Victoria

ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE | SIX | EPILOGUE
MASTER POST
CHAPTER TWO

Honestly, Jensen was a little surprised that he and Jared got along as well as they did. Obviously, he’d met the guy through Sandy long before he was moving into Jared’s downstairs bedroom, but until they all sat down in the living room to talk, and he and Jared promptly got on like a grease fire, he hadn’t really known the guy. Sandy had been thrilled.

“My two favorite men in the universe like each other!” she’d crowed. “They really like each other!”

“Shut up before we decide we like each other better’n you and vote you out of the club,” Jared had told her, giving her a noogie and making her squeal.

The thing is, Jensen is really just a great big slob. He has a horrible habit of just leaving his crap everywhere, and he loses everything constantly, and he never seems to notice how big of a mess things get to be until somebody else points it out to him or someone trips and breaks a limb.

Now, Jared doesn’t seem to be the tidiest guy himself, but he’s actually said that he doesn’t mind the way Jensen’s stuff is slowly and completely taking over the house. He has dogs, after all. Jared has a maid who comes on Tuesdays, a little Honduran woman who sings while she works, but by Monday night the house always looks like their weekend activities involve setting off bombs. Jensen kind of wonders if the maid thinks they’re squatters, but Jared’s little bungalow doesn’t even seem like it would be worth the effort to break into when there are larger and nicer houses up and down the street.

The waffle iron is heating up, and Jensen’s busying himself with slicing strawberries into elaborate little fans while he waits. The batter’s mixed and resting in a heavy stoneware bowl over by the sink. He’s thinking about digging out the blueberries he bought yesterday at the farmer’s market, but he doesn’t think he wants to bother with fruit on the iron’s first press.

“I love it when you go all domestic,” Jared says from his spot on the island. Jensen shoots a glance at him over his shoulder. It makes him twitch a little, Jared’s ass on the counter, but attempts at getting to move always seem to end with Jensen wearing most of whatever he was supposed to be cooking and Jared still sitting there. Apparently they didn’t teach them anything resembling hygiene at the school where Jared went. Jared just cocks his head and looks down at him with gleaming eyes. “Oh my god, are you nesting? You are, aren’t you? Do you have something you need to tell me?”

“Yes, Jared,” Jensen deadpans, turning back to his strawberries, “your habit of coming in my ass had unforeseen and previously scientifically impossible consequences. Congratulations!” Jared’s good at this game, but Jensen’s better. He tosses another strawberry fan into the waiting bowl and grabs a fresh one from the box.

“Dude, what are you talking about?” Jared sputters. “I always wrap it up.”

Jensen shrugs. “Good to know,” he says, nodding. “Don’t be a fool.”

Jared leaps off the counter and the pans hanging from the rack over the island rattle with the impact. There’s a Godzilla joke on the tip of Jensen’s tongue, a really cheap one, but Jared leans right over his shoulder and breathes on his neck and all the words in Jensen’s head go instantly dead. Jensen concentrates harder on the strawberry in his hand. Jared exhales heavily, right in his ear, and he lets out a surprised laugh.

“A’right, that’s enough, creeper,” he says, setting down his paring knife and elbowing Jared in the gut. “Can’t make you breakfast with you hovering behind me like a defective droid.”

Jared snorts, ruffling another breeze over the short hairs on Jensen’s neck, then he moves away to look down at the waffle batter, facing mostly away from Jensen. He steals a whole strawberry as he passes and chews it in one cheek like he’s actually just an oversized hamster.

“You ass,” Jensen says, shooting him his best thoroughly annoyed look. “You know how long it took me to hull these fuckin’ things?”

“I watched you do it,” Jared says, cheek full of half-masticated berry. There’s a dribble of pink goo running down his chin. Jensen rolls his eyes. “In fact, I went outside with the dogs while you did it because you are scary when you’re all intense and chef-y.”

Jensen frowns and considers whacking him with a spatula. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Jared, always helpful, flips him the bird.

The waffle iron beeps, an overly cute three-note harmony that Jensen needs to disable immediately. “It’s ready!” Jared yells. He starts rifling through the cupboard next to the range hood, where they keep the coffee. Jensen finished off the last of the pot between hulling strawberries and mixing waffle batter.

“Calm down before you hurt yourself. The waffles take time to cook.” He shoves Jared out of the way and grabs the bowl and gets a big whiff of the smell of batter. This is why he loves to cook. It makes him feel like he’s doing alchemy.

Jared looks unimpressed. “Well, get a move on, woman. I’m wasting away here.” He goes to make some dramatic fainting gesture but bangs his head on the cupboard door and ends up looking like he’s trying to attempt badly choreographed interpretive dance.

