Work Text:
Monday
“Thirty-four comments. How is it possible that he has thirty-four comments when he’s only had it up for ninety-seven minutes? You cannot tell me that thirty four people dropped everything they were doing to speed-read through thirty-seven thousand words of pre-series incest porn. And really, who writes pre-seriesfic anymore? It’s lazy. I mean, he just doesn’t want to have to deal with Rex being there and complicating his ‘epic brother love’. Gimme a fucking break. There aren’t even any zombies, for God’s sake. What good is it without the zombies?”
Jensen stops and sucks in a deep breath.
Danneel looks at him blankly, chewing on a piece of bread. “You done?”
“I do feel a little better now that I’ve got that out,” Jensen admits, stroking the top of his laptop lovingly.
Okay, so maybe Jensen is a little bit stressed out. Today is his posting date for the After Dawn Breaks Big Bang, and he is being upstaged by his arch-nemesis, ohdannyboy89, otherwise known as Jared from San Antonio, the dimpled poster child for everything that is wrong in their fandom.
“He totally made a deal with Sandy. It’s so unethical,” Jensen grinds out, clicking again on the art masterpost and staring at the perfect digital drawing of Tom Welling clutching Matt Cohen in an effortless fireman’s carry.
“You’re just pissed that Sandy turned down yourdeal and you ended up with that person that likes to cut and paste Rosenbaum’s head on the body of a dragon.”
“Hey,” Jensen protests, but it’s without much fire. “Chad turned out to be a perfectly lovely collaborator.”
Jensen knows logically that it’s not a competition between him and Jared. They are both extremely popular and well-read in their respective sides of fandom, but somewhere along the way that became the problem. Jared is a part of the old guard, one of the first to ship ADB’s brooding brother duo, Welling’s Nick Sinclair and Cohen’s Danny, and make a name for himself while doing so. Jensen, on the other hand, was drawn into the show by the post-zombie apocalypse setting, and remains squicked by the most popular pairing. He joined fandom, but languished on the under-appreciated genfic side of things until the glorious third season when Mike Rosenbaum joined the cast as the dashing and mysterious Rex Parker, the leader of a ragtag group of survivors that also included a gorgeous blonde doctor named Miranda Maxwell, played by Katie Cassidy. The show flirted with a Nick/Miranda storyline for a while, until fandom put a stop to that nonsense by overwhelming the hapless showrunners with a series of petitions. Jensen, however, saw that it was finally his moment to shine and wrote a Nick/Rex fic that eventually became a fandom classic and helped invent the only ship to ever rival the brothers. Jared and his brethren weren’t pleased that their dominance was being tested, and the tension that exists today was born.
“I told Gen specifically that I didn’t want to post the same day as Jared, but of course she didn’t listen to me. She’s not even subtle about her bias. I mean, she’s posted pictures of her and Jared baking gingerbread cookies and braiding each other’s hair, for fuck’s sake,” Jensen grumbles. Genevieve AKA sinclairgirl is the mod of the Big Bang, and, unfortunately for Jensen, one of Jared’s best friends.
“Speaking of those pictures, Jared is pretty hot. If I liked dick, I’d be all over that,” Danneel points out.
“He’s okay, I guess,” Jensen mumbles, not wanting to concede the point, even if it’s the absolute truth. Stupid Jared is hot enough for Jensen to reconsider his Tom Welling-fixation. Not that it doesn’t make Jared a jerk. Because he is. Obviously.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I mean, he has Storage Wars on his profile under his likes. Who in their right mind would like a show where the entire premise is buying other people’s dirty stuff? I mean, think of the sanitation issues alone!” Jensen exclaims, attempting as slick a topic change as possible. He makes his best disgusted face for emphasis.
“Bed bugs,” Danneel adds, as Jensen shudders.
“Don’t even mention that while I’m eating a salad with raisins in it.”
Danneel pauses for a moment. “The old guy is pretty cute, though.”
Jensen narrows his eyes at her. “Don’t tell me that you watch Storage Wars? It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore, Harris.”
Danneel sips her Diet Coke nonchalantly. “A girl’s gotta have her secrets, Ackles.”
