Easy (a J2 au)
Nov. 29th, 2010 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raeschaeTitle: Easy
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raeschae
Wordcount: 4600
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): J2
Warning(s): Minor drug use
Summary: They've been best friends since middle school. It's only taken them twenty years to realize they might be a little more than that.
Notes: Thanks todugindeep for the last minute beta. You're a goddess, woman!
It's a balmy night, not exactly hot but humid enough that Jared's hair sticks to the back of his neck and his forehead when he doesn't take the time to shake it out of his face. Jensen's already up here on the roof of their building, dressed only in a thin white undershirt and his dress pants from work. His shirt, tie, and shoes are in the living room next to the couch, a clear sign that he needed to unwind after a long day.
Tugging at the knot in his tie, Jared settles onto the ledge and presses his thigh against Jensen's, his feet dangling just a little lower than Jensen's. He pulls his shirt tails free from his pants and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows before holding out a hand and accepting the joint Jensen is offering.
“You remember those weird movies we used to make in high school?” Jensen asks as Jared inhales.
He holds the smoke for a second and then releases it in a slow, steady plume before nodding, his eyes fixed on the sparkle of the city lights around them. “I remember the one you made with Danneel in college,” he says.
“Fuck you,” Jensen chuckles, nudging Jared with his shoulder. “D'you remember?”
When they were in high school, Jared's mom and dad bought him a video camera for Christmas one year – Jared can't remember now if he had asked for it or if they just thought it was something he would like to have – so he and Jensen spent the next two years making the weirdest, most nonsensical movies ever.
Once, they moved all of Jensen's parents' living room furniture to their front yard, dressed up like the Coffee Talk ladies from Saturday Night Live with this stash of Jensen's grandmother's clothes they found in the basement, and just sat around on the couch, eating cole slaw and talking shit about pro football. One film involved Jensen hanging out of Jared's second-story bedroom window by his fingertips; it also involved a trip to the emergency room because Jensen broke his clavicle when he fell into the flower bed. Another one included the dumpsters behind their school and their friend, Aldis, dressing up like their gym teacher, but Jared can't really recall the specifics of that one at the moment.
“Yeah, I guess,” he answers, handing the joint back to Jensen before leaning back to rest his elbows on the roof top.
Jensen puffs, exhales, and then asks, “Why'd we stop doin' that, ya think?”
With a shrug, Jared blinks up toward the sky – it always looks different up here than it does on the ground, for whatever reason – wondering if there's a right answer to this question. “We started getting laid?” he suggests.
“How come we never, like, tried to make a career out of it or whatever?”
Jared isn't even sure they liked doing it that much. It was fun, sure, but it wasn't something he thought about doing the rest of his life or anything. “I don't know, man,” he shrugs, sitting back up to take another hit. “Never seemed like work, I guess? Didn't think of it as a career path or anything.”
“Huh,” Jensen says, his head tilting as he considers the possibility. “Seems like maybe we should've.”
Granted, Jared has never found Jensen's job in market research all that enthralling but he doesn't think Jensen hates it or anything. “You tryin' to tell me you wanna make a movie?” Seems like, after living together for twelve years, he should know if Jensen's harboring Lucas wishes and Spielberg dreams.
“No,” he answers, passing the joint back across his body, his fingers brushing Jared's on the hand-off. “I'm just. I don't know. I was readin' this article today about passion and careers. I don't know.” He shakes his head again and lays back, signaling that he's finished for the time being. “Just makin' conversation.”
Instead of answering, Jared watches the flashing light of a plane circling overhead and focuses on the feeling of Jensen's ankle hooked under his as their legs swing in tandem. It's certainly not the strangest conversation they've ever had up here but there's something beneath the surface of it that feels more important somehow.
*
They're kicked back on the couch a few days later, each on their third beer as they watch women's college basketball and enjoy the fact that neither of them has to work on a Saturday afternoon.
“Seems like somebody should have told us,” Jared says randomly, the conversation half over in his head before he starts having it aloud.
“Told us ...” Jensen's voice prompts, lazy and distracted.
“About the easy stuff bein' okay, too,” he clarifies, though he knows it's not really clarifying anything at all.
He's been thinking about that conversation on the roof a lot, wondering if there's something to the fact that he never even considered becoming a filmmaker, even though they both loved those stupid films they made back then. Though the details of each one are a little fuzzy, Jared does remember having more fun making them with Jensen and some of their other friends than doing anything else in high school.
“Somebody should have told us it's alright if it's not always hard.”
Jensen snorts. “Dude, that's never alright.”
“Sure, we could turn this totally legitimate conversation into some erectile dysfunction jokes. ‘Cause, ya know, that's mature.”
“Never claimed to be mature.”
“Well, maybe we should be,” Jared fires back, no real bite to his words. “We're thirty.”
Rolling his eyes, Jensen raises the bottle in his hand and points one finger toward the television. “You should date that guy,” he says, referencing the dude running through the streets in some Nike commercial. “He runs.”
Jared gets the analogy – just because two statements are true, that doesn't mean they have anything to do with each other - and maybe Jensen is right. Maybe he's over-thinking things.
With a shrug, he takes another drink and says, “Yeah. I guess.”
*
Jared isn’t exactly having a great time at the bar tonight but leaving at eleven to take Jensen's drunk ass home before he gets a chance to make irrevocably bad life choices isn't the way he’d seen it ending. Smashed against the door of a taxi while Jensen leans hard against his shoulder and reeks of tequila shots isn't any more fun now than it was when they were twenty-two. It's not as though there isn't enough room for both of them in the backseat of a cab. He doesn't know why Jensen feels the need to press against him like there are four other people crammed in beside them.
