InsaneJournal

FIC: Let's Just Say I'm Doing Fine
Title: Let's Just Say I'm Doing Fine
Author: cormallen
Pairing, rating: Jared/Jensen, R
Length: 3,440 words
Summary: Monday morning, Jensen wakes up still tired, achy in all the wrong places, and feeling decidedly sick of everything.
A/N: Contains implied Jared/Sandy and Jensen/Danneel. This isn't one of the fics I still owe (those of you I owe them to: they're coming very soon, I promise). It grew out of a chat rejeneration and I had about messy realism and imperfect relationships – or, rather, I rambled and Jen listened with gentle good humor. She was also lovely enough to whip my draft into shape, for which I am extremely grateful.



Monday morning, Jensen wakes up still tired, achy in all the wrong places, and feeling decidedly sick of everything.

"Jared," he calls without opening his eyes. "Jared!"

There's no answer. He rolls to his stomach, feels Jared's side of the bed, cold, spare blanket balled up, dimly remembering Jared leaving at around three the night before, I gotta, I'll call you, ok, Jen?

He opens one eye experimentally and quickly shuts it again. His temples ache, a dull steady throb with a heavy echo, little waves of pressure rolling through like high tide. His mouth is dry, bitter; they'd still been drinking at two, a glass in his hand right up until the cab ride.

He counts backwards from ten and blinks, once, twice, letting his eyes get used to the feeling, reaches for his glasses on the bedside table.

The room shifts from smudged to solid. The digital clock reads eleven thirty. A bright spot of sunlight is dancing on the whitewashed wall, over the faded grey boot print from when Chad had been thinking of taking karate, and the framed photo of the three of them in Miami four years ago. Jared had added a green Sharpie mustache to Chad's face, pointed ears and horns to his own, with a black eyepatch over Jensen's left eye -- green failing to cover it completely.

Jensen searches the nightstand for his phone, but seeing Jared's huge happy grin and stupid horns makes it harder to plan what he's going to say, and he takes his finger off the speed dial. There are more pictures of their last spring break in one of the desk drawers and tacked up with cheap, vaguely Florida-shaped magnets on the fridge. He'd tried taking those down once, but Jared made puppy eyes the next time he was over, pouted and sulked until Jensen caved and brought them back out.

---

The phone goes straight to voicemail, the long-time familiar message Jared faithfully re-records from phone to phone, Hello. Hello? Hello! Nope, doesn't look like I'm in right now. Maybe you should leave a message, or call back later. That very same message, with adjustments from "I" to "we", was their outgoing when the three of them still shared the apartment, identical to the one on Sandy and Jared's current landline.

Jensen breathes into the phone, long heavy sniffs, and hangs up. He doesn't want to do this over voicemail.

---

He pads over to the kitchen in his boxers, and spends a long time staring into the fridge, arm leaning heavily on the door. There's a carton of eggs on the top shelf next to a package of cold cuts. Cheese, milk, lettuce, the remains of yesterday's takeout in a Styrofoam box. The smell of food makes Jensen feel nauseous. In the end, he pulls out a bottle of orange juice and rifles through the cabinets for aspirin, swallows without bothering to pour the juice into a glass.

In the pictures on the fridge, Chad is making faces over Jensen's shoulder and Jared has his arms tight around them both, like they'll bolt if he suddenly lets go. That break was the last time they were all roommates together, freshly tanned seniors in sandals and shorts, before Jared's internship at McCoy, McCoy and Pierce. Before Chad's two attempts to move out, first to Sophia's, until they split after four months, then into a housing development east of the river.

Jared was still living with Jensen when Chad stopped in to drop off his keys (mailbox, front door and downstairs), three silver flashes dangling from his fingers.

"Don't worry, we'll save your room for you," Jared promised, mock-sincere, when Chad dropped the keychain into Jensen's proffered palm.

"Blow me, man," Chad snorted back. "Oh, right, I forgot, you only do that for Ackles. Anyway, see you two losers at the housewarming."

"I'm gonna miss him," Jared laughed when the front door snapped shut, and Jensen rolled his eyes.

Jared didn't move in with Sandy McCoy until much later. And he kept his key when he left.

---

"Come on, Jared, it's me. Call me when you get this," Jensen tells Jared's voicemail at a quarter to one, and sets the coffee pot to brew. His stomach doesn't like this new smell any better than it liked the last, and Jensen rushes to open the kitchen window, to take in heavy gulps of cold air.

Jared still won't answer his phone at one thirty. Jensen leaves another message, thumbs through his contacts and calls Sandy, even though he knows he shouldn't.

