They finish filming the fifth and last season of Supernatural on a Thursday in early April. Kripke ties up all the loose ends: every demon that ever got out has been sent back to Hell and there's no way for Lucifer to escape again. Sam and Dean clap each other on the back, get into the Impala and drive west into the setting sun. It's a good ending.

Jared and Jensen go out with the rest of the cast and crew and get completely trashed that night, then fly to L.A. the next morning. Jensen starts filming a project in less than two weeks, but he's seriously regretting being on a morning flight hung-over. It's fucking Jared's fault. He doesn't like flying at night—he likes being able to see what they're flying over, although honestly? Jensen hates to break it to him, but there ain't shit to see between L.A. and Vancouver.

But Jensen's got all kinds of lines to learn, and he hasn't seen Danneel in two months; and anyway, neither he nor Jared really wanted to hang out in Vancouver for long after the end of Supernatural.

Jared's already sold his house. He didn't think it made much sense to keep it when he wasn't going to be in Vancouver anymore. He hasn't had an apartment in L.A. since the end of the second season, so when they get to L.A. he crashes in the guest bedroom at Jensen's place. He's planning on staying for a few days, long enough to catch up with friends and Sandy—they're still close a year after the breakup—but he's headed back to Texas after that. He misses his family, and he's still got a bunch of buddies there, guys he's been friends with since high school and who he's stayed in touch with this whole time. Plus, he wants to take some time off.

"It's not like I really need a job right now," Jared says. They're at the airport again four days after they got back to L.A. He's wearing a button-down with some kind of blue design on it, and aviators, indoors. "I've got enough money to last me until I'm thirty-five, at least."

"How large you planning on living?" Jensen asks, raising an eyebrow.

Jared grins. "Think . . . My Super Sweet Sixteen. But like, every weekend."

"Oh, okay then," Jensen says. "But will there be choreographed dance routines? Inquiring minds want to know."

"Bitch, please," Jared says. "I think there should also be grizzlies. They could wrestle!"

"You're going to miss your flight, dude," Jensen says, pointing at the board. "You've got like thirty minutes to make it through security. Good luck, young Skywalker."

"C'mere," Jared says, pulling him in for a huge, long hug—and then fucking licking Jensen's ear.

"God, you're gross," Jensen says, scrubbing at his ear with his sleeve.

"You're going to miss me, right? Yeah, you're totally going to miss me."

Jensen grins. "I've got three words: Bruckheimer spy movie. Think I'll be too busy to miss your sorry ass."

Jared shrugs. "And I've got, uh—" He starts counting on his fingers, then gives up. "Whatever, more than three words: when Bruckheimer's got you out there for 5:30 calls, you're going to wish you were in Texas."

"Bruckheimer spy movie," Jensen repeats slowly, so its impact really gets through. He can tell the moment it does: Jared's mouth sliding into a grin.

"Yeah, okay, you've got a point. You're still going to come visit, right?"

"Soon as I can," Jensen says. "Seriously, you better run if you're going to catch that plane."

"Talk to you soon, man," Jared says, pulling him in for another hug—quicker this time—and then he's jogging off toward security, his duffel bag bouncing comically on his back.

They don't see each other again for two and a half months.

*

It's been nearly five years since Jensen was living in L.A. full-time, but it's kind of nice to be back. He's always liked L.A.—near-perpetual sunshine and no humidity, and if there's occasional smog, well, that's not all that different from Dallas. It hadn't taken him long to get used to California in the first place, and coming back after being in Vancouver is even easier: nearly all of his friends live there; he's famous enough now that he doesn't have to worry about finding good scripts; and Danneel's there, too. She just got done with the season of One Tree Hill (they've taken to calling it The Show That Will Not Die) and now she's in L.A.—just for the summer. She'll be back in North Carolina in the fall, but Jensen's done long-distance with her before and it's worked out just fine.

It's a little amazing to Jensen that they're still together. A year and a half ago he would have sworn that if anyone was going to make it for the long haul, it'd be Jared and Sandy, but it was pretty clear by the end of filming the fourth season that their relationship wasn't going to work out. And then Jared came out, which really explained a lot about just how many International Male catalogs he had lying around—"I just like the clothes!" only goes so far. So yeah, Jared and Sandy didn't make it, and they'd always seemed like they were going to be a permanent thing in a way that he and Danneel never had. But they're making it work.

Jensen's days are longer right now than they were for Supernatural, even—they start earlier and go later. It's not an easy shoot, and he's not seeing as much of Danneel as he'd like. She's doing some modeling work over the summer—magazine ads, mostly.

"My agent might be getting me some commercial work later in the summer," Danneel says, pulling off her shirt. "Starting in July or so."

"What kind of commercials?" Jensen asks. He kisses her neck and lies down on the bed, pulling her over next to him.

"Cosmetics stuff, mostly. Hopefully for Maybelline," she says, pushing his boxers down and rolling a condom on expertly. "You mind if I ride you?"

"Go for it," Jensen says, a little strangled, as she sinks down onto him.

When she rolls off him afterwards, tossing the condom in the trash, she says, "So are you seriously going to set three alarms?"

"I'm not going to wake up if I don't," Jensen says into her neck.

Danneel sighs. "Do you really have to get up? I mean, really?"

"I only wish I didn't. It's just, I'm filming this thing, it's called a movie—"

Danneel smacks him with a pillow, but she doesn't really mind getting up early. She likes to go jogging early while the streets are mostly empty, and then she likes to go to the first yoga classes of the day; she can be completely done with all that before she even has to think about heading out for a photo shoot. She likes being up early, Jensen knows, and Jensen likes having her there. It works. He's busy as hell, feels like he's got eight different things he's forgetting about all the time, but it works.

The project Jensen's doing is still called the Untitled Wrigley Project a month and a half into filming—with good reason. No one's going to go to a movie called Blasphemy of the Deep, no matter how hard the writer pushes that as a title. It's a movie about a sniper; it doesn't even make sense.

As the CIA officer who tracks the sniper (Jake Gyllenhaal) down, Jensen spends a lot of time on-screen looking stressed and drinking coffee. It's kind of like being Dean Winchester again, except that Agent William Brighton is way more obsessive than Dean ever was. He's a lot like Henriksen, really, except that he doesn't get blown up by a demon. It's a good script, a good character—he really feels like he's got something worth doing here.

Jensen calls Jared a few times a week. Jensen doesn't actually catch him that often—Jared's schedule is basically completely the opposite of Jensen's, in that Jared is sleeping all day and going out at night, and Jensen isn't—but they leave messages for each other: obscure one-liners from movies, loud music at bars, the occasional bit of heavy stalker-breathing. Jensen imagines Jared cracking his shit up when he gets those messages. Occasionally they actually talk: about the set; Bruckheimer; the two PAs he caught making out, the way they fell over themselves trying to get apart, then the girl asked for his autograph—

"You gave it to her, right?" Jared asks.

"Who do you think I am, you?" Jensen grumbles.

"You totally did. Aww, look at you being good to your fans!"

Jared talks about being at home, about finding a new house three weeks after he moves back—a little place, two bedrooms, not that different from the house in Vancouver—and about trying to put on a screened porch and fucking it up so badly that they had to call 911.

"It was just a little fire!" Jared says while Jensen howls laughter.

"Bet you got singed, didn't you? Hey, you get any cool scars?"

"Fuck you."

Nearly all of Jared's friends are still there—gone off to college, gone off to business school, but they've come back, gotten married, started having kids. It's different than it used to be, sure, but Jared's still as tight with them as he's always been.

"You'd like these guys," Jared tells him over the phone. "You're still coming, right? When are you done filming?"

"June 19th, if we stay on schedule," Jensen says.

"You should come then!"

"I'll see what I can do."

"Bullshit, man, get your ass down here!" Jared yells, and then hangs up the phone, laughing.

Jensen shakes his head at the phone and pockets it, grinning a little.

*

It doesn't seem like anything at first, with Danneel. Toward the middle of June she starts having more modeling jobs—and it's good, it's definitely good for her, but she's not around as much. One of the jobs, a spread for Ralph Lauren, is shooting at night over half a week. She doesn't get out until three in the morning, and Jensen has to be up by five. It doesn't make any sense for her to come over when their schedules are so off. It's sad, but there isn't really anything to be done for it.

They go five days without seeing each other at all, before finally Jensen's got Saturday off.

"You want to meet for brunch?" Jensen asks.

"Hmm," Danneel says. "I'm busy until late afternoon. Is dinner okay?"

"At six?"

"Better make it seven, just in case," Danneel says, clicking the phone closed before Jensen can confirm.

They go to a little place in West Hollywood and Jensen watches her push her field greens around her plate. Their conversation is as easy as it always is, but her mouth is tight around the corners.

"Everything okay?" Jensen asks when she gets a refill on the wine.

"Yeah, I'm just a little stressed, that's all," she says. "I thought I was going to get the weekend off, but I've got meetings all day tomorrow, in Burbank—you know, about that pilot I might be filming?"

"About the hot young teachers?" Jensen says.

"That's the one," Danneel says. "Oh, and I forgot to say earlier, I've got dinner plans afterwards."

"Oh," Jensen says. "That's okay. You going to come over after that?"

Danneel frowns, considering. "No, you know, I really shouldn't. It's probably going to run late, and I don't want you to stay up late, not when you've got your last week of filming starting on Monday. I don't want you to be tired for that."

It's going to be weird to have a whole day to himself, but it's probably not a bad thing: Jensen can't remember the last time he got more than five hours of sleep in a row. He sleeps until noon and wakes up disoriented, with the sun in his eyes. He orders a breakfast burrito from a place on Olympic and spends all day watching ESPN and not thinking about the movie. It's nice. And then he's pushing through the week and the end of the shoot—it's impossible to tell in advance, it always is, but he thinks this movie is going to end up being good.

Jensen goes out afterwards with the cast. He doesn't really intend to get drunk, but Jake Gyllenhaal is a little bitch like that, keeping Jensen's glass full no matter how many times shots he takes. It's not the worst hangover Jensen's ever had. The next morning, he mostly just wants a lot of coffee and something really greasy, like potato boats. He's not entirely sure where you can get those at nine in the morning, so he goes back to bed.

At ten-thirty he gets a call from Danneel. "You busy? You want to meet me for brunch in half an hour?"

Somehow Jensen finds himself agreeing to it. They go to a place in Santa Monica—one of Danneel's favorites. She's already got a table when he gets there, and there's a half-drunk cappuccino in front of her. "Sorry, I was early," she says, gesturing at it. "You know what you want?"

"Uh, sure," Jensen says, since she's already flagging the waiter down. He ends up ordering pecan pancakes by mistake, even though that's not actually what he wants at all. He wants grease.