“That girl was totally into you,” Jensen slurs, burying his face against Jared's neck like he's trying to burrow under his skin.
He shifts so that the door handle isn't digging into his side, one arm draping over Jensen's back. “Which girl?”
“The one with the hair.”
“I don't remember any girls without hair tonight.”
“You know what I mean!”
He's a little too loud for the interior of the cab and Jared flinches but can't help smiling. “I really don't,” he confesses, racking his brain to figure out what Jensen is talking about. He talked to a few girls tonight but they all had hair.
“The girl!” Jensen exclaims, teetering a little as he struggles to sit up. “With the hair! And the eyes! And the legs! She had legs.”
“Two of 'em?”
It takes Jensen a second to squint into Jared's face and then another for him to push at Jared's arm. It's ineffectual, at best, and Jared can't help laughing. “I'm serious!” Jensen exclaims. Everything he's saying now is defensive, loud, and a little whiny. It's kind of cute, actually.
“Guess I didn't notice,” he shrugs
He remembers thinking that he needed to stick close to Jensen because it was really crowded. He remembers thinking that Jensen's jeans seemed tighter tonight than they usually do; also, that it wasn't so bad to look at his ass in those jeans. He remembers not particularly liking the guy that tried to buy Jensen more shots as Jared was trying to drag him out of the bar. In fact, everything he remembers about tonight involves Jensen.
Which probably means something. Huh.
“You're blind,” Jensen accuses, falling back in the seat, his face smashed against Jared's bicep.
He just runs his knuckles over the place where Jensen's tee shirt rides up his back and nods in agreement. He just might be a little blind after all.
*
Nearly a week later, Jensen is peeling an orange over the kitchen sink when Jared walks through, work clothes in hand, on his way to the laundry room. Jensen’s humming, head bobbing to the song in his head, and Jared finds himself stopping just to stare at Jensen, at the way his shoulders roll beneath his tee shirt with the movement of his hands.
“It's why I never made a move on you,” Jared announces, apropos of absolutely nothing.
Jensen doesn't stop peeling but he does cast a glance over his shoulder, brow furrowed before he smiles and shakes his head. “I have no idea what you're talking about.” He turns his attention back to the fruit in his hand as though Jared told him they were out of toothpaste or something.
“Making movies with my best friend in high school was too fun and too easy. It never occurred to me that it could be a job because it wasn't work,” he explains, fingers clenched tight around the shirt and pants in his hand. Even though he's been thinking about this pretty much exclusively for the last two weeks, it doesn't mean that he’d intended to say anything about it to Jensen. Ever.
With a chuckle, Jensen turns and bites into a section of his orange, juice dribbling down the corner of his lip. “Didn't we have this discussion something like a week ago?”
“Yeah, but I've been thinkin' about it lately.”
“Oh.”
“And I think it never occurred to me that we could be more than this,” he motions between them as if the tiles of the kitchen floor are somewhat indicative of their friendship. “Because you are the easiest relationship I've ever had.” He could stop talking about it, chalk it up to temporary insanity or something, but the words just keep coming.
Jensen's eyebrow shoots up. “Did you just call me easy?”
“Yes.”
“So you're saying, what? You wanna, um, date me? Because I'm easy?” As confused as Jared was a couple of weeks ago, when he first started processing all of this, Jensen looks twice as befuddled now. To be fair, they've been friends for almost twenty years; this isn't exactly par for the course with them.
“Yes,” Jared nods again, smiling when Jensen takes another bite of his orange, his thoughts almost visible as he processes them.
With a laugh, Jensen pops another orange section in his mouth before he tucks the trash can back under the sink and pats Jared on the shoulder as he heads into the living room. “This is why we don't have these conversations sober, ya know?”
Jared pivots on his heel and follows, standing in front of the coffee table to block Jensen's view of the television. “You're my LeBron, man,” he says.
Eyes narrowing, Jensen points the fist still clasped around his orange, toward Jared. “We agreed never to speak of that again,” he reminds.
Back in 2003, a year out of college and living in a shithole of an apartment, they were watching the NBA draft on the night that LeBron was drafted first to Cleveland. Jensen turned to Jared, drunk on cheap beer and stress from a new job, and said, “Dude, you're my LeBron. Doesn't matter the team or the opponent. You're my first pick. Always.” Jared laughed so hard, he fell off the couch.
Now, it doesn't seem as funny.
Infuriatingly, Jensen keeps eating his orange and staring at Jared without a trace of an expression on his face. The only part of his face that gives so much as an inch is his jaw while he chews.
Maybe Jared should be embarrassed or mortified or something. He's not. He threw the truth out there and if there's anyone he's comfortable doing that with, it's Jensen. It's frustrating, this lack of reaction but he has to remind himself that sometimes it takes Jensen a while to process new information. It took him three days to accept his job after they offered it to him, even though it was everything he was looking for and wanted.
Jared flexes his fists and remembers the clothes still clenched in his hand. Instead of hanging around, waiting for things to get really awkward while he just stares at Jensen, he heads to the laundry room and takes a few deep breaths. This isn't the end of the world; it's just honesty between friends.
He grabs a beer on his way back to the living room and flops down on the opposite end of the couch, feet kicked up on the coffee table like it's any other day. He should probably move to turn the television on or something but he doesn't.
“LeBron totally fucked Cleveland,” Jensen says after what feels like an hour of silence.
Jared raises an eyebrow and turns his head just enough to make out Jensen's profile. “Are you … dude, I don't know if that's rejection or a really stupid joke.”