“Just… go sit. Over there. Where you can’t hurt yourself.” Jensen points at the island.

“Says the guy with toilet paper sticking to his face,” Jared grumbles, but he goes.

“Oh, I guess you won’t be having strawberries with your waffles,” Jensen says mildly, pouring waffle batter onto the iron. It hisses. Behind him, Jared does, too.

--

The next morning, Eric is so thrilled when Jensen mentions Jared that he actually makes a little girlish squealing sound. “The insurance company will be relieved when they don’t have to pay for your rehab after a failed suicide attempt leaves you half-paralyzed,” he adds, coughing into his fist and standing up a little straighter.

Jensen punches him on the arm and laughs. “Thing is, starting Friday I have Ross for a week while his mother’s out on the East Coast for something, so I really need Jared to get in here and learn shit.”

Eric waves a hand. “Whatever. Not like he has a job, right? Tell him to get his ass in here today.”

So Jensen calls the house and by ten, Jared’s pulling up behind Supernatural in that giant gas-guzzler he seems to think is still cool even though it costs him like two hundred bucks to fill up the tank lately. “I need an SUV,” he insists every time Jensen or Sandy or even Chad (who drives a Prius) teases him about it. “I have dogs bigger than lots of people.”

Most of the staff already knows Jared, whether through Jensen or Sandy. Ana-Beatriz, their wonderful Mexican kitchen assistant who’s sixty years old and maybe four-foot-eight, takes one look up at Jared, crosses herself, and mutters “Dios mio, es gigante.” Victor, doing his prep work with a scowl on his face and a big, bright bandage wrapped around his bicep, is actually civil for once. Jensen thinks it’s probably because he’s the size of one of Jared’s legs.

Chad’s entire welcome-to-Supernatural speech is “We have one rule, and it is no ball-tagging.” His voice is very grave when he says it, like he’s imparting ancient Jedi knowledge or something.

Jared nods. “That’s reasonable,” he says. “But I can still hit you in the face with a saucepan if I want to, right?”

“I mean, if you must,” Chad says, nodding.

The first place Jensen drags Jared, before he introduces him to anyone or shows him anything else, is the employee men’s room. Jared gives him a dubious look.

“Nobody actually uses it for that. I don’t think the toilet’s even connected to the sewer system. But man, you gotta see it.” Jared looks at him sideways and he grins. “Mostly it’s just the graffiti wall, okay, but just wait.” Jared nods, looking slightly more interested at that.

“Is this going to blow my mind?” he asks dryly, and Jensen just keeps grinning because the poor guy really has no idea. “Or, oh! Are you just dragging me back in here to blow me?”

Jensen laughs and says nothing.

According to people who have worked there longer than Jensen, Eric and Sera, the front-of-the-house manager, tried really hard to keep people from writing on the walls at first, back when the bathroom was functional and not a disgusting pit of despair. They put up neon-colored signs asking people to please refrain from defacing Supernatural, blah blah blah, but then people started writing on those, too, and eventually they gave up.

There’s writing on all four walls of the little room, up near the ceiling and down by the floor. Jensen’s a little disappointed that the hole Bartólo punched in the wall knocked out part of a discussion on someone’s fetish for geese. It looks like Sandy and Chad’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Sophia, mostly, but there’s definitely some Mike-the-produce-guy (and it’s presumably his fetish, which isn’t even, like, the fifth-weirdest thing about the guy), a waiter named Jason D (there are two Jasons), and even Sera. Jensen thinks it’s kind of sad that he knows everyone’s handwriting.

Jensen’s favorite part, though, is above the toilet. Somebody with a serious vendetta took a lot of time and effort to actually carve CHAD HAS HERPES into the sheetrock. Each letter is five inches high and artfully filled in with a different complicated pattern in a different colored Sharpie. The “p” in herpes is actually a little upside-down cock and balls, flesh-colored and dotted with little red spots.

“How much do ya love him now?” Jensen asks, pointing it out.

Jared shrugs. “Man, I already knew that,” he says. “He takes fuckin’ Valtrex by the handful.” He looks around with an awed look on his face.

Underneath herpes, Chad had written back I wouldnt fuck u with a stolen dick. Sophia had added aw sour grapes much? in loopy purple ink below that.

“Sophia drew it during an off period,” Jensen explains.

Sophia has two art degrees from Columbia College but is scared to get a real job because she doesn’t want to be a “real adult.” Sometimes she stands in the pastry area with Kristen and they sculpt awesome shit out of gum paste. She made little scale models of Jared’s dogs once to send home with Jensen. They’re still in the fridge, staring expectantly from the top shelf at anyone who opens the door. Jensen thinks they’re a little creepy.

