupboard, if you're up to it. I'll be up with the snow-plow first thing in the morning. You boys get your rest. You're welcome to sleep on my bed if you want; it'll probably be more comfortable than the couch."
Jared puts the phone down, turns and looks at Jensen, standing in the doorway listening to Jared's side of the conversation.
"Phone's up," he says unnecessarily. "We should call our families, let them know we're okay."
Jensen calls his mom, who is intensely relieved to hear from him; the speculation about what happened to them has been making her imagine the worst. Jensen feels terrible for putting her through that, explains about the snowstorm and the wrong turn and the dead cell-phones and Donna Winchester, and it's almost too much for Donna Ackles to take in. So Jensen promises he'll call her first thing when he gets back to civilization tomorrow, and hands the phone to Jared.
After Jared calls his folks he makes himself and Jensen another sandwich and they sit side-by-side on the couch, eating and listening to music on Donna's old-fashioned vinyl turntable. Their clothes have dried, but Jensen finds an old pair of sweatpants and a comfortable tee-shirt in Donna's drawers which must have belonged to her husband, who was clearly about Jensen's size. He finds a photograph of Jack Winchester on the bureau and studies it -- the long, lean, elderly gentleman looking back at him does indeed resemble Clint Eastwood; in the photograph he's carrying a rifle and looks defiantly into the camera, and Jensen is struck again by the weird way life and fiction seem to blend at times.
When he returns to the living room Jared is already into the whiskey. He pours a glass for Jensen and pulls out the scrapbook he found tucked into Donna's bookcase.
"Take a look at this."
He invites Jensen to join him on the couch with a pat to the place next to him, and Jensen complies, rubbing against Jared's shoulder as he takes the glass and sits down, letting Jared spread the book open across both their knees.
It's full of old newspaper and magazine clippings, along with a few publicity stills of a stunning young woman with strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes. Jensen stares at the photographs and sees the resemblance right away, recognizes the posed head-shots every actor is required to submit when going up for a role. The faded clippings go back to the late 1940s, when a young Donna Murray performed off-Broadway in New York, receiving rave reviews before obviously deciding -- or being told by somebody -- that she should be in Hollywood. The next few pages of the scrapbook contain call sheets for a variety of B-grade movies from the 1950s, most of which are long-forgotten now, black-and-white science-fiction films and second-rate detective and horror stories. Then, starting around 1954, there are clippings from local newspapers and magazines listing television programs, some mentioning a guest star named Donna Murray, some grainy photographs featuring television stages with a group of actors in costume, one of whom was probably Donna. Again, most of the shows are long-forgotten, second-rate and with short runs, but here and there is a mention of something impressive. Episodes of The Twilight Zone, Dragnet, and The Andy Griffith Show most notably.
In the sixties and seventies Donna's career was clearly winding down. She is mentioned in Variety as the wife of Walter Thomas, a studio executive for Twentieth-Century Fox, and they are pictured with their four children -- two girls and two boys. Donna still looks like a starlet, with all the trappings of the day -- perfect figure, perfect hair, perfect face, perfect posture and smile -- and she was clearly still working as a model and acting in commercials well into her forties. The last clipping in the book is of Donna posing for a magazine ad for Turbo-Clean, a floor-waxing product. The magazine is dated June, 1978, when Donna must have been about 46 years old.
"And that's all she wrote," Jared notes as he flips through the last few pages of the scrapbook, all empty and yellowing. He takes another sip of his whiskey as Jensen closes the book, feeling sad and reverent at the same time.
"So her marriage must've broken up right around that time," he suggests thoughtfully, taking a long sip of his own whiskey.
Jared nods.
"And then she moved here and started over," Jensen adds. "Brave lady."
"Her kids are probably still in California," Jared suggests. "It must make them crazy, her being a hermit in a cabin in the woods in Washington."
"If she was my mother I'd be a little afraid of her," Jensen admits. "She's pretty formidable. Maybe it's a good thing she moved so far away."
"Heh," Jared agrees with a chuckle, taking another sip of his drink.
He leans back against the couch, letting his knees splay open so that his left thigh is pressed to Jensen's, and Jensen resists the urge to pull away because it just feels so good. And because it feels like such a natural gesture, like Jared is just being comfortable, not sexual, and Jensen so much wants to be comfortable with Jared again, the way it used to be between them, all those years ago.
Before Jensen fucked it all to hell between them.
The whiskey is warming his insides and making everything a little hazy, but in a good way, and he barely notices when Jared slips his arm over the back of the couch, just leaning back and stretching his ginormous arms. And when Jared's left arm is suddenly warm against his shoulders because Jared has turned toward him a little, Jensen lets himself go with it and turns to meet Jared's eyes with a small, sad smile, still relaxed, still easy with the physical proximity that feels so normal again, thank God.
And when he holds Jared's gaze a moment longer than absolutely necessary, it still feels good, still feels like they're reclaiming that earlier bond, back when they were just good friends -- no, the best of friends. When they both felt they had found a kindred spirit and yeah, it was corny as hell but they were young and obviously had these unspoken, platonic crushes on each other and it made the job easier so they let it grow and grow and become something deeper until --
Jensen's not quite sure how Jared's face got so close, or how his hand is slowly sliding along Jensen's jaw, or how Jared's lowering his eyes to Jensen's lips and parting his own as if he had every intention of --
There's a split second when Jensen knows exactly what's happening, despite the whiskey and the euphoria of their newly reclaimed friendship -- Jensen knows exactly what's coming but he's letting it happen and the part of his brain that is screaming 'Yes! Finally!" is winning out over the years of self-discipline and denial and refusal to EVER go back to that other time, that moment when he had so badly screwed everything up between them.
But this time it's Jared who's leaning it, Jared who is holding Jensen's face steady so he could tilt his head to the right angle and slot their mouths together, and Jensen's letting him do it, knows with every fiber of his being that he's allowing Jared to kiss him, not resisting as he should, not protesting and pushing away.
The moment their lips meet, Jensen's propelled back to that other time, that moment when he initiated this with Jared, all those years ago, and the first electric shock of recognition -- the first aha! moment between them had confirmed everything Jensen had guessed to be true from the moment he first met Jared.
They were meant to be.
It's crazy; Jensen's told himself that often enough over the years. The hallucination of a sex-crazed overly-sensitive imagination -- Jensen's mother always warned him that his over-active imagination would get him trouble, and now it had. Now it had talked him into believing that Jared felt at least some of the connection, at least a little of the rightness of their finding each other. That the moment they met had driven a stake through Jared's heart too, had screamed in Jared's ear as loudly as it had in Jensen's -- THIS IS IT. HE'S THE ONE!
But when Jared pushed him away that time, horrified and repulsed and full of vitriol because Jared played football in high school in Texas and he was absolutely, definitely, one-hundred percent NOT GAY and he was full of disgust and anger and -- now Jensen recognized it for what it was -- sheer terror because somebody had actually assumed that he could be attracted to a man.
But now he's kissing Jensen, has in fact totally and completely initiated the kiss, and Jensen's letting it happen because -- OH GOD YES IT FEELS SO RIGHT -- even after all these years, it's so obviously what they were meant for.