Danneel is Jensen’s best real life friend, and is not really in the ADB fandom. Unless you count being the secret mod of the anonmeme, but she only started that because, as she likes to say, she “enjoys watching animals eat their young.” Also, she’s an executive assistant at a PR firm, which means that she’s bored most of the day and has nothing better to do but sit around and compare IP addresses. Jensen does suspect that she ships herself with Katie Cassidy, but since she likes to actually talk about having sex with Katie while they watch, he can’t really call that a secret.
“Thirty-eight comments now. He has thirty-eight comments.”
“Jensen, stop looking at Jared’s fic and look at your own. I mean, if I read things that involved multiple penii, I would totally check out your stuff! You are the absolute best Nex writer in the entire challenge, I’m sure your speed-readers will appear eventually,” Danneel tries with her most earnest expression, even though Jensen is absolutely certain she could give a shit. She is an awesome best friend when she wants to be though, he’ll give her that, even though the earnest face is starting to look like she has acid reflux.
Jensen shivers. “Stop calling it Nex. Portmanteaus are so cliché. Besides, Nex sounds like a character on Deep Space Nine.”
Danneel rolls her eyes. “You just don’t like it because that’s what they call it on Tumblr.”
“Tumblr is for middle schoolers and people without seizure disorders,” Jensen scoffs.
Danneel nearly chokes on a French fry while laughing at him.
Jensen attempts to ignore her and clicks over to his masterpost. He spent a lot of time on this particular story, and it means a lot to him. In it, Nick and Rex meet for the first time after a horde of zombies are trained by the maniacal scientist Professor Z and try to take out the survivors’ camp. The difference this time is that they imprint on each other at first meeting. Imprinting is a rare phenomenon in their world, but Jensen has always allowed himself to appreciate the idea behind his façade of cynicism. The pure romance of finding someone that is quite literally your soulmate is almost overwhelming to him, and he tried his best to put the poetry of that feeling into his words.
“I think Chad really captured the intensity of that first moment,” Jensen insists, although he knows that his banner really consists of two low-quality screencaps of questionable color matching cut together in Photoshop. At least Chad refrained from using Comic Sans… after Jensen sent him four threatening emails and a drunk text.
“Imprinting is a cool idea, I must admit,” Danneel nods approvingly. “Although, I don’t know anyone other than my grandparents who’ve gone through it.”
“Matt and Mandy are mates. They imprinted at a network party,” Jensen says dreamily.
“I thought Mandy was a lesbian,” Danneel asks, eyebrow cocking in that maddening way of hers.
“Only the crazies think that. M-Squared are as shiny and adorable as the sun,” Jensen glares at her.
“I thought you hated talking about the real lives of the actors,” Danneel says, the corner of her mouth tilting up smugly.
Jensen blushes. “I do. It’s tacky and disrespectful.”
“Mmhmm. Except when you’re filling underage spanking fills for the kinkmeme.”
“Danni!” Jensen hisses, knowing he’s probably approaching the color of tomato soup. “That’s totally not me, so shut it.”
“Oh, Jensen, in what universe would cowboytwink69 not lead back to you?”
“Check please!” Jensen calls out to the entirely too-amused looking waiter well within hearing distance.
“You are so right, time to go! I have a full afternoon of answering the phone and ignoring mod calls ahead of me. Because, I mean, c’mon, Welling’s sideburns are getting ridiculous.”
Jensen rolls his eyes hard, but can’t resist a smile. “You suck, Danni.”
“Stop projecting,” she winks, hopping up, grabbing her purse, and leaving him with the bill.
Friday
“I cannot believe you dragged me to this,” Danneel repeats for the seventeenth time since they left Dallas to drive to Austin.
“Oh, be quiet. I bought your pass and paid for gas. Be grateful,” Jensen huffs, grabbing her hand and dragging her and her luggage into the Sheraton where the first Texas ADB convention is being held that weekend.
“There will be lesbians here, right? You promised me lesbians,” Danneel insists, as they stand in the check-in line. A hot blonde behind them smirks and Danneel looks ready to go in for the kill, but Jensen grabs her and drags her to the front desk.
“Of course there will be lesbians. Who do you think writes most of the fic?” Jensen whispers back, but he must be a little too loud because the clerk in front of them raises his eyebrows with interest.
“Maybe next time, cowboy,” Danneel grins at the clerk and Jensen rolls his eyes and grabs their room keycard before she can get them into any more trouble.
“Call me!” Danneel yells back at the amused-looking blonde before Jensen manages to get her to the elevator.