“Yeah, seems like,” Jared says, nodding.

Jensen turns to him and just smiles. “So everything you need to know about this place is written on these walls, I guess.”

Jared scratches the back of his neck and looks around at all the writing again. “What are you going to do when there’s no space left?” he asks. That time is fast approaching, too. The only large area of white space left is behind the door, and Jensen shows him.

“We’ll repaint it and start over,” Jensen says. “For now, though, it’s a momument of awesome.”

“It’s something, all right,” Jared agrees. Then he thumps Jensen on the back and follows him out.

Jared’s huge, friendly, and enthusiastic, so he fits in immediately. Jensen’s pretty sure that at least two of the waiters and Ana-Beatriz are considering stuffing Sandy in a trashcan somewhere and proposing marriage to Jared right there in the kitchen. Jensen can’t stop smiling.

It’s not even two days before Jared’s handwriting starts showing up in the conversation threads in the employee men’s room. That more than anything else makes Jensen feel like somebody lit a couple of Sternos underneath his heart.

--

“Okay, you know that gnocchi with the sage butter you made for Thanksgiving last year? I’ve been thinking and I want you to make it while I’m here,” Ross says while he’s still standing on the front porch.

Jensen waves goodbye to Jess, who’s just climbing back into her car. “Um, okay,” he says, taking a duffle bag and a box of video games and heading inside. “Non-sequitur much?”

“Not right now,” Ross qualifies, closing the front door behind Jensen and following him down the hallway off the living room to his bedroom. Ross flops down on the bed and spreads his arms out like he’s making a snow angel. “But, like, sometime. Dinner?”

Jensen sets the stuff down on his desk and shakes his head. “I have to work tonight, so you get Jared, but feel free to make him make it.”

Ross scrunches up his nose. “Jared’s food is always weird. Last time I was here, remember what he made--that weird chicken thing with the peanut butter and the nasty black rice? And he doesn’t believe me that I like asparagus.”

“Dude, nobody likes asparagus,” Jensen says, collapsing next to him on the bed.

Ross has freckles, dark hair that’s always too long and usually looks a little greasy, and Jensen’s eyes. He wears glasses like Jensen, too, but his are rectangular black plastic frames Jessica probably thinks look wonderfully trendy but mostly make him look like he’s trying to be one of the Jonas Brothers. He’s small for his age and kind of delicate like his mother, and when he was younger, he used to run around naked and beg Jensen to make him vegetables. Nowadays, Jensen’s convinced Ross mostly just thinks Jensen is an idiot.

“Okay, so I just like hollandaise sauce,” Ross says, shrugging. “But do I really have to eat what he makes? What if he decides to make that thing with the pineapple and bleu cheese again?”

Jensen laughs. He remembers his own birthday dinner earlier in the year, and the side dish Jared made. No one had eaten more than a couple of bites of it because it was just too weird, even for foodies like most of their friends. And by weird Jensen really means disgusting.

“It was crunchy,” Ross says, shaking his head. “Crunchy. Pineapple.”

“I made him promise to make normal food for you,” Jensen assures him.

Ross shoves his glasses back up his nose and gives Jensen a dubious look. “Normal food for the average nine-year-old or normal food for me?” He sounds so smug and pompous when he says it that Jensen has to laugh. That special school he goes to is, like, a recruiting ground for fucking MIT and the FBI and shit, and it certainly gives the kid an ego.

“He’s working at Supernatural ‘til Jeff comes back from Top Chef, so he’ll probably just test the menu on you.”

“Sweet!” Ross exclaims. He sits up and squints around the room. His hair is sticking up in the back. “Your room is a way bigger mess than mine,” he says, sounding a little awed. “You kind of suck as a grown-up.”

“Yeah, well, not everybody has to live with a cleaning Nazi like your mom,” Jensen says, staring at the ceiling light without blinking. He’s starting to see little purple and green spots and probably permanently damaging his retinas, but whatever.

“So that’s why you guys got a divorce,” Ross says, like he’s just had a marvelous epiphany. Then he flops backwards and squishes his cheek against Jensen’s shoulder. “I missed you, Dad.”

Jensen grins and pulls him closer, burying his face in the kid’s hair. He smells like Head & Shoulders and dried fruit. “I missed you, too,” he says quietly. “Now come on. I know you’ve got some new game you want to show me before I have to go in to work.”

Ross is something of a video game savant. It drives his teachers at his fancy school absolutely nuts—they bring it up like it’s a horrible problem that needs to be fixed immediately every time Jensen and Jess go in for a parents’ night—but it’s the only thing that makes Ross really smile. It’s probably really rough being a genius kid, with that brain that understands things in a way even Jensen’s thirty-year-old brain doesn’t stuck in a nine-year-old’s body.