Jensen lets his lips part as Jared pushes his tongue inside, deepening the kiss, licking into Jensen's mouth with increasing excitement, and Jensen lets him, allows Jared to maul his mouth, sloppy and desperate and needy, making sexy little moans deep in his throat. But when Jared finally comes up for air Jensen pulls back, slipping his hands through Jared's hair and holding his head so he could see his face.
"Hey, hey, hold on a minute," he murmurs, and his lips feel slick and swollen, just as Jared opens his lust-blown eyes, looking dazed and flushed, his lips parted and so, so pink and wet.
"What?" Jared gasps, trying to lean in again.
But Jensen holds his head, forces him to look up and meet Jensen's gaze.
"Are you sure, Jared?" Jensen says. "Are you sure this is what you want? Cuz last time I checked it pretty clearly wasn't. You sure this isn't the whiskey talkin'?"
"Jen -- please -- " Jared pants, his eyes fluttering closed, moving his hips unconsciously toward Jensen, and when Jensen lets his eyes drop for a moment he can see the evidence of Jared's need in the impressive bulge in his jeans.
"Yeah, I can see you're horny," Jensen nods. "But I need you to explain this to me, Jay. I need you to use your words, okay? Cuz this was not okay the last time I checked, and I'm not going down that road again. Okay? You get me?"
Jared swallows, close-mouthed, and nods, opening his eyes again to gaze steadily at Jensen, tries to get his thrusting hips under control.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I was a jerk," he breathes, clearly making an effort to steady himself. "I knew I liked girls cuz I'd always had girlfriends but until you it never occurred to me that I might like guys too. I just didn't know, and then -- when you kissed me -- Jensen, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. In six years. I think about you all the time, man. I just do. It's -- it's -- no matter how I tried getting you out of my system -- and I tried, goddamn it, because I knew I screwed up and I could never ask you to think about me like that again after what I did -- and it made me so angry and I took it out on you which was just so fucked up -- I'm so sorry, man -- "
The emotions are welling up in his eyes now, grief and desire all mixed together, and it makes Jensen's chest ache so he just leans in and presses his lips gently to Jared's, chaste and sweet.
"It's okay, Jay," he murmurs against Jared's lips. "I guess I always knew. I was just waiting for you, buddy. Always. Right here. I'm right here, Jay."
Jared's long moan is his only vocal response, and as Jensen tilts his head, tugs a little on Jared's hair, Jared is right there, leaning in, hungry mouth and tongue plunging into Jensen's, needy and pulsing with pent-up desire, huge long-fingered hands everywhere as the floodgates open and they go at it like they're literally starving.
Which, as Jensen considers with his last rational brain-cell, they sort of are, since this thing between them has been building for-fucking-ever.
Jared pushes Jensen back on the couch, his mouth leaving Jensen's only long enough to press his lips against Jensen's cheeks, his eyelids, the cleft in his chin, gulping in lungfuls of air before capturing Jensen's mouth again, tongue plunging deep inside, opening Jensen so wide his jaw begins to ache, mapping out every inch of the inside of Jensen's mouth with his long tongue.
Jensen spreads his legs as Jared wiggles his body between them then starts up a steady grinding against his groin as his huge hands hold Jensen's head, turning his face as Jared pulls back again, exposing Jensen's neck. Jared makes an incoherent growling noise as he buries his face in Jensen's throat, lips and teeth working at the tender skin below his ear, sucking marks into Jensen's neck that will be hard to explain away tomorrow but he doesn't care, lets Jared do it because it's Jared and he's finally here in his arms where he belongs.
Jared's hands are up under his shirt, thumbs rubbing over his nipples, hardening them, then Jared is shoving the shirt up to his armpits and Jensen raises his arms and scoots up so Jared can remove his shirt, then look down at him, sprawled out on his back with Jared's huge hands spread wide on his chest.
"So beautiful," Jared breathes as he gazes at Jensen, eyes heated and dark, cheeks flushed.
"Not so bad yourself," Jensen notes with a smirk, and Jared's face bursts forth in a dimpled grin that heats Jensen's chest as if it were made of sunshine. It's a cliche, he knows, but it's one that totally captures the blinding warmth of Jared's smile, and it's the most beautiful thing Jensen has ever seen. Makes his eyes water uncontrollably and his bottom lip quiver.
Jared lets the pad of his thumb trace the tattoo over Jensen's heart, his face melting into an expression of dazed wonder.
"You were really there," Jared breathes. It's a statement, rather than a question, and Jensen nods. "With him. With Sam. He's real."
Jensen searches Jared's face for a trace of sarcasm, but it's not there. He's just taking Jensen's word for it, sight unseen. However insane it may be, that other world exists somewhere, it parallels this one, and that's just how it is.
"How did Kripke know?" Jared wonders, and Jensen shakes his head.
"I don't think there's any way to explain it," he answers truthfully. "I don't think Eric had any idea. Maybe it wouldn't exist if he didn't create it. Maybe that's the catch-22. Or maybe it was always there, and Eric just got lucky."
"But Sam and Dean -- they're a thing over there?"
"Oh yeah," Jensen nods. "Definitely."
Jared shakes his head, lowers his mouth to the tattoo, traces it with his tongue carefully, reverently, as if it might still be painful (it isn't). When he lets his tongue wander across Jensen's chest, takes one beaded nipple into his mouth so he can suckle, Jensen can't prevent the stab of lust it sends shuddering through his body. He hears himself moan as he pushes up into Jared's mouth, then almost keens as Jared takes the nub between his teeth and tugs.
Jared's sliding one of his giant paws down between Jensen's legs, squeezing gently through the fabric, and Jensen bucks up into his grasp, increasing the friction and encouraging Jared's touch. Jared's mouth moves to Jensen's other nipple as his hand finds the waistband of the sweatpants and pushes underneath, ignoring his straining cock for a moment as his long fingers slip down behind his balls, find his hole, push against it with one dry finger.
"Fuck!"
Jensen's expletive bursts forth and his legs fall open. Jared withdraws his finger long enough to push Jensen's sweatpants off and Jensen kicks them to the floor, spreading his legs as Jared pushes one knee back, caressing his crack and pushing gently against his hole again.
"Is this what you want?" Jared murmurs, lifting his head from where he's still mouthing Jensen's chest, leaving marks across his pecs and belly. "Do you need me to fuck you, Jen?"
An incoherent gasp escapes Jensen's lips as his head falls back. He shuts his eyes against the need to come, to just shoot his wad all over Jared's chin and cheeks and mouth.
Jensen opens his eyes a crack, looks down at Jared looking up at him, almost loses it again.
"Take off your shirt," he rasps out. "Need to see you."
Jared kneels back between Jensen's legs and pulls his shirt off over his head, looks down at Jensen with a slight smirk.
"Fuck," Jensen groans, his hand finding his bursting cock reflexively as he gazes at the expanse of Jared's broad chest, his tight abs. His shoulders have beefed up again after his injury and he looks better than all of Jensen's wet dreams over the past six years -- looks even better than Sam Winchester, which shouldn't be possible.
"Now your jeans," Jensen gasps. "Wanna see all of you."
Jared obeys eagerly, and Jensen admires the way his arms bulge and strain as he undresses himself, gets a good glimpse of firm strong ass before Jared climbs back between his legs, thigh muscles flexing, cock straining.
Jared kneels up and takes his cock in his hand, smirking down at Jensen, who is stroking his own cock without even being aware of it.
