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Title: Foot In General Vicinity Of Mouth
Rating: Adult
Pairing/fandom:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spn_j2_xmas pinch-hit fic - RPF - Jared/Jensen
Wordcount: 4,217 words.
Prompt: J2 first time, college AU, Jared spending a semester abroad.
Disclaimer: Wildly inaccurate.
Jared's not entirely sure, but he thinks the man in front of him who apparently saves lives on a regular basis is named Goose.
The reason he's not entirely sure, is this man is also speaking an entire other language where he blatantly ignores sentence structure and instead talks one long word at a time. He'd heartily pumped Jared's hand when the cab had dropped him off and said, "Howyagointhename'sgoose.”
To think that people accused him of having a drawl.
"Up there's the tower," Goose says, pointing while shielding his eyes with a hand against the sun's glare. "S'where you start your shift. Has showers and a locker room and the roster," Goose continues and Jared tries translating in his head as fast as Goose drawls. It is a drawl, no doubt about that but it's a fast one which is making Jared's head hurt. "It's also where you bring people if you think they have to be monitored but aren't serious enough for the ambos."
"I'm sorry, I just got off a plane about eighteen hours ago and I'm only understanding one word in three," Jared says and Goose laughs, clapping him on the shoulder.
"S'okay mate, you'll be right."
Jared blinks.
Maybe it's the jetlag.
000
His flat mate Chad had seen the ad on a piece of newspaper wrapped around a figurine his grandmother had sent him. She'd been trekking around the world and for some reason thought what Chad really needed in his life was a glazed koala figurine with beady little black eyes holding grimly onto a tree branch and looking pissed off at the world. Chad had set the figurine in pride of place in the middle of their coffee table and had smoothed out the paper because his grandmother had inadvertently wrapped Chad's present in the personals section.
"Man seeking man for cuddly love," Chad had read out with obvious glee in his voice. "I'm circling this for you Jay-bear!"
Jared had put Chad in a headlock and had thought that the end of it but the next morning the paper had been sitting in front of his bedroom doorway with a love heart in red pen around one of the ads. Jared had scooped the paper up and had been planning on giving it back to Chad, probably placing it none-to-gently where the sun didn't shine but then he had actually read the ad Chad had marked for him and had paused.
The town of Sun Bay on the coast of Australia apparently swelled in population around tourist season and a lot of those people seemed to be hell-bent on drowning themselves at the local beach.
"I rang 'em and they're desperate enough that they're taking on anyone with the first aid qualifications and a decent ability to swim. There's an intensive one week training session," Chad had said from his own bedroom doorway, eating cereal from Jared's coffee mug.
Jared had rolled his eyes because he was being a responsible adult at college, on his own for the first time in ever but Chad had shrugged and said, "Just thought it would be something you'd be into. It wouldn't kill you to take a semester off since I've heard your many drunken girly ramblings about your life having no direction."
It had been true, and a little shocking. True that Jared had started wondering just what he wanted out of college, nothing really snagging his interest when everyone else seemed to be making plans for the next fifty years and shocking that Chad had actually listened to him and had thought about it enough to look into something that sounded pretty amazing on his behalf.
"Plus, you know, really grateful half-dressed girls," Chad had added, reassuring Jared that he had not, in fact, been transplanted by an alien Chad.
It was the furthest he'd ever gone from home and he had been terrified but elated right up until he saw the beach and the hundreds of people and realized that he could honestly and really spectacularly fuck everything up.
Then Goose was shaking his hand and dragging him along like an errant puppy.
000
The first day was orientation and Jared wasn't due to start his training until the second. Instead, he was abandoned by Goose to sit on a bench behind Dave-O who was manning the tower. Dave-O, and Jared couldn't think of that name with anything other than a hyphen, was scanning the beach with binoculars and every now and again would point one of the patrolling lifesavers towards certain parts of the beach.
"You're our second Texan," Dave-O says and Jared doesn't realize he's being addressed until Dave-O spares a precious moment to turn his head and raise his eyebrows at Jared.
"Really?" Is all Jared can think to say and swings his feet.
"Yeah, Jenny's been comin' here summers for four years now. Real asset but I'll deny it if you repeat me."
Jared makes a musing noise. It'll be nice having someone from home, might make him feel less homesick if he hears a familiar accent and Jared also thinks he's spotted Jenny. There's only one female lifesaver he's seen so far, little and dark haired with a tan to rival his own and hell, it might be lame to be on the other side of the world to hook up with someone from practically next door but it might also be nice.
"I heard you were staying at a room at the local," Dave-O continues and Jared nods but then snorts and says, "Yeah," because Dave-O's back to scanning the beach.
"Damn kid, that's a waste of hard earned cash. I got a pullout your welcome to if you don't mind dogs and the occasional all-nighters with the boys."
Jared blinks because... "Yeah, I mean, that would be great," he says, thinking about his dogs back home and how much he misses them. "I mean I can pay rent and -"
"Don't be a duffer," Dave-O dismisses, waving a hand behind himself. "Just been me and the kids for too long. It'll be nice to have someone else that they can slobber on in the morning."
000
Jared finds, to his utmost surprise, that he is not nearly as fit as he thought.