Ross laughs. “I brought my new Wii,” he says.

--

The night isn’t the best, but at least it’s not an unmitigated disaster zone like the week before. Sure, one of the underfed monkeys that work in the dishroom slips and falls and busts a whole bunch of glassware, nearly giving Jensen a heart attack, and Chad comes strolling in half an hour late with no excuse and a suspicious smell about him. But on the other hand, Sandy kindly refrains from stabbing anyone else with office supplies and Bartólo’s back in salads, and since he actually speaks English with a little more fluency than “Fuck you, gringo,” everything runs much smoother.

When Jensen gets home a little after midnight, Ross is sacked out on the couch with Sadie, one hand hanging over edge to rest on Harley’s head, and Jared’s in the kitchen, singing “Fortunate Son” wrong and washing dishes. Jensen feels like he stumbled into an episode of Two and a Half Men—and Jared is totally Charlie Sheen here—and he tugs at the collar of his chef’s jacket and smiles.

He changes into sweats and a t-shirt, rouses Ross enough to frog-march him to his bedroom and tuck him in. Both dogs look at him sleepily then curl up with Ross on the bed. Ordinarily, Jensen would chase them back out, but he figures one night can’t hurt, and Ross is used to sleeping with Cash, the ninety-pound shepherd Jess got as soon as Jensen moved out. He really hopes that Ross’s teeth got brushed at some point.

He heads out to the kitchen to bug Jared. “So, have a super time tonight?” he asks, climbing onto one of the barstools crowded around the far side of the island because he’s a civilized person who doesn’t sit on counters.

Jared glances over his shoulder at him and nods. He’s not wearing a shirt and his shoulders look as wide as the refrigerator. Maybe wider. “That is one funny fuckin’ kid you got, Ackles. Go figure.”

Jensen gives him a knowing look. “He kicked your ass at Madden again, didn’t he?”

Jared grimaces and turns back to the sink. “Dude, I’m never gonna live it down. It was embarrassing. Oh, and he’s a fucking shark at MLB 2K8, too. And seriously, he was playing the Brewers, which I don’t even understand.”

“Rangers or ‘Stros?” Jensen asks. Jared usually plays Texas teams, like they’re good or something.

“Fuck no,” Jared scoffs. He turns off the water and wipes his hands on the towel still around his neck. “I was actually playing the Cubbies—you know, a good team—and the little shit still beat me.”

Jensen shrugs. “So my kid’s more awesome than you,” he says. “Try not to cry too loudly into your pillow tonight. The floors are real thin in this house and I don’t need to be up all night hearing that.”

Jared chucks the towel at his head and laughs. “Dick. Anyway, I made the flank steak paninis and the angel hair thing with the pancetta and white wine sauce. He seemed to like it, but he bitched that I didn’t make a salad.”

“He likes vegetation,” Jensen says, hopping up and raiding the fridge for whatever leftovers there might be. There’s still some meat and a huge chunk of gouda left, and he stole some of Kristen’s heavenly sourdough rolls earlier in the week. Perfect sandwich fixings. A little digging in the crisper drawer yields half a head of arugula that’s going a little brown and a slightly shriveled orange bell pepper.

“Yeah, I don’t get that. I offered to make all kinds of really bad for you stuff and he was like ‘No, I don’t really like chocolate.’ Who doesn’t like chocolate?” Jared sounds mortally wounded. “I mean, I’m not even that big of a chocolate guy myself, but, fuck. That’s just unnatural is what it is.”

Jensen turns on the panini grill and pours himself a glass of orange juice before grabbing the vegetable cutting board from the drying rack and setting about julienning the pepper. “His mother doesn’t eat, so he has a warped view of food,” he says. “Me, I’m just glad he’s not an Oreos and Easy Mac kid.”

Jared hops up on the island counter and watches him work. “I just washed dishes and you’re going to get everything all dirty again.”

“Serves you right for blowing your load early, then,” Jensen says absently, trying to decide whether or not to use the rest of the tapenade he made yesterday.

Jared snorts. “I used your tapenade, by the way,” he says, sounding very pleased with himself.

“You suck,” Jensen says without heat. He sets his knife down and goes to grab one of the bottles of aioli from the fridge.

“It was good,” Jared reports. “Ross liked it.”

“Yeah, well, my kid has good taste.”

Jensen goes about assembling his sandwich while Jared sits there and picks his cuticles or something. Once he’s got the grill lid down to cook, Jensen turns around and sighs. His back is killing him and he can’t wait to go sink down on the couch with a Law & Order rerun and his dinner. If he were less tired, he’d consider making himself a side dish.