Danneel makes a lot of small talk. "Crazy weather, huh? Fifty-five degrees in June?"

Jensen's not paying attention to what she's saying so much as the fact that she's so jittery she's shaking. Caffeine has that effect on her when she drinks too much of it before she eats anything. He keeps asking her if she's okay, and she keeps telling him she's fine, sure, did he hear about that four-car pileup on the 10 at Robertson last night?

The fifth time he asks, she finally snaps. "Yeah, no. You're right. I'm not okay."

"Okay," Jensen says. "Hey, look, there's the waiter with our food right now." It's not good when she's got low blood sugar. She'll get some food in her system and then she'll be fine.

"This isn't working," Danneel says.

"I don't—the food's right there," Jensen says, nodding toward the waiter.

Danneel sighs. "I'm not talking about the food, Jensen. This isn't working. We aren't working."

The waiter arrives at their table just then, and neither of them says anything while he's there. The moment is frozen. Jensen's mouth is open; he's staring at Danneel across the table—and she looks back at him, mouth down-turned and eyes a little sad, and then she looks back at the waiter to say thank you. The waiter is gone and the moment is gone, and it's Jensen's turn to speak.

"Um. Did I miss something?" he asks slowly, awkwardly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," she says, though she never specifies to what, and then she pats his hand. "It's been this way for a while. You didn't—I mean—" She laughs a little, nervously. "We never thought this was going to be it, you know?"

The way she intones it is the same way Jared used to when he talked about Sandy back when they first started dating, when to look at him you'd have thought Jared couldn't ever fall out of love with her; there was just no way. The thought makes Jensen incredibly melancholy.

"Yeah," Jensen says. "I know. I—okay, yeah." He looks down at his plate. His stomach rumbles in protest; pancakes are really about the last thing he wants right now.

"You should eat before your food gets cold," Danneel says, completely misinterpreting the sound, and picks up her fork.

They don't really talk for the rest of the meal. Danneel eats her entire veggie omelette and gets an extra side order of home fries; Jensen eats about three bites of pancakes, then spends the rest of the time steadily draining his coffee—the waiters refill the cup every time he puts it down—and pretending he isn't watching Danneel eat.

Danneel pays the bill at the end. "It's my turn," she says, handing over her AmEx, and even if it isn't Jensen doesn't really want to argue.

They're parked next to each other in the garage across the street. Danneel smiles at him and says, "So I'll see you around, right? I mean, we're still friends?"

"Sure," Jensen says, his hand on the door of his pickup. He lets her pull out first, then follows her down Lincoln a ways before turning off. On a whim, he stops at a Carls Jr. on the way home and order three large hash browns. He eats two of them in the car and the third in the elevator. He can't decide if the hangover is better afterwards or worse. He lies down on top of the covers and turns the TV on, falling asleep right away. He's completely fine.

*

"I don't care what you say, man. This is the opposite of the definition of fine." Steve gestures at the pile of pizza boxes on the counter—mostly empty, Jensen's pretty sure he raided the last of the sausage pizza while he was drunk last night—and the trashcan, overflowing with Chinese takeout containers. "If I'd known it was this bad, I would have brought in the Red Cross."

"That doesn't even make sense," Jensen says, tilting his sunglasses higher up on his nose. The sunlight coming through his windows is bright. Fucking Steve, opening the blinds up.

"Basically you're living in a war zone," Steve says.

Jensen ignores him to dump his half-eaten carton of beef and broccoli on top of the pile of other cartons. The stack tilts precariously but doesn't fall over.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asks. They both wince. "Revise that. I mean, do you want to talk to Riley? He knows all about getting dumped by Danneel, since she dumped him for you and all. You could start an I Got Dumped by Danneel Harris club."

Jensen opens the fridge and twists the tops off a couple bottles of Bud Light. He hands one to Steve, who tips it toward him and drains half of it at a go. "You're really in finer pain-in-the-ass form than usual," Jensen says. "Aren't you supposed to be on tour in Arizona?"

Steve shrugs. "Not since yesterday, I'm not. Look, I'm just saying, it's the middle of June. It's nice outside! When was the last time you went outside?"

Jensen gives him a death glare. He's pretty sure that most of the effect is lost on Steve since Jensen's still wearing his sunglasses. "How do you even know Danneel broke up with me in the first place?"

Steve gestures vaguely with his beer. "There was some thing you were supposed to be at last Thursday? You didn't show, people made some calls, whatever, the point is, you need to be doing something different here. You need to get out of L.A. You should go to Vegas."

"Right, because getting drunk and losing $5,000 at blackjack is an excellent way of dealing with a break-up," Jensen says. "Not that anyone I know has ever done that."

"It was $3,500, and my fuckin' ex put me through the wringer and you know it," Steve says. "Fine, it doesn't have to be Vegas. It can be wherever you want. I'm still driving you to the airport in twenty minutes, and you're getting on a plane."

Jensen blows air out through his nose and loosens the death grip he's got on his beer. He hasn't left the apartment in a week. He's been ignoring his cell phone since Wednesday—which might explain how he missed whatever thing Steve's talking about—and apparently every single person he's friends with in the state of California already knows about the break-up, even though he hasn't been speaking with any of them. He doesn't really want to change that, either, at this point, not since everything they're going to want to talk about is the break-up, and how's he coping, and did he hear that Danneel was out with one of the models from one of her commercials last night? Is he doing okay?

"Fine," Jensen says, because suddenly staying in L.A. doesn't sound that awesome. "But you're paying for the ticket."

"With what I make?" Steve says innocently.

Jensen finally takes the sunglasses off and looks at him. "Dude, you drive an Escalade."

Steve's mouth curves downwards. "Fine. You better not be heading to Thailand. I hear Thailand's sweet, but I am not sending you to Thailand."

"I'm not going to Thailand," Jensen says, heading toward the back of the apartment to pack.

*

In the end, Jensen doesn't even have to think about it. There's a flight to San Antonio at six p.m., and he's on it. He calls Jared from the gate at LAX to tell him that he's coming and Jared crows and says, "Fuck yeah, you're coming to Texas!" which Jensen takes to mean he'll see Jared's beat-up pickup truck outside the terminal when he gets in.

Jensen spends the flight stuck between a woman with a nasty cold and a man who's even bigger than Jared and has somehow managed to wedge himself into the aisle seat. Jensen tries to push himself as far back into his seat as he can get, but there's really no escaping. In the row across the aisle, three elementary-schoolers have their own seats. Fucking unfair. Steve should have shelled out for first class, the cheap bastard, especially since he's trying to help Jensen get over a breakup here.

They land in San Antonio around eleven, and Jared pulls up to the curb before Jensen even finishes turning his cell phone back on. Jared gives him a hug across the center console and says, "Hey, you hungry? There's a barbeque place between here and the house, if you want to—"

"Yes," Jensen says, his stomach growling to back him up.

The barbeque is hot and tangy on Jensen's tongue, his stomach rumbling as he eats. Jared finishes three sandwiches in the time it takes Jensen to eat two, then lets loose with a with a steady string of questions: how was the end of filming and how was working with Bruckheimer and is he still liking L.A.? Jensen answers unthinkingly, an easy back-and-forth—and then Jared says, "How's Danneel?"

Jensen freezes, then says, "We broke up." He's half a beat too slow for it to sound casual, like it isn't a big deal; he's pretty sure Jared noticed.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry. I had no idea. When?"

"About a week ago."

Jared nods like he's putting things together—that's why Jensen looks like shit; that's why he didn't return those two phone calls this past week. Jared looks like he wants to ask all kinds of questions, but he only says, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Jensen says. "Not really."

And for all that Jensen likes to compare Jared to an overgrown puppy, always sticking his nose where it shouldn't go, Jared really knows when to back off sometimes. He just nods and says, "Okay," and then, "So I told Harley and Sadie you were coming, so maybe we should get back and make sure they haven't wrecked the place."

"I don't think I'm really that exciting," Jensen says dryly.

"Aww, don't sell yourself short," Jared says, punching Jensen's shoulder—and Jensen leans into the hit. Jared's fist is solid and warm.

*

The dogs haven't actually destroyed the house, but they do their best to bowl Jensen over the moment he gets through the front door. Jensen backs up against the kitchen counter and pets them until they calm down. It takes a good five minutes before they settle enough for Jensen to get away.

"You've got to be jetlagged," Jared says, picking up Jensen's duffel bag and heading up the stairs. "Here, the guest bedroom's on the right, and the bathroom's just through here." He gestures toward what's got to be the master bedroom. "I put out towels on the end of your bed."

"Thanks, Mom," Jensen says, dodging as Jared swings at him, and heading into the room.

Jared's wrong about the jetlag. It's a little after midnight here, ten p.m. in L.A., and Jensen's nowhere near ready to fall asleep yet. He gets ready to go to bed anyway, though, and spends about four hours staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about anything at all.

The jetlag hits solidly in the morning when Harley and Sadie bound into his room and drool on him until he wakes up. It's nine o'clock here, the sun angling brightly through the blinds and hitting Jensen's face; his body's still screaming that it's the middle of the night. Getting out of bed and shrugging a shirt on is fucking hard.

Jared's got pancakes and bacon ready in the kitchen, at least, along with a full pot of coffee, strong and black. Jensen doesn't move out of arm's reach of the coffeemaker until he's well into his third cup.

"Your addiction is reaching terrifying proportions," Jared tells him. "I'd put you through detox, but I haven't actually had the shackles installed in the basement yet."

"You don't have a basement," Jensen says, pulling his coffee cup closer in.

Jared waves a hand at him. "Details. So hey, you want to see the house?"

Jared's already told him almost everything there is to hear about the place over the phone, but Jared stares at him until he admits that the light fixture in the dining room brings out the blues and greens in the drapes and that the tan paint with the white trim really does make the hallway brighter.

Jensen finally catches on when Jared wants him to compliment the way the refrigerator notches into the wooden cabinetry. "You bought everything they told you to buy at Home Depot, didn't you? Come on, dude, I thought you were supposed to automatically get awesome at style when you turned gay."

"Oh my God, that's what I forgot in gay school!" Jared says.

Jensen cracks up. "Remember how you thought a futon was the only piece of furniture you needed in Vancouver?"

"Oh, whatever," Jared says. "It wasn't just a futon. I also had a TV, a microwave and a mini-fridge. I was good to go! It's not my fault Sandy had standards."

"So what was I supposed to have done, brought my own sleeping bag?"

"It was a big futon!" Jared says.

Jensen scoffs. "You're like eight feet tall, dude. Also, you drool."