A few hours later, after Jensen has stripped both their mattresses bare to check for bugs—the raisins traumatized him—and Danneel has meticulously strewn the entire contents of her suitcase across the room, they head down to the Grand Ballroom to register properly for the convention.
“Oh god, please tell me you are not going to force me to do karaoke with Michael Weatherly,” Danneel exclaims, taking in the huge poster of the actor who plays Professor Z grinning like a tool.
“Hell no, I hear Weatherly is evil.”
“Actor gossip,” she sing-songs.
Jensen stops dead in his tracks and takes in a sharp breath. “Holy shit.”
Danneel knocks right into him. “Ow, fuck. What’s wrong?”
“It’s him.”
“Him, who?” Danneel asks, looking around. She must spot him because she lets out a low whistle. “Well, hello, Jared.”
“Is it hot in here or something?” Jensen squeaks. But in a manly way. And goddamit, it’s fucking hot in this ballroom.
“Or something,” Danneel murmurs.
Sure enough, standing next to the Gold Member registration desk, next to a poster of Tom Welling doing his best Blue Steel, are Jared and Genevieve. They are laughing with the con person registering them and, of fucking course, Jared is already making friends with the employees. Stupid, tall, dimpled bastard. Tall, so tall, so god-fucking-damn tall. And hot. The room is so fucking hot.
“I can’t breathe,” Jensen gasps, tugging at the collar of his shirt. He’s wheezing and he can’t stop and Danneel is slapping him on the back in a most unhelpful way.
Panic attack, he thinks frantically. I’m having a panic attack. But I’ve never had a panic attack. Fucking Jared!
All of Jensen’s flailing must attract attention, because right at that very moment Jared and Genevieve start heading their way.
“Are you okay, man?” a concerned voice with a honey drawl asks and Jensen feels a gigantic hand come down in between his shoulder blades from where he’s hunched over grabbing his knees.
Jensen practically screams and throws himself backwards, narrowly missing taking out Danneel and a teenager with obvious bad taste wearing a Michael Weatherly t-shirt. Jensen’s eyes widen comically as he stares back at Jared, who is holding his own hand like he just touched a hot stove.
“What the fuck is going on?” Genevieve demands incredulously, standing next to Jared with her hands on her hips.
God, Jared is beautiful, and why Jensen is even thinking that right now when he’s hyperventilating in the ballroom of a Sheraton in front of two hundred people is anyone’s guess. But Jensen’s entire body is flushed and his muscles are suddenly aching and he can’t take his eyes off of Jared, who is staring back like Jensen’s going to be dinner.
“Jensen, seriously, he’s hot, but you’re being ridiculous,” Danneel tries to whisper to him, but her voice is as tinny as if she was speaking through a wind-tunnel.
“Jensen?” Genevieve repeats, perking up again. “The Jensen? You mean dallasdawn Jensen?”
Jared’s nostrils flare at that and he looks at Genevieve and then Jensen in surprise. Oh that’s right. They’ve never seen a picture of him and, wait a second, when did flaring nostrils become so fucking beautiful?
“But I hate you,” Jensen slurs, and he doesn’t know why he says that out loud or why he suddenly sounds like he’s had too many tequila shots. But he does. Hate Jared that is. Really, really hate Jared. Bastard. Beautiful bastard.
“I hate you, too,” Jared replies, chewing on his lip like he’s starving, but he’s staring at Jensen again in this dark, dangerous way that is saying the exact opposite of what his words are.
“You’re beautiful,” Jensen grits out. Why.Can’t.He.Stop.Speaking?
“You are, too,” Jared replies, and he’s panting. Oh shit, why is Jared panting?
There are drops of sweat beading on Jared’s forehead and Jensen wants to pounce on him and lick them off. Jensen has no idea why he wants to do this or, hell, even why Jared is sweating at all. The A/C is cranked up, he knows this logically from the sassy leather jacket Genevieve is wrapped in. But no, Jared is sweating beautiful beads of beautiful sweat and Jensen feels like someone stuck a nuclear reactor down his pants.
Suddenly Danneel starts laughing hysterically, and if Jensen was capable of doing more than staring at Jared and chanting lickthebeautifulsweat internally he would smack her on the back of her head for mocking him.
“This isn’t funny,” Jensen grits out, his fingers itching to clutch the plaid of Jared’s shirt.