"So, who's bigger?" he asks with a wink, sliding his long fingers up and down his own hard length. "Sam or me?"
"Oh God," Jensen breathes. "Don't ask me that." You two could be twins, he thinks, except for the scars.
"Think you could take us both?" Jared suggests, letting his tongue slip lasciviously along his bottom lip.
Jensen closes his eyes against the sudden stab of lust caused by Jared's words, bucks up into his own hand.
"You could suck my dick while he fucks your ass," Jared suggests darkly. "Then we could switch."
Jensen squeezes his dick, holds his breath, fighting to hold back the urge to come.
"Jesus, Jared," he breathes out when he's got control again. "Shut the fuck up."
Jared gives a low chuckle, lets his eyes wander down Jensen's body, stroking himself almost languidly.
"Imagine you like this all the time, man," he murmurs. "All spread out and hot for me. Never thought I'd really get it. Thought I'd scared you off for good."
Jensen looks up at him, sees the wonder glittering in Jared's dark eyes, nothing like Sam's tragic misery, Sam's sad longing for his missing brother, Jensen's inability to fill that gaping hole a haunting reminder of the hole in his own life -- a six-foot-four man-sized hole which is suddenly filled with this flesh-and-blood miracle kneeling between his legs --
Jensen reaches down, grabs Jared's wrist.
"Come here," he orders, and Jared obeys, letting go of his dick and crawling back up Jensen's body, pressing himself alongside Jensen and pulling him in at the same time with one huge, powerful arm around Jensen's waist, the other hand cupping Jensen's face as their lips meet for another long, soul-wrenching kiss.
For awhile they grind together, making out like their lives depend on it, like they've been waiting all their lives for this moment and maybe they almost let it go by and they need to make up for all the lost time but they've got the rest of their lives and --
"You got any stuff?" Jared gasps when he comes up for air, biting and sucking big wet kisses along Jensen's stubbled jaw.
"Not exactly expecting this," Jensen growls back, arching his neck so Jared can mouth his adam's apple, lick along his neck to his ear.
"So we bareback then?" Jared grunts into Jensen's ear.
"Ha," Jensen huffs out a laugh. "Not a chance."
"Blow jobs then," Jared declares, capturing Jensen's mouth again. Their tongues battle for dominance, Jared's giant hands pawing at Jensen's hair and face, rubbing his thumb along Jensen's cheekbones as he mauls his mouth eagerly.
Jensen arches his body into Jared's, cries out as Jared releases his mouth and slides his hand down between their bellies, grasping Jensen's dick and thumbing the slit as he kisses Jensen's throat, then his collarbone. Jared moves backwards down Jensen's body, kissing his sternum, then his belly, kneeling between Jensen's legs again with his goal fairly obvious, jacking Jensen's dick the whole time.
Jensen opens his eyes so he can watch as Jared's mouth closes around the head of his cock, sucking gently before letting it go with a pop so he can lick down the length, curl his tongue around the underside and into the slit.
"Fuck!"
Jensen arches his back as the sensations stab through his body, lets his legs fall open even wider to give Jared room to maneuver.
Jared licks down Jensen's dick to his balls, backing himself off the edge of the couch as he sucks first one, then the other into his mouth, rolling them on his tongue before letting them go. He kneels on the floor and pushes Jensen's legs back, exposing his ass-crack, licking down the center until he reaches his destination. eliciting more curses as he pushes his tongue into Jensen's hole, then starts a steady rhythm of tongue-fucking that makes Jensen writhe and grab his dick, cursing in gibberish as Jared reaches for Jensen's cock, pushing his hand away, jacking it in time with his tongue thrusts.
"Jared -- let me suck your -- Jay -- "
But Jared has his own ideas, using the flat of his tongue to completely lubricate Jensen's hole before adding one long, lean finger, thoroughly slick with spit. Once he's got his finger inserted in Jensen's hole, stretching and moving until he's got a rhythm going, then Jared finally inserts another finger and begins scissoring, slowly and carefully at first, dragging his mouth away so he can lick Jensen's balls again, tongue at his perineum until Jensen's a writhing, moaning mess, begging Jared to let him suck his giant dick already.
"Gonna make you come first, Jen," Jared promises as he closes his mouth around the head of Jensen's throbbing cock, then lowers his mouth on it, hollowing out his cheeks and opening his throat till Jensen's almost completely enclosed between Jared's pink, wet lips.
The tight heat of it has Jensen gasping, fighting the urge to thrust, and when his dick hits the back of Jared's throat, making his eyes fill with tears, it's quite possibly the hottest thing Jensen has ever seen.
Then Jared lifts his eyes, catches Jensen's gaze, and thrusts his fingers deep into Jensen's body, long fingers of his other hand wrapped around the base of Jensen's cock and Jensen just loses it -- makes himself hold Jared's gaze as he starts to black out with the intensity -- tries to choke out a warning but Jared is pistoning his fingers and jacking his dick and sucking like there's no tomorrow and --
Jensen hears himself making that long, deep, guttural groan that he can't control when he comes -- and comes, and comes -- because this is Jared and he's finally finally FINALLY having sex with Jared Padalecki and Jensen wishes Sam Winchester was here now so he could just see it.
No, not that. Oh god, he really could not deal with that right now.
"I think I love you," Jared whispers in his ear, and Jensen startles a little because he didn't realize he'd blacked out so long that Jared had time to climb up and press his body against Jensen's again.
"Jay -- " Jensen breathes out, so boneless he can hardly move, drifting in and out of consciousness as he tries to focus on Jared's face hovering over his.
"I think I've always been in love with you," Jared's admission just spills out of him as Jensen tries to focus, blinks once or twice before his eyes slide shut again and he's drifting, just drifting after that incredible blow job -- never had a blow job that good, he reflects distantly as he feels Jared's lips on his, tastes himself in Jared's mouth.
"I think I just didn't believe I could be in love with a guy," Jared says. "All my life I assumed I was straight. I mean, I could see when a guy was attractive, sure, but I figured everybody did that, right? But you -- you were beyond perfect. When I first saw you, I got a hard-on right away. It's never gone away. Jensen, I still have the hard-on I got for you the first time I met you. Do you know how much it hurts by now?"
Jensen blinks, tries harder to focus. He knows he should reciprocate, reaches half-heartedly down to Jared's dick.
Jared's hand covers his and the younger man shakes his head.
"Later," he whispers, stays hovering over Jensen, just gazing down at him like he can't stop staring, like the secrets of the universe can be found in Jensen Ackles' face.
"I mean, did you always know you were gay, Jen? Did you?"
He seems to be asking a serious question, and Jensen does the best he can to think clearly, nods.
"Yep, always," he answers, his lips strangely numb, limbs so heavy he can hardly feel them.
"Wow," Jared breathes. "I just thought -- I mean, it was so confusing when you kissed me -- I'd never thought -- but of course I couldn't stop getting hard for you, so I guess I should've figured it out, but -- "
"Jared," Jensen interrupts, reaching up to press his fingers against Jared's lips. "Can we talk about this in the morning? Can we?"
Jared stops talking, staring down at Jensen with a look at once so helpless, so overwrought and full of confusion it breaks Jensen's heart. Poor kid, thirty-two years old and in the midst of a sexual identity crisis -- Jensen reaches up, cups Jared's face, pulls him in for a long, languid kiss.