"I'll show you drool," Jared says, tackling Jensen onto the sofa. Jensen ends up with his face squished so deep into the cushions that he can't inhale anything but the smell of new leather and Jared's body.

"I hate you a lot," Jensen says into Jared's side.

"That's what they all say," Jared tells him when he finally rolls off Jensen's head. For a moment Jared stares at him funny, like there's something else he wants to say but won't, and the look on his face doesn't really make sense—but then the moment passes and Jared is pulling him all the way up, just for Jensen to tackle him back down to the couch again.

*

After three days, Jensen's duffel bag is entirely empty. Somehow the contents have gotten spread all over the entirety of Jared's house. It's not a big house—seven or eight rooms, depending on whether or not you're Jared and you count the hallway—but it's still annoying. Jensen will be looking for a shirt he swears he'd laid out on the guest bed, and he'll find it in the kitchen, hanging over the back of a chair.

"Dude, you don't want to wear that until I've washed it," Jared says, coming back into the house from his run. "I caught Harley with it in his mouth earlier. He really likes stealing your stuff."

"Only my stuff?" Jensen says.

"Well yeah," Jared says, tossing the shirt into the washer. "He's already stolen everything I own like eight times."

"Oh," Jensen says, like it makes sense. To Jared, it probably does.

Jared likes to go for a run early in the morning, before it gets too hot to leave the house, and he's got coffee made by the time Jensen wakes up. They play a lot of Wii and eat a lot of cereal. Jared's got enough cereal stockpiled to last them through World War III. Other than that, it's slim pickings in his kitchen: a lot of frozen vegetables, some Minute Rice, not a whole lot of meat.

"My mom stocked the fridge when I moved in," Jared says. "I haven't actually had to go to the grocery store yet."

"So what you mean is, you grilled all the meat, and you've been living off cereal ever since."

"Also takeout," Jared says. "Don't sell General Tsao short. The man knows how to cook chicken."

They make stir-fry three nights in a row. Jared's got plenty of soy sauce, and it's hard to fuck up stir-fry. Jared's also got plenty of Corona and limes, so when he does fuck it up, they just drink for a while and then the stir-fry tastes fine.

After dinner they sit on the screened porch for a while. It's over ninety degrees even after sundown, but Jared just finished the porch, damn it, and he's determined that they're going to use it.

"We're sitting in a pool of our own sweat," Jensen tells him. "Like, if the walls of the porch were concrete, we would actually be able to go swimming in your porch."

"Are you trying to pussy out on me here?"

"Is this a contest now?" Jensen says.

"First one to pussy out owes the other a case of beer," Jared says, tipping his beer toward Jensen. "Good luck, yo."

They last maybe another ten minutes before Jared calls it off. "Fuck this, I'm sweating so much I can't see, and I've got to take a piss."

"We all know about you and sweating, dude," Jensen says. "It's like you think I didn't spend the past five years with your rank ass. Also, you owe me a case of beer."

"Who do you think bought that beer in your hand?" Jared says, pausing with the sliding door open.

"Your mom," Jensen says.

"Fuck you, she didn't buy the beer!"

"Dude, just let me back in the goddamned house," Jensen says, shoving past Jared and heading straight for the shower. He turns the knob all the way to cold, and spends about three minutes enjoying the fact that it's still possible to shiver after the heat of the San Antonio night, humidity thick enough to slice.

After that Jensen's balls start to shrivel, so he heads back downstairs and gets a new beer, icy from the fridge, and they both watches a couple episodes of 24. He and Jared try to decide who'd be more likely to win in a fight against a T-Rex, Jack Bauer or John McClane from the Die Hard movies—Jensen's vote is on McClane—but after a while the argument dies out while they watch Jack Bauer kill multiple people with his bare hands, and also land a commercial jet on a made-up freeway.

Jensen has to at least partially concede the point. "He's pretty fucking badass."

"It could still go either way," Jared says.

That's pretty much how all their conversations go: easy banter, arguments over Call of Duty strategy and placing bets on just when the beer can pyramid Chad started when he came to visit a couple weeks ago is going to collapse. Jensen's giving it a week, tops; Jared thinks it's never going to collapse, because, "Chad's like a cockroach, dude. Anything he touches cannot die."

"I don't think your logic is entirely sound," Jensen says. If he's lucky, one of the dogs will knock it over in the night.

They talk about pretty much anything, but they don't talk about the break-up, and Jared never mentions Danneel. It's a little pathetic how grateful Jensen is. It's not like it was a bad break-up or anything. It's just that it came out of nowhere, that's all.

Danneel calls once, a couple days after Jensen goes to Texas. Jensen doesn't make it to the phone in time to pick up, but she leaves a voicemail. Jensen spends twenty minutes staring at the screen, psyching himself up to listen to the message, before he finally hits the power-off button and tosses the phone somewhere into the recesses of Jared's closet. He sort of hopes he never finds it again.

*

On Jensen's fourth morning in San Antonio, Jared corners him before he gets down the stairs. "So hey, my parents just got back from helping my sister move out of her apartment in College Station, and they wanted to know if you were up for a barbeque this afternoon."

Jensen doesn't even have his contacts in yet, so it takes him a while to process. "Sure," he says, rubbing at his eyes. "Is there coffee?"

"Man, I could have gotten you to agree to anything," Jared says, handing Jensen coffee. "I could have made you swear to shave your balls and wear a dress for the next week."

"Do that and die," Jensen says, drinking more coffee. He swears his vision is getting better with every sip, and then he realizes he never actually took his contacts out last night. He just hadn't noticed before. The degree of his coffee addiction is starting to scare even him.

They head to Jared's parents' house around one, when Jared's parents have mostly finished unloading the two cars and the U-Haul trailer. There are still about a dozen boxes left in the back of the U-Haul, along with a couch.

"Don't worry, we left some of the fun for you," Megan says, coming out of the house. "Hey, Jensen, what are you doing hanging around with this loser?"

"It's not my fault," Jensen tells her. "The guy keeps following me around or something."

Megan sighs. "Jared, I know I keep saying you need to get a boyfriend, but stalking Jensen totally doesn't count."

"Who was it that used to have a poster of Jensen on her wall?" Jared says, pulling her into some combination of a hug and headlock. "Oh, yeah, that was you."

"It was the promo poster for your show, you freak," Megan says, laughing, and failing to get out of grip. "Nice effort, though."

"So how'd the five-year college plan work out for you?" Jared asks, finally letting her loose.

"It's called a 3-2 program, dork. It was supposed to last five years," Megan says.

"All I'm hearing is, 'I was supposed to be out of college a year ago,'" Jared says.

"And all I'm hearing is, 'Oh my God, I never went to college! I knew I was forgetting something!'"

Jared grins. "One of us has enough money to last the rest of his life, is all I'm saying."

"Don't worry, he's going to blow it all on his Super Sweet Sixteen," Jensen says. "He wants bears to wrestle for him."

"Hey, your birthday's in a month, JT," Megan says. "If you want the Spice Girls to sing for you, you'd really better get on it."

"Fuck you both," Jared says.

Jensen and Jared wrestle the couch out of the back of the U-Haul and onto the front lawn, while Megan looks on and makes helpful comments—"You're going to throw out your back if you keep lifting with your arms, bro."—and Jared nearly drops the couch on his foot trying to flip Megan off without putting it down first. Jensen gets a stitch in his side, laughing at him.

Once they finally get it on the lawn, they spend a while staring at it. "You really want us to take this inside the house?" Jared says. "Where the heck is it supposed to go?"

"My room, duh," Megan says.

"You've got so much shit in there you can't even walk across the room!" Jared says.

"Just put it on the back porch for now, boys, if you would," Jared's mom says, walking across the yard. "It's lovely to see you again, Jensen! It's been too long."

"It's good to see you, too, Sherri," Jensen says, leaning into her hug. "So where do you want us to take this?"

"Just through the hallway and onto the porch, that would be lovely."

It's maybe thirty yards from the front yard to the back porch, if even, but Jensen's covered in sweat by the time they put the couch down. And if Jensen's sweaty, Jared looks like he might as well have gone swimming with his clothes on.

"C'mere, Megan, who wants a hug?" Jared says, tackling her.

"Ugh, gross, I can see your sweat marks," she says, disentangling herself.

"That's the price you pay for making us carry your couch!" Jared says.

The food's ready around three, and Jensen's reasonably sure that Jared eats half of it and the rest of them eat the other half. Jared's plate doesn't actually stay empty for more than about three seconds at a time—Sherri's quick with the refills—but it's kind of astonishing. Jensen's been watching Jared eat for years, but it's like the guy has entire extra stomachs for his mom's barbeque, like a cow.

"I do have a barbeque stomach, it's true," Jared says, polishing off his fifth plate. "I also have a peach cobbler stomach."

"It's a good thing I made some, then, because I'd hate for your cobbler stomach to go hungry," Sherri says, going into the kitchen and coming back out with a dish of cobbler and a tub of vanilla ice cream.

Jared makes the kinds of noises while eating dessert that most people make in the middle of a mind-blowing blowjob. It's not like Jensen's never heard Jared go orgasmic over food before, but it still makes him flush a little. But Jared must have been making those sorts of noises while eating since he was born, because it doesn't seem to faze his family.

"So, same thing, this time tomorrow?" Jared says, polishing off the last of the cobbler.

"Don't talk about food right now, I might die," Jensen says. "I'm pretty sure this is what captives feel like after the cannibals have finished fattening them up. Y'know, just before they eat them."

Jared laughs. "You calling my family a bunch of cannibals, Ackles?"

"You're scary when you're hungry, is all I'm sayin'. Also, your teeth are pretty pointy."

"They're for ripping your flesh to shreds, you caught me." Jared flashes a grin, totally proving Jensen's point.

"So, JT, you find yourself a boyfriend yet?" Sherri asks, dumping more barbeque on his plate.

"Man, Spanish Inquisition from all sides," Jared says, grinning. "I swear y'all are teaming up on me here."

"I'm guessing that's a no," Jared's dad says.

Jared goes a little red and Sherri says, "Geez, Jerry, cut the kid a break."

"You and Danneel are still going strong, though, aren't you?" Jerry says, turning to Jensen.

For a fraction of a second it's like the whole room goes still, but really it's just Jensen who froze. "Uh, no, actually. We're not," Jensen says. He's quicker with it this time—Jared's the only one who seems to notice that he's not that casual about it. "We broke up a couple weeks ago."

"Oh," Jerry says. "Sorry to hear that. I didn't mean to pry."

"Yeah, y'know, Jensen probably doesn't want to—" Jared begins, but Jensen cuts in quickly.

"No, it's fine." In response to Jared's raised eyebrow he adds, "Really."

