Archive of Our Own

They have inside jokes no one else understands. Jensen’ll mutter something under his breath, Jared’ll duck his head to listen, and then they’ll be hopeless for ten minutes, laughing until Jensen can’t breathe and Jared has to lean against him to keep from falling to the floor in a heap of generalized merriment.

“You jackass,” Jensen says, shoving him off. “You’re fucking enormous.”

“That’s what she said,” Jared jests, dark hair flopping into sparkling hazel eyes and Jensen sighs, world-weary. Jared-weary.

“We spend too much time together,” Jensen announces.

“You think?”

Jared winks, and Jensen sticks out his tongue.

They don’t watch movies together, because Jared is incapable of shutting up and Jensen likes silence to accompany all his entertainment.

Complete silence.

“You are really the most annoying person I know,” Jensen tells him. “And I know a lot of annoying people.”

Jared crunches popcorn loudly. In his face. Because he can.

Jensen doesn’t really watch TV. Jared thinks he’s retarded, for this reason and many others.

“Football,” Jensen says around a mouthful of cooked carrots. He’s on some weird diet involving vegetables – he tried to explain it to Jared, but then there was a discussion of vitamins and soy and Jared decided he didn’t want to know. “I watch football.”

“Football doesn’t count,” Jared scoffs. “Football is required, like water. Football is sustenance. But you don’t watch TV? That’s fucked up. It’s un-American. You’re on TV.”

Jensen shrugs. “So what do I need to watch it for?”

Jared hates Jensen logic. It makes no sense, yet still manages to be impenetrable.

When Jared is drunk, everything Jensen says makes sense. True story.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m the star of a movie of my life, right, except I’m actually a very minor character,” Jensen explains. “Like I wanted the lead, but I got cast as the best friend who exists basically to affirm everything the protagonist says and does.”

“So who’s the protagonist?” Jared asks, interested.

Jensen lifts his eyebrows as if to say, Who do you want to be the protagonist?

Jared has no idea who he thinks should be the protagonist of Jensen’s maybe-life, but it makes sense, the rest of it. Sort of.

Maybe it just makes sense in relation to what Rosenbaum says while drunk, because Mike Rosenbaum drunk is like…a very bad thing. A very bad thing that makes no sense.

“There are popsicles,” Mike announces, gesturing grandly towards the fridge. “There may or may not be liquor in them. You have been warned.”

“You put liquor in the popsicles?” Jared asks.

Jensen’s watching them both with sleepy green eyes, amused.

Mike nods. “Best popsicles ever, Padalecki. You should try ‘em.”

Jared’s almost tempted, because that’s a lot of sugar and alcohol in one place, can’t go wrong there, but then he sees Jensen shake his head, and…yeah.

It’s fucking winter in Vancouver. Mike is an idiot.

Jared has a tendency to date his co-stars. Jensen has a tendency to fuck his.

They meet somewhere in the middle.

“It’s not like you’re my boyfriend,” Jared says as Jensen slides one hand under the waistband of his jeans, fingers fluttering along the elastic of his boxers.

“It’s okay, Jared,” Jensen mumbles into the stubble-studded skin of his neck. “I know you’re saving yourself for George Clooney.”

One day Jensen decides he wants a cat. Jared advises against it.

“You can’t have a cat,” Jared says.

“Why the hell not?” Jensen retaliates. “You have dogs.”

“Precisely. I have dogs, so you can’t have a cat. If you have a cat I’ll never be able to bring the dogs over to your place, because my dogs will eat the cat and then you’ll be upset. It’ll suck.”

Jensen narrows his eyes.

“You don’t see a way in which this could be avoided? A scenario where maybe you could, I don’t know, keep your dogs from potentially eating my potential cat?”

“You’re not a single woman over thirty,” Jared points out. “You don’t need a cat.”

“No one needs a cat,” Jensen says. “Did you ever consider that the cat might need me?”

Jared considers this.

“The cat doesn’t need you, dude. Cats don’t need anybody.”

Jensen doesn’t get a cat. He does get a life-size cardboard cut-out of a cat, and he puts it right by the door of his apartment. Harley and Sadie freak out and go nuts every time they see it, which Jared supposes is Jensen’s revenge. He’s such a dick.