“It was a stupid analogy,” Jensen points out.
Jared's not sure if he means that it was stupid the first time he said it, back in '03, or if he means that it was stupid for Jared to bring it back up again now. He's not sure of anything right now.
When Jared doesn't answer, Jensen chuckles. “Not lookin' so easy now, am I?”
“No, you're lookin' like an asshole.”
He would say more but Jensen stands and, without so much as a glance back, walks into the kitchen. Jared can hear the water running and when it cuts off, Jensen reappears in the doorway. “Come with me,” he says, not sticking around to see if Jared follows.
He does.
Jensen's hands are on his shoulders as soon as he walks through the door, pushing him back toward the bed while he laughs. “Dude, this could be a very bad idea.”
He's not wrong. “If it sucks, we just forget it ever happened. Like your attempt at going blond,” Jared teases.
“Jared, I promise you,” Jensen says, easing onto the bed between Jared's legs, “This is not going to suck.”
On a purely physical level, Jared knows that it'll be good. They've lived together long enough for him to know that Jensen is capable of making the most normally quiet guy scream. He's worried that they're going to end up more awkward on the other side of this than they were earlier in the living room.
“Hey,” Jensen calls his attention back by sliding a hand under Jared's tee shirt and raking his blunt nails over his stomach. “Would you relax? This is supposed to be easy, remember?”
He smiles and Jared does remember. This is Jensen, the only thing in his life that he has never had to question or consider or second guess.
Lifting his head, Jared grips the back of Jensen's neck and pulls him in, tongue pushing immediately into Jensen's mouth. He tastes acidic and sweet, like oranges, so Jared licks at the roof of his mouth and sucks on his tongue until Jensen is grinding down against his thigh, grappling with his pants until they're open and his hand is sliding against the soft cotton of Jared's underwear, coaxing him hard with his palm.
Jared tears his mouth away, air slicing through his lungs as he draws a ragged breath and paws at Jensen's shirt until he leans back enough to pull it over his head. Jensen gives him just enough room to strip his own off, too, and when Jared tosses it on the floor, Jensen is staring at his chest, fingers still working against his cock without any real rhythm or intent.
“You remember that time we went skinny dipping in eighth grade?”
With a huff, Jared lets his head fall back against the mattress, arms stretched out at his sides while Jensen's gaze trails down his body and stops on the way his hand moves. The fabric is starting to burn against his skin but he just grunts and shifts. “You always reminisce during sex?”
Jensen just shakes his head, lip caught between his teeth as he uses both hands to pull Jared's underwear down to his thighs. “Never had sex with you,” he points out, sounding more like he's talking to himself.
“You,” Jared bites off a surprised laugh when Jensen grips his dick in a tight fist and stokes it so slowly it's like he's barely moving his hand at all. “You made so much fun of my scrawny ass that day,” he recalls.
“I did,” Jensen agrees, thumb swiping over the wet head as his tongue travels the length of his upper lip. “You kept insistin' you were workin' out.”
“I was!”
With a nod, Jensen lets go of Jared's dick and backs off the bed, unzipping his own jeans and pushing them, along with his underwear, to the floor. He sits back down and trails his fingers over Jared's thighs. “I know you were, man.” His fingers ghost over Jared's balls, causing him to jerk and hiss. “I knew you'd do it, too. Bulk up, get all hot, like sex on legs.” Dipping low, he runs the tip of his tongue over Jared's cock, chuckles when Jared can't help but buck into the contact. “Knew you'd be like this someday.”
“Just.” Jared wants to cry, Jensen's mouth feels so good when it slips over his dick before he pulls back off, barely a second of contact. “Stop fucking talking, please,” he pleads, rolling his hips until his cock brushes over Jensen's chin, leaving a wet trail in its wake.
This is not exactly what Jared has been thinking about the last couple of weeks – that was more about the realization that Jensen is the person he wants to be with pretty much forever and the discovery that he is totally okay with that – but he's not complaining about the way Jensen’s mouth looks stretched around Jared or the way the outline of his cock presses against Jensen's cheek when he moves his head to take more.
Jensen is steady, no rush or hurry in his movements as his fist and tongue work in a sloppy tandem to drive Jared crazy. When Jared grips the back of his head, Jensen pulls his hand back in some show of surrender. Raising his eyes, he blinks and digs his fingers into Jared's hip and he knows it's Jensen's way of saying it's okay; Jared should do what he wants.
Thrusting forward, he fucks into Jensen's mouth while Jensen grunts and groans, hips pushing down against the mattress in time with Jared's rhythm. “Stop,” Jared chokes, hoisting himself up on his elbows.
Jensen sputters and gasps when he pulls off of Jared's dick, the wet suction echoing in Jared's ears above the sound of his own heartbeat. “What?”
With a roll of his eyes, Jared balances on one arm and drops the other hand to the back of Jensen's neck, hold loose, while he smiles and says, “I meant stop humping the mattress, moron, not stop sucking my dick.”
Jensen smacks his hip and growls, teeth bared. “I'll use 'em,” he warns.
“I won't reciprocate,” Jared threatens in return.
For a second, he thinks Jensen might bite him anyway. Instead, he sighs like Jared's putting him out or something and then seals his mouth over his cock again, taking him in until Jared's sure he can feel the back of Jensen's throat.
This is not his first blow job – not even his first from another guy – but it's the first time he's felt the heat curling low in his belly and spilling like molten fire through his entire body, toes curling and eyes rolling back in his head when he feels Jensen swallowing around him as he comes.
