Archive of Our Own ^beta

Right off the bat, before he could even bother constructing a fantasy world in which he and his possible future costar would live together in hot happy gayness, Jensen told himself that the guy was straight. Very straight. Clearly straight. The kind of straight that was indicated by the fact that the fourth or fifth word that came out of his mouth after they introduced themselves was girlfriend. And not in the Hey, Girlfriend! sense. Definitely not.

That certainty got Jensen all the way through shooting the Supernatural pilot, and then he was back up in Vancouver to suddenly, yet inevitably, turn evil on Smallville. He kept seeing pictures of that Jared kid, but from far away he managed to forget how much better-looking Jared was in person, how he had the kind of magnetism that just pulled people in.

Pulled women in, Jensen reminded himself about an hour after filming started on the second episode. Lots of women, many tiny, adorable women.

~~~

One thing Jared really didn't like about himself was that when he got nervous he couldn't just own up to being nervous and act twitchy and shy like a cat the way Jensen did when they first met. No, when he got nervous he had to talk--all kinds of random shit that he didn't even remember until later, when all the words he said finally filtered through his brain. He loved his mom, but he knew he got the habit from her, and sometimes he sincerely wanted to give it back, trade it in for his dad's stalwart silence.

When he hung out at Chad's apartment afterward, it was all he could do to put his head in his hands and tell Chad about making a blithering idiot of himself in front of his godawfully pretty future costar. Right in the middle of the WB offices and everything. Chad laughed and of course, given Jared's luck, Chad had heard of Jensen. Friend of a friend somehow. According to Chad, Jensen only dated the stupid and the pretty, but he hit Jared on the shoulder and told him that he was plenty pretty if he didn't mind playing dumb to get laid.

Jared did mind, actually, but even so he knew he wasn't pretty, nowhere near that caliber of beauty that people want to look at in a magazine. Jared looked at his reflection in the blank TV screen and saw weird, wide cheeks and a pointy chin and a whole mess of moles that he couldn't quite bring himself to get removed. He thought he wouldn't be remarkable at all if he weren't so tall, but Jensen--Jensen could be five-foot-six and still be a romantic lead.

Chad told Jared to stop being retarded, and Jared told Chad to stop using the word retarded, and in the end they worked it out in a battle to the death on Chad's Playstation.

Chad won.

After they finished shooting the pilot, Jared went back to doing his sporadic work on Gilmore Girls and tried to forget about Supernatural and Jensen Ackles. But then the series was picked up, and he was thrown into a whirlwind of getting ready to go up to Vancouver, getting all the paperwork nailed down with his agent and doing early publicity. By the time they finished shooting the first regular episode, Jared thought he was possibly going to die from the massively increased level of work involved compared to what he was used to, and he also thought he might go crazy from working so close with Jensen.

Jensen's nervous skittishness had given way to an easy familiarity between the two of them, and somehow Jensen was even hotter when his face was open and soft, happy. Still, Jared saw Jensen's closed, nervous face come out when they had to deal with the inevitable stream of new cast, new crew, press on the set. And that, knowing that Jensen liked him in some way, maybe even trusted him, made it all the harder to believe that Jensen would only date guys who were brainless twinks or whatever the hell Chad had said.

After they got the third episode in the can, everyone agreed that they needed a party to celebrate, to recover. Kim rented a private room in a Mexican restaurant, and Jared sat shoving chips and beans and salsa in his face, trying to convince himself to just ask Jensen out on a date. How bad could it be, he asked himself. Too bad the only answer Jared could come up with was very, very bad.

He could just walk across the room, ask Jensen to go do something of a date-like nature the next weekend they were back in LA. He could do that, and Jensen could turn him down with a few choice words, and then they could spend the months is took to film the next ten episodes--or the next twenty, if they got picked up for the whole season, or more than that if they got renewed--feeling awkward around each other and seriously fucking up the fictional brotherly dynamic. That was a whole lot of potential badness to put on one question, and Jared just didn't have the nerve to risk it.

So he ordered a beer, hoping to drink his way to some courage, and when that didn't work he ordered another beer with a shot of tequila. Then he ordered a double and another double, and after that he was good to go. He could see Jensen across the room, all pretty and freckly, and he couldn't remember any good reasons for not asking him to be his lawful wife. Or date. Or something. He made his way over to Jensen, dodging around all the people who were being strangely wobbly, and when Jensen looked up at him he smiled then frowned and put his hand on Jared's arm.

"I think you need to go back to your hotel," Jensen said, his voice low and solemn like he was Batman or something.

"I need to ask you," Jared said, making himself try to get the words out right. He lost track of the words after that, but he knew he said something about a date, and then he had to make Jensen understand that he didn't actually have a girlfriend. Jensen patted him on the chest, told him it was okay, and Jared didn't know if that meant yes or no. Before he could figure it out, Jensen had steered him out through the back door of the restaurant and into a cab.

When they got to the hotel, Jensen followed him inside, even though Jensen was staying at a whole different hotel a few blocks away. The elevator ride up felt like it took a long time, and the shifting ground under Jared's feet made his head swim. Jensen's hand on his arm felt ridiculously good, and then they were inside the front room of Jared's suite. Jared leaned back against the wall and tried to get his brain to stop sloshing around so that he could ask Jensen what his answer had meant, but then his stomach decided to join his brain in the sloshing.

Jared pushed away from the wall, pointing himself toward the bathroom, but then he tripped over his own feet. Before he even fell to his knees on the carpet, he was puking up a wave of beer and tequila and chips and beans that splattered Jensen's jeans and shoes and pooled on the carpet. Jared hung his head, choking on pieces of chips that felt like they still had points, and wished that he could die, just for a little while.