“You’re imprinting, dumbass. You and your fucking arch-rival are imprinting in front of an entire convention of fangirls. Where’s my iPhone, I need to start a new thread for this,” Danneel cackles, holding her stomach where she’s obviously getting a cramp from laughing so hard.
“Oh my god, she’s right. This is just like Rex and Nick in Jensen’s Big Bang,” Genevieve giggles, and then looks guiltily over at Jared when he tsks at her. “What? I read it, big deal. I’m a superior multi-shipper.”
“No, no, absolutely fucking not,” Jensen manages to get out, and he tries to channel the breathing exercises his old yoga-instructor boyfriend from college taught him. “There is no way in hell that I’m imprinting on him.”
“Him, huh? Well, who says I want to imprint on you! Sanctimonious asshole,” Jared snarls back, but Jensen can see his hands twitching at his sides like he wants to reach out and touch. Jensen wants that too, so much. Just once. Maybe twice.
Fuck.
“Well fine, then. Fine! It’s settled. You go about your business and I’ll go about mine. And we don’t even have to look at each other again,” Jensen insists, but his voice is stuttering and the words are practically ripping apart his insides.
“Fine,” Jared agrees, grinding his teeth together and stomping off towards the elevators. He only looks back once, but it’s enough to buckle Jensen’s knees. Danneel just manages to catch him before he falls to the ground.
Danneel smiles fondly, with a tiny bit of pity that somehow makes Jensen even more uncomfortable, and wipes the sweat off his forehead. “Well, you did say this weekend was going to be exciting.”
Saturday
Jensen doesn’t quite recall how he made it through the rest of Friday, but he thinks it involved five whisky sours and a possible Youtube video of himself doing “Teenage Dream” karaoke. The liquor helped dim the ache of separation from Jared, and without the guy in the same room the pain had lessened enough that it just feels like his skin’s shrunk a couple sizes.
However, even with the alcohol coursing through his veins, he can’t fall asleep. He listens to the soft sound of Danneel snoring and tries to zone out, but all it does is make him wonder what Jared looks like when he sleeps. Safe to say, he’s a wreck the next morning, and they decide to skip the Weatherly panel to mainline coffee from the dinky little pot that came with the room.
“They’re writing commentfic about you and Jared. Want me to read you some? It’s pretty good,” Danneel throws out, her fingers sliding gracefully over her iPhone screen as she lays in her pajamas on the bed across from his.
Jensen glares at her.
“Oh, and there’s art too!” She pauses. “Looks like Chad is attempting anonymity but that is definitely Jared’s head on the body of a dragon.”
“I would say that I hate you more than Jared, but at least you don’t make me want to peel my skin off.”
“C’mon, Jen. This is the most fun I’ve had online since Rosey tweeted that picture of himself skinny-dipping in a kiddie pool with a goat.”
That was a pretty great day, Jensen thinks begrudgingly.
“That’s not the point, Danni. This is my life we’re talking about,” Jensen sighs. “All I really know about this guy is that he likes gingerbread and incest.”
“Well at least you’ll have some conversation starters over Thanksgiving dinner with your parents,” Danneel shrugs, and even she has the decency to cringe a little.
Jensen swallows hard. His parents. What will they think? This cannot be happening to him.
Danneel takes pity on him and decides to take charge. “Dude, you cannot let this little finding-your-mate thing ruin your awesome geek weekend. Get in that bathroom and fix yourself up because you look awful and you have photo-ops later on.” She smiles, tiny dimple popping in her cheek. “And your Big Bang has a hundred and eighty-four comments. I checked.”
Jensen grins at her gratefully and hops up to attempt to wash away the pull of his biology.
The majority of the day goes relatively well, considering that Jared is sitting only eleven seats down from him (but who’s counting) at the afternoon panels. Jensen can feel his heart rate accelerate just from being in the same room as Jared, but he grits his teeth and wills his body to get the fuck over it already.
Luckily, he doesn’t fall to the floor in agony this time and the most embarrassing thing that happens is Danneel getting up to the microphone and giving Katie Cassidy their room number.
Everything is fine until the moment when Mike Rosenbaum decides he wants a group photo op with “the two hot guys.” Fucking omnisexual Rosey and his stupid ideas.
“No way, not with him,” Jared says snidely, his fingers drumming frantically against the pockets of his Levi’s.