“Holy fuckin' hell,” he breathes on a laugh, fingers still rubbing over the back of Jensen's neck when the shaking in his legs finally subsides. “Gimme a sec.”
Jensen shakes his head and slides his hands under the backs of Jared's thighs. “Just lemme,” is all he says, pushing Jared's legs up until they're propped against his shoulders. His body is still pretty spent so if Jensen wants to use him like Gumby, he's not going to complain.
He's rutting against Jared's ass, occasionally sliding over his hole and muttering something incoherent against his shoulder. Jared just slides his hands over Jensen's skin, fingers lingering along the long, smooth line of his back.
“Jesus. Fuck,” Jensen manages, voice strangled tight in his throat when Jared feels him coming against the inside of his thigh.
They're tangled up in a sweaty heap, messy and exhausted. As soon as Jared's limbs work again, he's going to get up and take a shower. Until then, though, he's just going to rest his eyes for a second.
The last thing he hears before he drifts into sleep is Jensen mumbling, “Told you it wouldn't suck,” against his ear.
He wouldn't disagree, even if he could get his words out right now.
*
“It wasn't that it never occurred to me,” Jensen says suddenly, drinking from one of the water bottles he brought up an hour ago.
They've fucked in the shower, against the bathroom counter, on Jared's bedroom floor and are now taking a breather in his bed. It's almost one in the morning, they both have to leave for work at seven, but they've napped on and off all evening. Something tells Jared their schedules are going to be kind of messed up for awhile.
“The movies, I mean. I thought about it a lot back then.”
Though he's not talking about the movies at all, Jared doesn't call him on it. “You never told me that.”
Setting his bottle down, Jensen rolls over, one leg draped over Jared's as he slides his hand up into Jared's hair and pulls him down until their foreheads meet. His eyes are wide open, fixed on Jared's as he brushes his open mouth over Jared's and then licks the outline of his lips.
There's really not much more that Jared wants than to keep kissing Jensen, maybe until they both die of starvation or something, but he'd kind of like to know where this conversation Jensen started is going, too. “So you thought about makin' movies, huh?” he asks with a knowing smile.
Jensen groans and doesn't bother moving away, though he does twist enough to rest against the headboard. “I love The Great Gatsby, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when I read it in tenth grade English, I hated it. Couldn't get through the whole thing, remember?”
With a shake of his head, Jared looks at the place where their fingers are threaded together against his hip. “Then I told you that you were bein' an idiot about it later and you read it and loved it,” Jared fills in the details that Jensen seems to be omitting. “Because I am awesome and know you better than you know yourself.”
“Yeah.” Jensen raises his middle finger against Jared's and laughs when Jared wrestles it back down with his own. “That's not really my point.”
Jared knows that. Nothing is as much fun when you're required to do it. “I get it,” he interrupts. “But I think it still applies.”
“That you're awesome?” Jensen sounds skeptical but he's still smiling. “Yeah, that always applies, Jared.”
“You're right, but no. I just mean that you should listen to me more often. Otherwise, you end up fumbling through life, thinking you still want the same bull shit you wanted in high school. Which, if I recall, included marrying Katie Cassidy and having a few little blond moppets someday?”
Jared barks a laugh when Jensen jabs the bone of his elbow into Jared's side. He pops his hip and rolls over Jensen, tangling their legs together and holding his arms over his head. Jensen is scrappy enough to tip them onto their sides but Jared uses his shoulder to knock him onto his back again.
They struggle, pushing and rolling until Jensen gets a hand free and pulls tight at the back of Jared's hair. “You figured this shit out, what? A week before I did? You're not so smart.”
Jared rolls his eyes. “Bitch, you still wouldn't know if I hadn't told you.”
Though his lips are smiling, Jensen's eyes are serious when he counters with, “I've always known.”
*
A day that felt long at nine o'clock this morning is finally over at seven. Jared's eyeballs feel like they're swimming in his skull when he steps through the front door to find Jensen's tie haphazardly slung over the coffee table, his blue dress shirt and shoes in a pile next to it.
He jogs up the back staircase, loosening his tie as he steps through the door onto the roof. Jensen is waiting for him, phone held in front of his face but unable to obstruct his giant smile. Jared just pulls his shirt free from his pants and shakes his head. “The hell are you doing?”
“My phone takes video,” Jensen explains with the same enthusiasm he had for shots on his twenty-first birthday.
Jared doesn't smile but his amusement is evident when he says, “You're just now figuring that out?”
“Come on, man. I wanna make a movie.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Your nephew plays with that phone, man.”
Dropping his arms to his sides, Jensen says, “Not like that.” He stops for a second and tilts his head to the side. “I mean, not on my phone anyway.”
“I'm not wearin' a corset again, either,” Jared insists. That is one movie moment he's pretty sure he'll never be able to forget.
Jensen's laugh is wistful when he says, “Good times, man. Good times.”
They were good times, all of them. While Jared believes that it's time to let go of all this nostalgia they've been steeped in lately, to focus on the new stage they've been moving into during the last week, he can't really deny Jensen one last trip down memory lane.
“So what's this movie about?” he asks, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows as Jensen raises his phone back up to center Jared into the frame.
“I kinda like this,” Jensen says, stalking toward him. “Just you.” He smirks and peers over the top of the phone to shoot Jared a knowing look. “It's simple yet effective.”
“Easy.”
Just like it's always been.
Author:
raeschaeWordcount: 4600
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): J2
Warning(s): Minor drug use
Summary: They've been best friends since middle school. It's only taken them twenty years to realize they might be a little more than that.