He unfortunately discovers this halfway through what is starting to feel like an eleven million mile swim that he'd agreed to, stupidly now he realizes, just to break the ice with the other lifesavers.
The shoreline looks tiny and too far away and Jared is trying to fight off panic when a wave hits him full in the face and he swallows water instead of precious air. "You okay?" a voice calls from somewhere off to his left.
Jared tries valiantly to recover but his panic well and truly overrides any pride he might’ve been trying to cling to when he means to say that he's fine and he swallows more water instead.
"Okay, stop trying to fight it and float, man," the disembodied voice calls and it sounds closer now but not close enough to serve as a floatation device, worse luck. "We're past the waves so just try to float on your back for a sec and get your wind back."
Jared does as he's told. He's still being pushed around by the current but he's able to breathe and his legs are extremely grateful for the respite. "Okay, I'm coming closer but don't grab at me when I do or we'll both drown," the voice instructs and now Jared's mind isn't filled with the white noise of impending doom, he's able to recognize that he's hearing an accent closer to his own than Goose's.
Jared feels an arm snag him around his ribs and then there’s the sensation of being towed. Jared resigns himself to the humiliation of being saved on his first day but was thinking at least it wasn't Jenny when someone calls from the shore. "Hey Jenny! I didn't think drowned rats got that big!"
Jared flails but is relieved to find that his feet touch bottom and just as they do the arm that had been around him shifts so it's now against the small of his back, herding him ashore. Jared is pushed down onto his butt as soon as he's out of the water and someone is strapping a mask over his face. He hadn't realized he was still breathing so heavy until blessed oxygen hits his face and he's able to take his first real, deep lungful.
"Don't tell me this is the new guy," the voice of his savior complains and the tone is so resigned and disgusted that Jared winces behind his mask. He cranes his head around, trying to see what the guy looks like but the sun is behind him so all he can make out is a silhouette with spiked wet hair and broad shoulders.
"I seem to remember someone else almost drowning the first time they went out past the breakers," Dave-O says, hunkering down next to Jared and tapping him gently on the back of his neck. "You gonna hurl?"
"I don't think so," Jared says, his voice muffled and odd sounding.
"Whatever. I'm hitting the showers," Jared's rescuer sighs and then there's the wuff, wuff, wuff of him running back up the beach.
"C'mon, kiddo," Dave-O urges kindly. "Lets get you back up to the tower." As Jared's gently prodded onto his feet, Goose, the dark haired girl and another guy Jared hadn't caught the name of either are walking out of the surf.
"He okay?" Goose asks, looking concerned and Dave-O nods beside him.
As Dave-O's leading Jared back up the beach, Jared looks back at the others for a moment and blinks. "I didn't think they'd be so nice about me being an idiot," Jared says and Dave-O snorts.
"That's just yer almost-dying grace period," Dave-O says with a chuckle. "Believe you me, you're going to be hearing about this all summer."
000
Jenny turns out to be a guy named Jensen Ackles with green eyes and freckles who pulls Jared aside early the next morning and says, "Try not to fuck up today."
Jared thinks maybe this is the beginning of the ribbing he'll be receiving from everyone but Jensen just stares at him for a second before turning and stalking off.
"Is he an asshole to everyone or just me?" Jared asks Maccer, typical tall, bronzed Aussie, before Maccer takes him out on his first try at a long board. He needs to master one of those because he'll be pulling people up onto them to get them back to shore. Jared had asked about the red plastic floats that people used on Baywatch and Maccer had just given him a concerned eyebrow.
"Who, Jenny?" Maccer asks, leaning backwards in the chair he's sitting on to give Jared a contemplative look. There's something in his scrutiny that makes Jared start feeling self-conscious. "Nah, he's a good bloke. One of the best."
"So, just me then," Jared says glumly.
000
The thing is, Jared is used to people liking him.
Sure, he made a bit of an ass of himself his first day because he'd wanted to fit in and had overextended himself but he didn't think he deserved someone's everlasting ire just because of it.
Jared sees the shift roster for the next couple of weeks on his last day of training and there are red pen marks all over it. It looks to him like Jensen had reorganized every shift he shared with Jared so their overlap was kept to a bare minimum.
"Seriously? This guy is going to hate me before he even knows me?" Jared complains as Dave-O hands him a coffee. Dave-O had proven to be a genuinely nice and laidback guy whose house was only five minutes from the beach and had two friendly blue heelers who seemed to have decided that Jared was a far better mattress than anything ever before.
"Jenny doesn't hate you," Dave-O dismisses but then makes a contemplative noise when he leans past Jared to look at the roster.
"Maybe you just remind him of Lochy too much," Stacy pipes up from behind them and Dave-O spins to glare at her.
"Who's Lochy?" Jared asks automatically.
"Don't worry Jazzer, got nothing to do with you. Jenny's just funny around new people. He'll warm up."
"I still think-"
"Stace, stick a cork in it," Dave-O snaps and she pulls a face at him.
000
Dave-O hosts a regular Friday night BBQ for everyone. Jared's first is as his training week comes to a close and he volunteers to make a beer run with Stacy before it kicks off.