"It's okay, buddy, it's just me," Jensen murmurs when he releases Jared's mouth, lets him come up for air so he's just staring down at Jensen, lips kiss-swollen and eyes dazed and tear-filled. "I always knew you'd come around. I was just waiting for you."
Jared stares then, disbelief and something like terror flitting across his soft, hazel eyes as he frowns, trying to take in what Jensen's saying.
"You are such an asshole," he breathes out incredulously, and Jensen feels his face crack into a jaw-breaking smile.
"Takes one to know one," he answers smoothly, softly, so that Jared can see the humor and fondness in his gaze, triggering that blinding grin that Jensen needed -- oh, so needed!
Then Jensen is reaching up and pulling Jared down so he can reach his lips again, silencing any further pronouncements or confessions or sarcastic comments -- just making Jared kiss him so that he remembers who had this thing right in the first place, how long it took Jared to figure out what he really wanted, and whose assessment of the situation between them was right on the money from the get-go.
Because Jensen is just too tired to discuss it anymore, too tired to go over the sixty-dozen opportunities for mind-blowing sex that they missed over the past six years.
Yeah, not making that mistake again.
*
Some time in the night Jensen wakes up to the sounds of Jared jerking off; he's kneeling between Jensen's legs again, just jacking himself as he looks down at Jensen's nakedness, shaking the couch with his movements, making delicious little breathy panting noises.
As sleepy as he is, Jensen can't just watch. His dick is hard and twitching at the sight of Jared and all of his incredible muscles and sweat-slicked skin on his knees, and he reaches down, slips his hand over Jared's as he scoots himself up, then leans down so he can press his lips to the seeping head of Jared's enormous dick.
"Fuck," Jared spits, clenching the base of his dick and shuddering with tension. "Your mouth, Jen. Fuck!"
Jensen's on his knees now, mouth still attached to Jared's cock. He pushes Jared back so he's on his back on the couch, long legs spread wide, and Jensen's the one kneeling, pushing Jared's hand aside so he can grasp the base of Jared's dick and show the boy how to get the job done right.
Jared swears like a sailor, slides his hands through Jensen's hair, bucks his hips up so that Jensen almost chokes and his eyes water. This dick is so huge and Jensen's jaws are pretty flexible but he's not sure how much longer he can take it --
"Fuhhhhhk!" Jared tenses for a split second, not nearly long enough for Jensen to remove his mouth before it's filled with the warm, briny taste of Jared's come and Jared's holding Jensen's head so all he can do is swallow, and he knows he's fucked but now they're even 'cuz Jared swallowed his so at least now they're both fucked.
So he swallows every last drop, just suckles the hell out of Jared's softening dick until it slips out of his mouth and Jared is breathing hard, murmuring his name and pulling him up so they're pressed chest to chest again, Jared eagerly kissing him, licking his mouth and murmuring against his lips.
"Best thing ever," Jared slips his arms around Jensen, hugs him close so that Jensen's face is crushed against his throat and he's tasting sweat and Jared. "So amazing. You are so amazing."
"Well, you'd better be clean," Jensen mutters. "Cuz I know I am. Not that you bothered to ask."
"No, it's okay, I'm clean," Jared assures him. "Gen and I were completely monogamous, and I haven't -- I mean, there hasn't been anyone else since she and I -- I mean, it's okay. I'm clean."
"Hmmm," Jensen murmurs sleepily, letting his eyes slip closed again as he breathes in Jared's warm, damp skin and decides he could definitely sleep this way, pretty sure he's halfway there.
But Jared isn't done talking, of course.
"Hey, Jensen? It may be too soon for you, but I'm pretty sure this is it for me. Okay? Just so you know. I want this -- I want us. For good. I'm thirty-two now, I'm not a kid anymore. And I -- You're it for me, man. Just so you know."
"Hmmmm," Jensen shifts closer, slips one leg between Jared's legs, snuggles his face against Jared's throat, presses his lips there.
"Jensen? I mean it," Jared tries again. "This isn't just a one-time thing for me. If you'll have me, this is what I want. For good."
Jensen pats Jared's cheek and presses a kiss against his throat.
"Shut up and sleep now, Jare," he murmurs.
Jared's arms tighten around him and he nuzzles the top of Jensen's head.
"'Kay," he sighs. "Okay, Jen."
CHAPTER SIX - BACK TO MASTERPOST
Jared's asleep, sprawled across an armchair on the other side of the room, his head tipped back, exposing his long neck, covered with another day's beard. He's wearing some loose-fitting jeans that are too short for him, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pullover sweater and heavy wool socks.
He looks a little ridiculous in the ill-fitting clothes, but it warms Jensen's chest to see him looking so vulnerable and wiped out. It's a rare thing to see his hyper-energetic co-star actually sleeping, and Jensen doesn't mind the view one bit.
He reaches for the glass of water on the table, wincing against the soreness in his muscles, the tingling in his fingers and toes. He holds one hand up in front of his face, wiggles the fingers experimentally. Everything still works, he's grateful to see, and he can even feel the tips of his fingers. At least on the right hand. The left is calloused from guitar playing, so that's just normal. The fingers look a little red with cold, and they itch a little, but it's not bad. Same with his toes, he finds as he lifts the blanket to take a look. Somebody put heavy wool socks on his feet, and they actually feel warm, not too itchy or tingly either, so he figures he's good.
Dodged the bullet. Again.
Luck does seem to follow him around, Jensen thinks, considering all the good things he has to be grateful for.
Nothing like poor old Dean Winchester, the schmuck.
"You're awake!"
It's Donna, coming into the room from the kitchen with a plate of sandwiches. She smiles at him, puts down the plate and a glass of milk on the coffee table.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better," Jensen croaks, then clears his throat and tries again. "Better. Uh -- thank you. For everything."
Donna shrugs, gestures dismissively.
"You don't have to thank me," she insists. "Nobody but a monster would've let you boys freeze to death out there. I'm just glad you found my house. That feels like some kind of miracle, I gotta say. I'm back from the road a ways. Nobody ever finds this place."
Jensen reaches for the milk, takes a sip, realizes he's starving and puts it down so he can reach for the sandwich. The blankets slip down and he realizes he's not wearing a shirt. He doesn't remember getting that naked, and he blushes a little.
"Your color is coming back," Donna notes, then recognizes his discomfort for modesty and smiles. "Your clothes are in the dryer. So are his, so I gave him some of my husband's old clothes. I'll go get you some if you're ready to get dressed."
"Thank you," Jensen says through a mouthful of the best sandwich he's ever tasted in his entire life, even if it does have turkey and cheese on it.
Donna smiles, nods toward Jared.
"He was up most of the night, just watching you," she says softly, so as not to wake Jared. "You're pretty important to him, anybody can see that."
She leaves again, to rustle up some clothes for Jensen, and he finds himself enjoying his non-vegan meal way too much, so that he's not even aware that Jared's awake and staring at him until he finally lifts his eyes from his plate as he finishes the food and reaches for the milk again.
"You're eating meat," Jared states, like it isn't obvious. "And dairy."
"Starving," Jensen answers defensively. "Starving men can't afford to be picky about what they eat."
Jared snorts, shakes his head, and mutters something about how he "never believed it anyway."
Donna comes back with a shirt and sweater and another pair of jeans for Jensen, then leaves again, making some comment about trying the phone to see if it's working yet.