Notes: Thanks to
dugindeep for the last minute beta. You're a goddess, woman!It's a balmy night, not exactly hot but humid enough that Jared's hair sticks to the back of his neck and his forehead when he doesn't take the time to shake it out of his face. Jensen's already up here on the roof of their building, dressed only in a thin white undershirt and his dress pants from work. His shirt, tie, and shoes are in the living room next to the couch, a clear sign that he needed to unwind after a long day.
Tugging at the knot in his tie, Jared settles onto the ledge and presses his thigh against Jensen's, his feet dangling just a little lower than Jensen's. He pulls his shirt tails free from his pants and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows before holding out a hand and accepting the joint Jensen is offering.
“You remember those weird movies we used to make in high school?” Jensen asks as Jared inhales.
He holds the smoke for a second and then releases it in a slow, steady plume before nodding, his eyes fixed on the sparkle of the city lights around them. “I remember the one you made with Danneel in college,” he says.
“Fuck you,” Jensen chuckles, nudging Jared with his shoulder. “D'you remember?”
When they were in high school, Jared's mom and dad bought him a video camera for Christmas one year – Jared can't remember now if he had asked for it or if they just thought it was something he would like to have – so he and Jensen spent the next two years making the weirdest, most nonsensical movies ever.
Once, they moved all of Jensen's parents' living room furniture to their front yard, dressed up like the Coffee Talk ladies from Saturday Night Live with this stash of Jensen's grandmother's clothes they found in the basement, and just sat around on the couch, eating cole slaw and talking shit about pro football. One film involved Jensen hanging out of Jared's second-story bedroom window by his fingertips; it also involved a trip to the emergency room because Jensen broke his clavicle when he fell into the flower bed. Another one included the dumpsters behind their school and their friend, Aldis, dressing up like their gym teacher, but Jared can't really recall the specifics of that one at the moment.
“Yeah, I guess,” he answers, handing the joint back to Jensen before leaning back to rest his elbows on the roof top.
Jensen puffs, exhales, and then asks, “Why'd we stop doin' that, ya think?”
With a shrug, Jared blinks up toward the sky – it always looks different up here than it does on the ground, for whatever reason – wondering if there's a right answer to this question. “We started getting laid?” he suggests.
“How come we never, like, tried to make a career out of it or whatever?”
Jared isn't even sure they liked doing it that much. It was fun, sure, but it wasn't something he thought about doing the rest of his life or anything. “I don't know, man,” he shrugs, sitting back up to take another hit. “Never seemed like work, I guess? Didn't think of it as a career path or anything.”
“Huh,” Jensen says, his head tilting as he considers the possibility. “Seems like maybe we should've.”
Granted, Jared has never found Jensen's job in market research all that enthralling but he doesn't think Jensen hates it or anything. “You tryin' to tell me you wanna make a movie?” Seems like, after living together for twelve years, he should know if Jensen's harboring Lucas wishes and Spielberg dreams.
“No,” he answers, passing the joint back across his body, his fingers brushing Jared's on the hand-off. “I'm just. I don't know. I was readin' this article today about passion and careers. I don't know.” He shakes his head again and lays back, signaling that he's finished for the time being. “Just makin' conversation.”
Instead of answering, Jared watches the flashing light of a plane circling overhead and focuses on the feeling of Jensen's ankle hooked under his as their legs swing in tandem. It's certainly not the strangest conversation they've ever had up here but there's something beneath the surface of it that feels more important somehow.
*
They're kicked back on the couch a few days later, each on their third beer as they watch women's college basketball and enjoy the fact that neither of them has to work on a Saturday afternoon.
“Seems like somebody should have told us,” Jared says randomly, the conversation half over in his head before he starts having it aloud.
“Told us ...” Jensen's voice prompts, lazy and distracted.
“About the easy stuff bein' okay, too,” he clarifies, though he knows it's not really clarifying anything at all.
He's been thinking about that conversation on the roof a lot, wondering if there's something to the fact that he never even considered becoming a filmmaker, even though they both loved those stupid films they made back then. Though the details of each one are a little fuzzy, Jared does remember having more fun making them with Jensen and some of their other friends than doing anything else in high school.
“Somebody should have told us it's alright if it's not always hard.”
Jensen snorts. “Dude, that's never alright.”
“Sure, we could turn this totally legitimate conversation into some erectile dysfunction jokes. ‘Cause, ya know, that's mature.”
“Never claimed to be mature.”
“Well, maybe we should be,” Jared fires back, no real bite to his words. “We're thirty.”
Rolling his eyes, Jensen raises the bottle in his hand and points one finger toward the television. “You should date that guy,” he says, referencing the dude running through the streets in some Nike commercial. “He runs.”
Jared gets the analogy – just because two statements are true, that doesn't mean they have anything to do with each other - and maybe Jensen is right. Maybe he's over-thinking things.
With a shrug, he takes another drink and says, “Yeah. I guess.”
*
Jared isn’t exactly having a great time at the bar tonight but leaving at eleven to take Jensen's drunk ass home before he gets a chance to make irrevocably bad life choices isn't the way he’d seen it ending. Smashed against the door of a taxi while Jensen leans hard against his shoulder and reeks of tequila shots isn't any more fun now than it was when they were twenty-two. It's not as though there isn't enough room for both of them in the backseat of a cab. He doesn't know why Jensen feels the need to press against him like there are four other people crammed in beside them.
“That girl was totally into you,” Jensen slurs, burying his face against Jared's neck like he's trying to burrow under his skin.
He shifts so that the door handle isn't digging into his side, one arm draping over Jensen's back. “Which girl?”
“The one with the hair.”
“I don't remember any girls without hair tonight.”