Jared likes Stacy. She reminds him a little too much of his kid sister to actually ever make a play for her but she's tiny and evil and apparently holds the key to Jensen's continuing and astonishing grudge against him. Jared thinks he's only seen his fellow countryman once after his first day and Jensen had practically turned tail and ran at the very sight of him.
Jensen will be at Dave-O's and Jared has always believed forewarned is forearmed.
Jared's tapping at his bottom lip, trying to figure out just how to wedge Jensen and perhaps Jared's resemblance to a previous enemy into the conversation when Stacy smacks him on the arm. She's pointing to a case of beer and waiting for Jared to fetch it down.
"So, who's Lochy?" Jared blurts and wonders if there was ever a time in his life he was smooth because it certainly doesn't seem like it lately.
"I really shouldn't have said anything," Stacy says but she's also chewing her thumbnail that Jared has learnt in an amazingly short amount of time means she is about to spill the beans about something she knows she shouldn't. Jared feels sorry for Stacy's boyfriend who might be mortified to learn that everyone Stacy works with knows he has a third nipple and cries when he orgasms.
"Just... I mean you look like him. Not exactly, but he was tall and had brown hair and even the eyes are similar."
"Stace," Jared says, leaning down and grasping Stacy's shoulders in his hands. "Focus here. Why would Jensen hate me if I look like this guy? Is he an ex-boyfriend or something?"
"Well, yeah, kind of," Stacy says and when Jared frowns at her she shrugs her shoulders. "He died two summers ago."
"Who was he?"
"He came out here to work, like you and Jenny. He didn't have much experience either but he was fit and a fast learner. Jenny kind of took Lochy under his wing. He blames himself for what happened, no matter what people say."
"What happened?" Jared asks, starting to get the feeling that he was prying too deeply into something that didn't concern him but unable to stop himself.
"There was... just a really bad rip one day. Lochy went out because he saw a girl in trouble but he didn't see the girl's boyfriend there too. The guy was big, bigger than Lochy and he panicked and grabbed Lochy off his board. He didn't mean to, he was just terrified but he pushed Lochy under."
"Jesus," Jared breathes, pressing his knuckles into his eye sockets.
"Jenny wasn't even there that day but he'd swapped shifts with Des and... I don't know," Stacy continues, making a helpless gesture with her hands. "He thinks if he was there he could've done something. No one really saw it though. When we pulled Lochy out it was too late."
Jared feels sick to his stomach just hearing about it and also feels terrible for thinking that Jensen was being a bastard for no reason. "Anyway, they were close and Jenny just... I don't think he'll ever get over it."
000
Jared gives Jensen a wide berth at Dave-O's. He wants to say something but he has no idea what. He's actually surprised when Jensen seeks him out two hours into the night.
"Look man, I think I've been a bit of a jerk," Jensen starts to say and Jared is already nodding and smiling.
"No, man, it's okay, really. I mean, it's fine," Jared says in a rush and Jensen blinks and then his eyes narrow.
"Yeah... anyway, I just wanted to say I was sorry and ask if you wanted to start again?" Jensen says slowly, holding his hand out.
"That's cool," Jared says heartily, gripping Jensen's hand and pumping it up and down quickly. "I mean, I understand."
"Understand what?" Jensen asks, now looking confused.
"Well, Stace explained and it makes sense and-"
"Explained what exactly?" Jensen asks, and now his voice is sounding clipped and almost brittle and Jared swallows, thinking he's made a fatal error.
"Look, all I'm saying is I was sorry to hear about-"
"Oh for chrissakes," Jensen snaps, snatching his hand back and holding it out and away from himself like he's not sure what to do with it after Jared's touched it. "I don't need your understanding and I certainly don't need your pity," Jensen grates and stalks away.
Jared is left wondering just how he keeps messing things up with Jensen so badly without really doing anything.
000
Jensen continues to avoid him which makes Jared more determined to patch things up. "You a glutton for punishment or something?" Goose asks, swapping his and Jared's names in green on the shift roster. There's only a week left to go of the current roster and swapping with Goose for two of those means he works for eight hours when Jensen does.
Should be enough time to apologize for whatever he's done.
The next day when Jensen arrives, he merely glances at the roster, flares his nostrils and then looks from Jared to the cup of coffee Jared is holding out.
"I don't pity you," Jared blurts and Jensen rolls his eyes.
"That's very reassuring," he snaps, making his way down to the locker room to dump his bag with Jared on his heels.
"So I want to try the whole sorry I was being a jerk conversation again, but instead this time all I'll say will be, hey man, no sweat."
Jensen is shoving his jeans and t-shirt into his locker but pauses. Jared can only see his profile but it looks almost like Jensen is trying to fight off a smile.
"My momma always said the connection between my brain and my mouth didn't work. I blurt things. Horrible, embarrassing things that have no business ever making it past whatever filter most people have and I don't seem to. I don't quite understand what it is I did to piss you off so much but I really want to call a truce."
"Do you have a pathological need for everyone in the entire universe to like you?" Jensen asks, but his expression isn't angry. It's contemplative.
"Apparently," Jared says, spreading his hands in a what can I do gesture. Jensen snorts and ducks his head.
"Well, everyone else seems to adore the socks off you, I guess you can't be an entire douche."