"She has a phone?" Jensen asks as he pulls on the clothes, wincing only a little as they rub against his sensitive skin.
"Land line," Jared nods. "It's been down, though. She thinks she can take her snowmobile and head down the mountain for help once the snow stops."
Jensen gazes silently out the window for a minute, then looks back at Jared, clears his throat.
"I guess you sort of saved my life last night, like the song says," he notes awkwardly. "Thanks."
"You don't ever have to say that," Jared deadpans. "Not to me."
Jensen feels his face crack into a smile, looks down at his hands, shakes his head a little.
"Yeah, well, I do, actually, because you're not Sam, and you didn't have to do what you did."
"Yeah, I did," Jared answers firmly. "Jensen, I know I've been an asshole these past few years, but you have to understand, I never stopped caring about you. I -- "
He hesitates for a second, and Jensen looks up, watches Jared's face as he struggles to find words to express his mixed-up feelings.
"You are probably the most important person in my life, okay?" he says finally, catching Jensen's eyes so he knows Jared's being completely honest. "I think you always have been. I've just been too stupid and stubborn to admit it. Especially to myself. So -- "
Jared huffs out a laugh, stares out the window for a minute as he composes himself, and Jensen just watches him, thinking he will never grow tired of watching him.
"So this is me apologizing, okay? This is me saying I'm sorry for being such a jerk all those years. It was a really bad habit and I let it get too easy and it was just wrong, man. And I'm sorry if I hurt you -- "
"Shut up," Jensen says, putting a hand up to stop Jared's babbling, which is getting damned embarrassing. "You sound like a Taylor Swift song now."
Jared's face collapses into the most glorious grin, all dimples and sunshine, and Jensen has to struggle to keep from smiling right along with him.
Jared shakes his head, still grinning shyly for another minute, then lifts his eyes to Jensen. His eyes soften when he reads Jensen's expression, and he nods almost imperceptibly.
"So we're good?" he asks.
Jensen nods, squaring his jaw and raising his eyebrows in a look he's fairly sure Jared knows well.
"We're good," he agrees firmly, and he means it.
*
The snow finally stops mid-afternoon, and Donna bundles up and heads out on her snowmobile, leaving them with more sandwiches and instructions to keep trying the phone but for godssake to stay put.
Jared and Jensen play cards, Jensen does his yoga exercises, Jared goes outside -- bundled in appropriate borrowed outerwear this time -- and brings in more wood for the fire. They eat sandwiches and drink water, re-hydrating themselves thoroughly. They sit close at the kitchen table and rub shoulders when they move.
Jensen can't imagine sleeping anymore, but when Jared starts reading aloud to him from a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver he nods off, wakes up an hour later with his head on Jared's shoulder, almost cuddling with Jared on the couch in front of the wood stove.
It's getting dark, but Donna still hasn't returned.
Then the phone rings. The land-line phone in Donna's kitchen.
It's Donna, and she's fine, but the mountain road is closed and they're not letting her come back up, so she's going to stay in town for the night with her sister.
"There's plenty of food and water," she tells them. "And even a little whiskey in the cupboard, if you're up to it. I'll be up with the snow-plow first thing in the morning. You boys get your rest. You're welcome to sleep on my bed if you want; it'll probably be more comfortable than the couch."
Jared puts the phone down, turns and looks at Jensen, standing in the doorway listening to Jared's side of the conversation.
"Phone's up," he says unnecessarily. "We should call our families, let them know we're okay."
Jensen calls his mom, who is intensely relieved to hear from him; the speculation about what happened to them has been making her imagine the worst. Jensen feels terrible for putting her through that, explains about the snowstorm and the wrong turn and the dead cell-phones and Donna Winchester, and it's almost too much for Donna Ackles to take in. So Jensen promises he'll call her first thing when he gets back to civilization tomorrow, and hands the phone to Jared.
After Jared calls his folks he makes himself and Jensen another sandwich and they sit side-by-side on the couch, eating and listening to music on Donna's old-fashioned vinyl turntable. Their clothes have dried, but Jensen finds an old pair of sweatpants and a comfortable tee-shirt in Donna's drawers which must have belonged to her husband, who was clearly about Jensen's size. He finds a photograph of Jack Winchester on the bureau and studies it -- the long, lean, elderly gentleman looking back at him does indeed resemble Clint Eastwood; in the photograph he's carrying a rifle and looks defiantly into the camera, and Jensen is struck again by the weird way life and fiction seem to blend at times.
When he returns to the living room Jared is already into the whiskey. He pours a glass for Jensen and pulls out the scrapbook he found tucked into Donna's bookcase.
"Take a look at this."
He invites Jensen to join him on the couch with a pat to the place next to him, and Jensen complies, rubbing against Jared's shoulder as he takes the glass and sits down, letting Jared spread the book open across both their knees.
It's full of old newspaper and magazine clippings, along with a few publicity stills of a stunning young woman with strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes. Jensen stares at the photographs and sees the resemblance right away, recognizes the posed head-shots every actor is required to submit when going up for a role. The faded clippings go back to the late 1940s, when a young Donna Murray performed off-Broadway in New York, receiving rave reviews before obviously deciding -- or being told by somebody -- that she should be in Hollywood. The next few pages of the scrapbook contain call sheets for a variety of B-grade movies from the 1950s, most of which are long-forgotten now, black-and-white science-fiction films and second-rate detective and horror stories. Then, starting around 1954, there are clippings from local newspapers and magazines listing television programs, some mentioning a guest star named Donna Murray, some grainy photographs featuring television stages with a group of actors in costume, one of whom was probably Donna. Again, most of the shows are long-forgotten, second-rate and with short runs, but here and there is a mention of something impressive. Episodes of The Twilight Zone, Dragnet, and The Andy Griffith Show most notably.
In the sixties and seventies Donna's career was clearly winding down. She is mentioned in Variety as the wife of Walter Thomas, a studio executive for Twentieth-Century Fox, and they are pictured with their four children -- two girls and two boys. Donna still looks like a starlet, with all the trappings of the day -- perfect figure, perfect hair, perfect face, perfect posture and smile -- and she was clearly still working as a model and acting in commercials well into her forties. The last clipping in the book is of Donna posing for a magazine ad for Turbo-Clean, a floor-waxing product. The magazine is dated June, 1978, when Donna must have been about 46 years old.
"And that's all she wrote," Jared notes as he flips through the last few pages of the scrapbook, all empty and yellowing. He takes another sip of his whiskey as Jensen closes the book, feeling sad and reverent at the same time.
"So her marriage must've broken up right around that time," he suggests thoughtfully, taking a long sip of his own whiskey.
Jared nods.
"And then she moved here and started over," Jensen adds. "Brave lady."
"Her kids are probably still in California," Jared suggests. "It must make them crazy, her being a hermit in a cabin in the woods in Washington."
"If she was my mother I'd be a little afraid of her," Jensen admits. "She's pretty formidable. Maybe it's a good thing she moved so far away."
"Heh," Jared agrees with a chuckle, taking another sip of his drink.
He leans back against the couch, letting his knees splay open so that his left thigh is pressed to Jensen's, and Jensen resists the urge to pull away because it just feels so good. And because it feels like such a natural gesture, like Jared is just being comfortable, not sexual, and Jensen so much wants to be comfortable with Jared again, the way it used to be between them, all those years ago.