“You know what I mean!”
He's a little too loud for the interior of the cab and Jared flinches but can't help smiling. “I really don't,” he confesses, racking his brain to figure out what Jensen is talking about. He talked to a few girls tonight but they all had hair.
“The girl!” Jensen exclaims, teetering a little as he struggles to sit up. “With the hair! And the eyes! And the legs! She had legs.”
“Two of 'em?”
It takes Jensen a second to squint into Jared's face and then another for him to push at Jared's arm. It's ineffectual, at best, and Jared can't help laughing. “I'm serious!” Jensen exclaims. Everything he's saying now is defensive, loud, and a little whiny. It's kind of cute, actually.
“Guess I didn't notice,” he shrugs
He remembers thinking that he needed to stick close to Jensen because it was really crowded. He remembers thinking that Jensen's jeans seemed tighter tonight than they usually do; also, that it wasn't so bad to look at his ass in those jeans. He remembers not particularly liking the guy that tried to buy Jensen more shots as Jared was trying to drag him out of the bar. In fact, everything he remembers about tonight involves Jensen.
Which probably means something. Huh.
“You're blind,” Jensen accuses, falling back in the seat, his face smashed against Jared's bicep.
He just runs his knuckles over the place where Jensen's tee shirt rides up his back and nods in agreement. He just might be a little blind after all.
*
Nearly a week later, Jensen is peeling an orange over the kitchen sink when Jared walks through, work clothes in hand, on his way to the laundry room. Jensen’s humming, head bobbing to the song in his head, and Jared finds himself stopping just to stare at Jensen, at the way his shoulders roll beneath his tee shirt with the movement of his hands.
“It's why I never made a move on you,” Jared announces, apropos of absolutely nothing.
Jensen doesn't stop peeling but he does cast a glance over his shoulder, brow furrowed before he smiles and shakes his head. “I have no idea what you're talking about.” He turns his attention back to the fruit in his hand as though Jared told him they were out of toothpaste or something.
“Making movies with my best friend in high school was too fun and too easy. It never occurred to me that it could be a job because it wasn't work,” he explains, fingers clenched tight around the shirt and pants in his hand. Even though he's been thinking about this pretty much exclusively for the last two weeks, it doesn't mean that he’d intended to say anything about it to Jensen. Ever.
With a chuckle, Jensen turns and bites into a section of his orange, juice dribbling down the corner of his lip. “Didn't we have this discussion something like a week ago?”
“Yeah, but I've been thinkin' about it lately.”
“Oh.”
“And I think it never occurred to me that we could be more than this,” he motions between them as if the tiles of the kitchen floor are somewhat indicative of their friendship. “Because you are the easiest relationship I've ever had.” He could stop talking about it, chalk it up to temporary insanity or something, but the words just keep coming.
Jensen's eyebrow shoots up. “Did you just call me easy?”
“Yes.”
“So you're saying, what? You wanna, um, date me? Because I'm easy?” As confused as Jared was a couple of weeks ago, when he first started processing all of this, Jensen looks twice as befuddled now. To be fair, they've been friends for almost twenty years; this isn't exactly par for the course with them.
“Yes,” Jared nods again, smiling when Jensen takes another bite of his orange, his thoughts almost visible as he processes them.
With a laugh, Jensen pops another orange section in his mouth before he tucks the trash can back under the sink and pats Jared on the shoulder as he heads into the living room. “This is why we don't have these conversations sober, ya know?”
Jared pivots on his heel and follows, standing in front of the coffee table to block Jensen's view of the television. “You're my LeBron, man,” he says.
Eyes narrowing, Jensen points the fist still clasped around his orange, toward Jared. “We agreed never to speak of that again,” he reminds.
Back in 2003, a year out of college and living in a shithole of an apartment, they were watching the NBA draft on the night that LeBron was drafted first to Cleveland. Jensen turned to Jared, drunk on cheap beer and stress from a new job, and said, “Dude, you're my LeBron. Doesn't matter the team or the opponent. You're my first pick. Always.” Jared laughed so hard, he fell off the couch.
Now, it doesn't seem as funny.
Infuriatingly, Jensen keeps eating his orange and staring at Jared without a trace of an expression on his face. The only part of his face that gives so much as an inch is his jaw while he chews.
Maybe Jared should be embarrassed or mortified or something. He's not. He threw the truth out there and if there's anyone he's comfortable doing that with, it's Jensen. It's frustrating, this lack of reaction but he has to remind himself that sometimes it takes Jensen a while to process new information. It took him three days to accept his job after they offered it to him, even though it was everything he was looking for and wanted.
Jared flexes his fists and remembers the clothes still clenched in his hand. Instead of hanging around, waiting for things to get really awkward while he just stares at Jensen, he heads to the laundry room and takes a few deep breaths. This isn't the end of the world; it's just honesty between friends.
He grabs a beer on his way back to the living room and flops down on the opposite end of the couch, feet kicked up on the coffee table like it's any other day. He should probably move to turn the television on or something but he doesn't.
“LeBron totally fucked Cleveland,” Jensen says after what feels like an hour of silence.
Jared raises an eyebrow and turns his head just enough to make out Jensen's profile. “Are you … dude, I don't know if that's rejection or a really stupid joke.”
“It was a stupid analogy,” Jensen points out.
Jared's not sure if he means that it was stupid the first time he said it, back in '03, or if he means that it was stupid for Jared to bring it back up again now. He's not sure of anything right now.
When Jared doesn't answer, Jensen chuckles. “Not lookin' so easy now, am I?”
“No, you're lookin' like an asshole.”