"Jensen, how are you?" she chirps before he has a chance to say hello, and even though he knows she can see his name on the display, it still feels vaguely uncomfortable.

"Doing good, thanks. Hey, Sandy, is Jared around?"

"No, he went out. Did you have plans? He didn't mention anything."

"No, I -- I thought we -- guess I must have misunderstood. My mistake."

"Did you try his cell?" Sandy suggests, like he wouldn't have thought of that on his own and Jensen assures her he’ll do just that.

"Oh, Jensen, before I forget, are you going to that thing at Chad's next weekend?"

"I think so," he says, wrinkling his forehead. He doesn't remember being invited to a thing at Chad's, but that doesn't mean much. Invitations have always been optional when it comes to Chad; Jensen still remembers coming home to thirty people trying to do the electric slide around the living room couch for one of Chad’s impromptu linedance nights.

"I'm not," Sandy says in what sounds like a pout. "I'll be in Seattle all week for work. Can you make sure they don't do anything stupid this time? No explosions, at least? They're not fifteen anymore, and Jared looks ridiculous without eyebrows."

"I'll try," he promises amicably, already knowing he won't. Jared will do as Jared always does, with or without his approval, but Sandy thanks him anyway, and he can practically hear her smiling through the receiver.

"Bye, Jensen," she chirps and hangs up. The sound of the dial tone makes the nausea return and Jensen rubs at his throat carefully, soothing soft motions, fingers catching in the hollow.

There. That's gonna be my favorite spot, he remembers, warm hands tracing around his collarbone, soft mouth pressing against his skin, and he can't for the life of him think if that had been Jared or Danny, tries to recall the shape of the fingers, the size of the wrist. Nothing. The voices -- Danny's, low and raspy from smoke, Jared's lazy drawl, smile he could never place for mocking or sincere -- blend together, change pitch and tone until he can't tell which is which anymore. Maybe it hadn't been either of them. Maybe he just made it up, and no one had ever really told him, look at you, freckles everywhere, so hot, Jen, between kisses.

---

At two, Jensen puts his phone on the bathroom counter, sets the shower to the hottest he can stand and enjoys the steam clouding the bathroom, the almost-sting of water on his back, the clean, spicy scent of soap.

He lazily runs a slick hand down the length of his cock, circles the head with his thumb, watches the skin get darker, redder. Cups his balls and trails a finger down between his thighs, but doesn't keep going. His phone remains silent; Jensen allows himself one more quick, fleeting touch before rinsing and toweling off, pulling on clean jeans and a fresh tee shirt.

Sandy's going to be in Seattle all week; usually, that means Jared will come more often and stay longer. Maybe crash in Chad's guest room after the thing; Chad doesn't exactly encourage them, but he won't say anything about it, either. They may still be friends, but their business is their business, and that's why, for all of his bullshit, Jensen actually likes Chad. He may have been a dick in Sophia's estimation, childish and immature in Sandy's, but he's a big proponent of live and let live, don't judge lest ye be fuckin' judged, asshole, didn't you learn anything in Sunday school?

Most importantly, Chad won't tell Sandy.

Jensen used to feel sorry for what he was doing to Sandy. He doesn't anymore; not since Jared married her.

---

Jensen wasn't the best man at the wedding; there was no actual best man. Jared, so traditional when it came to cakes and bouquets, processionals, recessionals, seating arrangements and his grandmother's ring on Sandy's finger, balked at assigning priority between his brother and his two closest friends.

"It's a ridiculous custom based on outdated principles of dowries, brideprice and marriage by kidnapping," he explained, practicing tying the knot of his bow tie in front of a mirror. Sandy laughed, said all wedding ceremonies were pretty much based around the same ideas, but that’s all she had in the way of argument.

It was a painfully ordinary wedding other than that, Sandy blushing and pretty, trailing miles of white chiffon, Jared solemn in his tailored tux. There weren't any last minute regrets voiced in the back rooms when Jared dressed, no hurried gropes, stifled moans, hoping none of the guests would catch them in the act. The couple said their vows, took their pictures, danced, fed each other cake. Jared's brother made a toast, so did Chad, so did Jensen, for that matter. He waited until he came home to get colossally drunk, vodka, tequila and the half-bottle of Jagermeister left over from one of Chad's parties. By the time he was stumbling down to the curb with a trash bag full of empty bottles and cans, Jared and Sandy were well on their way to Tahiti, or maybe it was Jamaica; he never did remember where they honeymooned.

Jared called him two months and eleven days later, said that Sandy was out of town and asked him to come over.