"Oh, honey," Sherri says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you doing okay?"

"We just realized it wasn't going to work out," Jensen says. "That's all."

The conversation moves quickly away from Danneel, toward other things: sports, needling Megan about getting a job, Jared asking when it's going to be time for dinner. Jensen can feel Jared's eyes on him the whole time; he can feel Jared's tension.

Once they're back at the house, Jared says, "I'm sorry about that, man. I really should have told them before we went over there. I just wasn't thinking about it."

"Jared. It's fine. Really."

"You sure?" Jared says, looking right at him. It's hard to stay still under his gaze.

"Yeah," Jensen says. He's not entirely sure whether or not he's lying. "Hey, whatever happened to your big partying life here? Did your friends all move out just in time for me to show up?"

"Oh," Jared says. "No, they're around. Want me to call them?"

And then Jensen gets it. "Dude, were you trying to make sure I was okay before you brought over your friends? Were you going all suicide watch on me? You were, weren't you?"

"Suicide watch is a little strong," Jared says, flushing. "More like . . . 'making sure you're okay' watch. You think you're okay?"

"Ask me that one more time and I'll kick your ass," Jensen says.

Jared grins. "There's a Rangers game on at seven. I'll give the guys a call." But there's still something in Jared's face, like maybe he still think Jensen's lying. And maybe he is. But maybe if he keeps saying he's fine often enough, it'll start to be true.

Hanging out with Jared's friends is easy enough. Three of them come over around 6:30 and they spend the whole game yelling at the TV and drinking. It's not the first time Jensen's met Mike—he came out to L.A. for an insurance conference a couple years ago while Supernatural was on hiatus, and Jared brought him out with some of the guys out there—but Dave and Ray are new to him. They're all a lot like Jared: funny, easy-going, fans of sports and cheap beer. Jensen's reasonably sure that Jared warned them ahead of time not to talk about women, since none of them comes anywhere close to bringing up Danneel, and Mike even met her when he was in California before, but it's okay. It's kind of nice to think about baseball and nothing else, yelling at the umps every time they make a call against the Rangers, whether it's a fair call or not.

The game goes into extra innings, but Jensen's the only one who watches it all the way through to the end: Jared's friends all have to go to work in the morning. "Good to see you, Jensen," Mike says, shaking Jensen's hand as he and the other two leave. "We should do this again."

"Yeah, for sure," Jensen says, closing the door behind them. Jared's already asleep on the couch, beer tilted precariously to the side. Jensen takes the bottle out of his hand and puts it down on the coffee table. After a moment, he picks it back up and drains it. There were only a couple sips left in the bottom, anyway. He makes a perfunctory effort to wake Jared up, but the guy's so passed out he might as well be dead—the full day of sweating, drinking and eating must've gotten to him. Jensen pulls a blanket over Jared, grinning at his snores, and then goes upstairs, where he falls asleep thinking about pop-flies in the outfield and the strikeout in the thirteenth inning: a curveball over the plate, the swing of the bat, and the slap of the ball into the glove for the end of the game. He sleeps better than he has in days.

*

A week after he threw it in Jared's closet, Jensen digs out his cell phone and calls his agent. "I've been trying to get in touch with you for ages," she says the moment she picks up. "Jesus, did you drop off the face of the earth or something?"

"Something like that," Jensen says.

"Oh God, tell me you're not in rehab," she says.

"I'm not in rehab."

"No, I mean, tell me that and mean it. You're actually in rehab, aren't you, and I'm going to have to cover for you, and—"

"I'm not in rehab," Jensen says. "I'm in Texas."

That stops her for a moment. "Texas."

"I'm taking some time off," Jensen tells her. It feels good to say it out loud.

"Some time off, as in, a week or two? Because there's some stuff I'd really like you to look at. I've got some scripts that I think you might be interested in."

"You can send them to me here," Jensen says, giving her Jared's address. As soon as he hangs up he turns the phone back off again, without listening to any of his voicemails.

When the scripts start showing up two days later, Jensen doesn't even make the pretense of reading them. He just starts adding them to the pile of Jared's unread scripts, ever-growing.

*

After the second time they beat Call of Duty, Jensen starts to get antsy. It's like he's a mixture of pent-up energy and sluggishness—like he needs to find something to do, but not work. He hasn't taken any serious stretch of time off work since he was nineteen; he doesn't really know what to do with himself when he's not acting.

"I think you need to start working out again," Jared says, pinching Jensen's gut. "You're getting a little chubby."

"Your ass is chubby," Jensen says.

"Yeah, but my ass is working for me. Yours isn't, dude."

Jensen goes running with him the next morning. He'd worked out for the Bruckheimer movie, but that was mostly weightlifting and core stuff; it's been so long since he actually went running that he'd forgotten just how much running sucks. But Jared's like a fucking Greyhound. For as much as the guy's sweating, he never seems to get winded.

"You just need to get used to running again," Jared says as they finally turn back onto his street. "It's fun!"

"Shut up before I kick you in the face," Jensen wheezes.

"No way you're that flexible," Jared says serenely.

"I'll kick you in the face while you sleep."

Jensen doesn't go running again, but he buys a set of free weights from the Home Shopping Network and gets them delivered to Jared's house. He sets them up in front of the TV and watches more 24 while he does tricep curls.

"I bet Jack Bauer goes running instead of lifting weights," Jared says, coming in from his run. He pulls off his t-shirt and uses it to wipe at the sweat on his face. It doesn't really do much good: the t-shirt was soaked to begin with, and his whole body's still dripping afterwards.

"Yeah, but Jack Bauer can also rip out your intestines and tie them in a knot," Jensen says. "With his bare hands."

"You're kind of intensely passive-aggressive these days," Jared says. "I think you need to get high or something."

Jensen finishes his second set of curls and lowers the weights to the floor. "Nah, I get really paranoid. Remember that one time at Chris's—"

"When we had to talk you out from under the kitchen table, right, never mind," Jared says. "That's three hours of my life I'll never have back."

"Who was the one who wanted to try the gravity bong again? I think I'm going to stick to booze, thanks."

"I'll see if any of the guys want to go out tonight," Jared says. "Let me make some calls."

"Okay, Tony Soprano."

It's a big group that ends up going, actually, or at least Jensen thinks it is. It's pretty hard to tell who at the bar is actually Jared's friend and who's someone he knows from high school and who's just some random girl he said hi to on the street once and who likes Jared so much now that she wanted to come up to him and talk to him for ages. Jared's the sort of guy who'll let that happen, easy smiles and conversation. There are probably some fans mixed in there, too—Jensen's decently sure he and Jared both get recognized a couple of times at least, the quick flit of eyes toward them and away—but mostly it just seems like Jared actually knows everyone in the bar, really knows them, well enough to talk to about their jobs and their families. The guy's friendly with everybody.

Jared's always been like that, though, and he's not really one to change. Jensen was worried for about a week that it was going to be different after Jared told him he was gay, but there wasn't anything new to get used to. It wasn't like he started dressing better or picked up the lisp; it wasn't like he stopped flirting with women, grins so big his dimples showed.

Jensen doesn't know what Jared got up to last summer while he was filming the third and (thank God) final Thomas Kinkade movie, but back in Vancouver last year Jensen watched him at bars, to see if he flirted with the bartenders—because some of them were definitely flirting with him. And Jared did, sure, but cautiously, not flirting with them any more than he'd always flirted with them. Jared's always kind of flirted with everyone. But Jensen's never seen him go home with a guy; either he's a seriously sneaky fucker or he's not actually getting laid. They haven't ever really talked about it, which, now that Jensen thinks about it, is kind of weird.

Now isn't the time to bring it up, though, not when Jared's in the middle of introducing him to what seems like every single person in the bar. Jensen catches about half of the names over the music—classic rock blaring loud, the way Dean would like it—and he forgets most of the names the moment he hears them. People keep buying him drinks: lots of tequila and whisky, the occasional beer. He can't turn around without someone handing him another shot. He passes some of them off to Jared but he drinks most of them himself and ends up crazy-drunk, leaning against the bar and half-listening while Jared talks to a couple of women—Ray and Mike's wives, maybe; it's hard to tell with the bar as hazy as it is and with the twinkling lights from the walls over-bright in his eyes.

Jensen talks to Ray for a while, something about fly-fishing. He's pretty sure Jared's flirting with the women, the way he always does. Ray follows where he's looking and says, "They're both single, and you know Jared ain't going for them. You want me to introduce you?"

"Nah," Jensen says, finishing off the last of his beer. "I'm good."

"You gotta get back in the game, you know?" Ray says. "You don't want to let this keep you down."

"Maybe next time," Jensen says, finishing off the last of his beer. "You want to play foosball?"

The whole time they're playing, Jared keeps flirting with those two women: grinning at them, letting them put their hands on his arm. He's good at flirting; he makes it look easy. He could definitely go home with either of them, if he wanted to. But it's not going to be an issue, and Jensen's glad when Jared comes over to him after the end of the second round of foosball and says, "Hey, you ready to call it a night?" and it's just the two of them taking a cab home.

*

After a while, Jensen's out of clean clothes. He'd do some laundry but Jared's washing machine is brand new and insanely complicated-looking, so he starts stealing Jared's t-shirts instead. The guy's probably got a hundred of them, some so old that they can't have fit Jared since he was in elementary school.

Jensen takes shirts he vaguely recognizes from the first couple seasons of Supernatural, back before Jared really started to bulk up. They fit just about right. At the start he tries to steal them when Jared isn't around, but then he gives up and starts heading for Jared's dresser first thing in the morning—it's easier. Jared puts up a token protest for a couple of days, but he doesn't really care, so Jensen makes it his goal to find the worst shirts in Jared's collection and wear them at all times.

"I didn't know you liked Fall Out Boy," Jensen says, holding up a shirt that's got a massive picture of Pete Wentz's face on it. It's one of the biggest shirts in the drawer; Jared must have bought it recently.

"Sandy dragged me to a concert last summer," Jared says.

"And you got a t-shirt?" Jensen says dubiously. An awful thought occurs to him, and he takes a closer look at the shirt. "You don't seriously think that Pete Wentz is—"

"I like their music," Jared says, sounding just about as horrified as Jensen feels. "That doesn't mean I want to—I can't even say it."

"Is it the eyeliner?" Jensen asks, shrugging the shirt on. It's kind of creepy to look down and see Pete Wentz on his chest.

"It's the not-showering-ever," Jared says. "And the ugliness. But mostly just the lice."

"You got any clean shorts?" Jensen asks. "I think Sadie puked on my jeans."

"Bottom drawer, on the left. You seriously think I would want to sleep with Pete Wentz?"

"There's no telling with you," Jensen says.

