A Tall Tale
It didn't take long for them to develop a routine. Wednesday, at the
end of shooting, one of the PA's would be waiting for them just
off-camera, and in her hand she'd have two envelopes marked 'Jared' and
'Jensen' and 'Top Secret' and some variation of: 'Seriously. Stop. If
you aren't meant to read this, don't. The ghost of Kripke will haunt
your ass if you do.' She'd hand the envelopes over, and unless it was
late enough to be morning already and they had a four a.m. call, they'd
head back to one of their rooms, grabbing a few pizzas and a six-pack
on the way. Then they'd read.
Just read the first time, both of them sprawled out, usually on the
bed, shoulders and elbows and knees bumping, but maybe at the table,
maybe on the floor. Pretty much silent except for the sounds of chewing
and pages flipping and the tabs on cans being popped open. So, yeah. It
was what they did.
Jared, though, was a faster reader than Jensen was.
It made sense, of course, what with him being the son of an English
teacher and all, but the first few times they'd done this, early on,
it'd sort of annoyed the shit out of Jensen. To the point where he'd
actually ended up doing some skimming—mostly on the scenes he wasn't
in—and usually, if he did that, he'd finish up at just about the same
time Jared did. Then they'd stretch, and Jared would pop his neck, and
say things like, "So. The writers pretty much hate our guts, don't
they? I mean, seriously. Exorcisms in a plane?"
But then, see, Jensen learned.
Because just as Jared pretty much sucked at keeping his emotions under
wraps—toothy grins and echoing laughs and bouncy giddiness—he was
pretty damn bad at the whole silent reading thing, too.
The first thing Jensen noticed were the flinches, usually coinciding
with a fight scene, one of them getting slammed up against the wall.
Then it was the twitching of lips when the writers decided to pile on
the emotional angst. There was a furrowed brow when one of them ended
up in mortal peril, and smirks and muffled chuckles when they were
bantering or being witty with authority figures.
So Jensen learned that if he read at his usual pace, read every word,
that Jared could be his own personal advance warning system as to the
plot of the week. That Jensen would know if it was going to be an
angst-fest, or action heavy, or whatever, before he got there. So he'd
be braced. So he wouldn't be surprised.
Not that he'd really needed much warning recently—there'd been a trend
for the last few episodes, after all, which seemed to be: the more
pain, the better. Enough so that when they'd gotten their last scripts,
there had been an additional note scrawled on the envelope: 'Next
week'll be lighter. Promise! SG.'
Still, though, he'd been expecting lighter like 'Hell House', which had
had Jared smirking from pretty much page three on.
He hadn't been expecting full-blown Jared laughter fifteen minutes in.
He hadn't been expecting Jared to kick at his ankle, then turn to look
at him, eyes bright, smile wide, and say, "Blah blah blah!"
And Jensen, who'd just finished reading a line that implied that
something, apparently, had happened to the Impala—which just, what?—and
was at the part where Bobby showed up—which was pretty awesome in and
of itself—said, "Huh? What?" which just made Jared laugh all the more.
Made him smirk that 'you'll see' smirk, which sort of made Jensen want
to punch him, or kiss him, and there was only so much one man could be
expected to take, so Jensen, of course, had to flip ahead. Ten pages,
twelve, which was pretty much the farthest he figured Jared could be
for all of his speed-reading skills, and he skimmed down over the
lines, looking for what would make Jared start in on the 'blah's, and
then he saw it. The actual words.
Blah blah blah.
Several lines of it, actually. With a few "BLAH"s thrown in for good
measure. And Jensen could just picture Jared standing there—wherever
there was, of course—saying that, and the image made him laugh, too,
head banging back against the headboard.
Jared looked over again at that and said, "Dude, Sam's being a total
cock block in this scene." Which made Jensen laugh more, because he had
an image, all of a sudden, of Sam standing there, prissy look on his
face, saying, "blah blah blah," and—Jensen had to go back. Had to
figure out how he'd gotten there. But not before he skimmed up the page
he was on, then the page before so he could get some context, and there
was Dean, pretty girl throwing herself at him—which, hello, made the
episode a hundred times more enjoyable than the last few right
there—saying things like, 'No time for that now. You need to tell me
about this urban legend. Lives are at stake.'
"Lives are at stake, Jared," he said, clapping a hand down on Jared's
thigh, rubbing his thumb over denim. "Tell me that urban legend, man."
And Jared started laughing again. "Yeah, but you don't get to speak in
'blah's."
Which was true. So Jensen skimmed up the page some more, then the one
before it, looking over his lines until something leapt out. "But I do
get to say 'Purple Nurple,'" he said, to which Jared just responded,
"BLAH!"
And yeah, okay, Jared pretty much had a point.
*
So, yeah. Jensen was pretty much looking forward to shooting the
episode. You couldn't go wrong with alien abductions (probing! slow
dancing!) or making out with two girls and getting manhandled by two
more, or saying Purple Nurple a whole bunch of times. Or, you know,
wrestling with Jared on a bed. During *working hours*. For *pay*.
But as much fun as Jensen was having, though, he was pretty sure that
Jared was having even more. Because he had apparently embraced his
inner-method actor and had spent the last several days randomly
inserting "blah blah blah" into pretty much every conversation.
For example: Jensen would be walking with Jared back to their trailers,
and they'd be discussing what to get for dinner, and Jared would say,
"Yeah, enchiladas sound good, maybe some green sauce, and a few extra
bags of blah blah blah. That sound good?"
And Jensen would be forced, on general principal, to flip him off, and
then say, "Yeah, a few extra bags of chips would be good."
Jared's excuse, when Jensen called him on it early one morning, when it
was barely light out and Jared had already managed to slip the blahs
into two sentences: "It has to be seamless, man. Practice makes
perfect."