"Nah, just about seventy percent," Jared agrees and now Jensen actually laughs and Jared realizes he's never seen the guy smile before and what a pity that was. He's got laugh lines etched deep by sea and sun.
"C'mon," Jensen sighs. "We got to start patrol in a few minutes."
000
The whole summer gets better after that. Jensen is fun and engaging and he and Jared have a lot in common and an easy banter that makes the days fly by. Jensen is also painfully hot but Jared doesn't want to push his luck and ruin the tentative friendship they've been building.
He needn't have worried though because five weeks into the job at one of Dave-O's BBQs while Jared is trying not to fall off the couch because he's had too much of Dave-O's home brew, Jensen actually drags him into the laundry and goes to his knees.
"If I'm really misreading the situation between us, then I'm just tying my shoelace," Jensen says with a wry grin and Jared shakes his head.
"No, not misreading," he says quickly.
"Man, I've wanted to do this since I first saw you," Jensen says, getting Jared's belt unbuckled.
"This isn't because-" Jared almost bites through his bottom lip trying to stop what he's almost blurted but he knows it's far too late, that Jensen knows exactly what he was going to say. Jensen freezes, loose ends of Jared's belt still in both hands and the grin that had been on his face slides off like water down a sidewalk.
For a moment Jensen leans forward and rests his forehead on Jared's belly, warm breath making the skin just under Jared's navel break out in gooseflesh. Then he settles back onto his heels and very carefully rebuckles Jared's belt and stands stiffly.
Jared is still in the laundry room, back pressed painfully to the washing machine when he hears Jensen call farewells in the next room.
This isn't because I look like him, is it?
000
Jensen doesn't bother swapping shifts again and if anything, to the casual observer he would seem to be downright pleasant, but there's a certain something missing from their interactions. Jared knows that Jensen is holding himself away, trying to wedge distance between them and the wider the chasm becomes; the less Jared knows how to bridge it.
Jared's quite frankly unable to fathom a way to apologize without making things worse.
Jared settles for drawing a pie chart that shows he is now ninety-nine percent douche and sticks it in Jensen's locker.
Jensen stands in front of him the next day with the piece of paper held out and says, "Did you do this on purpose?"
"Make the pie chart?" Jared asks, wondering if maybe Jensen had some strange pie chart related tragedy in his life that Jared had just inadvertently brought to the surface. With his track record, he wouldn't be surprised.
"No dumbass," Jensen sighs, but the most important thing other than him sounding exasperated is that he doesn't look angry. "Did you leave the one percent blank so I would have to ask you what it was?"
Jared leans forward to look at the pie chart Jensen is holding under his nose and raises his eyebrows. "Sorry," Jared says, snagging a pen off the desk next to him and writing on the page. Jensen turns it back around and then snorts.
"Hair?"
"Yep," Jared says, nodding. "Ninety-nine percent douche, one percent hair. That's me."
"Jared, it's not because you look like him," Jensen says, crumpling the pie chart in his fist.
"I didn't think it was," Jared says with a grimace. "I have no idea why I said that. I blame evil, home-made Australian beer."
"Well, there is a lot I too blame on evil, homemade Australian beer," Jensen allows with a small chuckle.
"Did I ruin any chance at all of blowjobs in my future?" Jared asks with a grin and they both turn when they hear Maccer behind them, dramatically dry-wretching.
"Please no," Maccer says. "I'm going to have to bleach my brain."
000
Dave-O makes himself scarce that night when Jensen follows Jared home. Jared had offered to go back to Jensen's place but Jensen had made a face and reminded Jared that he lived with Stacy so they were better off with Dave-O's unsubtle exit rather than Stacy re-enacting their night to every other lifesaver in the place the very next day.
"I'm on a pull-out couch," Jared says by way of apology when they arrive. Jensen just shrugs out of his shirt and grins.
The couch creaks and the bar in the middle is uncomfortable as hell but Jared forgets all of that the moment Jensen swallows his cock with a needy sound that will provide the soundtrack for all Jared's future jerk-off fantasies. Jared lets a Jenny slip and Jensen stops, pulling back with a warning scrape of teeth.
"It's Jensen," he says sternly and Jared smacks a hand to his face.
"Sorry... sorry, I wasn't thinking."
"I should hope not," Jensen says with a laugh but he's not bending back to the task at hand so Jared raises his head and his eyebrows.
"Do I have to make another pie chart?" Jared asks and Jensen looks contemplative for a moment, reaching up to rub at his lips and in so doing smearing some of Jared's pre-come across the full bottom one. Jared has to reach down to himself and squeeze to stop from coming at just the sight of it.
"Am I gonna get to fuck you tonight?" Jensen asks.
"Yes, god, anything," Jared says, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels.
"Well," Jensen says, "In that case you could call me Tits McGraw and I wouldn't give a damn."
000
Jared finds his pie chart in his locker the next day, edited.
The word douche has been scribbled out and Jensen has scrawled dick in its place. Along the bottom is written That's after seeing you naked!!!
Jared laughs.
Rating: Adult
Pairing/fandom:
spn_j2_xmas pinch-hit fic - RPF - Jared/JensenWordcount: 4,217 words.
Prompt: J2 first time, college AU, Jared spending a semester abroad.
Disclaimer: Wildly inaccurate.