He would say more but Jensen stands and, without so much as a glance back, walks into the kitchen. Jared can hear the water running and when it cuts off, Jensen reappears in the doorway. “Come with me,” he says, not sticking around to see if Jared follows.
He does.
Jensen's hands are on his shoulders as soon as he walks through the door, pushing him back toward the bed while he laughs. “Dude, this could be a very bad idea.”
He's not wrong. “If it sucks, we just forget it ever happened. Like your attempt at going blond,” Jared teases.
“Jared, I promise you,” Jensen says, easing onto the bed between Jared's legs, “This is not going to suck.”
On a purely physical level, Jared knows that it'll be good. They've lived together long enough for him to know that Jensen is capable of making the most normally quiet guy scream. He's worried that they're going to end up more awkward on the other side of this than they were earlier in the living room.
“Hey,” Jensen calls his attention back by sliding a hand under Jared's tee shirt and raking his blunt nails over his stomach. “Would you relax? This is supposed to be easy, remember?”
He smiles and Jared does remember. This is Jensen, the only thing in his life that he has never had to question or consider or second guess.
Lifting his head, Jared grips the back of Jensen's neck and pulls him in, tongue pushing immediately into Jensen's mouth. He tastes acidic and sweet, like oranges, so Jared licks at the roof of his mouth and sucks on his tongue until Jensen is grinding down against his thigh, grappling with his pants until they're open and his hand is sliding against the soft cotton of Jared's underwear, coaxing him hard with his palm.
Jared tears his mouth away, air slicing through his lungs as he draws a ragged breath and paws at Jensen's shirt until he leans back enough to pull it over his head. Jensen gives him just enough room to strip his own off, too, and when Jared tosses it on the floor, Jensen is staring at his chest, fingers still working against his cock without any real rhythm or intent.
“You remember that time we went skinny dipping in eighth grade?”
With a huff, Jared lets his head fall back against the mattress, arms stretched out at his sides while Jensen's gaze trails down his body and stops on the way his hand moves. The fabric is starting to burn against his skin but he just grunts and shifts. “You always reminisce during sex?”
Jensen just shakes his head, lip caught between his teeth as he uses both hands to pull Jared's underwear down to his thighs. “Never had sex with you,” he points out, sounding more like he's talking to himself.
“You,” Jared bites off a surprised laugh when Jensen grips his dick in a tight fist and stokes it so slowly it's like he's barely moving his hand at all. “You made so much fun of my scrawny ass that day,” he recalls.
“I did,” Jensen agrees, thumb swiping over the wet head as his tongue travels the length of his upper lip. “You kept insistin' you were workin' out.”
“I was!”
With a nod, Jensen lets go of Jared's dick and backs off the bed, unzipping his own jeans and pushing them, along with his underwear, to the floor. He sits back down and trails his fingers over Jared's thighs. “I know you were, man.” His fingers ghost over Jared's balls, causing him to jerk and hiss. “I knew you'd do it, too. Bulk up, get all hot, like sex on legs.” Dipping low, he runs the tip of his tongue over Jared's cock, chuckles when Jared can't help but buck into the contact. “Knew you'd be like this someday.”
“Just.” Jared wants to cry, Jensen's mouth feels so good when it slips over his dick before he pulls back off, barely a second of contact. “Stop fucking talking, please,” he pleads, rolling his hips until his cock brushes over Jensen's chin, leaving a wet trail in its wake.
This is not exactly what Jared has been thinking about the last couple of weeks – that was more about the realization that Jensen is the person he wants to be with pretty much forever and the discovery that he is totally okay with that – but he's not complaining about the way Jensen’s mouth looks stretched around Jared or the way the outline of his cock presses against Jensen's cheek when he moves his head to take more.
Jensen is steady, no rush or hurry in his movements as his fist and tongue work in a sloppy tandem to drive Jared crazy. When Jared grips the back of his head, Jensen pulls his hand back in some show of surrender. Raising his eyes, he blinks and digs his fingers into Jared's hip and he knows it's Jensen's way of saying it's okay; Jared should do what he wants.
Thrusting forward, he fucks into Jensen's mouth while Jensen grunts and groans, hips pushing down against the mattress in time with Jared's rhythm. “Stop,” Jared chokes, hoisting himself up on his elbows.
Jensen sputters and gasps when he pulls off of Jared's dick, the wet suction echoing in Jared's ears above the sound of his own heartbeat. “What?”
With a roll of his eyes, Jared balances on one arm and drops the other hand to the back of Jensen's neck, hold loose, while he smiles and says, “I meant stop humping the mattress, moron, not stop sucking my dick.”
Jensen smacks his hip and growls, teeth bared. “I'll use 'em,” he warns.
“I won't reciprocate,” Jared threatens in return.
For a second, he thinks Jensen might bite him anyway. Instead, he sighs like Jared's putting him out or something and then seals his mouth over his cock again, taking him in until Jared's sure he can feel the back of Jensen's throat.
This is not his first blow job – not even his first from another guy – but it's the first time he's felt the heat curling low in his belly and spilling like molten fire through his entire body, toes curling and eyes rolling back in his head when he feels Jensen swallowing around him as he comes.
“Holy fuckin' hell,” he breathes on a laugh, fingers still rubbing over the back of Jensen's neck when the shaking in his legs finally subsides. “Gimme a sec.”
Jensen shakes his head and slides his hands under the backs of Jared's thighs. “Just lemme,” is all he says, pushing Jared's legs up until they're propped against his shoulders. His body is still pretty spent so if Jensen wants to use him like Gumby, he's not going to complain.