He said it with a wide grin, trying for innocent—like he wasn't still
lying in Jensen's bed, sheet bunched down around his waist, his hand
spread out over Jensen's chest—like he didn't know just how annoying he
was being, when he really, really did.
"Ah, don't lie," Jensen said, his fingers tapping against Jared's own.
"You just enjoy acting like a jealous boyfriend."
Jared's grin spread even wider, then turned a little heated. "Damn
straight," he said, tongue darting out to wet his lips, and Jensen,
well. Figured he had other things beside the blahs he should be
thinking about.
Jared apparently agreed.
*
The thing was: it was fun.
Fun in the way that had them cracking up every other take, be it Jared,
watching Dean eat the nuts in the professor's office, or Jensen,
watching Sam give the frat boy a hug, telling him that he was too
precious for this world. And that one, at least, was never going
to get old. He still started laughing whenever he thought about it,
still wasn't sure how he'd managed to get through that last take
without biting through his cheek in an attempt not to laugh. Besides,
he and Jared had gotten to yell at each other, and annoy each other,
and do silent eye-communication type things, and tell Jim Beaver about
aliens, and have serious conversations about probing.
It was a good break from all the angst, and by the time Jensen got the
next script, he was recharged enough to dive back into the darkness.
But the other thing was: Jared, sometimes, didn't know when to let
things go. Like the 'blah blah blah's.
Because midway through the next episode, he was still saying it. Not in
the same way, not inserting it randomly into whatever they were talking
about, but letting it slide into the conversation naturally. Like, say,
when he was talking about his trip to the post office:
"…and the guy behind the counter, he kept asking me which stamps I
wanted, besides the fact that I'd told him I just wanted a sheet. He
was like, do you want the ones with the dog breeds, or the ones with
the hearts, just on and on, blah blah blah, you know?"
Or after a phone call with his agent:
"…and he said, 'Jared, it's down to you and one other person, but
personally, I think it's looking good, because blah blah blah,' you
know what they say, the usual."
And it pretty much got to the point that Jensen was cringing whenever
he heard the words—which was a lot, thank you, since they spent all day
on set together, and pretty much every night, too. But he'd grin and
say, "Yeah, I know," and Jared would laugh and that would pretty much
soothe the annoyance away.
Until, that was, the day it didn't.
They were in the middle of shooting episode 18—so this had been going
on for a month already—and they were back in Jared's room, and it had
been a hard day, a long day. There had been lots of stunts which
required flying through the air and Jensen's back was hurting like a
bitch and he was absolutely exhausted, and pretty much all he wanted to
do was take a hot shower and sack out on the bed with Jared and watch
TV.
But Jared was in a chatty mood, taking off his coat as he was talking
about something one of the caterers had told him, and Jensen was
already cringing because he could hear it coming. And then it did. The
"you know, just blah blah blah."
And that was it. Jensen snapped.
"No," he said, growling the word and running a curled up hand over his
hair. "I don't know. I *would* know if you told me, but the only thing
I've been getting recently is that the rest of the world is starting to
talk in 'blah blah blah's, too. Including the caterer!"
As Jensen watched, the smile slipped off Jared's face and he even took
a step back, almost like Jensen had taken a swing at him, and whatever
Jensen had been planning on saying next, the words faded in his throat.
He stopped, walked over to where Jared was standing by the bed, and sat
down, motioning for Jared to do the same, which he did, although it
took a moment.
"Sorry," Jensen said after another moment, reaching out to lay a hand
on Jared's knee. "Long day."
Jared nodded, his expression already softening, because he knew. He'd
been there, too. But before he could speak, Jensen continued, because
he *needed* to make Jared understand.
"It's just. My sister, six or so years ago, she had a friend who
started ending every sentence with 'yo.' Thought it made her sound cool
or something. And my sister picked it up. I was home for a month at
Christmas that year, and do you know how annoying it was to walk into a
room and be greeted with a 'morning, yo' or a 'mom's making grilled
cheese for lunch, yo' or 'get your ass out of the bathroom, yo. If you
aren't pretty now, you're never going to be.'"
"Yo?" Jared asked, and Jensen nodded.
"And, I mean, this isn't up to 'yo' annoying yet, but it's getting
there. I mean, how would you like it if I was saying 'blah blah blah'
thirty times a day? At first it was funny, man, but a few 'blah's go a
real long way. Trust me."
It took a moment, but then Jared nodded, and maybe he actually got it
because he was smiling again, softly, and that was enough. Jensen
leaned forward and kissed him. Felt Jared's lips part against his, felt
their tongues brush, and then Jared's hand was coming up to palm
Jensen's cheek, to hold him still so that he could deepen the kiss.
Which was why Jensen was surprised when Jared pulled back, his breaths
already coming a little more quickly than they had been, his pupils
already a little darker. "You have to admit, though, blah blah blah.
It's fun to say."
Jensen was braced for the annoyance that was pretty much guaranteed by
this point, but this time, at least, it didn't raise his hackles. This
time, for the first time in a few weeks, his laughter was genuine.
"Yeah," he said. "It is. I'll give you that." The last part was
muffled, though, as Jared was already leaning in, already mouthing away
Jensen's words. When he pulled back again, though, to move, to straddle
Jensen, Jensen was ready for him. He leaned back on his hands and said,
"Blah blah BLAH!"
He wasn't surprised when Jared tackled him backward onto the bed.
The last thing he saw before their lips touched, before he closed his
eyes, was Jared's smirking grin. The last thing he heard was Jared's
laughter, suddenly muffled against Jensen's lips.
And yeah, okay, he thought as Jared lay down on top of him, who knew.
Maybe he'd be able to re-develop a fondness for the 'blah blah blah's
someday after all.
End.