The Other Side
i.
Jared wasn't really worried, the first time his dogs met Jensen,
because, well. His dogs pretty much loved everyone. Male, female, kids,
his elderly next door neighbor. Okay, not old Mrs. McNally's
step-nephew, back in LA, but Jared just thought that reinforced his
opinion that his dogs were good judges of character. Not that the kid
had been in any serious trouble, as far as Jared knew, but he'd also
seen him steal one of the orange-looking fruits off of their other
neighbor's fruit tree when he thought no one was looking—his furtive
glances around had given him away. Jared hadn't told anyone about it;
he'd thought it punishment enough that when the kid'd bit into it—great
big bite, juice squirting everywhere—he'd discovered it was actually a
lemon.
But anyway, he wasn't really worried about his dogs liking Jensen. It
was sort of a foregone conclusion that they would, as far as he was
concerned. Still, though, he was relieved when he brought the dogs on
set, when the first meeting happened: not only because Sadie and Harley
greeted Jensen with tongues out and tails a-wag, but also because
Jensen seemed happy to meet them, too. He got down on the floor and
scratched their bellies, and he didn't wince when their tongues swiped
over his skin.
He said things like, "Hey, girl. Hey, boy. Hey, yeah, yeah. It's good
to meet you, too."
When the dogs finally let him up, he was wiping his hands on his jeans,
grinning at Jared, wide and bright and happy. Which was good—better
than good, actually, since Jared and the dogs were sort of a package
deal here, and for the next nine months, at least, he and Jensen were
pretty much going to be, too.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
ii.
The first time Jared realized he wanted to kiss Jensen:
It wasn't during a night out, sitting at a table in their usual bar,
already three beers to the wind. It wasn't during one of their marathon
video game sessions, where they were both lying on the floor, elbows
occasionally bumping and jabbing as they worked the controllers. It
wasn't on set, either, after hours stuck in the Impala doing take after
take, when they'd already leaned across the gear shifts three times
each to slap and tickle and punch at each other in an effort to stay
sane.
No, it was an early morning back in LA, and yeah, Jensen had been over
the night before for pizza and beer and a couple of shots. They'd
watched movies and played video games and made fun of the infomercials
that were on at two a.m. and Jensen had spent the night on the couch,
too tired and liquored up to drive home.
Seven a.m. rolled around, though, and the dogs had been pawing around
Jared's room for ten minutes—because if there was one thing they knew,
it was the routine, and the sun was up which meant it was time for
their walk now, thank you—so he got up, pulled on his shorts and a
t-shirt, and headed downstairs.
He tried to be quiet, but the dogs were clicking around on the hardwood
floors, and Harley woofed once after Jared got his leash on, and the
next thing Jared knew, Jensen was sitting up on the couch, blinking
tiredly at him.
Jared winced as he said, "Hey, sorry. We'll be gone in a minute, you
can go back to sleep," but Jensen was shaking his head, rubbing a hand
over his eyes, his chin, his hair. Saying, "No, hey. I should be
getting—if you want to give me a minute, I'll come. I could use the
exercise." At Jared's nod, he stood up then, pulling on his shirt.
"I'll be right back."
Jared watched as he went into the bathroom, thinking, *huh*, and then
Harley was pawing at the door, because the leashes were on, they were
ready to go, why weren't they going? He barely had time to say, "Just a
minute, boy," before Jensen was back in the hallway with them, hair
damp with splashed water, grinning at Jared, and holding out his hand
for one of the leashes.
And as Jared handed over Sadie's leash, that was the moment—both of
them sleepy, unshowered, with pillow creases still pressed into their
skin—that he first realized he wanted to kiss Jensen.
The second time he thought about it was just a few minutes later,
watching Sadie pull Jensen down the front steps, then down the walkway,
straining at her leash. Jensen was laughing when they reached the gate,
saying, "Hey, girl, calm down," and when he looked back at Jared a
moment later, grinning and happy, well.
Yeah. That was time number two.
iii.
The first time they kissed, it was in Jared's hotel room up in
Vancouver.
It had been a long day, far too many hours filming in an abandoned
mine, and makeup had spread soot artfully across Jensen's cheek, right
down to the corner of his lips, and Jared had, well. Stared. A lot.
Enough to know that Jensen was staring back.
After they were done--*finally*--Jared said, "You want to come back to
my place? Break out the Playstation for awhile? Grab some sandwiches on
the way?"
He hadn't truly meant it as an invitation for anything more, he didn't
think, but maybe he had, or maybe it was a case of mixed signals, but
the moment the door to Jared's room was closed, Jensen was in his
space, saying, "Tell me I'm wrong about this," and Jared just shook his
head, backed Jensen up against the wall next to the bathroom door, and
kissed him.
It took a moment: noses bending awkwardly together, lips not quite
aligned, Jared's mouth too open, Jensen's not enough, but then Jensen's
hand was on Jared's face, and Jared was dropping the bag of sandwiches
to curve his own around Jensen's neck, and. Yeah.
It was Jensen who pulled back, breathing quickly, licking at his lips,
then he glanced down and smiled. "I think, uh. Someone's trying to make
off with our dinner."
When Jared looked down, he saw Harley nosing inside the plastic bag,
Sadie sitting beside him, looking up at the two of them hopefully, an
inquisitive look in her eyes, the tip of her tail twitching as if
asking if the sandwiches were for them.