Jared hops down from the counter and switches his weight from leg to leg, looking at him weirdly. Jensen looks down at his own cuticles, which are kind of ragged and dry from too many handwashings. There’s still some little brown bits of mushroom gills under his nails, which would ordinarily send him into a little OCD fit, but he’s too tired to care.

“I think I’m going to end things with Sandy,” Jared blurts out.

“Wait, what?” Jensen says, looking up at him with what he’s sure is a dumb fucking expression on his face.

Jared rolls his shoulders like he’s got way too much energy he can’t figure out how to dissipate, and he keeps his eyes somewhere around the Cowboys logo on Jensen’s battered t-shirt. “I just—it’s. Yeah. Never mind.”

It seems like all of Jensen’s usual I-don’t-want-to-know policies are just gone with the lost look on Jared’s face. Which is definitely weird; he doesn’t even really like Jared all that much most of the time.

The panini grill makes a beeping sound and Jensen turns it off, groping blindly behind him. “Uh, how long have you been… thinking this?” He certainly didn’t seem like he was thinking about it a few nights ago, when Sandy came over. Jared doesn’t say anything, and Jensen shakes his head and turns around to plate his sandwich. He grabs a bottle of beer out of the fridge and gestures for Jared to follow him into the living room.

Jared goes obediently, chewing on his thumbnail. He doesn’t trip over the curled edge of the Iraqi rug in the dining room for the first time ever.

They sit in their usual spots, Jared on the couch and Jensen in the brown easy chair. Jensen figures that if Jared really wants to talk, he’ll talk, so he starts in on his sandwich. Jared just stares at his own knuckles and looks lost. He coughs twice, awkward. Jensen swallows a big bite and offers him a crooked smile.

“This is good, man,” he says, holding the sandwich up with one hand. Jared smiles back weakly. “Although, I think I grabbed the garlic aioli, which isn’t the menu dressing but not too bad.” He peels the top piece of bread back and nods. The garlic’s a little strong for the spice rub on the flank steak, he thinks. Should’ve paid more attention and made sure to grab the sun-dried tomato one. “Anyway,” he says.

Jared starts, then sinks farther in his seat. “Yeah. It’s just that… it’s been like three years, right? I met her when she was finishing up grad school at Northwestern and I’d just gotten promoted at Gilmore’s ‘cause Milo left to go work in the Sox’s clubhouse at Cellular… so yeah. Three years. Shouldn’t I be feeling like I should be visiting jewelry stores and all that by now? Getting serious?” He gives Jensen an imploring look that Jensen doesn’t like one bit. “You were married. Help me out here.”

Jensen shrugs. “I got my girlfriend pregnant when I was nineteen, dude,” he says. “And Jess? Catholic, and with a big, scary military dad. Getting hitched wasn’t really a question. I’m probably not the best person to be asking that question.”

Jared leans forward, elbows on his knees, and he steals Jensen’s beer. After taking a long swig (and grimacing because Jensen drinks beer classier than fucking Bud Light), he nods slowly. “Yeah, but you still felt something, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jensen says. “Panic.”

“Okay, so forget about you, then,” Jared says, flopping backward and rubbing his eyes with his free hand. “I just feel like I need to either shit or get off the pot. Fuck. I don’t know what I’m talking about.” He takes another drink and gives Jensen a pathetic look.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” Jensen says uncomfortably, really not sure what to make of a version of Jared that’s so introspective and quiet. Jared hands him back his beer.

Jared looks at his hands again and picks a little at one of his nails. “Yeah,” he echoes, “me neither.” He gives Jensen a look that seems to be trying desperately to communicate something, but then he glances away, changes the subject, and Jensen forgets to wonder about it.

--

On Monday, he forgets his phone on his bedside table until deep into the afternoon and spends the day getting thrashed at various video games by his son. He’s taking a piss break when he hears the obnoxious ‘you have a message’ tone Ross downloaded and Jensen can’t figure out how to get rid of (he hates his phone).

He’s about to call his voicemail when the phone buzzes to life in his hand.

“Belly, to what do I owe the privilege of your call?” he says, padding out into the living room. Ross looks up from Grand Theft Auto to inform him that he’s dying of hunger.

Kristen laughs. “Don’t you sound bright and perky and grammatically correct today?” she says. “Anyway, I’m calling because I’m bored, and Supernatural’s closed, and I think that you, me, and the big guy need to go out and have a Supernatural chef bonding night like we used to do with Jeff.”