Jared's not entirely sure, but he thinks the man in front of him who apparently saves lives on a regular basis is named Goose.
The reason he's not entirely sure, is this man is also speaking an entire other language where he blatantly ignores sentence structure and instead talks one long word at a time. He'd heartily pumped Jared's hand when the cab had dropped him off and said, "Howyagointhename'sgoose.”
To think that people accused him of having a drawl.
"Up there's the tower," Goose says, pointing while shielding his eyes with a hand against the sun's glare. "S'where you start your shift. Has showers and a locker room and the roster," Goose continues and Jared tries translating in his head as fast as Goose drawls. It is a drawl, no doubt about that but it's a fast one which is making Jared's head hurt. "It's also where you bring people if you think they have to be monitored but aren't serious enough for the ambos."
"I'm sorry, I just got off a plane about eighteen hours ago and I'm only understanding one word in three," Jared says and Goose laughs, clapping him on the shoulder.
"S'okay mate, you'll be right."
Jared blinks.
Maybe it's the jetlag.
His flat mate Chad had seen the ad on a piece of newspaper wrapped around a figurine his grandmother had sent him. She'd been trekking around the world and for some reason thought what Chad really needed in his life was a glazed koala figurine with beady little black eyes holding grimly onto a tree branch and looking pissed off at the world. Chad had set the figurine in pride of place in the middle of their coffee table and had smoothed out the paper because his grandmother had inadvertently wrapped Chad's present in the personals section.
"Man seeking man for cuddly love," Chad had read out with obvious glee in his voice. "I'm circling this for you Jay-bear!"
Jared had put Chad in a headlock and had thought that the end of it but the next morning the paper had been sitting in front of his bedroom doorway with a love heart in red pen around one of the ads. Jared had scooped the paper up and had been planning on giving it back to Chad, probably placing it none-to-gently where the sun didn't shine but then he had actually read the ad Chad had marked for him and had paused.
The town of Sun Bay on the coast of Australia apparently swelled in population around tourist season and a lot of those people seemed to be hell-bent on drowning themselves at the local beach.
"I rang 'em and they're desperate enough that they're taking on anyone with the first aid qualifications and a decent ability to swim. There's an intensive one week training session," Chad had said from his own bedroom doorway, eating cereal from Jared's coffee mug.
Jared had rolled his eyes because he was being a responsible adult at college, on his own for the first time in ever but Chad had shrugged and said, "Just thought it would be something you'd be into. It wouldn't kill you to take a semester off since I've heard your many drunken girly ramblings about your life having no direction."
It had been true, and a little shocking. True that Jared had started wondering just what he wanted out of college, nothing really snagging his interest when everyone else seemed to be making plans for the next fifty years and shocking that Chad had actually listened to him and had thought about it enough to look into something that sounded pretty amazing on his behalf.
"Plus, you know, really grateful half-dressed girls," Chad had added, reassuring Jared that he had not, in fact, been transplanted by an alien Chad.
It was the furthest he'd ever gone from home and he had been terrified but elated right up until he saw the beach and the hundreds of people and realized that he could honestly and really spectacularly fuck everything up.
Then Goose was shaking his hand and dragging him along like an errant puppy.
The first day was orientation and Jared wasn't due to start his training until the second. Instead, he was abandoned by Goose to sit on a bench behind Dave-O who was manning the tower. Dave-O, and Jared couldn't think of that name with anything other than a hyphen, was scanning the beach with binoculars and every now and again would point one of the patrolling lifesavers towards certain parts of the beach.
"You're our second Texan," Dave-O says and Jared doesn't realize he's being addressed until Dave-O spares a precious moment to turn his head and raise his eyebrows at Jared.
"Really?" Is all Jared can think to say and swings his feet.
"Yeah, Jenny's been comin' here summers for four years now. Real asset but I'll deny it if you repeat me."
Jared makes a musing noise. It'll be nice having someone from home, might make him feel less homesick if he hears a familiar accent and Jared also thinks he's spotted Jenny. There's only one female lifesaver he's seen so far, little and dark haired with a tan to rival his own and hell, it might be lame to be on the other side of the world to hook up with someone from practically next door but it might also be nice.
"I heard you were staying at a room at the local," Dave-O continues and Jared nods but then snorts and says, "Yeah," because Dave-O's back to scanning the beach.
"Damn kid, that's a waste of hard earned cash. I got a pullout your welcome to if you don't mind dogs and the occasional all-nighters with the boys."
Jared blinks because... "Yeah, I mean, that would be great," he says, thinking about his dogs back home and how much he misses them. "I mean I can pay rent and -"
"Don't be a duffer," Dave-O dismisses, waving a hand behind himself. "Just been me and the kids for too long. It'll be nice to have someone else that they can slobber on in the morning."
Jared finds, to his utmost surprise, that he is not nearly as fit as he thought.
He unfortunately discovers this halfway through what is starting to feel like an eleven million mile swim that he'd agreed to, stupidly now he realizes, just to break the ice with the other lifesavers.
The shoreline looks tiny and too far away and Jared is trying to fight off panic when a wave hits him full in the face and he swallows water instead of precious air. "You okay?" a voice calls from somewhere off to his left.