“I don’t even know why you’re here, Jared. It’s not like Rex has any relatives to fornicate with,” Jensen replies, and maybe if he just touches Jared’s collarbone this itchy feeling will subside. Or his ear maybe. Chin?
“Whoa, fellas, hold up a second. You do realize that zombies aren’t real and my name isn’t really Rex, right?” Rosenbaum snorts laughter, while simultaneously pulling both Jared and Jensen flush against his sides. “Although I do look amazing as a dragon, I must say.”
“You smell so good. Like gummi bears,” Jared sighs, snapping his jaw shut when the realization of what he just said hits him.
“It’s called Old Spice, big guy,” Rosey corrects him, but Jensen squeezes his eyes shut at the thought of Jared running the tip of his nose all over the insides of his thighs.
Being this close to Jared, even with Rosey in between them, is maddening and he has to ball his hands into tight fists just to keep himself from reaching over and running his hands through Jared’s messy brown locks.
“Just take the goddamn picture,” Jensen groans, which causes Jared to have some kind of freak reaction to the sound. Soon they are both moaning over Rosey’s shaved head and about three inches away from sucking the enamel off of each other’s teeth.
“Um, Jared. Public place,” Genevieve points out helpfully from her place in the photo-op line, where forty fangirls and a one kind of creepy guy with big blue eyes and a five o’clock shadow is watching them practically air hump Mike Rosenbaum’s earlobes.
“Jensen, look here and smile,” Danneel says, iPhone camera clicking.
That manages to snap Jensen out of whatever pheromone craze he’s currently in and he takes off running out of the room as fast as his wobbly legs will carry him.
Of all the ways Jensen figured he’d spend the Saturday night of his first ADB convention, curled up into a ball in a chair tucked into the corner of the Austin Sheraton lobby bar wasn’t it. And he definitely didn’t expect to have Danny-Fucking-Sinclair himself sauntering up and offering him a drink as well.
“Hi, I’m Matt,” Matt Cohen grins the grin that glares out him from the banner of Jared’s journal every time Jensen goes there to compare comment totals. He’s even better looking in person than in Sandy’s awesome digital drawings, and if Jensen wasn’t in excruciating pain from resisting the biological pull of his soulmate, he might be able to appreciate this even a little better.
Jensen’s about to bite out a “duh,” but he manages to refrain just in time. “I’m Jensen.”
Matt’s eyes graze down Jensen’s body and what the hell is that all about?
“Has anyone ever told you that your freckles are adorable?” Matt asks and, really, is he doing what Jensen thinks he’s doing or is Jensen just high on endorphins and hallucinating?
“Are you trying to pick me up?” Jensen blurts out, torn between being flattered that Matt Cohen is hitting on him and devastated for poor delightful Mandy Cohen for having a cheating bastard of a husband.
Matt startles a bit at his direct question, but recovers quickly and grins hard enough for Jensen to see his teeth actually ching. “Would you like that, Jensen?” He practically purrs the name and Jensen wonders if the bar would mind if he took a nap right there under the table because this shit is too much for him.
Jensen can’t help himself. “But what about Mandy?”
That really seems to shock Matt and he gets a nervous look on his face before looking around the bar and finally shrugging half-heartedly. “Ah, what the hell. You’re hot enough to risk it. Mandy’s a lesbian.”
The world has gone mad, Jensen thinks hysterically, as his Inner Danneel Voice cackles “sucker!”
“So with that being said, you wanna go up to my room and fuck? Because this chick with a Weatherly t-shirt has been following me around and I really need to burn some nervous energy.”
Jensen is about to yell “Are you out of your mind? Can’t you see I’m in pain here?” when it hits him that this could possibly be a way out. If he can manage to fuck Matt Cohen, maybe this goddamn spell or curse or soulmate business will go away and Jensen can get back to his normal life as an unassuming paralegal that likes to write romantic stories about men fucking each other on top of zombie corpses.
“Absolutely,” Jensen says, and if his vocal cords feel like they’re being taken out with an ice cream scooper, it doesn’t mean it’s related to anything.
Twenty minutes later, Matt is manhandling Jensen up against the inside of Matt’s hotel door and attempting to shove his tongue down Jensen’s throat. Unfortunately, his saliva feels like it consists of a heady mixture of battery acid and lye and Jensen rips his head back before Matt can do too much damage to the skin around his mouth.