~~~

Jensen helped Jared into the bathroom where he finished horking up all the Mexican food Jensen was never going to eat again. He thought about taking off, calling somebody from the production staff to come over and made sure that half their regular cast didn't suffocate in his sleep, but it just didn't feel right. For one thing, the kid was half passed-out on his feet, pathetic and unblameable as a puppy. For another, he'd seemed totally broken up over something, some girlfriend drama, and even thought it had only been a few weeks of working together Jensen already liked him too much to leave him to a stranger.

So he helped Jared rinse out his mouth and got his filthy t-shirt off him before rolling him into bed. He pushed on Jared's shoulder until he was curled up on his side then went out into the other room to call housekeeping and change into a pair of Jared's ridiculously long track pants. He checked his voice mail and grimaced in apology at the poor bastard who had to clean up the carpet before retreating back to the bedroom.

He could have slept on the pull-out couch in the other room, probably should have, but he didn't want anything happening to Jared, especially not on his watch. He sat on top of the covers, propped up against the headboard with a few pillows with the previous day's newspaper to read himself to sleep. Only, every time he tried to read an article about something of international significance his attention slipped over to Jared. Even this soon, he knew Jared was a good guy, and he couldn't imagine why some girl had done whatever she did to get Jared in this state. Jensen kind of wished he knew who had done it because then he'd know who to blame for the fact that he was in bed with Jared--in bed with ungodly hot, incredibly straight Jared.

He couldn't even touch, couldn't even reach out and push a chunk of damp hair back from Jared's broad forehead because he didn't think he'd be able to stop himself from touching Jared's cheek, his lips and from there on to things that would make him the kind of monster he never wanted to be. He kept his hands clenched on the newspaper he never read and stayed on his side of the king size bed.

