Work Text:
Jeff woke in the morning to find himself alone in the bed. He couldn't hear the shower running, but he could smell the aroma of fresh coffee. He imagined Jensen downstairs in his little kitchen, wearing nothing but his boxer briefs, making up two big mugs of coffee. He'd bring them upstairs, and the two of them could spend a lazy morning in bed, hoping for another snow day, another respite from work for Jensen. Waiting for Jensen, imagining him walking up the stairs even then balancing the mugs in his hands, Jeff stretched, appreciating the slight aches in his body--in his knees from being bent in an unfamiliar way, in his ass.
It had been, shit, six years since he'd let a guy inside him like that. He'd discovered early on, back in college, that he could be happy to fuck or suck or lick or whatever else he felt like doing with people who were little more than acquaintances, sometimes not even that. Pleasure had its own value, apart from love, and as long as everyone was safe and consenting and within shouting distance of sober it was all good. Almost all.
He'd learned the hard way, in the aftermath of a broken heart from someone he thought was a good friend, that the one thing he couldn't do casually was get fucked. He didn't need a goddamn ring on his finger, but he needed to know that he felt something deeper, something real, and he needed to know that those feelings were returned.
He and Jensen, they hadn't said anything, not in so many words, but he was sure it was there. 95% sure. 90%. He rolled over to face the door, ready to see Jensen's face again, but as the minutes went by with no sound of activity below--no rushing water, no Jensen - that number, and his stomach, began to drop.
Because he had said something.
The night before, with Jensen hot and alive inside him, he'd let it slip. I love you. He'd fallen to sleep hard on the heels of coming, but no answering words had followed him.
~~~
When he felt like he couldn't stay in the bed alone anymore, Jeff gave in and walked downstairs. He found Jensen, dressed in jeans, boots and a hoodie, leaning against the kitchen counter sipping from a cup of coffee, a travel mug open on the counter.
"Hey," Jeff ventured. "Good morning."
Jensen looked up from his coffee, and Jeff's stomach curdled at the bright, edgy look in his eyes. "Hey. Morning." His voice sounded far too bright in contrast with his posture.
"You doin' okay?"
"Yeah, I'm great. Kim called, and we'll be filming with just a little bit of a late start today. They're gonna give the streets another hour or so to thaw out and then send the car over."
"Damn, I was hoping we'd have more time."
"Yeah, yeah, totally, but gotta get the work done, right? Hey, you're welcome to chill here or come out to the set, whatever you want, man."
"Jen," Jeff started, trying to derail Jensen's ongoing train of words.
"Or maybe you've got other people you want to hang out with in town, that's cool. I--"
"I'm here to see you." Jeff cut him off, impatient with whatever the hell was going on.
Jensen's expression flashed jack-rabbit scared for a second before it went carefully blank. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "I just thought you might want to see some other buddies or whatever."
"Buddies?" The word hurt, echoing back twenty years. "Is that what we are here?"
"W-well, yeah. Yeah."
The hurt in Jeff's chest flashed over to anger. "You're lying." He tried to keep his voice calm, but he could hear anger slipping out around the edges of his words.
Jensen's forehead creased up, and he shook his head minutely as he put his coffee down on the counter. "Uh, no. No, I'm not, Jeff. We're friends. This is awesome, but we're friends."
Jeff stepped up in Jensen's face, backing him up closer to the counter so that he had to stand up straighter. "You're lying to me or you're lying to yourself, but either way you're full of crap, boy."
Jensen's eyes went round, then he pushed Jeff back a step with both hands on his chest. "What the fuck is this about? I thought we were good, I mean--"
"This is about--" Jeff turned around, putting his back to Jensen and rubbing a hand across his roughly stubbled cheeks before turning back around. "This isn't just fucking around for me, and I thought it was more for you, too. I let you in. I told you I loved you, and apparently you don't have shit to say about that."
"I can't." Jensen shook his head hard. "I--I--I don't."
"You know what, fuck this." Jeff turned around and walked out of the kitchen, headed for the stairs. Gotta pack my shit. Gotta call a cab to the airport. Gotta get the hell out of here.
Back in Jensen's bedroom, he kept his eyes away from the bed and pulled on his jeans. He grabbed his phone out of the pocket and dialed his usual cab company, dressing one-handed as much as he could. "Yeah, I need a cab to Vancouver International." He listed to the dispatcher tell him that there would likely be a delay, the streets were not so good. "Look, the sooner your man gets here the bigger the tip, and I'm good for $500."
"Fifteen minutes, no more," the woman said, and Jeff flipped the phone closed, shoving his feet into his shoes and shouldering his bag.