“Kristen, I have Ross—”

“And Sandy, who I already talked to, says she’ll watch your spawn,” Kristen says, cackling. “Just please come? We’ll go to Hutton’s and laugh at your bartender—what’s his name? Chris?—friend’s cowboy hat and his lame hick jokes, and we’ll all get really drunk and see sides of each other we never wanted to see.”

Jensen makes a face into the fridge, trying to decide what to make. “I don’t know, K-Bell. Jared’s been kinda down lately—”

“Then this is exactly what he needs!” she interrupts cheerfully. Jensen’s pretty sure it’s not, so he changes the subject.

“What do I want for lunch?” he asks.

“Why are you eating lunch at four o’clock?” Kristen wants to know.

“Because we ate breakfast at eleven? Oh, hey, fuck you. I don’t know. Just tell me what I want.” He glares at the package of baby spinach in his hand and tosses it on the counter.

She laughs. “I’m testing recipes today. Mike brought in some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes yesterday, so I stole a couple while you all were watching him juggle the eggplant. I made goat cheese tartlets with onions and the tomatoes. I? Am. Awesome.”

Mike, their produce guy, is crazy enough to make Jensen feel better about himself. Jensen’s not totally sure the guy isn’t brain damaged or something, ‘cause there’s no way his brand of crazy is completely organic. Jensen’s pretty sure, however, that Mike has a thing for Kristen, and part of it involves putting on juggling shows with his produce and writing her sonnets on the bathroom wall.

“No,” Jensen says, “you suck. Now tell me what I want. I have baby spinach, some leftover chicken, and an assload of gouda. And some congealed-looking mole, I think. Maybe. It could be gravy.” He grabs the Gladware container and pops the top to take a gingerly sniff. The stuff inside wiggles suspiciously and smells vaguely like chocolate. “No, it’s mole. I hope.”

“It could be one of Jared’s experiments,” Kristen points out.

He quickly sets it back on the shelf next to the gallon of two-percent milk. “In that case, I think I’ll steer clear,” he says, eyeing it like it might suddenly grow arms and bitchslap him or something. “Name me a sauce. I can’t decide what the hell I want.”

So Kristen has the best laugh out of everyone he knows, and even when it comes out sounding like she’s judging him for being lame and stupid it makes him feel like he’s lying on the floor with fluffy little kittens jumping on him. And that right there is the gayest thought he’s had in a very long time and he goes a little red all over.

She takes a moment to calm down. “Mayo,” she says finally, very seriously.

He scowls again, closing the fridge. She fucking knows how much he hates mayonnaise. “I hope you and Jared have a super time without me tonight,” he tells her, bracing his phone against his face with his shoulder while he grabs a big bowl and the all-purpose-but-not-meat-or-vegetables cutting board. He’ll make a salad, he decides. He grabs the bottle of balsamic vinegar from the rack by the stove and dumps the spinach in the bowl and fluffs it.

“Oh god, you’re such a buzzkill, Jennybean,” she says affectionately. He grits his teeth at the nickname. “Anyway, I’ll pick you children up around nine, ‘kay?” And without waiting for a response, she hangs up. Ross wanders into the kitchen just as Jensen is snapping his phone closed and shoving it in his pocket.

“What’s the matter, offspring?” Jensen asks. Kid looks a little mopey.

“I’m tired of GTA,” Ross says, climbing onto one of the barstools. “It’s not really that much fun to blow stuff up and kill hookers.”

“That right there is your first major life lesson for the day,” Jensen tells him, not turning around. “The other is not to tell your mother I let you play GTA, mmkay?”

“That’s fair,” Ross agrees.

“I feel like such a terrific father.” He starts cutting the chicken into strips to toss onto the bed of spinach. “We’re having salad, by the way. People tell me that vegetables are good for you."

Ross nods. He grabs a catalog from the stack of magazines they keep getting and throwing in the middle of the island. “I think you should start wearing pants with giant cartoon chili peppers instead of your checks,” he says, pointing at the picture on the cover of Chefwear. “They look so happy.”

“The pants look happy?” Jensen asks, arching an eyebrow at the kid over his shoulder.

“Yes, Dad. The pants look happy.” Ross rolls his eyes. Jensen cuts a hunk of gouda into little cubes and wonders if wearing happy-looking pants might make him seem happier. He thinks not.

“You know, a year ago you thought I was made of awesome. I miss that little boy who loved me. I think you must be a changeling.” It makes Jensen’s chest hurt a little to think that all parents of tweens must fell the same way. It’s not too far in the future that Ross’ll be going to college and probably getting gonorrhea from a sorority girl.

“I’m almost a teenager,” Ross points out.

“A lot of people would probably tell me that means the same thing,” Jensen says, more to himself, as he drizzles some olive oil over the salad. “Now come on, we’re eating in the dining room like civilized men. You grab silverware.”