“Oh, I get it, you don’t like to kiss, huh? Like to go right for the good stuff. Dirty little thing, aren’t you?” Matt growls and if Jensen wasn’t practically comatose he might laugh at his ridiculousness.
It’s right about the time that Matt is on his knees and about to suck Jensen’s dick into his mouth that Jensen realizes that there is absolutely no way this is going to help his spell/curse/soulmate business. Mostly because even the threat of another man near his cock is making him feel like someone is branding his dick with a hot poker.
Jensen screams.
“Was it something I said?” Matt asks, slumping to the floor as Jensen takes off running once more.
Just to top the worst day of his life, Jensen realizes about halfway to his room that he has somehow managed to lose his shoe. If he wasn’t so exhausted from lack of sleep and denying his pull towards Jared, he probably wouldn’t be as calm as he suddenly is when he pushes open the door to his hotel room and sees Danneel with her head buried in between what appears to be Katie Cassidy’s thighs.
“You have to be joking,” Jensen deadpans, his eyes half-lidded from sleep deprivation.
Danneel’s head pops up and her face is covered in—oh God, please no. Why is the cast of this godforsaken show so horny all of a sudden?
“Oh there you are,” Danneel greets him nonchalantly, resting her head on Katie’s knee and grinning at him with her stupid shiny face.
“I lost my shoe.”
“Hello, pussy being eaten here,” Katie huffs and Danneel smacks her on the hip playfully while nipping at her calf.
“Oh god, I do not need to see this. Just let me die already,” Jensen wails, about fourteen seconds away from passing out in the middle of the doorway.
“Jensen, I love you, you know this. But go to Jared already. He’s your mate for god’s sake,” Danneel insists, but her voice is softer than usual and Jensen hates to admit that she’s probably right.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jensen admits, realization hitting for the first time. He knows what the imprinting is supposed to mean, knows it from the way it’s beating in every single cell of his body, but he doesn’t know how to make his brain catch up to the fact that fate or nature or whatever it is has decided everything for them from the moment he and Jared were born.
“Go to Jared and let him help you figure it out,” Danneel urges and he’s nodding and turning around without replying.
“Oh Jensen, one more thing,” she calls out right when he’s shutting the door.
“Yeah, Danni?”
“You know the guy with sixty-six sockpuppets? His real journal is iluvekittens? Yeah, well he’s here at the con and on our floor. He tried to friend me once and sent me a picture of himself and his Tom Welling Chia pet via PM. Scary fucker, so watch out.”
Thirty seconds later, Danneel is back to dining on Dr. Miranda Maxwell, and Jensen is at the end of the hallway with only one shoe, being confronted by the creepy guy from the photo op line.
“Kittens, really?” Jensen sighs, scrubbing his face with his hand. There is no way on earth this day can get any weirder.
Kittens holds up his hand, which is sheathed in an actual sockpuppet with Mike Rosenbaum’s face stitched into it. “Hello, kind sir, how are you this evening?” says a high-pitched voice that Jensen assumes is supposed to be coming from the flapping puppet hand.
Okay, so maybe it can get weirder.
“I’m too tired to fight you, so if you are going to chop me up and throw the pieces into your bathtub, just do it and get it over with already.”
“I don’t want to kill you, silly. I want to convince you to join an amazing new community that is centered around the gay male slash writer,” the high-pitched voice informs him cheerfully.
Jensen stares at the guy in front of him. Yes, his eyes are a little wild and he’s talking through what is probably a gym sock, but at least he hasn’t tried to melt Jensen’s dick with battery acid, so he’s the least offensive person Jensen’s met all night. And right in this moment, Jensen cannot deal with deciding his own fate, so going to Jared is definitely out.
“If I promise to join your comm will you let me sleep on your floor?”
The gym sock squeals with delight.
Sunday
Kittens turns out to be a lonely yet enthusiastic Russian Lit teacher named Misha with a childhood affinity for Lambchop. Jensen discovers all of this information when he finally convinces Misha to talk from his mouth and not his hand at two in the morning. He’s still up at two because his motherfucking body won’t let him go to sleep already.
You’re an asshole, Jensen tells his body around 4a.m.
By 6a.m, Jensen has put Misha’s gym sock on his own hand and is talking to it about the type of curtains Nick and Rex will buy when they finally stop the zombies and settle down in that cottage in Maine.