Before Jensen fucked it all to hell between them.
The whiskey is warming his insides and making everything a little hazy, but in a good way, and he barely notices when Jared slips his arm over the back of the couch, just leaning back and stretching his ginormous arms. And when Jared's left arm is suddenly warm against his shoulders because Jared has turned toward him a little, Jensen lets himself go with it and turns to meet Jared's eyes with a small, sad smile, still relaxed, still easy with the physical proximity that feels so normal again, thank God.
And when he holds Jared's gaze a moment longer than absolutely necessary, it still feels good, still feels like they're reclaiming that earlier bond, back when they were just good friends -- no, the best of friends. When they both felt they had found a kindred spirit and yeah, it was corny as hell but they were young and obviously had these unspoken, platonic crushes on each other and it made the job easier so they let it grow and grow and become something deeper until --
Jensen's not quite sure how Jared's face got so close, or how his hand is slowly sliding along Jensen's jaw, or how Jared's lowering his eyes to Jensen's lips and parting his own as if he had every intention of --
There's a split second when Jensen knows exactly what's happening, despite the whiskey and the euphoria of their newly reclaimed friendship -- Jensen knows exactly what's coming but he's letting it happen and the part of his brain that is screaming 'Yes! Finally!" is winning out over the years of self-discipline and denial and refusal to EVER go back to that other time, that moment when he had so badly screwed everything up between them.
But this time it's Jared who's leaning it, Jared who is holding Jensen's face steady so he could tilt his head to the right angle and slot their mouths together, and Jensen's letting him do it, knows with every fiber of his being that he's allowing Jared to kiss him, not resisting as he should, not protesting and pushing away.
The moment their lips meet, Jensen's propelled back to that other time, that moment when he initiated this with Jared, all those years ago, and the first electric shock of recognition -- the first aha! moment between them had confirmed everything Jensen had guessed to be true from the moment he first met Jared.
They were meant to be.
It's crazy; Jensen's told himself that often enough over the years. The hallucination of a sex-crazed overly-sensitive imagination -- Jensen's mother always warned him that his over-active imagination would get him trouble, and now it had. Now it had talked him into believing that Jared felt at least some of the connection, at least a little of the rightness of their finding each other. That the moment they met had driven a stake through Jared's heart too, had screamed in Jared's ear as loudly as it had in Jensen's -- THIS IS IT. HE'S THE ONE!
But when Jared pushed him away that time, horrified and repulsed and full of vitriol because Jared played football in high school in Texas and he was absolutely, definitely, one-hundred percent NOT GAY and he was full of disgust and anger and -- now Jensen recognized it for what it was -- sheer terror because somebody had actually assumed that he could be attracted to a man.
But now he's kissing Jensen, has in fact totally and completely initiated the kiss, and Jensen's letting it happen because -- OH GOD YES IT FEELS SO RIGHT -- even after all these years, it's so obviously what they were meant for.
Jensen lets his lips part as Jared pushes his tongue inside, deepening the kiss, licking into Jensen's mouth with increasing excitement, and Jensen lets him, allows Jared to maul his mouth, sloppy and desperate and needy, making sexy little moans deep in his throat. But when Jared finally comes up for air Jensen pulls back, slipping his hands through Jared's hair and holding his head so he could see his face.
"Hey, hey, hold on a minute," he murmurs, and his lips feel slick and swollen, just as Jared opens his lust-blown eyes, looking dazed and flushed, his lips parted and so, so pink and wet.
"What?" Jared gasps, trying to lean in again.
But Jensen holds his head, forces him to look up and meet Jensen's gaze.
"Are you sure, Jared?" Jensen says. "Are you sure this is what you want? Cuz last time I checked it pretty clearly wasn't. You sure this isn't the whiskey talkin'?"
"Jen -- please -- " Jared pants, his eyes fluttering closed, moving his hips unconsciously toward Jensen, and when Jensen lets his eyes drop for a moment he can see the evidence of Jared's need in the impressive bulge in his jeans.
"Yeah, I can see you're horny," Jensen nods. "But I need you to explain this to me, Jay. I need you to use your words, okay? Cuz this was not okay the last time I checked, and I'm not going down that road again. Okay? You get me?"
Jared swallows, close-mouthed, and nods, opening his eyes again to gaze steadily at Jensen, tries to get his thrusting hips under control.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I was a jerk," he breathes, clearly making an effort to steady himself. "I knew I liked girls cuz I'd always had girlfriends but until you it never occurred to me that I might like guys too. I just didn't know, and then -- when you kissed me -- Jensen, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. In six years. I think about you all the time, man. I just do. It's -- it's -- no matter how I tried getting you out of my system -- and I tried, goddamn it, because I knew I screwed up and I could never ask you to think about me like that again after what I did -- and it made me so angry and I took it out on you which was just so fucked up -- I'm so sorry, man -- "
The emotions are welling up in his eyes now, grief and desire all mixed together, and it makes Jensen's chest ache so he just leans in and presses his lips gently to Jared's, chaste and sweet.
"It's okay, Jay," he murmurs against Jared's lips. "I guess I always knew. I was just waiting for you, buddy. Always. Right here. I'm right here, Jay."
Jared's long moan is his only vocal response, and as Jensen tilts his head, tugs a little on Jared's hair, Jared is right there, leaning in, hungry mouth and tongue plunging into Jensen's, needy and pulsing with pent-up desire, huge long-fingered hands everywhere as the floodgates open and they go at it like they're literally starving.
Which, as Jensen considers with his last rational brain-cell, they sort of are, since this thing between them has been building for-fucking-ever.
Jared pushes Jensen back on the couch, his mouth leaving Jensen's only long enough to press his lips against Jensen's cheeks, his eyelids, the cleft in his chin, gulping in lungfuls of air before capturing Jensen's mouth again, tongue plunging deep inside, opening Jensen so wide his jaw begins to ache, mapping out every inch of the inside of Jensen's mouth with his long tongue.
Jensen spreads his legs as Jared wiggles his body between them then starts up a steady grinding against his groin as his huge hands hold Jensen's head, turning his face as Jared pulls back again, exposing Jensen's neck. Jared makes an incoherent growling noise as he buries his face in Jensen's throat, lips and teeth working at the tender skin below his ear, sucking marks into Jensen's neck that will be hard to explain away tomorrow but he doesn't care, lets Jared do it because it's Jared and he's finally here in his arms where he belongs.
Jared's hands are up under his shirt, thumbs rubbing over his nipples, hardening them, then Jared is shoving the shirt up to his armpits and Jensen raises his arms and scoots up so Jared can remove his shirt, then look down at him, sprawled out on his back with Jared's huge hands spread wide on his chest.
"So beautiful," Jared breathes as he gazes at Jensen, eyes heated and dark, cheeks flushed.
"Not so bad yourself," Jensen notes with a smirk, and Jared's face bursts forth in a dimpled grin that heats Jensen's chest as if it were made of sunshine. It's a cliche, he knows, but it's one that totally captures the blinding warmth of Jared's smile, and it's the most beautiful thing Jensen has ever seen. Makes his eyes water uncontrollably and his bottom lip quiver.
Jared lets the pad of his thumb trace the tattoo over Jensen's heart, his face melting into an expression of dazed wonder.
"You were really there," Jared breathes. It's a statement, rather than a question, and Jensen nods. "With him. With Sam. He's real."