Jensen kind of sucks at talking to people. It’s a constant source of amusement for Jared, who thinks Jensen’s entirely too pretty – with the high cheekbones and the impossibly green eyes and the perfectly spiked blonde-brown hair – to be taken seriously. Ever.

There’s this thing Jensen does, right, where he stops talking in the middle of a sentence and backtracks, and sometimes he starts a new sentence or a new thought, but he doesn’t finish the old one, and it makes him seem like a spazz.

Jensen hates that he does it, which is precisely why Jared makes fun of him for it. All the time. Every chance he gets.

“Do you want cue cards?” Jared asks before a particularly important network party. “‘Cuz I can do cue cards. I do a mean cue card, amigo.”

Jensen pushes hair out of his eyes and fixes Jared with an angry stare.

“Is that a yes?”

“Sometimes I think you want me to fail,” Jensen says.

“Sometimes I do,” Jared tosses back.

Jensen flips him the bird.

Jared can’t dress. It’s his Achilles heel. Jensen likes clothes. His jeans always fit right, and he’s got more suits than Dolce & Gabbana. He knows exactly what color mauve is. Jared hates him for it, but only a little.

“Don’t you think it’s kind of…” Jared makes strange looping gestures with his hands.

“Gay?” Jensen finishes for him. “Do I think it’s gay that I know which colors match my skin tone?”

Jared cracks up.

“I think it’s useful,” Jensen says. “That’s what I think.”

Jared’s still laughing.

“You’re a fucking jerk,” Jensen says. “I don’t even like you. I lie to reporters. I lied to your mother.”

Jared snorts into his cup of coffee.

“Watch your back, asshole,” Jensen mutters, and then adds, “You wear a lot of pink.”

“Am I a Summer?” Jared asks.

Jensen ignores him.

“It’s good shit, Jensen,” Jared says. “Home-grown. In Mikey’s backyard.”

Jensen’s fiddling with the DVD player, trying to fix it, because Jensen’s got this secret talent where he can fix anything that plugs in or uses batteries. Jensen could’ve been a repairman, but somehow he became an actor instead. It’s probably for the best, because the only repairmen who look like Jensen are in pornos.

“Jensen.”

“I’m fixing your DVD player,” Jensen states the obvious, and adjusts his glasses. The pollen count is out of control, so he’s not wearing contacts today.

Jensen’s grouchy and itchy. Jared wants to change that.

“Jensen, seriously, give it up. I’ll buy a new one. Smoke with me.”

“Motherfucker.”

Jensen cradles his hand, having somehow managed to smack it against the wall while messing around with wires back there.

“Dude.” Jared holds out the joint. Jensen sighs.

“Seriously, Jared?” Jensen says. “This is why it always takes us for-freakin’-ever to shoot anything. Any scene at all.”

“Marijuana? Marijuana is the reason why we never get anything done on set?”

“Smartass.” He takes the joint, then exhales loudly. “I meant your astounding lack of focus.”

“We don’t need to focus. It’s Saturday night. Here.” Jared hands Jensen a lighter. “I’m giving you first hit, because I love you that much.”

Jensen’s staring at the spliff. “I don’t know.”

“I dare you,” Jared says. “I double dare you, Jensen Ross.”

Jensen makes a face.

“You need to relax,” Jared advises. “You’re wound like a…very tight thing.”

Jensen still looks skeptical, but he raises the joint to his lips, then the lighter.

“You are the world’s slowest smoker,” Jared announces. “Will you just get high already? I’m bored.”

“Hey, Big Foot?” Jensen says, flicking the lighter until it ignites. “This is the part where you shut the fuck up.”

Being high with Jensen is…different. Different for a lot of reasons, but mostly because Jensen is. Well. Jensen is a lot more attractive than most of Jared’s high school stoner buddies. Girls included.

Jensen is a lot more attractive than most people.

Jensen is basically really attractive.

“You’re really attractive, Jensen,” Jared tells him.

“Thank you,” Jensen says, and slips his hand under Jared’s shirt.

“Whoa.”