Jared tries valiantly to recover but his panic well and truly overrides any pride he might’ve been trying to cling to when he means to say that he's fine and he swallows more water instead.
"Okay, stop trying to fight it and float, man," the disembodied voice calls and it sounds closer now but not close enough to serve as a floatation device, worse luck. "We're past the waves so just try to float on your back for a sec and get your wind back."
Jared does as he's told. He's still being pushed around by the current but he's able to breathe and his legs are extremely grateful for the respite. "Okay, I'm coming closer but don't grab at me when I do or we'll both drown," the voice instructs and now Jared's mind isn't filled with the white noise of impending doom, he's able to recognize that he's hearing an accent closer to his own than Goose's.
Jared feels an arm snag him around his ribs and then there’s the sensation of being towed. Jared resigns himself to the humiliation of being saved on his first day but was thinking at least it wasn't Jenny when someone calls from the shore. "Hey Jenny! I didn't think drowned rats got that big!"
Jared flails but is relieved to find that his feet touch bottom and just as they do the arm that had been around him shifts so it's now against the small of his back, herding him ashore. Jared is pushed down onto his butt as soon as he's out of the water and someone is strapping a mask over his face. He hadn't realized he was still breathing so heavy until blessed oxygen hits his face and he's able to take his first real, deep lungful.
"Don't tell me this is the new guy," the voice of his savior complains and the tone is so resigned and disgusted that Jared winces behind his mask. He cranes his head around, trying to see what the guy looks like but the sun is behind him so all he can make out is a silhouette with spiked wet hair and broad shoulders.
"I seem to remember someone else almost drowning the first time they went out past the breakers," Dave-O says, hunkering down next to Jared and tapping him gently on the back of his neck. "You gonna hurl?"
"I don't think so," Jared says, his voice muffled and odd sounding.
"Whatever. I'm hitting the showers," Jared's rescuer sighs and then there's the wuff, wuff, wuff of him running back up the beach.
"C'mon, kiddo," Dave-O urges kindly. "Lets get you back up to the tower." As Jared's gently prodded onto his feet, Goose, the dark haired girl and another guy Jared hadn't caught the name of either are walking out of the surf.
"He okay?" Goose asks, looking concerned and Dave-O nods beside him.
As Dave-O's leading Jared back up the beach, Jared looks back at the others for a moment and blinks. "I didn't think they'd be so nice about me being an idiot," Jared says and Dave-O snorts.
"That's just yer almost-dying grace period," Dave-O says with a chuckle. "Believe you me, you're going to be hearing about this all summer."
Jenny turns out to be a guy named Jensen Ackles with green eyes and freckles who pulls Jared aside early the next morning and says, "Try not to fuck up today."
Jared thinks maybe this is the beginning of the ribbing he'll be receiving from everyone but Jensen just stares at him for a second before turning and stalking off.
"Is he an asshole to everyone or just me?" Jared asks Maccer, typical tall, bronzed Aussie, before Maccer takes him out on his first try at a long board. He needs to master one of those because he'll be pulling people up onto them to get them back to shore. Jared had asked about the red plastic floats that people used on Baywatch and Maccer had just given him a concerned eyebrow.
"Who, Jenny?" Maccer asks, leaning backwards in the chair he's sitting on to give Jared a contemplative look. There's something in his scrutiny that makes Jared start feeling self-conscious. "Nah, he's a good bloke. One of the best."
"So, just me then," Jared says glumly.
The thing is, Jared is used to people liking him.
Sure, he made a bit of an ass of himself his first day because he'd wanted to fit in and had overextended himself but he didn't think he deserved someone's everlasting ire just because of it.
Jared sees the shift roster for the next couple of weeks on his last day of training and there are red pen marks all over it. It looks to him like Jensen had reorganized every shift he shared with Jared so their overlap was kept to a bare minimum.
"Seriously? This guy is going to hate me before he even knows me?" Jared complains as Dave-O hands him a coffee. Dave-O had proven to be a genuinely nice and laidback guy whose house was only five minutes from the beach and had two friendly blue heelers who seemed to have decided that Jared was a far better mattress than anything ever before.
"Jenny doesn't hate you," Dave-O dismisses but then makes a contemplative noise when he leans past Jared to look at the roster.
"Maybe you just remind him of Lochy too much," Stacy pipes up from behind them and Dave-O spins to glare at her.
"Who's Lochy?" Jared asks automatically.
"Don't worry Jazzer, got nothing to do with you. Jenny's just funny around new people. He'll warm up."
"I still think-"
"Stace, stick a cork in it," Dave-O snaps and she pulls a face at him.
Dave-O hosts a regular Friday night BBQ for everyone. Jared's first is as his training week comes to a close and he volunteers to make a beer run with Stacy before it kicks off.
Jared likes Stacy. She reminds him a little too much of his kid sister to actually ever make a play for her but she's tiny and evil and apparently holds the key to Jensen's continuing and astonishing grudge against him. Jared thinks he's only seen his fellow countryman once after his first day and Jensen had practically turned tail and ran at the very sight of him.
Jensen will be at Dave-O's and Jared has always believed forewarned is forearmed.