--

Ross has something of a gigantic crush on Sandy, which everyone but the Ackles men thinks is completely adorable (Ross blushes like a stoplight when they tease him about it, and Jensen turns just as red in sympathy). As soon as he finds out she’s going to be on make-sure-Ross-doesn’t-die duty while the Supernatural chefs are out, Ross is sold on the idea. In fact, he picks out Jensen’s clothes for the evening and starts straightening the living room without even being asked. It’s scary.

“Trust me, Dad,” Ross yells, voice muffled through the wall, while Jensen’s shaving in his own bathroom. “You need to wear the green one.” Jensen makes a face at himself in the mirror. “Kristen’ll love it, I swear.”

“It’s just a green shirt!” Jensen shouts back. He can admit to himself that Kristen’s opinion of him matters. He thinks tonight might go well if he can pull his head out of his ass.

He can hear Ross scoff. “It’s an awesome green shirt!”

It’s not a bad shirt or anything, but it’s still just a button down with light green stripes on a white background. He doesn’t remember buying it, but it fits way too well to be something misplaced from Jared’s collection of shirts of varying degrees of ugly.

Speaking of Jared, when Jensen called him to extend Kristen’s invitation, he warned him that he’d better wear something presentable. Or else.

“Dude, I’ll see you in, like, an hour,” Jared had said, sounding amused. Apparently Jensen’s threatening tone was funny. “Also: we live in the same house. You can veto my shit.”

“I wish I had this on tape,” Jensen had replied. “Where are you, anyway?”

“Williams-Sonoma, killin’ time before I gotta meet Jim. I got you something, by the way,” Jared had said, then hung up.

When Jared gets home from his meeting with his agent a little while later, he comes bearing Sandy, a pizza as big as their flatscreen TV, and a fourteen-inch Wusthof chef’s knife that’s apparently for Jensen.

“The fuck?” Jensen says, staring at it like it’s totally not the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen. He drags Jared into the kitchen and gives him a very stern look. He can hear Ross excitedly telling Sandy all about the evening he has planned for her. Luckily, she’s into video games and Disney Channel stars, too, so everyone wins.

Jensen sets the knife down on the island and stares up at Jared incredulously. Jared looks a little hurt and kind of embarrassed. “I can’t show my appreciation for you?” he says.

Jensen wants to put a hand on the guy’s forehead and ask him if he’s had an attack of sudden-onset dementia. He settles for running one hand down the length of the packaging and tugging at the collar of his awesome green shirt with the other. “Sure,” he says cautiously, “but a three-hundred dollar knife?”

“Look, you’ve been a neurotic mess lately and I thought—nevermind.” Jared shoots him a miserable look and rakes his hands through his hair. “You know what? I’ll just take it back.”

“Do that and die,” Jensen says immediately. He’s already imagining how incredible this knife will look as the centerpiece of his knife roll. His other knives, mostly Henckles, are going to be jealous.

“Okay, I’m getting some seriously mixed signals here,” Jared says, poking Jensen in the shoulder. Then he huffs out a breath and picks up the knife, turning it over in his hands and not looking at Jensen. He looks a little better, though. “But seriously, cockmunch, I got more money in the book advance than I know what to do with, and I’ve seen better’n anybody what Jeff’s little adventure is doing to your nerves. Sandy and I were at Williams-Sonoma before my meeting with Jim and I saw this and I could practically see you salivating over it and… I just knew I had to get it for you. Plus it was on sale, I promise. I know how you are about sales, you cheap bastard.”

“Thank you,” Jensen says after a long, awkward moment. He bumps his shoulder against Jared’s and they both smile.

--

Eight hours later, Jensen’s so drunk he can’t walk, and he’s sort of reclining in the second-row seat in Jared’s Expedition with Kristen in his lap. He’s not sure what became of his roommate, who sort of disappeared between Chris’s joke about the goddamn cokehead armadillo that is never funny but they laugh anyway, tequila shot number four, and bottle of Dos number five. Kristen is at least as drunk as Jensen is, mouth fastened to the pulse point under his left ear like a lamprey. He’s going to have the hickey from hell in the morning.

He rakes his hands up her back, pulling her closer, and she giggles and pulls back. “Feelin’ frisky there, cowboy?” she asks, then she leans back in to sink her teeth into his bottom lip. Her breath smells like SoCo, which kind of reminds Jensen of his mother in a not-creepy way.

He cups her jaw with one hand and smiles against her mouth. “Mebbe,” he drawls, thinking I can do southern comfort.