Jensen searches Jared's face for a trace of sarcasm, but it's not there. He's just taking Jensen's word for it, sight unseen. However insane it may be, that other world exists somewhere, it parallels this one, and that's just how it is.
"How did Kripke know?" Jared wonders, and Jensen shakes his head.
"I don't think there's any way to explain it," he answers truthfully. "I don't think Eric had any idea. Maybe it wouldn't exist if he didn't create it. Maybe that's the catch-22. Or maybe it was always there, and Eric just got lucky."
"But Sam and Dean -- they're a thing over there?"
"Oh yeah," Jensen nods. "Definitely."
Jared shakes his head, lowers his mouth to the tattoo, traces it with his tongue carefully, reverently, as if it might still be painful (it isn't). When he lets his tongue wander across Jensen's chest, takes one beaded nipple into his mouth so he can suckle, Jensen can't prevent the stab of lust it sends shuddering through his body. He hears himself moan as he pushes up into Jared's mouth, then almost keens as Jared takes the nub between his teeth and tugs.
Jared's sliding one of his giant paws down between Jensen's legs, squeezing gently through the fabric, and Jensen bucks up into his grasp, increasing the friction and encouraging Jared's touch. Jared's mouth moves to Jensen's other nipple as his hand finds the waistband of the sweatpants and pushes underneath, ignoring his straining cock for a moment as his long fingers slip down behind his balls, find his hole, push against it with one dry finger.
"Fuck!"
Jensen's expletive bursts forth and his legs fall open. Jared withdraws his finger long enough to push Jensen's sweatpants off and Jensen kicks them to the floor, spreading his legs as Jared pushes one knee back, caressing his crack and pushing gently against his hole again.
"Is this what you want?" Jared murmurs, lifting his head from where he's still mouthing Jensen's chest, leaving marks across his pecs and belly. "Do you need me to fuck you, Jen?"
An incoherent gasp escapes Jensen's lips as his head falls back. He shuts his eyes against the need to come, to just shoot his wad all over Jared's chin and cheeks and mouth.
Jensen opens his eyes a crack, looks down at Jared looking up at him, almost loses it again.
"Take off your shirt," he rasps out. "Need to see you."
Jared kneels back between Jensen's legs and pulls his shirt off over his head, looks down at Jensen with a slight smirk.
"Fuck," Jensen groans, his hand finding his bursting cock reflexively as he gazes at the expanse of Jared's broad chest, his tight abs. His shoulders have beefed up again after his injury and he looks better than all of Jensen's wet dreams over the past six years -- looks even better than Sam Winchester, which shouldn't be possible.
"Now your jeans," Jensen gasps. "Wanna see all of you."
Jared obeys eagerly, and Jensen admires the way his arms bulge and strain as he undresses himself, gets a good glimpse of firm strong ass before Jared climbs back between his legs, thigh muscles flexing, cock straining.
Jared kneels up and takes his cock in his hand, smirking down at Jensen, who is stroking his own cock without even being aware of it.
"So, who's bigger?" he asks with a wink, sliding his long fingers up and down his own hard length. "Sam or me?"
"Oh God," Jensen breathes. "Don't ask me that." You two could be twins, he thinks, except for the scars.
"Think you could take us both?" Jared suggests, letting his tongue slip lasciviously along his bottom lip.
Jensen closes his eyes against the sudden stab of lust caused by Jared's words, bucks up into his own hand.
"You could suck my dick while he fucks your ass," Jared suggests darkly. "Then we could switch."
Jensen squeezes his dick, holds his breath, fighting to hold back the urge to come.
"Jesus, Jared," he breathes out when he's got control again. "Shut the fuck up."
Jared gives a low chuckle, lets his eyes wander down Jensen's body, stroking himself almost languidly.
"Imagine you like this all the time, man," he murmurs. "All spread out and hot for me. Never thought I'd really get it. Thought I'd scared you off for good."
Jensen looks up at him, sees the wonder glittering in Jared's dark eyes, nothing like Sam's tragic misery, Sam's sad longing for his missing brother, Jensen's inability to fill that gaping hole a haunting reminder of the hole in his own life -- a six-foot-four man-sized hole which is suddenly filled with this flesh-and-blood miracle kneeling between his legs --
Jensen reaches down, grabs Jared's wrist.
"Come here," he orders, and Jared obeys, letting go of his dick and crawling back up Jensen's body, pressing himself alongside Jensen and pulling him in at the same time with one huge, powerful arm around Jensen's waist, the other hand cupping Jensen's face as their lips meet for another long, soul-wrenching kiss.
For awhile they grind together, making out like their lives depend on it, like they've been waiting all their lives for this moment and maybe they almost let it go by and they need to make up for all the lost time but they've got the rest of their lives and --
"You got any stuff?" Jared gasps when he comes up for air, biting and sucking big wet kisses along Jensen's stubbled jaw.
"Not exactly expecting this," Jensen growls back, arching his neck so Jared can mouth his adam's apple, lick along his neck to his ear.
"So we bareback then?" Jared grunts into Jensen's ear.
"Ha," Jensen huffs out a laugh. "Not a chance."
"Blow jobs then," Jared declares, capturing Jensen's mouth again. Their tongues battle for dominance, Jared's giant hands pawing at Jensen's hair and face, rubbing his thumb along Jensen's cheekbones as he mauls his mouth eagerly.
Jensen arches his body into Jared's, cries out as Jared releases his mouth and slides his hand down between their bellies, grasping Jensen's dick and thumbing the slit as he kisses Jensen's throat, then his collarbone. Jared moves backwards down Jensen's body, kissing his sternum, then his belly, kneeling between Jensen's legs again with his goal fairly obvious, jacking Jensen's dick the whole time.
Jensen opens his eyes so he can watch as Jared's mouth closes around the head of his cock, sucking gently before letting it go with a pop so he can lick down the length, curl his tongue around the underside and into the slit.
"Fuck!"
Jensen arches his back as the sensations stab through his body, lets his legs fall open even wider to give Jared room to maneuver.
Jared licks down Jensen's dick to his balls, backing himself off the edge of the couch as he sucks first one, then the other into his mouth, rolling them on his tongue before letting them go. He kneels on the floor and pushes Jensen's legs back, exposing his ass-crack, licking down the center until he reaches his destination. eliciting more curses as he pushes his tongue into Jensen's hole, then starts a steady rhythm of tongue-fucking that makes Jensen writhe and grab his dick, cursing in gibberish as Jared reaches for Jensen's cock, pushing his hand away, jacking it in time with his tongue thrusts.
"Jared -- let me suck your -- Jay -- "
But Jared has his own ideas, using the flat of his tongue to completely lubricate Jensen's hole before adding one long, lean finger, thoroughly slick with spit. Once he's got his finger inserted in Jensen's hole, stretching and moving until he's got a rhythm going, then Jared finally inserts another finger and begins scissoring, slowly and carefully at first, dragging his mouth away so he can lick Jensen's balls again, tongue at his perineum until Jensen's a writhing, moaning mess, begging Jared to let him suck his giant dick already.
"Gonna make you come first, Jen," Jared promises as he closes his mouth around the head of Jensen's throbbing cock, then lowers his mouth on it, hollowing out his cheeks and opening his throat till Jensen's almost completely enclosed between Jared's pink, wet lips.