He passed the kitchen on the way to the front door and saw Jensen still where he'd left him, back to the counter. He had his head down, studying the floor, and Jeff felt a flash of concern in his stomach for the dejected lines of Jensen's body.
No, he reminded himself. You need to get the fuck out before you get hurt worse. He's old enough to take care of himself, and he's old enough to know what the fuck he wants. Maybe he never will. Can't stick around and find out the hard way.
Jeff put his hand on the door knob and paused at the sound of Jensen's voice, oddly thick. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jeff."
"Yeah, me too," Jeff answered, wincing at the naked bitterness in his voice. He pulled open the door and stepped outside to wait.
It was still bitterly cold out there, but with spending so much time in New York and Vancouver he'd invested in a good coat, and that and the heat of his hurt and fury kept him warm. He walked around the side of Jensen's building, close enough so that he'd be able to hear the cab when it pulled up but far enough out of sight that hopefully nobody would call the cops on his for stalking around in a threatening manner.
He needed to call the airline and change his tickets, needed to get his mind into the future and off of the past, needed to forget what he'd said the night before, but he felt his muscles coiled up with tension, anger at himself, at Jensen flashing through him.
"Fuck," he muttered. "Fucking stupid asshole." And he didn't even know which of them he was talking about more. He felt like he was going to shout or cry, his hands bunched into fists at his side, so tight that his fingers hurt.
The brick wall of Jensen's townhouse stood there, solid and annoying, and before he could think better of it he drew his arm back and punched it. "FUCK!" The shock of pain from his knuckles busting open on the rough brick cleared his mind, and he shook the incipient soreness out of his arm and hand before picking up a handful of snow and pressing it to his raw knuckles. "Fucking stupid asshole," he said again, more resignation than anger in his voice.
~~~
Back in LA, he knocked on his neighbor's door, hoping like hell that Jim was home so that he could get his girl. He could hear her barking inside, had since before he stepped on the porch, and some of the tension in his body relaxed at the reminder that there was one thing in life he could rely on--the love of his dog.
After a couple of minutes of anxious waiting, he heard the door unlatch, and his neighbor opened the door. Bisou nosed though the space between his legs and the doorframe and jumped out on the porch to greet Jeff.
"Oh, hey, baby girl." He crouched down to put his arms around her warm bulk and then looked up. "Hey, Jim. Sorry for the early arrival."
"No problem, man. Change of plans?"
"Something like that." Jeff stood, shifting on his feet.
"You want to come in a minute?"
Hell, no, Jeff didn't want to come in. He wanted to take Bisou and walk back over to his house, be alone with his misery. But Jim was a good guy, took care of Bisou like no ordinary dog sitter would, and he didn't deserve to be treated like hired help, even if Jeff did pay him. "Sure," he answered. "Thanks."
Jeff sat on Jim's couch drinking iced tea while Bisou and Jim's dog--a beagle named Monty--milled around in front of him.
"You doing okay?" Jim asked from his seat next to Jeff.
"Yeah. Fine."
"You look like your best friend got run over by a bus, dude. And Bisou's right here, so…"
Jeff winced, and Jim put an apologetic hand on his knee. "Sorry." The hand stayed in place.
Jeff had been aware that Jim had a thing for him for a while, but it didn't feel like anything serious from Jim's point of view. Jim had never pushed anything, saving Jeff from having to explain that he wasn't interested.
Some dark part of him, the asshole part of him that he wished didn't exist, thought that it might feel good to fuck this guy and then never call him back, might take some of the pain out of himself and put it on someone else. The rest of him, though, the rest of him knew that it would never work, never last, he'd only hate himself more. Spreading around pain never did anybody any good, and he'd promised himself a long time ago that he wouldn't be that kind of person.
Jeff shook his head. "Just a lousy couple of days." He stood up, dislodging Jim's hand. "Thanks, man. I appreciate it."
"Hey, you know, I'm always here. It's no problem."
Jeff clapped his hand on Jim's shoulder and collected Bisou's leash from the coffee table, clipped it onto her collar. Outside, walking across the stretch of lawn between their houses, Jeff sighed, jingling Bisou's leash in he air.
"At least we're home, baby. At least we're home."
Now all he had to do was find a way to forget the way Jensen felt inside him and around him, forget the way Jensen smelled and tasted, the sound of his laughter. Forget how the freckles never stopped, sprays of them across his solid back, his ass. Forget the deep beauty of watching Jensen learn the truth about himself.
But if Jensen couldn't or wouldn't accept that truth, there just wasn't anything left for Jeff but to do his best to forget.
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