Jensen catches Jared wearing a pair of his boxers a couple days later. He lets it slide.

*

Around the middle of Jensen's second week in Texas, Megan starts coming over and playing video games with them. Her game system skills haven't really progressed past Super Nintendo, but she kicks Jared's ass at Mario.

"Aren't you supposed to have a job?" Jared grumbles when Megan beats him for the eighth time in a row.

"I'm living off your spoils," Megan says. She clicks through the game-over screen into a new game. "Jensen, you want a turn?"

"Nah, I want to watch Jared try to redeem himself. Again." Jensen's comfortable anyway, sprawled out on the couch with a beer in his hand and watching Jared and Megan on the floor, hunched up close to the screen.

"Good luck with that," Megan says.

"Your cockiness is going to be your downfall," Jared tells her, his voice deep and ominous.

"Okay, Zoltar," Megan says. "So hey, speaking of your spoils, when are you going to plan this party of yours?"

"What do you mean, plan?" Jared says. "I've already got a plan."

"Oh yeah?" Megan says, turning to raise an eyebrow at him.

"Yup," Jared says, beating her while she isn't looking. "Ha! Victory is mine."

"Your ass is going to be mine in a minute," she says, tackling him. Jared hits the floor hard, laughing, controller still in hand, while Megan tries to punch him in the stomach. Jared gets her in a headlock within thirty seconds, her legs flailing out as she tries to call a foul.

"Hey Jensen, tell Megan she should quit now if she knows what's good for her," Jared says, giving her a noogie.

"Fight to the death, Megan," Jensen says, grinning as she slips Jared's arms and gets in a couple good hits before they both fall over laughing. Jared catches Jensen's eye from the floor and grins at him, and the three beers in Jensen's stomach hit all of a sudden, make everything warmer and bright.

*

Jared's plan turns out to consist of sending a mass email to everyone he's ever met, followed by buying a lot of beer.

"You realize your birthday's still a couple weeks away, right?" Jensen says. They're standing in the beer aisle at HEB while Jared debates whether he wants the fifth thirty-brick or not.

"What about it?" Jared says.

"Do we really need to be buying the beer this far in advance?"

Jared laughs. "I was figuring we could buy some every day until then, until we've got a good stockpile going."

Jensen eyes their cart of beer. "Like—surviving a nuclear winter? That kind of stockpile?"

"We'd need a lot more beer for that," Jared says. "I think we definitely need this Natty Light." He adds it to the stack in the cart.

In the checkout line, Jared says, "So you're going to be around for this, right?"

Jensen stares at him. Jared actually looks worried. "Seriously? Dude, I'm helping you buy the beer."

"Yeah, I know," Jared says, laughing, his face relaxing into a smile. "I guess that was kind of a stupid question."

"Damn straight," Jensen says. "If I weren't coming to this party, I'd leave the beer-buying to your own ass."

Megan comes over a couple days later and makes them help her clean up the place. It's so trashed that she swears it's going to take her the next week and a half to get through to the rug.

"But it's just going to get trashed again," Jared grumbles, stacking up cardboard boxes to take out to the curb.

"Yeah, but this way, when people puke, they'll be doing it on your floor instead of on your clothes," Megan explains, handing a pile of what might or might not be clean clothes to Jensen. "Here, just throw these in Jared's closet."

"It's a whole lot easier to wash some clothes than to clean up the carpet," Jared points out.

"So what you're saying is, you want to use your own clothes as a drop-cloth," Megan says. "Gross. Although hey, a drop-cloth might not be a bad idea."

"Just don't touch the beeramid," Jared says. "Chad still wants to add to it."

"Oh my God, I'm going to have to deal with Chad?" Megan says.

"Dude, he's my friend," Jared says—my friend, not my best friend, and Jensen can't say why he pays attention to the difference, but he does.

*

Six days before Jared's birthday, he gets three scripts in the mail, one of which is marked PLEASE READ THIS!! in bold marker. As far as Jensen's aware, Jared hasn't read a single script since he's been in Texas, but he hasn't been throwing any of them away, either. Maybe he's planning on taking the whole stack outside on his birthday and lighting them on fire; Jensen wouldn't put it past him.

They've got the house about as ready as they're going to get it, including the day when Megan actually makes them get down on hands and knees and wax the wood floors. "You know I can't do it, with my knee," she says.

"You busted it in the tenth grade," Jared says.

"I think you missed a spot over there," Megan says, pointing.

Jensen's decently sure that a crowd that includes Chad isn't going to notice whether or not the wood floors are polished, but he doesn't really want to get on Megan's bad side. Still, Chad definitely isn't going to notice the floors. Steve calls to cancel a couple days before the party, but he wouldn't have noticed the floors, either.

"You drop your cell phone down the toilet or something?" Steve says by way of greeting when Jensen gets on the line.

"I think it's in Jared's dresser. Or maybe the garage." One of those for sure, anyway.

"Anyway, I'm not going to be able to make it out there this weekend," Steve says. "I'm locked into playing at L'Scorpion, can't get out of it."

"It's okay," Jensen says, leaning against the counter. He's got a piece of pizza in one hand, the phone in the other and his beer next to him; he's trying to decide if resting the phone on his shoulder and going for the beer is going to end in tragedy. "I'm pretty sure there are going to be like nine hundred people here anyway. We don't need your sorry ass."

Steve laughs. "Fuck you too, Ackles. See if we miss you out here at all. Aw, fuck that, you know we do. You coming back anytime soon?"

Jensen puts his pizza back on top of the box, wipes his greasy hand on his t-shirt—it's one of Jared's anyway—and kills his beer. "I don't know. Maybe. Not yet."

There's a pause on Steve's end. "Yeah. I figured not. You're doing all right for yourself, though, right?"

"Yeah," Jensen says. And that's the weirdest part of all: he is.

*

Jared still hasn't given up on wanting to use the porch, but he's conceded that it's too hot to be out there with clothes on, so that night they're in boxers and nothing else. Jared's got a mini-cooler full of beer beside them so they don't have to move, which is good, because Jensen's pretty sure his body's so stuck to the chair that it's going to take a crowbar to pry him loose.

"Too fucking hot to think," Jared groans, holding his beer to pulling a fresh beer out of the cooler and holding it up to his forehead.

There's no way to tell where the condensation from the beer ends and Jared's sweat begins, and it's for sure too hot to be thinking: Jensen's thoughts are sluggish right now, half-formed, and he's really not sure what makes him say, "I didn't really know what to do with myself, when Danneel broke up with me."

"Yeah," Jared says, quiet, waiting for Jensen to go on.

"It wasn't a big deal when it happened, y'know?" Jensen says. "So I guess I needed to make a big deal out of it. I just sort of—I guess I'd stopped thinking about what was going to happen if we broke up. And then when she broke up with me, it threw me off."

"You'd gotten used to it," Jared says.

"Yeah," Jensen says. The sweat's dripping in his eyes now; he wipes it off, then dries his hand on his boxers. "It was stupid. I never said it to Danneel, but I sort of figured it was going to just stay like that—I was going to act and she was going to do her thing and we were going to stay together. It seemed like a pretty good plan."

Jared's mouth curves into a smile, barely visible in the dark. "You don't always have to have everything planned, you know."

"Yeah," Jensen says. "I know." He meets Jared's eyes and smiles back at him, and there's something else he should be saying, maybe, but for the life of him he can't figure out what.

*

Most of the people who're coming for the party live in or around San Antonio. Sandy can't make it—she's filming on location somewhere in South America—but Chad shows up the night before Jared's birthday. He's only going to be there for about thirty-six hours total, but he brings two massive pieces of snakeskin luggage with him, which Jensen helps to lug out to Jared's truck in the airport parking lot.

"What the fuck did you put in this thing?" Jensen asks, voice strained as he and Jared heft it onto the truck bed.

"Tequila," Chad says. "Lots of tequila."

It turns out that Chad's brought exactly one change of clothes and a toothbrush with him. The entire remainder of the contents of his luggage is alcohol. There's some vodka in there and a couple bottles of rum, but everything else is tequila: a solid dozen handles.

"You really think we're going to go through all this?" Jensen says. He's pretty sure they could get half of San Antonio wasted with the amount of booze on Jared's kitchen counter.

"We're going to put a dent in it tonight," Chad says, picking up one of the tequila bottles. "José and I are getting this party started. Who's with us?"

"Come on, Jensen, you know you want to," Jared says, giving him a smile that pretty much kills any chance Jensen might have had of protesting.

By the time the bottle's empty, Chad's a whole lot less of a douche. It's like the tequila took away everything that sucked about Chad, or maybe it's just that you have to be drunk to understand Chad's humor, but either way the dude's hilarious now.

"This is the best beeramid ever," Chad says, pointing at it. His arm flails out so wildly that he nearly knocks it over. "The only thing that would make it better would a tequilamid next to it. It could be like the Great Pyramids."

"But in Texas, and with beer," Jensen says.

"Exactly!" Chad says. "We need more bottles for the tequilamid. Where's the tequila?"

"Still on the counter," Jared says from where he's lying on the floor. "Hasn't moved."

"It's going to now!" Chad says, pivoting toward the kitchen. "C'mon, Jensen, help me out."

By the time they're halfway through the second bottle, all three of them are lying on their backs on the floor. Jensen's staring straight up at the ceiling, but it keeps trying to shift around on him, slide down the walls. "How come your ceiling is yellow?" Chad says.

"Because you're looking through the tequila bottle, douche," Jared tells him.

Jensen rolls over to look at Chad. The dude really does have the tequila bottle on top of his eyes. "Oh yeah," Chad says, letting it fall to the floor. "I like tequila. It's good for the ladies. You having luck with the ladies?"

"Chad's got a wife," Jared says, like Jensen hasn't already met Kenzie more than once. "He's not getting with any ladies."

"Says the gay dude," Chad says, flipping Jared the bird. Jensen's pretty sure Jared doesn't notice. "So hey, Jensen, you having any luck with the ladies?"

"Nah," Jensen says. "Haven't really been looking."

Chad tries to prop himself up on his arm, except he overbalances and ends up falling back onto the floor. "But you could have the ladies," he says, looking deeply confused.

"Yeah, sure," Jensen says. "I guess." The ceiling's tilted back toward the right place, staying firmly overhead.

"I'm drunk," Jared says from next to Chad. "I think we need more booze. What became of the booze?"

Jensen picks up the tequila from where it's fallen at Chad's side and rolls over to give it to Jared. He rolls too far and just stays there for a minute, leaning into Jared's side. Jared's smiling up at him and Jensen wants something, he doesn't know what, but then Jared pries the bottle out of Jensen's hand and says, "More booze," and that's what Jensen wanted, it's got to be.