Jared's tapping at his bottom lip, trying to figure out just how to wedge Jensen and perhaps Jared's resemblance to a previous enemy into the conversation when Stacy smacks him on the arm. She's pointing to a case of beer and waiting for Jared to fetch it down.
"So, who's Lochy?" Jared blurts and wonders if there was ever a time in his life he was smooth because it certainly doesn't seem like it lately.
"I really shouldn't have said anything," Stacy says but she's also chewing her thumbnail that Jared has learnt in an amazingly short amount of time means she is about to spill the beans about something she knows she shouldn't. Jared feels sorry for Stacy's boyfriend who might be mortified to learn that everyone Stacy works with knows he has a third nipple and cries when he orgasms.
"Just... I mean you look like him. Not exactly, but he was tall and had brown hair and even the eyes are similar."
"Stace," Jared says, leaning down and grasping Stacy's shoulders in his hands. "Focus here. Why would Jensen hate me if I look like this guy? Is he an ex-boyfriend or something?"
"Well, yeah, kind of," Stacy says and when Jared frowns at her she shrugs her shoulders. "He died two summers ago."
"Who was he?"
"He came out here to work, like you and Jenny. He didn't have much experience either but he was fit and a fast learner. Jenny kind of took Lochy under his wing. He blames himself for what happened, no matter what people say."
"What happened?" Jared asks, starting to get the feeling that he was prying too deeply into something that didn't concern him but unable to stop himself.
"There was... just a really bad rip one day. Lochy went out because he saw a girl in trouble but he didn't see the girl's boyfriend there too. The guy was big, bigger than Lochy and he panicked and grabbed Lochy off his board. He didn't mean to, he was just terrified but he pushed Lochy under."
"Jesus," Jared breathes, pressing his knuckles into his eye sockets.
"Jenny wasn't even there that day but he'd swapped shifts with Des and... I don't know," Stacy continues, making a helpless gesture with her hands. "He thinks if he was there he could've done something. No one really saw it though. When we pulled Lochy out it was too late."
Jared feels sick to his stomach just hearing about it and also feels terrible for thinking that Jensen was being a bastard for no reason. "Anyway, they were close and Jenny just... I don't think he'll ever get over it."
Jared gives Jensen a wide berth at Dave-O's. He wants to say something but he has no idea what. He's actually surprised when Jensen seeks him out two hours into the night.
"Look man, I think I've been a bit of a jerk," Jensen starts to say and Jared is already nodding and smiling.
"No, man, it's okay, really. I mean, it's fine," Jared says in a rush and Jensen blinks and then his eyes narrow.
"Yeah... anyway, I just wanted to say I was sorry and ask if you wanted to start again?" Jensen says slowly, holding his hand out.
"That's cool," Jared says heartily, gripping Jensen's hand and pumping it up and down quickly. "I mean, I understand."
"Understand what?" Jensen asks, now looking confused.
"Well, Stace explained and it makes sense and-"
"Explained what exactly?" Jensen asks, and now his voice is sounding clipped and almost brittle and Jared swallows, thinking he's made a fatal error.
"Look, all I'm saying is I was sorry to hear about-"
"Oh for chrissakes," Jensen snaps, snatching his hand back and holding it out and away from himself like he's not sure what to do with it after Jared's touched it. "I don't need your understanding and I certainly don't need your pity," Jensen grates and stalks away.
Jared is left wondering just how he keeps messing things up with Jensen so badly without really doing anything.
Jensen continues to avoid him which makes Jared more determined to patch things up. "You a glutton for punishment or something?" Goose asks, swapping his and Jared's names in green on the shift roster. There's only a week left to go of the current roster and swapping with Goose for two of those means he works for eight hours when Jensen does.
Should be enough time to apologize for whatever he's done.
The next day when Jensen arrives, he merely glances at the roster, flares his nostrils and then looks from Jared to the cup of coffee Jared is holding out.
"I don't pity you," Jared blurts and Jensen rolls his eyes.
"That's very reassuring," he snaps, making his way down to the locker room to dump his bag with Jared on his heels.
"So I want to try the whole sorry I was being a jerk conversation again, but instead this time all I'll say will be, hey man, no sweat."
Jensen is shoving his jeans and t-shirt into his locker but pauses. Jared can only see his profile but it looks almost like Jensen is trying to fight off a smile.
"My momma always said the connection between my brain and my mouth didn't work. I blurt things. Horrible, embarrassing things that have no business ever making it past whatever filter most people have and I don't seem to. I don't quite understand what it is I did to piss you off so much but I really want to call a truce."
"Do you have a pathological need for everyone in the entire universe to like you?" Jensen asks, but his expression isn't angry. It's contemplative.
"Apparently," Jared says, spreading his hands in a what can I do gesture. Jensen snorts and ducks his head.
"Well, everyone else seems to adore the socks off you, I guess you can't be an entire douche."
"Nah, just about seventy percent," Jared agrees and now Jensen actually laughs and Jared realizes he's never seen the guy smile before and what a pity that was. He's got laugh lines etched deep by sea and sun.
"C'mon," Jensen sighs. "We got to start patrol in a few minutes."
The whole summer gets better after that. Jensen is fun and engaging and he and Jared have a lot in common and an easy banter that makes the days fly by. Jensen is also painfully hot but Jared doesn't want to push his luck and ruin the tentative friendship they've been building.