“I can deal with that,” she says. She’s a gorgeous little thing, all blonde hair and huge smile, and she’s wearing a dress he think is probably illegal in most of the South (“I’m from Detroit,” she’d drunkenly explained to Chris when he ribbed her about the amount of skin she was bearing. “I’m a classy person from a classy town.”). The two of them have been skirting around this for way too long, he thinks. Maybe Ross was right about the green shirt. From the way she ripped it open a few minutes earlier, he gets the feeling she approves.

She slides off his lap and to her knees, looking up at him through her eyelashes and scooting as close as she can between his splayed legs. Her hands are small but deft, making quick work of his belt and the fly of his jeans. He’s not hard yet, but he figures a few minutes of her down there and he’ll be right as rain.

“I don’t know ‘bout you, but I’ve been thinking about this forever,” she says. She shoves his boxer-briefs down just enough to free his cock, and the elastic snags in the little hairs behind his balls, a pinch that he’s drunk enough to find pleasant, but he squeaks anyway. She leans down, sucks a sloppy apology of a kiss on his hipbone, then trails her tongue up the underside of his cock, balls to tip.

Not even a twitch.

There isn’t a whole lot of light in the car—they are in the dark parking lot behind Hutton’s Bar & Grill, after all—but he can stll see the little wrinkle between her brows. She purses her lips, flicks a glance at his face, then wraps both of her hands around his shaft and stokes up and down.

“Oh, yeah,” he mumbles, leaning his head back and focusing all his faculties to willing an erection to happen. It feels absolutely fantastic to have hands on him that aren’t his own.

Her ministrations go on a few minutes more, adding her mouth to the mix, but even a noble attempt at gagging herself ends in frustration. She shoots him a look that says she’s not impressed.

“This has never happened before,” he says weakly, squeezing his eyes closed and hoping it’s dark enough that she can’t see how fiercely red he’s turned.

“It… it, uh, happens to everyone,” she says slowly. She rests her forehead against his thigh and lets go of his flaccid cock, which is just about the most depressing thought Jensen’s had in a while.

“Not to me!” he snaps, tucking himself back into his pants and scowling into the darkness outside the window.

Her head pops up and she gives him a pitying look. “Maybe we’re just way too drunk right now,” she suggests. He doubts it. Sure, it’s been a while and he’s on the other side of thirty now, but he’s never had an issue with being too drunk to function before.

“I could—you know, help you out,” he says, not meeting her eyes. “Got hands’n a tongue.”

“I’m fine—just. Yeah. Don’t—don’t bother. It’s cool,” she stutters, helping him zip back up.

He groans and drops his head back against the window with a thump. “Can I die right here, maybe?” he asks the ceiling.

She crawls back up onto the seat, wrapping both arms around him and hooking both her legs over his. She presses her cheek against his chest and sighs. “It’s okay,” she says. Jensen isn’t really keen on being placated. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine. We prob’ly won’t even remember this in the morning.”

He rubs soothing circles on Kristen’s back and she falls asleep quickly, but he’s got no chance of that now. He watches people stumble to their cars.

Eventually, the driver’s door bangs open and Jared heaves himself up into the seat. He looks tired and a little sad, but he’s not drunk. The light from the bar falls on him just enough to illuminate that his hair’s all disheveled and he has the beginnings of a hickey of his own blooming on his neck. Jensen closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to know.

“Some night, huh?” Jared asks as he starts the engine, not even glancing into the backseat. He sounds a little out of breath.

“Sure,” Jensen agrees halfheartedly, not opening his eyes. “Some night.”

They stop by Kristen’s house to drop her off on their way home. Jared carefully carries her up to bed while Jensen putters around downstairs. His performance failure earlier has effectively killed any buzz he had and sent him headlong into hangoverland. One of Kristen’s dogs comes over and sniffs his feet, then gives him a wholly unimpressed look and heads upstairs as well. Jensen feels even worse. He collapses onto her couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table because Kristen’s not there to smack them with a rolled up magazine.

“She weighs maybe a hundred pounds, right?” Jared says from the living room doorway. “Why is that, like, a fucking ton in dead weight?”

“Did you take off her shoes before you put her in bed?” Jensen asks, peeling himself off the couch and standing unsteadily.

Jared rolls his eyes. “The buckles were torture,” he says, steering Jensen towards the door with an arm light around his shoulders. “Come on, man, let’s get you home. You can have my bed. I’ll sleep on the futon in my office. Or you can have the futon. Whatver.”

Jensen groans a little at the thought of sleeping anywhere that isn’t the couch, but there’s another fly in his gazpacho. “I don’t think I’m gonna make it up any stairs.”

He wakes up the next morning in a bed that smells like Jared and immediately pops wood. And then he promptly freaks the fuck out.


Chapter Three