He's rutting against Jared's ass, occasionally sliding over his hole and muttering something incoherent against his shoulder. Jared just slides his hands over Jensen's skin, fingers lingering along the long, smooth line of his back.
“Jesus. Fuck,” Jensen manages, voice strangled tight in his throat when Jared feels him coming against the inside of his thigh.
They're tangled up in a sweaty heap, messy and exhausted. As soon as Jared's limbs work again, he's going to get up and take a shower. Until then, though, he's just going to rest his eyes for a second.
The last thing he hears before he drifts into sleep is Jensen mumbling, “Told you it wouldn't suck,” against his ear.
He wouldn't disagree, even if he could get his words out right now.
*
“It wasn't that it never occurred to me,” Jensen says suddenly, drinking from one of the water bottles he brought up an hour ago.
They've fucked in the shower, against the bathroom counter, on Jared's bedroom floor and are now taking a breather in his bed. It's almost one in the morning, they both have to leave for work at seven, but they've napped on and off all evening. Something tells Jared their schedules are going to be kind of messed up for awhile.
“The movies, I mean. I thought about it a lot back then.”
Though he's not talking about the movies at all, Jared doesn't call him on it. “You never told me that.”
Setting his bottle down, Jensen rolls over, one leg draped over Jared's as he slides his hand up into Jared's hair and pulls him down until their foreheads meet. His eyes are wide open, fixed on Jared's as he brushes his open mouth over Jared's and then licks the outline of his lips.
There's really not much more that Jared wants than to keep kissing Jensen, maybe until they both die of starvation or something, but he'd kind of like to know where this conversation Jensen started is going, too. “So you thought about makin' movies, huh?” he asks with a knowing smile.
Jensen groans and doesn't bother moving away, though he does twist enough to rest against the headboard. “I love The Great Gatsby, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when I read it in tenth grade English, I hated it. Couldn't get through the whole thing, remember?”
With a shake of his head, Jared looks at the place where their fingers are threaded together against his hip. “Then I told you that you were bein' an idiot about it later and you read it and loved it,” Jared fills in the details that Jensen seems to be omitting. “Because I am awesome and know you better than you know yourself.”
“Yeah.” Jensen raises his middle finger against Jared's and laughs when Jared wrestles it back down with his own. “That's not really my point.”
Jared knows that. Nothing is as much fun when you're required to do it. “I get it,” he interrupts. “But I think it still applies.”
“That you're awesome?” Jensen sounds skeptical but he's still smiling. “Yeah, that always applies, Jared.”
“You're right, but no. I just mean that you should listen to me more often. Otherwise, you end up fumbling through life, thinking you still want the same bull shit you wanted in high school. Which, if I recall, included marrying Katie Cassidy and having a few little blond moppets someday?”
Jared barks a laugh when Jensen jabs the bone of his elbow into Jared's side. He pops his hip and rolls over Jensen, tangling their legs together and holding his arms over his head. Jensen is scrappy enough to tip them onto their sides but Jared uses his shoulder to knock him onto his back again.
They struggle, pushing and rolling until Jensen gets a hand free and pulls tight at the back of Jared's hair. “You figured this shit out, what? A week before I did? You're not so smart.”
Jared rolls his eyes. “Bitch, you still wouldn't know if I hadn't told you.”
Though his lips are smiling, Jensen's eyes are serious when he counters with, “I've always known.”
*
A day that felt long at nine o'clock this morning is finally over at seven. Jared's eyeballs feel like they're swimming in his skull when he steps through the front door to find Jensen's tie haphazardly slung over the coffee table, his blue dress shirt and shoes in a pile next to it.
He jogs up the back staircase, loosening his tie as he steps through the door onto the roof. Jensen is waiting for him, phone held in front of his face but unable to obstruct his giant smile. Jared just pulls his shirt free from his pants and shakes his head. “The hell are you doing?”
“My phone takes video,” Jensen explains with the same enthusiasm he had for shots on his twenty-first birthday.
Jared doesn't smile but his amusement is evident when he says, “You're just now figuring that out?”
“Come on, man. I wanna make a movie.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Your nephew plays with that phone, man.”
Dropping his arms to his sides, Jensen says, “Not like that.” He stops for a second and tilts his head to the side. “I mean, not on my phone anyway.”
“I'm not wearin' a corset again, either,” Jared insists. That is one movie moment he's pretty sure he'll never be able to forget.
Jensen's laugh is wistful when he says, “Good times, man. Good times.”
They were good times, all of them. While Jared believes that it's time to let go of all this nostalgia they've been steeped in lately, to focus on the new stage they've been moving into during the last week, he can't really deny Jensen one last trip down memory lane.
“So what's this movie about?” he asks, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows as Jensen raises his phone back up to center Jared into the frame.
“I kinda like this,” Jensen says, stalking toward him. “Just you.” He smirks and peers over the top of the phone to shoot Jared a knowing look. “It's simple yet effective.”
“Easy.”
Just like it's always been.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:35 am (UTC)(Also, I kinda wanna know about the corset ;-P )
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 06:47 am (UTC)Um, that's a good thing. Yes.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 10:02 am (UTC)Why can't it always be this easy? Good stuff. More, please.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 02:16 pm (UTC)“Somebody should have told us it's alright if it's not always hard.”
It's like Jared's speaking my mind or something. I'm definitely one of those who've never felt that something that comes easy to me could also be a career option. Ergo me not being a writer right now. Or an event planner. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 02:20 pm (UTC)THANKS!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:16 pm (UTC)I think you already have enough adorable in your system but commence computer smishing if you think it'll help. :D
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:34 pm (UTC)