"Hey," Jared said sharply, picking the bag up again, which caused
Harley to whimper, and that was when he realized that he was still in
Jensen's space, that he still had one hand pressed to the wall beside
Jensen's head. And maybe it should have been awkward—the newness of
this, how unsure of what he was doing Jared actually was—but it wasn't.
Or at least it stopped being awkward when Jensen reached up to slap him
on the back of the head and say, "Hey, stop thinking. And give me my
sandwich before someone else decides to claim it as their own."
iv.
The moment Jared realized he loved Jensen, it was because of Sadie. It
happened like this:
It was morning, after breakfast but early enough, because Jensen had a
meeting with his agent and he needed to go back to his apartment and
put on something a little nicer than what he'd been hanging around at
Jared's in for the last few days. Or so he said.
And when he left, both dogs followed him to the door. They all stood
there in the hall for a moment, but then Jensen reached over and
squeezed Jared's shoulder and said, "I'll see you tonight, all right,"
before he went outside. Harely padded his way back through the house to
the kitchen, but Sadie stayed where she was, nose just an inch away
from the door, watching Jensen as he made his way down the walkway. She
watched as he got in his car, ears pricked forward as the door shut, as
the engine started. Then she looked over her shoulder at Jared, a
pleading look in her eyes, and after a moment Jared swallowed and said,
"Yeah, me too."
v.
It was a long time coming, really.
First it was a sweatshirt that got left behind after a night of script
reading—indy comedy for Jensen, some action movie for Jared. Jared
found it the next morning and hung it up in the hall closet, but when
he offered it back to Jensen a few nights later, Jensen just waved his
hand. Said, "Or, uh, I could just leave it? In case I forget one some
other time? As I do." It sounded pretty much like a throwaway comment
to Jared, but there was an extra edge to Jensen's voice, a certain
stillness about him as he said the words, and he grinned maybe a little
too widely when Jared said, "Yeah, man. Sure. Sounds like a plan."
Then it was the pajama pants, the t-shirt with the bleach stain on the
hem. That time it was Jared, actually. Sitting on the end of his bed,
sliding a balled up sock over his toes, watching Jensen as he packed up
the backpack Jared knew he'd started to keep in his car. The pants were
hanging halfway out of the bag and the shirt was twisted in Jensen's
hands and Jared said, "You could, you know, just leave them here. If
you wanted."
Jensen did.
After that, it was slow: jeans, socks. A few T-shirts, then a few more.
Enough so that if Jensen didn't want to go home for a few days, he
didn't have to. And most times he didn't.
There was a difference between Jensen basically living in Jared's
house, though, and his actually moving in, and in the end, Jared had to
ask.
It happened out at the beach, actually, while they were tossing balls
to the dogs, watching them splash around in the outgoing tide. Jared
was telling Jensen about the new TV Chris had bought, a flat-screen
plasma, and he said, "It's awesome, seriously." Then: "I was thinking
that maybe, you know, we could get one."
Jensen arched an eyebrow and said, "We?"
Jared nodded, then swallowed, looking back out towards the ocean, the
dogs. Harley was bowed down in the surf, looking ready to pounce at
Sadie, who was quickly swimming away. "Yeah," he said a moment later.
"I was thinking that you could, uh. Stay."
Jensen didn't immediately say anything, and it took Jared a moment to
look over at him, unsure of what he'd see. But what he saw was this:
Jensen smiling. "Yeah," Jensen said. "I could do that."
He might have said more, but the dogs chose that moment to come
bounding back up the beach, to stop in front of the two of them and
shake themselves drier, and whatever Jensen might have said was lost in
a stream of, "Hey, guys, guys, that's enough," and, "You're lucky I
love your dogs, man."
To which Jared didn't say: Yeah, yeah I am.
vi.
That wasn't the end, though. Or the beginning.
Jared sort of thought of that as happening a week later, after Jensen'd
started calling Jared's bedroom theirs. After their trip to go buy
their new TV. After Jensen's books were stacked alongside Jared's on
the various bookcases in the house, and they'd gotten a second dresser
to sit along side Jared's in the bedroom.
That morning, a week later, they were sitting in the kitchen, drinking
their coffee, and Sadie came into the room with her leash in her mouth,
but instead of taking it to Jared, as she usually did, she went to
Jensen, laid her head on his knee and whimpered.
Jensen looked up at Jared then, his eyes wide, unsure—because, well. No
matter that the dogs had woken him up before to take them outside, or
that he'd picked them up at the kennel, that he'd given them baths, or
that he gave them treats and food just as often as Jared did, they were
still Jared's dogs. Or at least that was what Jared assumed Jensen was
thinking. He was sure of it when Jensen scratched Sadie's ears and
said, "Hey, go talk to Jared, girl." Which just made her press all the
closer.
Jared just smiled, though. Said, "Hey, I wouldn't be so sure of that.
She knows who her people are." He meant to sound nonchalant when he
said it, light-hearted and teasing, but as the words came out, he could
hear an extra edge there.
Jensen apparently picked up on it, because he was staring at Jared
then, one eyebrow sort of arched, and then he said slowly,
deliberately, "Yeah, I guess she does."
Jared didn't even realize he'd been holding his breath, not until he
let it out, but then Jensen was bumping his foot under the table, and
Jared was laughing, and. Yeah.
"Yeah," he said, "she does."
End.