It was a long night.

~~~

After the absolute disaster of trying to ask Jensen out, Jared decided that backing off was his only good option. After all, he and Jensen worked together great as friends and costars. Being with Jensen felt good and comfortable, and if Jared felt a little guilty about holding back part of the truth about himself he was too busy to dwell on it. They broke for Christmas without a solid answer on whether the show was being picked up for the back half of the season, so everybody said goodbye with a "maybe" on the end of every "see you next year."

When they got the good news a few days later, Jared called up Jensen from his parent's house and shouted in his ear. Jensen whooped back like maybe Jared should have been able to hear him all the way from Richardson. Then Jensen's mama got on the line and invited Jared and his folks to come visit, and Jared felt impossibly glad at the thought of not having to wait over a month to see Jensen again. On New Year's Day, Jared drove up to Richardson with his parents sitting in the back and his little sister riding shotgun.

When everybody mingled together in the Ackles' living room it suddenly felt like they were all a family, and Jared had to walk upstairs to the bathroom and breathe through the weird panic of seeing something he wanted so much but didn't think he'd ever have. He wasn't going to ask Jensen out again, but he had to tell Jensen at least some of the truth before he had to drown himself in too many more lies. Downstairs, he only let himself have one beer to settle his nerves before he got Jensen to come and help him walk the dogs around the neighborhood.

Out on the quiet suburban street, Jared managed to come out to Jensen without actually throwing up or babbling so much that Jensen had no idea what he's talking about. He did almost fall over his own feet, but he totally blamed that one on Harley lunging after a squirrel. Jensen just nodded and said all the normal, nice things like, "Hey, that's cool," and "You know I am too, so I certainly don't care," and "Thanks for telling me, man." But Jared couldn't help but notice how his eyes, so bright and green under the big blue sky, went wide with shock, his mouth open in a soft O until he got his reaction under control.

It felt like some kind of hope, some kind of opening, and Jared sent silent thought-waves to Jensen telling him that the ball was in his court, that the next move was his.

~~~

When Jared came out to Jensen, when he said that he did like women but that he really just wanted to date men, Jensen felt a flare of hope through his body like it was a physical thing. But then he parsed Jared's words and realized that if Jared wanted to ask him out he'd be doing--would have done it already. Jared was telling him he wanted to date men, and Jensen was his friend who'd been in LA longer, who'd been fucking guys in LA longer. Vancouver, too, for that matter. Jensen was sure that their friendship and working relationship had something to do with Jared's sudden revelation, but it was also pretty obvious to Jensen that Jared was looking to get hooked up.

Out in the bright January day, Jensen smiled and nodded and tried to think of guys who weren't assholes, who wouldn't hurt Jared. Sadie pulled on her leash and Jared laughed; Jensen tried to make himself believe it was enough.

Back in LA for a couple weeks before it was time to head up to Vancouver, Jensen thought about the decent guys he knew who were single, and the first person he settled on was a guy named Matt. He was a special events caterer, pretty successful, and he and Jensen had gone on a couple dates after meeting at one of those functions Jensen always hated. Matt was a good guy, good looking, but the chemistry just hadn't been there between the two of them. They'd kept in touch, sort of. Jensen gave him the heads-up on a couple of jobs he heard were coming up for quote, and Matt gave him the inside scoop on a couple of network executives. And Matt was single again.

Jensen invited Matt to meet him for lunch, called Jared and asked him to come along. When Jared and Matt shook hands and smiled at each other, it looked like something sparked between them, and Jensen told himself it was a good thing. A great thing. A success. If it hurt, that was his own drama, no reason to keep Jared from finding somebody to be happy with.

~~~

Jared really did like Matt. The guy was funny and good-looking and he had some seriously awesome gossip. Jared didn't think they were really going to work as a couple, but he wanted to give it a try--out of respect for Jensen setting them up, if nothing else. The fact that Jared was only in LA on the weekends and that Matt's business was busiest on the weekends was a good excuse for their relationship not moving very fast. Still, it was nice to be able to tell his mama he was dating somebody, even if he wasn't ready to call Matt his boyfriend.

As much as Jared liked living in LA, he was starting to feel like his real life was in Vancouver, like LA was just for pretend. They still didn't know about the second season for sure, but things were looking good so Jared signed up with a real estate agent and put out feelers for a house he could rent. He wanted something close to the studio in Burnaby, something with a yard that would be good for the dogs. And if he imagined what Jensen would think of each place he looked at, how Jensen would fit in there beside him, it was okay as long as he didn't make himself into an idiot by saying anything.

It was ironic, Jared thought, ironic or maybe just stupidly coincidental that Jared was daydreaming on set about how much the long days and rough stunts on set made him long for his own place with his own bed and a seriously comfortable mattress just when everything went wrong. The monster of the week was slamming Dean into the wall again, only a line slipped or broke or something because Jensen hit the wall head-first instead of butt-first. His skull slammed into the wall with a thud Jared could feel in his gut, and he slumped in the rigging--out cold, blood trickling down onto the back of his shirt.

Jared skidded across the distance between them and landed on his ass on the floor next to Jensen. The director and the stunt director were there in seconds, the set medic maybe a minute later, but all Jared could hear was his heartbeat in his ears as he stared at Jensen's lax face. Then Jensen blinked. He opend his eyes and scrunched up his forehead and pushed himself up to sit despite the medic's restraining hands. The medic was still talking about an ambulance, but Jensen didn't want to go to the hospital at all. In the end they agreed on a quick ride to the ER, and as far as Jared was concerned there wasn't any question that he was going along too.

It was just the two of them in the back of the van, the medic up front with the driver, and Jared was holding a folded up towel to the back of Jensen's head. His other hand was wrapped around Jensen's arm, and for all Jensen said he was okay Jared could feel him shaking just a little. Jensen's eyes were closed, his eyelids looking vulnerable, all pale and freckled. Jared felt his chest filling up with emotion and words, and it was too much.

They were already so close, just inches apart, and it was so easy to just close that distance. He pressed his lips to Jensen's mouth and then to his cheek, and Jensen's eyes flew open in comic shock. "I can't," Jensen said. He stumbled over his words, nervous the way he never was around Jared, but then the van stopped, and the medic was leading Jensen out of the van and into a wheelchair. Jared followed them into the ER and then sat in the waiting room telling himself that it had been worth it. Even if he'd gotten his answer from Jensen, even if the answer had been no, Jared was okay with putting his feelings out there.

Just as long as Jensen was going to be okay.