"Missed you," he said thickly into the phone. "Missed you so fucking much, Jen."

Jensen went.

---

"Jared, come on. Where the fuck are you? We really need to talk," he records at two thirty, thinking about it for a few minutes, before he dials Danny. It's not in his phone's memory anymore, but things like that are hard to forget, the order of the number keys under his fingers.

"Harris," she answers calmly, and Jensen closes his eyes, lets the low, even syllables permeate.

"Hi, Harris," he says finally, and listens for the little hitch of breath on the other end before she responds, "Jensen. Hi. How are you?"

"Feel like shit," he tells her, and Danneel snorts.

"Boo hoo. Some of us have jobs, you know. And didn't stay up all night drinking just to wake up at noon."

"It was eleven thirty. And I'm on sabbatical," he says defensively.

"Right. Remind me, how long has it been?"

"Oh, come on. Some of us remember how to relax. And didn't stay up working through the weekend."

"Clever. Did you actually want something, or did you just call to waste my lunch hour?"

"I dunno," Jensen shrugs, trading the phone from his right ear to the left. "Do you want to maybe grab a coffee, or something?"

"Jensen," Danneel starts, and there it is, the little huff, the hitch in her breath. "Jen. You need to stop doing this. Please. You broke up with me."

---

He'd met Danny in the parking lot at work, coming back from lunch. Tall redhead with a cigarette between her fingers, asking him for a light before he opened the glass doors. Jensen didn't have one, but he told her to wait right there, went into the building and dug through the lost and found bin for a lighter. She ended up keeping it, lit her cigarettes with it when they went out later that week, and for some reason, that made Jensen's pulse beat faster, feverish heat pooling in his belly.

It was good with her. Maybe there wasn't the same urgency, the same electric, immense sparking want like there was when Jared put his hands on him, but it was good, her hot mouth, the way she swallowed him down like she couldn't get enough, the way she said his name. She liked him, his taste in books, in music, liked running her hands through his hair, liked it when he strummed the guitar, half-awkward and half-proud, because she liked listening to him hum along.

"Smells like a fucking bar in here, Jensen. When did you start smoking?" Jared asked the next time he came by, raised his eyebrow at the pack of Parliaments Danny had left on one of the bookshelves. He never said anything about Danny herself, but Jensen could feel it in the way Jared kissed him, hard, possessive, teeth clamping down on his lip, tongue fucking into his mouth. The way he spread Jensen open, the way he sucked and licked and bruised, and Jensen waited for Danny to say something, but she never seemed too eager.

He was happy for a little over three months, so wanted, so loved, so needed, between the two of them, until one day, over a beer, Jared looked at the new picture that was now on Jensen's fridge, and said, "What the fuck do you see in her?"

---

"Fuck you," he whispers at three to Jared's pre-recorded Doesn't look like I'm in right now. "Fuck you, you hear me?" loud, louder, loudest. "I never asked you what you see in her, not fucking once, not fucking ever, and I'm fucking tired of this shit. I'm not doing it anymore, Jared, I can't."

The mechanical voice asks if he wants to listen to the message, send or re-record, and Jensen feels sick. He imagines Jared listening to it, wherever he is, hands gripped tight together, lower lip twitching the way it does when he's trying really hard to hide the hurt and can't quite manage. Maybe in front of Sandy, and she'll ask what's wrong in her helpful chirp, and he won't be able to tell her.

He presses three, and tries again.

"Jared, please. Just fucking call me."

He shoves the phone into his pocket, pulls on a jacket and pair of sneakers and walks down to Chris's.

---

Chris moved into the apartment two floors down from Jensen after both Chad and Jared had been long gone. He does odd jobs during the day and plays guitar at night; Jensen doesn't think he has an opinion on the former, and vaguely wishes he could join him on the latter.

"I did it," he says when Chris opens the door, and Chris raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

"No shit, man, you did? You told him?"

"I left him a message."

"Classy."

"I wasn't a dick, or anything. I just said we needed to talk," he says. Chris purses his lips.

"Like I said -- classy. Hang on, let me grab my shit and let's go, I'm fucking starving."

---

They have dinner at some hole in the wall place where Chris knows the hostess and two line cooks, then move on to the bar Chris plays every Thursday with clockwork regularity. The first round's on the house; Chris buys the second. After the third, Jensen switches to Jim Beam, and asks the bartender to leave the bottle.

"He's kinda into you, man," Chris tells him when the guy walks away, and Jensen just shrugs. He hasn't been with too many guys other than Jared, and he always compares.