Eight a.m. finds him dragging his delirious self back to his room. He ignores the television star drooling on his best friend’s bare breasts and searches his room for something that resembles footwear. He settles for a pair of plastic Old Navy flip flops that he brought to protect against any possible hotel room shower mold and then sits down on the edge of his bed and tries to keep himself from committing exhaustion induced hara-kiri.
It’s 10:17 in the morning on the last day of the Austin ADB convention when Jensen Ackles decides to stop fighting what he already knows is right. He marches into the Grand Ballroom ten minutes into the Welling/Cohen joint panel and straight up the aisle to the front row. Matt Cohen, face beet red, hides behind his chair as Tom Welling looks confused as usual.
Jared is sitting in his seat, fidgeting like his pants are full of fire ants. His hair is sticking straight up and the rims of his eyes are bright red like he’s been sobbing into his pillow. Jensen finds it comforting that his soulmate is suffering just as badly as he is.
Without another word, Jensen climbs straight onto Jared’s lap and seals their mouths together.
It’s like coming home.
“Awesome!” someone cries out from behind them, and Jensen knows it’s Misha by how excited the timbre of it is. Jensen is proud of him for using his words, so he gives Misha a big thumbs up while still sucking Jared’s tongue like a Jolly Rancher.
Jensen just manages to pull away and presses his face into Jared’s flushed neck. “If you don’t take me back to your room right the fuck now, my dick is going to fall off.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jared groans and stands up, somehow managing to throw Jensen over his shoulder before marching up the ballroom aisle.
“Thatta boy!” Danneel shouts, high-fiving Genevieve.
The entire ballroom bursts into applause as Tom Welling taps his microphone with confusion.
“Hey, is this thing on? “
It’s awkward. It has to be, obviously. They don’t know each other, even if they are literally made for each other.
But when the door to Jared’s room clicks shut and he puts his hand on Jensen’s cheek, cradling his face with a devotion that Jensen’s never been able to find written words to explain, it’s like all the pieces of a puzzle he didn’t even know he was putting together suddenly make sense.
And the final picture that stares back at him? The final picture is beautiful.
“Is this weird?” Jensen asks, because his brain-to-mouth filter broke around the forty-third hour of not sleeping.
Jared laughs softly, murmuring “yeah” as he kisses him. Jensen feels it all the way down to his bare, flip-flopped toes.
An overwhelming sense of serenity washes over Jensen followed closely by a belly-deep need to dig his teeth into Jared’s skin. A heady rush of adrenaline fills every corner of his body as Jared tosses him onto the bed like a ragdoll and rips his pants off like they’re on fire.
Suddenly, it’s game-fucking-on.
Jared has those big paws pressing Jensen’s legs apart as he crawls in between them and drags his teeth up the tender inside of Jensen’s thighs. “Why did you have to run, Jen? Could have been doing this all weekend.”
“You ran, too, dipshit. Not my fault you’re an asshole,” Jensen mumbles, gripping Jared’s head in both hands and dragging his face over the cotton of his boxers.
“Asshole, huh?” Jared chuckles darkly at that and presses his face lower, much lower, until the tip of his nose is digging into Jensen’s perineum and his hole is twitching to get Jared’s teasing tongue past the material covering it.
“Stop teasing and do it already, you goddamn sonovabitch.”
Jared honest-to-god growls at that and practically tears the material right off of Jensen’s body. Without preamble he pushes Jensen’s legs up until his knees are touching his shoulders and buries his entire face in Jensen’s ass.
Jensen squeaks.
Jared’s saliva, which is currently dripping down his chin, the bed, and Jensen’s thighs, definitely does not feel like battery acid. It does, however, feel like rainbows and glitter and happiness all rolled up into one obscenely talented tongue. It takes about two minutes for Jensen to come all over himself, without his dick even being touched once.
Soulmate sex is awesome.
“We’re just getting started,” Jared smirks, crawling up Jensen’s body to lick into his mouth. Jensen tastes himself, tastes Jared, tastes rainbows and glitters and happiness and—wait, is that gingerbread?
Jensen squirms underneath him, clutches Jared’s shoulders, drags his nails down Jared’s back as they glide and slip in the sweat all over it. He makes noises that are just on the cusp of forming words, but really, words are overrated anyway, right?