The tight heat of it has Jensen gasping, fighting the urge to thrust, and when his dick hits the back of Jared's throat, making his eyes fill with tears, it's quite possibly the hottest thing Jensen has ever seen.
Then Jared lifts his eyes, catches Jensen's gaze, and thrusts his fingers deep into Jensen's body, long fingers of his other hand wrapped around the base of Jensen's cock and Jensen just loses it -- makes himself hold Jared's gaze as he starts to black out with the intensity -- tries to choke out a warning but Jared is pistoning his fingers and jacking his dick and sucking like there's no tomorrow and --
Jensen hears himself making that long, deep, guttural groan that he can't control when he comes -- and comes, and comes -- because this is Jared and he's finally finally FINALLY having sex with Jared Padalecki and Jensen wishes Sam Winchester was here now so he could just see it.
No, not that. Oh god, he really could not deal with that right now.
"I think I love you," Jared whispers in his ear, and Jensen startles a little because he didn't realize he'd blacked out so long that Jared had time to climb up and press his body against Jensen's again.
"Jay -- " Jensen breathes out, so boneless he can hardly move, drifting in and out of consciousness as he tries to focus on Jared's face hovering over his.
"I think I've always been in love with you," Jared's admission just spills out of him as Jensen tries to focus, blinks once or twice before his eyes slide shut again and he's drifting, just drifting after that incredible blow job -- never had a blow job that good, he reflects distantly as he feels Jared's lips on his, tastes himself in Jared's mouth.
"I think I just didn't believe I could be in love with a guy," Jared says. "All my life I assumed I was straight. I mean, I could see when a guy was attractive, sure, but I figured everybody did that, right? But you -- you were beyond perfect. When I first saw you, I got a hard-on right away. It's never gone away. Jensen, I still have the hard-on I got for you the first time I met you. Do you know how much it hurts by now?"
Jensen blinks, tries harder to focus. He knows he should reciprocate, reaches half-heartedly down to Jared's dick.
Jared's hand covers his and the younger man shakes his head.
"Later," he whispers, stays hovering over Jensen, just gazing down at him like he can't stop staring, like the secrets of the universe can be found in Jensen Ackles' face.
"I mean, did you always know you were gay, Jen? Did you?"
He seems to be asking a serious question, and Jensen does the best he can to think clearly, nods.
"Yep, always," he answers, his lips strangely numb, limbs so heavy he can hardly feel them.
"Wow," Jared breathes. "I just thought -- I mean, it was so confusing when you kissed me -- I'd never thought -- but of course I couldn't stop getting hard for you, so I guess I should've figured it out, but -- "
"Jared," Jensen interrupts, reaching up to press his fingers against Jared's lips. "Can we talk about this in the morning? Can we?"
Jared stops talking, staring down at Jensen with a look at once so helpless, so overwrought and full of confusion it breaks Jensen's heart. Poor kid, thirty-two years old and in the midst of a sexual identity crisis -- Jensen reaches up, cups Jared's face, pulls him in for a long, languid kiss.
"It's okay, buddy, it's just me," Jensen murmurs when he releases Jared's mouth, lets him come up for air so he's just staring down at Jensen, lips kiss-swollen and eyes dazed and tear-filled. "I always knew you'd come around. I was just waiting for you."
Jared stares then, disbelief and something like terror flitting across his soft, hazel eyes as he frowns, trying to take in what Jensen's saying.
"You are such an asshole," he breathes out incredulously, and Jensen feels his face crack into a jaw-breaking smile.
"Takes one to know one," he answers smoothly, softly, so that Jared can see the humor and fondness in his gaze, triggering that blinding grin that Jensen needed -- oh, so needed!
Then Jensen is reaching up and pulling Jared down so he can reach his lips again, silencing any further pronouncements or confessions or sarcastic comments -- just making Jared kiss him so that he remembers who had this thing right in the first place, how long it took Jared to figure out what he really wanted, and whose assessment of the situation between them was right on the money from the get-go.
Because Jensen is just too tired to discuss it anymore, too tired to go over the sixty-dozen opportunities for mind-blowing sex that they missed over the past six years.
Yeah, not making that mistake again.
*
Some time in the night Jensen wakes up to the sounds of Jared jerking off; he's kneeling between Jensen's legs again, just jacking himself as he looks down at Jensen's nakedness, shaking the couch with his movements, making delicious little breathy panting noises.
As sleepy as he is, Jensen can't just watch. His dick is hard and twitching at the sight of Jared and all of his incredible muscles and sweat-slicked skin on his knees, and he reaches down, slips his hand over Jared's as he scoots himself up, then leans down so he can press his lips to the seeping head of Jared's enormous dick.
"Fuck," Jared spits, clenching the base of his dick and shuddering with tension. "Your mouth, Jen. Fuck!"
Jensen's on his knees now, mouth still attached to Jared's cock. He pushes Jared back so he's on his back on the couch, long legs spread wide, and Jensen's the one kneeling, pushing Jared's hand aside so he can grasp the base of Jared's dick and show the boy how to get the job done right.
Jared swears like a sailor, slides his hands through Jensen's hair, bucks his hips up so that Jensen almost chokes and his eyes water. This dick is so huge and Jensen's jaws are pretty flexible but he's not sure how much longer he can take it --
"Fuhhhhhk!" Jared tenses for a split second, not nearly long enough for Jensen to remove his mouth before it's filled with the warm, briny taste of Jared's come and Jared's holding Jensen's head so all he can do is swallow, and he knows he's fucked but now they're even 'cuz Jared swallowed his so at least now they're both fucked.
So he swallows every last drop, just suckles the hell out of Jared's softening dick until it slips out of his mouth and Jared is breathing hard, murmuring his name and pulling him up so they're pressed chest to chest again, Jared eagerly kissing him, licking his mouth and murmuring against his lips.
"Best thing ever," Jared slips his arms around Jensen, hugs him close so that Jensen's face is crushed against his throat and he's tasting sweat and Jared. "So amazing. You are so amazing."
"Well, you'd better be clean," Jensen mutters. "Cuz I know I am. Not that you bothered to ask."
"No, it's okay, I'm clean," Jared assures him. "Gen and I were completely monogamous, and I haven't -- I mean, there hasn't been anyone else since she and I -- I mean, it's okay. I'm clean."
"Hmmm," Jensen murmurs sleepily, letting his eyes slip closed again as he breathes in Jared's warm, damp skin and decides he could definitely sleep this way, pretty sure he's halfway there.
But Jared isn't done talking, of course.
"Hey, Jensen? It may be too soon for you, but I'm pretty sure this is it for me. Okay? Just so you know. I want this -- I want us. For good. I'm thirty-two now, I'm not a kid anymore. And I -- You're it for me, man. Just so you know."
"Hmmmm," Jensen shifts closer, slips one leg between Jared's legs, snuggles his face against Jared's throat, presses his lips there.
"Jensen? I mean it," Jared tries again. "This isn't just a one-time thing for me. If you'll have me, this is what I want. For good."
Jensen pats Jared's cheek and presses a kiss against his throat.
"Shut up and sleep now, Jare," he murmurs.
Jared's arms tighten around him and he nuzzles the top of Jensen's head.
"'Kay," he sighs. "Okay, Jen."
CHAPTER SIX - BACK TO MASTERPOST