"Too soon? Too different?" Chris says sympathetically, and Jensen shakes his head.

"Not different enough."

Chris puts him in a cab around one thirty, and he leans his head against the cool glass of the window, trying not to think.

---

Jensen sees the lights in his apartment when the cab pulls around the corner, hands shaking as he pulls a twenty from his wallet.

"Keep the change," he tells the cabbie and slams the door, crosses the sidewalk in two quick strides and runs up the stairs.

Jared is sprawled on his living room couch, feet on the coffee table. He's watching the Food Network with the sound turned low, a pink-cheeked, dark-haired girl chopping something green with two gleaming knives.

"Where were you?" he asks, cocking his head at Jensen. "Been sitting here for hours."

"Out, with Chris. I guess you didn't get my messages?" Jensen asks, and immediately regrets it. Messages, not message, can't get more pathetic than that, but Jared doesn't seem to notice.

"Nope," Jared says cheerfully. "I lost my phone."

"Oh."

"I'll get a new one. No worries. What were the messages?"

Jensen can feel his face growing hot and bends down to unlace his sneakers, trying to hide the red in his cheeks.

"The thing at Chad's next weekend," he says, pulling at the knot. "We're going, right?"

"Of course, we're fucking going. Sandy's in Seattle, and Chad’s already bought the fireworks." Jared's voice turns low, lazy drawl closer to mocking than sincere. "So, Jen, you just gonna stand there all night, or what?"

"Or what," Jensen sighs, picks up the remote and turns the TV off. Jared watches him hang up his jacket on the hook by the door, set his phone to charge on the kitchen counter, and then he's off the couch and pressing up against Jensen's back, heavy and hot and so familiar it hurts.

"Come here, come on," he rumbles into Jensen's ear, hot breath trailing down Jensen's neck before he bites down. Jensen squeezes his eyes shut, lets Jared bend him and pull him and turn him around until he's pressed up against the wall, Jared's fingers ripping at his belt buckle, pulling his jeans down his thighs.

"Fuck," he grunts when Jared wraps a hand around his cock, already hard and leaking, and he’s half-dizzy with it, watching Jared lick his lips before he swipes his tongue just over the tip of Jensen’s cock. He surges forward before he even knows he’s doing it, trying to get more of that pink, wet mouth, and Jared chuckles, pulling away, fingers gripping tight onto Jensen’s hips.

"Uh-uh. Not like that, Jen. Come on. Want you to fuck me," he says, hot breath teasing at Jensen's dick. "Been waitin' all night. Got myself ready for you."

"Jared," he groans, "Jared, fuck," and Jared laughs again, stands up slow until his face is inches from Jensen's.

"So fucking articulate. Just put me to bed already, Jen, Jesus." He spins around and goes into the bedroom, leaving Jensen standing against the wall by himself.

"Fuck," Jensen hisses again, steps out of his jeans, kicks them aside, and follows.

---

"Come on, you know what you want," Jared goads, kneeling over his thighs, and Jensen lays his head back against the pillows, watches Jared's fingers slide over his own nipples, his belly, his dick, glistening wet around the head. He sits up, reaches out with both hands, lets one palm rest on the curve of Jared's ass, pulls him apart with the other, feels the slick trailing around the tight clench of his hole.

"Yeah, I fucking want," he rasps, pulling Jared down, lets the head of his dick rub over Jared's ass. "Gonna moan for me? Show me how much you like it?"

Jared lifts up in answer, braces himself on his arms, and then slides slowly down until their thighs are flush together, and Jensen knows he's not going to last, not with the way Jared's gripping him, fever-hot, rolling his hips slow and dirty.

---

"Jen," Jared whispers, shaking his shoulder. "Jen, I'm gonna head out."

"What time is it?"

"Three nineteen. I gotta. I'll call you, ok?"

"Yeah," Jensen mutters sleepily, "yeah, sure," listens to the rustle of Jared's t-shirt, the snick of his zipper going up. The mattress shifts, Jared's bare feet hitting the floor; Jensen pulls on the covers, yanking them up to his chin.

"Jared," he calls when the bedroom door creaks open; Jared turns in the doorway, mussed shaggy hair and wide shoulders in a square of dim light.

"What?"

"Nothing. Make sure you lock the front door, ok?"

"I will. Go back to sleep, Jensen."

He pulls the blanket higher, over his mouth and nose, over his ears, up to the top of his head, but he can still hear Jared's footsteps down the hallway, the soft click of the lock.

---

Tuesday morning, Jensen wakes up still tired, achy in all the wrong places, and feeling decidedly sick of everything.