*

They end up passing out a little after one, with the second bottle of tequila empty on the floor, and Jensen's hung-over in the morning. It's not terrible, but it still takes him fifteen minutes to work up to getting out of bed. When he stumbles into the kitchen, though, there are a bunch of pans in the sink, and Chad's handing him a plate of huevos rancheros.

"What the hell?" Jensen says.

"This is why Chad gets to stay," Jared says. "Chad knows how to cook."

"No, really, what the hell?" Jensen repeats.

"Give it a try, fucker," Chad says, pushing a cup of coffee under Jensen's nose.

Jensen takes the plate and the coffee and sits down across from Jared. The huevos rancheros smell surprisingly good. They are surprisingly good. It's like Chad has whole new depths no one ever told Jensen about. It's kind of blowing Jensen's mind.

"Hey," Jensen says, realizing in the middle of his third plate of huevos rancheros. "I never said happy birthday. So, happy birthday."

Jared laughs and says thanks, and Jensen's got the urge to get up and give him a hug. So he does. Jared looks a little surprised for a second, but then he leans into it. Chad's looking at them from across the counter and when he catches Jensen's eye he's got kind of a funny expression on his face, like something just pinched him.

"So hey," Jared says, pulling back, "you both up for heading over to my parents' house for lunch?" and Jensen's not looking at Chad anymore but Chad's still looking at him strangely; he can tell.

"Sure," Jensen says. "Sounds like a plan."

"Birthday lunch with beef brisket," Jared says.

"Definitely sounds like a plan," Jensen revises.

Sherri meets them with a cake, candles lit, and makes Jared blow them out before he even gets through the door. Megan tries to smack him on the butt with a wooden spoon—"Twenty-eight smacks for your birthday!"—but Jared evades her and they get right to work stuffing themselves for three solid hours. Jared's parents send them back over to the house with Megan, to make sure everything's ready for the party.

"What else is there to do, really?" Jared says when they get back through the door.

Chad pulls a can of Budweiser out of the fridge and hands it to Jared. "Man up, bitch. Start drinking."

By the time people start showing up, Jensen's got a pretty good buzz going. That's bad news, because the party's not supposed to start until sometime after nine, and it's only about seven right now. "What happened to fashionably late?" he asks Jared.

Jared shrugs. "Free booze."

"We're not in high school anymore, dude," Jensen says.

"Free beer never loses its appeal," Jared says.

"So you're telling me that when you're eighty, you're still going to be breaking out of the rest home to crash keggers."

"With my walker and all." Jared grins, then yells across the room. "Hey Ray, stick the keg by the washing machine, okay?" He tones his voice back down, picking up a couple of beers. "All right, Jensen. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to pound this beer."

"I choose to accept it," Jensen says, cracking open the can.

He completely loses track of time after that. Somehow it goes from still light outside to pitch black while he isn't paying attention. He might have been in the middle of a game of beer pong. He's played five or six games by now, maybe eight, but Ray and Dave just finally beat him and Jared, so they head out the door toward the backyard. It's so dark out now that Jensen trips on something he can't see on the ground, but Jared catches him by the arm before he can really stumble. Jensen's flushed from playing all that beer pong; his arm is too warm where Jared's touching him.

There's a bunch of people out back, faces golden in the light from the tiki torches one of Jared's friends had brought with her. The air smells strongly of pot, probably because Dave's holding a piece under his nose.

"Want a hit?" he asks. Up this close Jensen can see just how red Dave's eyes are.

"Nah, that's okay," Jensen says. "There any beer left out here?"

"Cooler's by the door," Dave says, gesturing with the piece.

Chad's sitting on top of the cooler when Jensen gets over there, eyes closed and leaning against the side of the house. He looks like he's asleep, or possibly dead. "Can I get a beer?" Jensen says.

Chad tries to stand up but instead falls off the side of the cooler. Jensen snags a can of Natty Light out of the melted ice, then takes a closer look at Chad. "You got a concussion or something?"

"I'm good," Chad says, struggling upright. "I'm the master. I'm the total fucking master."

"Yuh-huh," Jensen says.

"I meant to tell you before," Chad says. "You're not going to hurt him, right? Because if you hurt him, I'm going to rip your balls off with my teeth."

Jensen winces at the thought. "Hurt who? What the fuck are you talking about?"

But just then one of Jared's friends grabs a tiki torch out of the ground and yells, "Follow me! I will lead the way to victory!" and another of them says, "We're going streaking!" and Chad's gone, whooping and shedding his t-shirt as he runs after them. Jensen turns toward the house, because Chad's going to lose the pants in a minute and there are some things he never wants to see.

Back in the house someone's started an argument about how San Antonio's better than Dallas, which, fuck that. Jensen doesn't have any idea who either of the guys in the argument is, but one of them is wrong, and he's pretty sure he and the other guy are getting a good way toward convincing him. But then a second keg appears in the middle of the room, completely out of nowhere, like the floor opened up and it rose on a pedestal—which, damn, Jared totally should have told Jensen that his house had a secret basement full of kegs—and by the time Jensen's got a new beer in his hand, the guys he was arguing with have disappeared.

Jensen just ends up wandering around the party for a while after that, talking to whoever's near him. There are a lot of people near him; the house is freaking packed. It's kind of impressive, since there are some days when the place feels small with just him and Jared and the dogs in it, but everybody's got a beer in their hands or a shotglass, except for Chad, who's wearing nothing but his boxers and has a bottle of tequila duct taped to each hand; there's no way that's not going to end badly, but Chad's a cockroach, no fucking way to kill him.

By the time Jensen finishes his beer he's made an entire round of the room, and he hasn't seen Jared since beer pong. It's kind of weird, since Jared's such a freaking giant, towering over everyone—but he's nowhere in the room; he's gone completely M.I.A. Maybe he's outside and Jensen just didn't see him, or maybe he's gone back out to play more beer pong; Jensen's about to go looking for him, but then the crowd shifts and Jensen can see him across the room, plastic cup in hand and gesturing wildly, and Jensen grins and makes right for him.

There are a bunch of people in the way, and Jensen has to veer around the keg and work back toward where he saw Jared—but by the time he's getting close Jared's in the middle of a conversation a couple of guys Jensen thinks he's maybe seen before, that night at the bar, maybe, and something makes him hang back instead of walking right up to Jared.

So he stands off to the side and watches Jared talk to them. It's too loud and Jensen's too far away to be able to hear what they're saying, but Jared's looking at one of them intently while he talks. The guy's good-looking, lots of gel in his hair, and he's standing right up next to Jared, laughing at everything Jared says, leaning in toward Jared when he laughs.

Someone bumps into Jensen's side, and Jensen looks toward whoever it is: Ray, hitting his beer against Jensen's. "You having a good time?"

"Sure," Jensen says. "Awesome." Now Jared's laughing and the new guy's grinning right at Jared, and Jared's flirting with him—not any different than Jared ever talks to anybody, but the guy's right up in Jared's personal space and doesn't seem to be making any move away, and Jared's letting him go for it, and Jensen's irrationally angry all of a sudden, wants to go tell the guy to back the fuck off.

"No, really," Ray yells in his ear. "You having a good time?"

Across the room, Jared's still laughing at something the guy says, putting his hand on the guy's shoulder. "Sure," Jensen says to Ray.

Ray grabs Jensen's chin and stares right into his eyes. "You're not having a good time. We gotta make you have a good time!"

"That's okay, you really don't," Jensen says, shrugging free.

"I'll be right back," Ray says, hitting Jensen's chest. "Right back. Don't move."

"Okay," Jensen says, watching Ray weave through the crowd. He loses track of him after a second, though, and looks back at Jared. The guy's leaning on Jared's side now, and it's making Jensen clench his beer too tightly in his hand, crumpling the aluminum a little—it's a full beer, he doesn't even know where he picked it up, but he drinks a couple sips so it doesn't spill. He's got the urge to go punch the guy in the face, and it doesn't make a damned bit of sense. The guy's flirting with Jared, but everyone in the damned world flirts with Jared, and Jensen doesn't want to punch everyone in the damned world. Right now he kind of wants to punch anyone within range, but that's just the beer talking, and he's not going to punch anyone, because Ray's back at his side, and he's got a girl with him: brown hair, brown eyes, glossy lips, seriously hot.

"This is Tracy," Ray says. "Tracy, I want you to meet Jensen."

"Hey," she says, holding out her hand. Jensen takes it. Her hand is small and warm in his, a little sweaty, and she's smiling at him—not a huge smile, but a small one, just enough to let him know that he could sleep with her, if he wanted to. And for a moment he considers it: the way her breasts would feel pressed against him, her mouth opening under his—

For a moment he considers it, but then there's someone gripping his other arm. He turns and there's Megan; she appeared out of nowhere, like some kind of ninja. "Sorry to interrupt," she says, "but Jensen, I need to borrow you for a minute."

"You need to—" Jensen looks between her and Tracy. Tracy's still giving him that same small smile, but it falters a little when he glances at Megan. Megan's staring him down evenly, the same look she gives him and Jared when she's making them clean up the house—the look that means they're going to end up doing what she wants eventually anyway so they might as well go ahead and give in now.

"I'll be right back," Jensen says, and lets Megan drag him toward the corner.

Once they're more or less out of the way she glares at him and says, "What the fuck are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"With that girl," Megan says. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Jensen glances back over at Tracy and Ray. She's flirting with Ray now, hand on his arm, and that should make Jensen want to punch Ray. It really should, except it doesn't; it doesn't make him want to do anything at all. He could have had his chance with her, and now it looks like that chance is shot—and he's fine with it.

"Nothing," Jensen says. "I wasn't going to do anything with her." And it's true: even if Megan hadn't interrupted him, he wouldn't have slept with Tracy. He wasn't going to go through with it, and it's fucking with his head a little, because she's just his type, just the kind of woman he'd go for.

Megan stares at him dubiously for a while, until suddenly her mouth falls open. "Oh my God. You don't get it, do you?"

Jensen stares right back at her. "What don't I get?"

Megan just starts laughing. "Oh, Jensen. Jared's in love with you."

Somehow it takes the words a long time to get through his head, so he's just staring at Megan stupidly until finally he understands what she said. "He's what?"

"In love with you," Megan says patiently.

Jensen's drunk. He's drunk and it's taking all of his concentration to keep his eyes on Megan's face and not let them slide off somewhere to the right, and even though he heard what she said twice now he still can't really make total sense of it. "He told you so?"

Megan's mouth quirks down. "He didn't have to," she says. "Just look at him."