~~~

Jensen's head hurt like a bitch, a dull pounding inside and a sharp pain where the stitches were, but the doctor said he didn't have to stay overnight as long as somebody would keep an eye on him. The x-rays and scans confirmed that his head was in one piece--just a little cut and some swelling, nothing cracked or broken. Apparently his head was as hard as a rock, but the downside was that it felt just as heavy as a boulder hovering six inches above his shoulders.

Jensen didn't want to think about the papers people wanted him to sign, and he didn't want to think about what had happened in the van. He couldn't get his brain to work well enough to make any sense of it, especially when all he wanted to do was sleep. He was sitting on the exam table when the nurses or whoever let Jared come back. It hurt less to sit with his eyes closed, but Jared came and stood against the edge of the table, the side of his shoulder braced against Jensen's. He didn't say anything, and the quiet felt good.

Finally, the doctor cut them loose, and Jared's big hands kept Jensen stable as he slipped down from the exam table and guided him into the back of the van again. Sitting next to Jared again, even though they were farther apart now that Jared didn't have to keep him from bleeding all over the upholstery, Jensen felt the weight of that kiss hanging in the air between them.

Jensen kept his eyes closed as he opened his mouth to speak. "What happened before, I--"

"I'm so sorry," Jared cut in. "I shouldn't have done that, I was just--"

"I just can't take it if you fuck around with stuff like that, Jay." Jensen wanted to smack himself for being so honest about it, but he felt like the filter between his emotions and his mouth had busted open when his head hit that wall. "It means something to me." He swallowed hard. "It's real to me."

Jared didn't say anything, and Jensen had almost worked up the nerve to open his eyes and look over at him when he felt Jared's hand on top of his on the seat between them. "If you mean how I feel about you," Jared made his voice lower, quieter, "wanting to kiss you? Then it's been real for me pretty much since we introduced ourselves."

Jensen did open his eyes then, and against all odds the look on Jared's face said he wasn't fucking around. "But…Matt?"

Jared ran a hand over his face and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "I've been seeing Matt because I thought you wanted me to see Matt. He's a nice guy, but nothing's going to happen there. Because he's not you."

Jensen's eyes felt full and his head was so heavy, but then Jared scooted closer and his shoulder made a surprisingly good pillow. "It's the same for me," he whispered into the air between them. "Will you stay, you know, do the things to make sure I don't have a coma or whatever?"

"How were you planning on stopping me?"

Jensen just sighed in response and leaned into Jared's warmth. He couldn't remember how long it would take to get home, but he was pretty sure Jared would wake him up when they got there.