He needn't have worried though because five weeks into the job at one of Dave-O's BBQs while Jared is trying not to fall off the couch because he's had too much of Dave-O's home brew, Jensen actually drags him into the laundry and goes to his knees.
"If I'm really misreading the situation between us, then I'm just tying my shoelace," Jensen says with a wry grin and Jared shakes his head.
"No, not misreading," he says quickly.
"Man, I've wanted to do this since I first saw you," Jensen says, getting Jared's belt unbuckled.
"This isn't because-" Jared almost bites through his bottom lip trying to stop what he's almost blurted but he knows it's far too late, that Jensen knows exactly what he was going to say. Jensen freezes, loose ends of Jared's belt still in both hands and the grin that had been on his face slides off like water down a sidewalk.
For a moment Jensen leans forward and rests his forehead on Jared's belly, warm breath making the skin just under Jared's navel break out in gooseflesh. Then he settles back onto his heels and very carefully rebuckles Jared's belt and stands stiffly.
Jared is still in the laundry room, back pressed painfully to the washing machine when he hears Jensen call farewells in the next room.
This isn't because I look like him, is it?
Jensen doesn't bother swapping shifts again and if anything, to the casual observer he would seem to be downright pleasant, but there's a certain something missing from their interactions. Jared knows that Jensen is holding himself away, trying to wedge distance between them and the wider the chasm becomes; the less Jared knows how to bridge it.
Jared's quite frankly unable to fathom a way to apologize without making things worse.
Jared settles for drawing a pie chart that shows he is now ninety-nine percent douche and sticks it in Jensen's locker.
Jensen stands in front of him the next day with the piece of paper held out and says, "Did you do this on purpose?"
"Make the pie chart?" Jared asks, wondering if maybe Jensen had some strange pie chart related tragedy in his life that Jared had just inadvertently brought to the surface. With his track record, he wouldn't be surprised.
"No dumbass," Jensen sighs, but the most important thing other than him sounding exasperated is that he doesn't look angry. "Did you leave the one percent blank so I would have to ask you what it was?"
Jared leans forward to look at the pie chart Jensen is holding under his nose and raises his eyebrows. "Sorry," Jared says, snagging a pen off the desk next to him and writing on the page. Jensen turns it back around and then snorts.
"Hair?"
"Yep," Jared says, nodding. "Ninety-nine percent douche, one percent hair. That's me."
"Jared, it's not because you look like him," Jensen says, crumpling the pie chart in his fist.
"I didn't think it was," Jared says with a grimace. "I have no idea why I said that. I blame evil, home-made Australian beer."
"Well, there is a lot I too blame on evil, homemade Australian beer," Jensen allows with a small chuckle.
"Did I ruin any chance at all of blowjobs in my future?" Jared asks with a grin and they both turn when they hear Maccer behind them, dramatically dry-wretching.
"Please no," Maccer says. "I'm going to have to bleach my brain."
Dave-O makes himself scarce that night when Jensen follows Jared home. Jared had offered to go back to Jensen's place but Jensen had made a face and reminded Jared that he lived with Stacy so they were better off with Dave-O's unsubtle exit rather than Stacy re-enacting their night to every other lifesaver in the place the very next day.
"I'm on a pull-out couch," Jared says by way of apology when they arrive. Jensen just shrugs out of his shirt and grins.
The couch creaks and the bar in the middle is uncomfortable as hell but Jared forgets all of that the moment Jensen swallows his cock with a needy sound that will provide the soundtrack for all Jared's future jerk-off fantasies. Jared lets a Jenny slip and Jensen stops, pulling back with a warning scrape of teeth.
"It's Jensen," he says sternly and Jared smacks a hand to his face.
"Sorry... sorry, I wasn't thinking."
"I should hope not," Jensen says with a laugh but he's not bending back to the task at hand so Jared raises his head and his eyebrows.
"Do I have to make another pie chart?" Jared asks and Jensen looks contemplative for a moment, reaching up to rub at his lips and in so doing smearing some of Jared's pre-come across the full bottom one. Jared has to reach down to himself and squeeze to stop from coming at just the sight of it.
"Am I gonna get to fuck you tonight?" Jensen asks.
"Yes, god, anything," Jared says, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels.
"Well," Jensen says, "In that case you could call me Tits McGraw and I wouldn't give a damn."
Jared finds his pie chart in his locker the next day, edited.
The word douche has been scribbled out and Jensen has scrawled dick in its place. Along the bottom is written That's after seeing you naked!!!
Jared laughs.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Jazzer Heee. Yes, within minutes he would be called Jazzer or maybe the jazzstor :)
I love your OCs, they are fantastic, Dave-O hee.
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Seriously though this is great. I love the conciseness of it. There's a fair bit of story there but it's all under the surface and what we get is the pared down essential parts of it.
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Wonderful &hearts
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Absolutely LOVED that line! Thanks again, especially for the pinch hit.
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Oh, fun.
Lifeguards in Oz!
:)
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This was ridiculously awesome and I loved every word of it.
<3
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your stories in spn fandom, either sam and dean or j2, are always sweet and have well-developed characters. :-)
thank you for sharing honey.