And it's like some greater force is controlling his body, because without consciously moving Jensen's managed to turn all the way around and look across the room at Jared—and the guy's still leaning all over Jared's side but Jared isn't looking at the guy. He's looking across the room at Jensen and smiling, and Jensen gets it all of a sudden, completely gets it: what the tight feeling in his stomach means, why he wants to punch the guy for being anywhere near Jared, why Jared's the first person he looks for when he enters a room. He hadn't ever thought about it before but now that he has he gets it, and he can't help smiling back at Jared, his own grin widening as Jared's does.

"And unless I'm really, really mistaken, I think you're in love with him, too," Megan says beside him, and Jensen can't even look away from Jared long enough to answer, because yeah, that's it: he's in love with Jared. He'd completely missed it before, but he is, and probably that should freak him out but somehow there's no room to feel anything but this crazy joy in his stomach that's pushing its way up and out of him, laughter he can't stop. He's still grinning at Jared and he probably looks like he's insane but he doesn't even care.

Jensen finally manages to look away from him long enough to say turn back to Megan. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I guess you, uh."

"Don't mention it," she says. "Just don't do anything stupid, okay, Ackles? Or else I might have to kick your ass."

"Nothing stupid," Jensen says. "Got it." And then he turns and makes for Jared.

It's hard to move through the crowd—it's like the room's gotten even bigger somehow and even more packed with people—and Jensen has to go right past the keg on the way. The keg's still full, so Jensen gets another beer and drinks it, and just when he finishes the last sip he's made it across the room and he's in front of Jared.

"Hey," Jared says, smiling—it's like the dude never stops smiling, and Jensen can't stop smiling either, not when Jared's smiling. "Haven't seen you in a while. You been having fun?"

"Yeah," Jensen says, trying to step toward Jared and misjudging the distance, hitting against his side. "Totally having fun. C'mere, I want to talk to you."

"Not here?" Jared says.

"Nope," Jensen says cheerfully. "C'mon, this way, I'll show you."

Jared's maybe making a joke—"You know I live here too, right?"—but he's following Jensen toward the hall and then down to Jared's room at the end. They've got it shut off with a big sign on it so no one will go inside, but the sign's not for them, and Jensen gets them both inside and shuts the door behind them, then slumps with his back against it for a second, getting steady again.

"You okay?" Jared says, and when Jensen opens his eyes Jared's way too close to him. He's got a hand on Jensen's shoulder and he's looking straight into Jensen's face and he's right fucking there—and Jensen kisses him.

He doesn't quite hit Jared's mouth. He catches the corner of it, but then he shifts to the side, gets his mouth on top of Jared's—and Jared's hands are on his chest, pushing him away.

"Jensen?" Jared says, staring at him. "What are you—"

"Just wanted to," Jensen says, going for Jared's mouth again, but Jared holds him back, won't let him get close enough, and Jensen can't tell anything from his face; it's all closed off.

"You're drunk," Jared says.

"Yup!" Jensen agrees. "It's all your fault. You're like the evil overlord of beer."

"I'm the what?" Jared says, laughing a little even though he looks like he doesn't mean to.

"All the beer in your basement," Jensen explains. "You're holding it captive."

"I take it back," Jared says, pushing the hair off his forehead. "You're trashed."

"Yup," Jensen says. He's got a tense feeling in his stomach again, working its way up, but it's not the same as before—not the incontrollable laughter—because Jared's holding him out at arm's length and Jared isn't letting Jensen kiss him, but the feeling moves further up anyway, doesn't feel nearly as good as the laughter did— "I'm think I'm gonna hurl," Jensen says.

"Ugh, okay, come on," Jared says, hustling Jensen toward the bathroom. Jensen makes it in time but the toilet's kind of a little target, so he goes for the bathtub instead, kneeling on the bathmat and leaning over the side. It feels like he can't stop puking, even after he's pretty sure he puked up everything he's eaten in the past week. Jared sits on the edge of the bathtub and pats his back while he dry-heaves.

"You gonna be okay?" Jared says after Jensen's stomach stops trying to make abortive attempts to escape out of his throat.

"Yeah," Jensen says. "I'm good."

"Okay, here," Jared says, getting up and turning on the sink. "You want to drink this."

Jensen shakes his head. He feels a whole lot better, but he's still pretty sure he'd puke anything right back up.

"It's water, dude. You'll seriously regret this in the morning if you don't drink it."

"Not gonna regret this," Jensen says, looking right at Jared so maybe he'll get it. "Nope."

Jared's not really looking at him. "Just drink the water for me."

Jensen gets a couple sips down. "More in a minute," he says.

"Okay," Jared says. "Come on, let's get you in bed. Up you go."

"Not tired," Jensen says, slumping against Jared's side.

"Yeah, actually, I think you really are," Jared says, helping him onto the bed. Jared tries to get him under the covers for about a second before he gives up. "Here, help me get your jeans off."

Jensen tries and fails to raise his head. "You tryin' to flirt with me, Jared?"

"You got puke on them," Jared says, getting the fly undone without touching Jensen's dick at all. "Come on, lift your hips up for me."

Jensen does, and Jared pulls the jeans all the way down. "You gonna sleep here?"

"Sure," Jared says. "Whatever. Go to sleep, Jensen."

"'M not gonna regret this in the morning," Jensen says into the pillow, but if Jared says anything back, he doesn't hear it.

*

Jared's right: the next morning, Jensen is seriously regretting not having drunk the rest of that water. He wakes up alone on top of Jared's bed with his face mushed into Jared's pillow, so he can smell his own breath, and his breath smells like ass. He spends about fifteen seconds trying to convince himself it's not that bad, he can just go back to sleep, but no, he really can't. He rolls off the side of the side of the bed and nearly brains himself on the nightstand. He's maybe still a little drunk.

Jensen's got a big fucking headache and for a moment there throwing up is looking distinctly likely, but then the urge passes. The bathtub's clear of puke—Jensen vaguely remembers Jared running water in it last night, now that he thinks about it, but that was pretty near the end, just before Jensen fell asleep. That's the only part of the night he doesn't really remember. He might have drunk his weight in beer last night, but he remembers everything else he did—remembers that conversation with Megan, remembers trying to kiss Jared, remembers Jared pushing him away—and fuck, he's more or less sober now and he's still in love with Jared. It's daytime, the sunlight in Jared's bathroom too bright in Jensen's eyes, and there's no way of going back and making him not realize he's in love with Jared; there's no way of making it untrue. It makes him breathe a little funny, his heart gone staccato in his chest.

He makes himself brush his teeth about eight times before he goes looking for Jared; by the end of it his mouth almost tastes normal again. The hallway's pretty trashed and the kitchen's no different, but everyone seems to have left the party at some point—presumably sometime between when Jensen was puking into Jared's bathtub and now—which, according to Jared's microwave, is 1:19 p.m., so they kind of had plenty of time for it.

Jared still isn't anywhere to be seen, but there's a note on the counter in his handwriting:

Gone for food. Back soon. Don't kill Chad.

"Don't kill Chad," Jensen repeats under his breath. He doesn't see Chad anywhere, but then there's a huge snore from the ground and then Jensen recognizes the shape on the floor, mostly covered with beer cans and a blanket. While Jensen's watching he rolls completely over onto his back, crushing beer cans underneath him, and starts pissing himself.

"Aww, dude, seriously?" Jensen says. "Chad. Chad. Come on, at least go to the bathroom or something."

Chad murmurs something incomprehensible. Then he gets up, still pissing, and lumbers toward the hallway. Halfway there he lurches toward the corner, curls up in the fetal position, and goes back to sleep.

"That's fucking rank," Jensen tells him, but Chad's out for the count.

Jensen feels about eight times more disgusting having just watched that, so he heads for the back and takes a long shower, standing under the hot water until he's most of the way to boneless. After that he brushes his teeth a couple more times for good measure and gets dressed, and then he just sits on the edge of the bed and waits for Jared.

Harley and Sadie wander into the room after a couple minutes and nudge him until he starts patting them, so that keeps him busy for a while. Jared's dogs are attention fiends—you pat them on the head a couple of times and they think that means you want to play with them for the rest of their natural lives—so that's how he ends up on the floor, giving belly rubs to both dogs at the same time, when Jared walks back in.

Jensen sees Jared's shadow before he actually sees Jared, and even that's enough to make his breath hitch a little. Jensen waits until Jared speaks to look up. "Hey man, how are you feeling this morning?"

It's worse when Jensen looks up. He'd known he was still in love with Jared but that's not the same thing as actually being in the same place and looking at him and knowing it, and there's a moment where Jensen's decently sure he's not going to be able to say anything at all.

"Good," Jensen says finally. "I'm good. A little hung-over, maybe. You seen Chad yet?"

"On the floor in the den, yeah. He'll be fine." Jared squats down on the ground and starts scratching behind Harley's ears; Harley lets out a huge sigh and arches up into the touch.

"He pissed himself," Jensen says, watching Jared's fingers move against Harley's skull. "Like, twenty minutes ago."

"That's sort of par for the course," Jared says, then pauses. "So really, you're okay?"

"Yeah," Jensen says, swallowing. And then, because he's got some crazy compulsion to bring this all up, he says, "So uh. About last night—"

"Don't worry about it," Jared says right away. "You were pretty trashed, man. Everybody pukes when they're drunk sometimes."

"I'm not talking about when I puked," Jensen says. "But thanks for that. Making sure I was okay, I mean."

"No problem. But I mean it," Jared says, not quite looking Jensen in the eye. "You were drunk, so whatever happened, you know. It's fine."

For a second Jensen just stares at him and doesn't get it. And then he does: Jared's giving him an out. If he wanted to, Jensen could crack some joke about doing stupid shit when they're drunk, we're cool, right?, and Jared would slap him on the back and probably make a joke of his own and they'd be fine again. That could happen.

But instead Jensen opens his mouth and says, "I meant to do it. Last night. It was on purpose. I talked to Megan, and she said that you, uh." He tries to say that you were in love with me but he can't seem to get it out. He shoves his hands into his pockets for something to do with them, so maybe he won't look quite so much like he's ready to bolt at any moment, and then he tries again. "I wanted to punch that guy who was talking to you last night."

Jared cocks his head to the side. "What? Why?"

"Yeah, it didn't make any frigging sense to me either," Jensen says, laughing a little—nervous laughter, even though the whole situation is pretty fucking funny too, if he thinks about it. "I didn't have any idea why I wanted to do that, and then Megan pulled me aside and told me I was being stupid, and then I got it."

Jared's still looking at him like it doesn't quite translate.