“No condoms, okay? I need to come inside of you, need to see your ass dripping with it, need to suck it out of you and then rub it all over your face, fuck, need it so much it burns,” Jared whispers filthily into his mouth, and Jensen’s legs are coming around Jared’s waist instinctually before he can even realize what he’s doing.
Then suddenly, Jensen’s brain comes back online at the most inopportune moment.
“Hey, how come you get to top?”
Jared stares at him incredulously, pupils dilated so much that it’s like looking into two mini-black holes.
“I’m taller.”
Jensen huffs. “I’m older.”
“I can’t believe we are having real life top/bottom wank instead of actually fucking.”
“That is pretty impressive, isn’t it?”
Jared laughs then, a happy, carefree sound that makes Jensen smile and want to rub himself against Jared like a cat.
“How about we compromise?” Jared starts, voice getting huskier as he grinds his cock against Jensen’s, and that is so not fair. “I fuck you now before my dick literally detaches from my body, and you fuck me in, oh, I don’t know, an hour?”
Jensen tangles his fingers in Jared’s hair and pulls him into another wet, sloppy, rainbow-saliva-ed kiss. He feels Jared rubbing his precome down own shaft, feels him pressing it against Jensen’s hole and, fuck, he’s going to feel this all week. “I’d say let’s shake on it but your hands seem to have something better to do.”
When Jared presses into Jensen for the first time—bare, hot, just a touch too dry—it hurts. Jared stills about halfway in and spits on his fingers before reaching down to rub the extra moisture around where Jensen’s rim is stretched around his cock. He does it again, and then a third time, until the glide is smoother and Jensen is able to relax into the burn.
It’s also the most intense, overwhelming, and perfect moment of Jensen’s life. He wants to whisper words of love into the damp curve of Jared’s neck, but he can’t figure out a single thing in his vocabulary that will do this feeling justice.
There’s a weird urgency in their movements, even as Jared rocks into him slow and deep. There’s magic in it, Jensen decides. Any other explanation is too big for him to fathom. They were born bonded, but had spent their entire lives waiting for this very moment without even realizing it.
They finish together, Jared filling up Jensen inside and Jensen painting them both white on the outside. They pant into each other’s mouths, breathing together, sharing oxygen and spit and the knowledge that they have the rest of their lives to do it all over again.
Jared pulls out and Jensen curls into the sticky warmth of Jared’s body. The exhaustion of the weekend hits him suddenly, the exhilaration of first contact slowly fading.
There is silence for a moment and Jensen revels in the intimacy of it. Of course, Jared and his big incest-loving mouth have to ruin it.
“Nick will never love Rex like he loves Danny. It’s practically the mission statement of the entire show.”
“Jared, if you don’t shut up, I will be forced to use my penis as a gag.”
A beat. “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”
Jensen bites him right on the jugular and Jared yelps.
“My name is Jensen Ross Ackles. I’m twenty-six-years old and a paralegal for a mid-size law firm in Dallas called Kane, Carlson, and Hodge. My parents’ names are Alan and Donna and I have an older brother named Josh and a pain-in-the-ass baby sister named Mack. I ship Nick and Rex, but I secretly find Professor Z really hot in a douchebag kind of way. I hate gingerbread.“ He pauses. “I thought I was happy, but I didn’t even know what that word meant until right this moment.”
Jared is quiet for a beat and Jensen can feel him swallow where his face is pressed against Jared’s neck. Jensen hopes he’s said enough and that Jared will understand what he’s offering.
“Well, my name is Jared Tristan Padalecki, and if you laugh at my middle name I’ll push you off the bed. My mom is named Sherri and my dad is named Gerry, and, no, that isn’t funny either so stop giggling.” Jared stops, tangles his fingers with Jensen’s where they are resting on his chest. “I’m twenty-two and I just graduated from college with a surely useless degree in Creative Writing. I’m hoping that they are looking for freelance writers in Dallas. Big fancy city like that has to have some jobs available, right?”
Jensen squeezes his eyes shut and smiles into Jared’s skin.
By the time Jared and Jensen leave the Sheraton the next morning, hands tangling together and shoulders touching, they are tied at two hundred and thirteen comments a-piece on their Big Bangs. The two hundred and fourteenth comment on Jared’s fic –a wordless picture of Mike Rosenbaum’s head on the body of a dragon— mysteriously shows up later on that day. Jensen still claims to have no idea how it got there.
THE END