Jared has become Bill or Ted, apparently. This is not a good thing, but damn, Jensen’s hands are hot, and Jensen is hot, and fuck. Fuck.

“You work out?” Jensen grins as one of his fingernails catches on Jared’s nipple, triggering a jolt of desire that zigzags from his chest directly to his dick.

“You know I work out,” Jared growls. He sits up slightly on the couch; the room shifts. Everything’s fuzzy around the edges.

“Yeah,” Jensen murmurs, hand gliding along Jared’s abdomen. His voice is slow and sweet, thick as corn syrup. “Yeah, I know you work out.”

“So why’d you ask me if—”

That question becomes a lot less significant when Jensen touches his tongue to Jared’s navel.

Sometimes they talk about going on vacation together. Or, rather, Jared talks. Jensen scoffs.

“We could go to the Bahamas or something. Someplace warm. We could lay out on the beach and get tan.”

“I don’t tan,” Jensen says. “I burn.”

Jared props himself up on his elbows. Jensen looks sexy-rumpled and delicious, hair ruffled from where Jared tugged his fingers through it. He licks his lips.

“You telling me you don’t want to fuck me on a beach?”

Jensen tilts his head to one side.

“Yes, Jared, that is what I’m telling you. I don’t want to fuck you on the beach, because fucking on the beach is uncomfortable as hell. There’s sand and salt water and it sucks.”

Jared turns over on his side, curling his body into Jensen’s, hand coming to rest on his chest next to his heart.

“I’d fuck you in the hotel then,” Jared says. “On satin sheets. With candles. And Barry White playing in the background.”

Jensen recoils, aghast.

“You better be kidding, Padalecki. Jesus Christ.”

Jared laughs so hard tears leak out the corner of his eyes. Jensen is not amused.

“You should have seen your face, Jen—”

“I hate you,” Jensen says, but when Jared buries his face in Jensen’s neck, still vibrating with giggles, his lips form a quiet smile.

They don’t have sex for awhile. Not...not the all-the-way-kind. It requires too much energy and coordination, and they’re always exhausted.

“It’s like we’re already married,” Jared complains. “We’re too tired to do anything.”

“I suggest you mention it to Kripke,” Jensen says, breath hitching as Jared bites at his neck, teeth scraping along his jaw line.

“Oh, really? As in, ‘Hey, you think we could take it easy with this whole show thing, Jensen and I really want to fuck?’”

“Exactly,” Jensen murmurs, wrapping his hand around Jared’s cock. “That’s exactly what you should say.”

They know weird shit about each other, like that Jensen has this inexplicable hatred for peanuts, and Jared can’t stand having to eat on camera.

“It’s like – chewing,” Jared says. “That’s never really attractive, is it?”

“Not when you do it,” Jensen agrees.

Jared’s a really good swimmer but not a very good basketball player, despite the fact that he’s six foot a million and athletic and could probably make a slam dunk without even standing on his tippy-toes.

“This is why they didn’t cast me on One Tree Hill,” Jared laments.

“If you were on One Tree Hill you might be fucking Chad right now,” Jensen says thoughtfully, tossing him the ball.

“Yeah,” Jared says, missing another basket. “And he’d probably actually put out.”

Jensen elbows him in the chest.

They do domestic stuff together sometimes, like shop for linens. Jensen’s really particular about thread count. Jared could give a shit, but he likes watching Jensen rub his hands all over fabric, so he lets it go.

“We probably have people to do this for us,” Jared remarks as Jensen tosses another towel into a bin in disgust.

“Probably,” Jensen says.

Jared places his hand at the small of his back. “I kind of want to fuck you.”

“Linens make you hot?” Jensen asks. His facial expression doesn’t change. He’s used to pretending Jared’s not groping him in public.

“You make me hot,” Jared breathes, and Jensen shudders.

“Don’t – don’t – oh, fuck you, Jared.”

Jared’s got one huge hand wrapped around Jensen’s dick, slick and sliding up and down in a slow, torturous rhythm. He leans down and licks a crooked stripe up Jensen’s spine, right between his shoulder blades, tracing his freckles with his tongue. Jensen twitches and sighs, settling back against Jared’s chest.