"I was jealous," Jensen says, and that should be clear, it has to be. But Jared's still not getting it, and Jared's about a foot away from him again, close enough to reach—so Jensen leans over and kisses him. He gets Jared's mouth this time, lips warm against his own but not responding, and maybe he's wrong about this whole damned thing; maybe Jared doesn't want him at all, maybe Megan was just making things up and Jensen was just believing it because he wanted to believe it, because even if Jared isn't in love with him he's still in love with Jared—

Finally Jensen pulls back to look at him. They can go back from this if they have to; they can, it would just be really awkward—but then Jensen looks at Jared, really looks at him, and sees how wide Jared's eyes have gone, the bit of hope in them. "You—really?" Jared says, reaching out a hand like he means to put it on Jensen's shoulder and isn't sure if he can actually do it. "You mean it?"

"Yeah," Jensen says. "I mean it."

"Oh," Jared says. "Oh." And his face goes so bright that if Jensen could make him look like that all the time he doesn't know how anyone in the world could ever be unhappy; he doesn't know how anyone in the world could ever need electricity, because Jared's smile is just that bright. Then Jared's hands are on Jensen's shoulders and he's pulling him in closer and they're kissing, mouths open and tongues sliding together and Jensen can't think of anything he's ever wanted as much as this.

After a few seconds, Jared pulls away and looks Jensen straight in the eye. "You're really serious," he says. "I mean, right? You're really serious?"

"If you ask me again, I'm not really seriously not going to make out with you any more," Jensen tells him, and that does the trick: makes Jared kiss him again and laugh a little against Jensen's mouth and shut right the fuck up, and it's pretty damned awesome when he does.

*

They throw Chad on a plane at nine that night, along with his now-empty suitcases. He looks like death. "I bequeath the tequilamid to you, King Tut," Chad says to Jared, saluting with a cowboy hat he totally didn't have when he arrived.

"Let me know when you get back," Jared says.

"Nah, I'm going to be too busy screwing Kenzie," Chad says. "Hey, speaking of screwing, you're going to get on that now, right?"

"What are you talking—" Jared starts, but then Chad grins and makes an obscene gesture, and oh yeah, the meaning's clear, and Jensen's turning just as red as Jared is.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Chad says. "See you bitches later!" And then he's in the security line and gone.

"I'm sort of going to miss that fucker," Jensen says. It says a lot about his life that that's only the second biggest realization he's had in the past twenty-four hours.

They take it slow. Jensen spends a week learning just the way Jared likes to be jerked off (quick and dirty), where to bite him to make him arch off the bed (on the collarbone, below the ear) and how many times Jensen can make him come in one morning (record so far: three). When Jared's jerking Jensen off, he likes to get his fingers slick with pre-come and roll them over Jensen's balls until Jensen shoots all over his own stomach, Jared's hand, the bedspread.

"That's like the tenth time you've shot all over the comforter," Jared says. "What's so awesome about the comforter?"

"It's the goose down," Jensen says, too fucked-out to move, even though they both know it's not the goose down. It's that once Jared gets his hands on him, Jensen's pretty much incapable of thought, and Jared's pretty bad about paying attention to how maybe they shouldn't get come on the comforter or the kitchen cabinets or the carpet. "I'll get you a new one," he offers.

"Eh," Jared says. "We'd probably jizz all over that one, too. Not much point."

Jensen's spending pretty much all of his time these days smiling stupidly at anything in his path: Jared's dogs, the yard, the walls. It's a little ridiculous. They make out for long minutes in the mornings, letting the coffee go cold, and once they forget about dinner in the middle of cooking it and set the smoke alarm off. Jared wants to try things sometimes—playing with Jensen's nipples, sitting on top of him naked and sliding their cocks together—and since Jared's ideas consistently lead to fucking awesome orgasms, Jensen's willing to go along with it all.

A couple weeks in, Jared looks at Jensen and says, "So hey, I want try something, but I don't want to freak you out."

Jensen was in the middle of getting a pretty damned good blowjob, and his cock's still straining back toward Jared's mouth, even though Jared's still got it in his hand and is stroking lazily. "Go on," Jensen says. He'd say pretty much anything to get back to that blowjob.

"Okay," Jared says. "I want to fuck you."

And Jensen immediately blows his load all over Jared's face.

"Huh," Jared says, wiping his face with his hand and licking the come off his fingers. "So I guess that's a yes?"

"Guess so," Jensen says. His cock's still twitching a little with the aftershocks.

He's pretty sure there's supposed to be a big gay freak-out about wanting a cock up his ass, but he's already given Jared a bunch of blowjobs and also one of his first Hollywood girlfriends was pretty kinky and he let her stick a couple fingers up his ass once—it freaked the hell out of him, then, how much he liked it, but maybe that's his big gay freak-out over and done with, and there's not much point in freaking out about wanting gay sex when he's already in love with a dude, anyway, so he rolls over onto all fours.

"Now?" Jared says.

"Or next week," Jensen says. "Either one."

Jared's clumsy with the K-Y, so Jensen ends up with about half the tube of it all over his ass, but when Jared fingers him open and then fucks into him it's so damned good Jensen can't even get whole sentences out to make fun of him. They collapse onto the bed afterwards in a mess of sweat and come and lube and pass right out, and even when Jensen wakes up in the wet spot in the middle of the night with crud dried all over him, there's nowhere he'd rather be.

*

Neither of them's really saying anything about it, but as the summer's winding down they're both starting to get a little antsy. It doesn't have anything to do with them, but Jensen starts running with Jared in the mornings, like maybe pushing through the burn in his legs will make everything clearer for him afterwards. That doesn't happen, but Jared's right, the fucker: running does get easier when he's doing it all the time.

Megan comes over pretty often and makes kissy-faces at them, which tends to lead to Jensen turning bright red and Jared putting her in a headlock.

"You got any plans for your life, Monkeyface?" Jared says one of those times, giving her a noogie.

"Call me Monkeyface again and I will end you," Megan says, mock serious, smoothing her hair down after Jared lets her free. "And yeah, actually. You're looking at a seventh grade geography teacher, starting next week."

"Seriously?" Jared says.

"Yep," Megan says. "You gonna help me move to Dallas?"

"You're moving to Dallas?" Jared says. "It's like you're grown up or something."

"Crazy, huh," she says, and Jensen can envision it all of a sudden: Megan in the front of a classroom, pointing at something on a map of the world, knowing exactly what she's doing. He gets a lump in his throat, a little—it's like she's not just Jared's kid sister, she's his too. "You're going to help, right?"

"You know it," Jared says, laughing. "Even though you're just using us for our brute strength."

"You caught me," Megan admits. "I'm completely taking advantage of you. I'm living on the third floor, and I want my couch."

On the fourth week of August they move Megan into her apartment. It's fucking blazing outside, so hot that Jensen soaks his shirt the second they get out of the car, and if they could find a way to siphon the sweat off Jared they could probably end the statewide drought, but they get her moved in all right. Jared's parents take them all to dinner, and afterwards, as they're about to leave Megan to her new apartment and her new job, she hugs each of them close.

"I guess you're kind of okay, Ackles," Megan says to him, holding onto his arms and looking at him. "Take care of yourself, and keep an eye on this loser for me, okay?" She nods at Jared.

"I'll do my best," Jensen says. "And hey, Megan? Thanks." He doesn't even have to say what for; she's smiling at him fondly. She gets it.

*

A couple of days after that, Jensen gets back from the grocery store and finds Jared nose deep in the pile of scripts. "How many of those have you read there, buddy boy?" Jensen says, setting down the bags of milk and steak.

Jared starts. "Jesus, didn't hear you. Uh, just the one, actually. I started a couple of the others, but yeah." He holds up the script in his hands: it's the one marked READ THIS IMMEDIATELY!!!

"How long ago did that come for you? Like, three weeks ago? Five?"

Jared checks the date on the cover page and winces. "Seven. I was kind of thinking about other things, I guess."

"Guess so," Jensen says, opening the freezer. "So hey, you want T-bones or ribeye?"

"T-bones," Jared says. "Hey, Jensen?"

"Yeah?" Jensen says. There's some note in Jared's voice that compels him to turn around, so he does—and Jared looks like he's terrified and amazed all at once.

"I think I want to do this," Jared says. "I mean—I think I want to make this movie."

"Okay," Jensen says evenly. "So make the movie. Can I read the script?"

Jared looks like there's something else he wants to say, but he just says, "Sure. Read it."

They grill the T-bones and eat them with fresh bread and Caesar salad—Megan threatened to come after them if they didn't eat their vegetables—and afterwards, Jensen sits on the couch with a couple beers and reads the script. It's a war movie, World War I in the trenches. It's fucking awesome.

"So you're making this movie," Jensen says. "Like, this isn't a debate. You're making this movie."

"Yup," Jared says, staring off into space and looking a whole lot like someone he knows just died.

"Dude, snap out of it. You've got a fucking awesome script, and you want to do this, right?"

"Yup."

"I'm totally not seeing the problem," Jensen says. "Really. There is no bad here."

"Really?" Jared says. "Because I'd be in L.A. Also possibly France, but mostly L.A."

"Generally that is how movies happen," Jensen says. "They put you on a set, and you film them. You're still all emo, dude. You want me to get you your Pete Wentz shirt?"

"Jensen," Jared says. "You don't get it. I'm going to be in L.A., and you're going to be here, and I don't want to do that. That would suck."

Jensen just laughs. He can't help it; it's too easy. "Dude, okay, I like Texas and all, but if you're going to be in L.A.? I've lived there before, you know. I think I can probably handle it again."

Jared stares at him hard. "Really? I mean, you—really?"

"Nah, I'm just saying it to keep you from busting out the eyeliner," Jensen says, quirking his mouth to the side so Jared knows he's kidding. "Yes, fine. If you're going to L.A. I'll go with you. You happy?"

Jared slides across the couch and kisses him hard, so Jensen's taking that as a yes.

"God, you don't even—I spent the whole afternoon freaking out about that," Jared says, laughing a little and resting his head against Jensen's shoulder. "And then you just say fine, you'll go with me."

"Well, yeah," Jensen says. "I guess I like you. Kind of."

Jared kisses him again. "Kind of?"

Jensen kisses him back. "Maybe a little more than kind of."

"So you're really going to move back to L.A. with me? Are we going to move in together, then?"

Jensen raises an eyebrow at him. "Didn't we kind of do that already?"

"Huh," Jared says. "I guess we did." He kisses Jensen again for a long moment, hands on Jensen's face. "But hey, what are we going to do about the house here?"

Jensen rests his forehead against Jared's. "Well," he says. "I mean, you could keep it, you know. It's not like Texas is going anywhere. We can always come back."

Jared laughs and kisses him again, pressing him down into the couch, and in that moment Jensen's completely certain that even if he had to follow Jared to Siberia, it'd all be worth it to have this.