Jared splays his other hand over Jensen’s stomach, trailing tiny bites over Jensen’s collarbone. When Jensen shifts Jared captures his lips in a sloppy kiss before he has a chance to object, thrusting his tongue between his parted lips.

“Let me fuck you,” Jared whispers.

Jensen groans, shivering all over. “Did I miss the part where I said no?”

They don’t do regular couple things, like go out on dates or kiss in public or celebrate anniversaries with flowers and Hallmark platitudes and chocolates.

Well, sometimes there’s chocolate.

“I can’t eat it. It’s not on my diet,” Jensen complains.

“Oh, screw you, you girl,” Jared says, and slips a truffle between Jensen’s lips, then kisses him until he’s licked most of it out of his mouth.

They get melted chocolate all over the sheets. Nobody cares.

It’s not about the sex. Or, it is, but that’s not all it’s about.

“You drive me crazy,” Jensen tells Jared one morning as he pulls the car into a designated spot near the studio.

Jared’s eating a muffin and getting crumbs all over Jensen’s leather upholstery. He makes some non-committal sound, which could be an apology or possibly just general appreciation of the muffin.

“You’re too tall,” Jensen ticks off on his fingers. “You don’t like golf. You like everybody, even when they act like assholes. You eat more than anyone should, ever, and you never gain weight. You like the Spurs. You never take me seriously. You won’t let me have pets.”

“Are you done?” Jared asks politely.

“You like scented candles. You’d probably buy me flowers if I hadn’t already told you I’d kill you if you did. Your pants never fit.”

“My pants fit!” Jared objects. “I like them loose.”

“Sometimes I think you’re crazy,” Jensen mourns, “but other times I think you’re the sanest person in the room.”

Jared nods. This makes sense via Jensen-logic. He can work with this.

“I don’t know why you put up with me,” Jensen says. “It freaks me out.”

Jared wraps his hand around Jensen’s arm, thumb pressing into his wrist bone. It’s a gesture of presence, of here-ness. Jensen takes in a deep breath.

“It’s very simple,” Jared says. “Why I put up with you.”

Jensen gazes up at him expectantly.

“You’re really hot, Jensen Ackles,” Jared says. “Not, like, Britney Spears hot. You’re beyond Britney. You’re Angelina Jolie hot.”

Jensen buries his head in his hands.

“And I like you,” Jared says. “I do. I like you a lot.”

“But—”

“I don’t need reasons,” Jared murmurs. “That’s sort of the point.”

Jensen lifts his head just as Jared lifts his hand to his lips.

“Let me do this,” Jared says softly. “Let me like you.”

“Okay,” Jensen whispers. He swallows, eyes wide and dark. “Okay.”

Jensen finds Jared’s high school poetry when they’re packing up his stuff to move from his apartment to a house he bought when they got the third season renewal.

“‘Lips like sugar roses?’” Jensen quotes gleefully. “What does that even mean?”

“I hate you,” Jared says. He’s as red as a beefsteak tomato. “It was high school.”

“You telling me you don’t write poetry anymore?” Jensen says. “Nothing about my sugar rose lips?”

Jared’s eyes darken, hands tightening around the arms of his chair. “I could.”

Jensen arches an eyebrow. “You could what?”

“Write about your lips.” Jared rises from the chair, suddenly all long limbs and towering height, and Jensen takes a step backward, breath catching in his throat.

“What would you write?” Jensen asks. He looks like he’s anticipating regretting the question.

Jared places his hand on the wall over Jensen’s head, body crowding Jensen’s, usurping his space.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” Jared mutters, then leans forward and kisses him.

Kissing Jensen is always exciting, as heart-palpitating and pulse-quickening as an amusement park ride.

“That’s what you’d write?” Jensen says breathlessly when they separate, hand coming up to touch kiss-swollen lips as if to make sure they’re still there.

Jensen is every roller coaster Jared’s ever ridden. He’s every thing Jared’s never done, every dare he’s been too afraid to take.

“You know exactly what I’d write,” Jared says, finger tracing the curve of his cheekbone.

Jensen’s mouth tips up at the corners into a gentle smirk.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”