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Entry tags:
Sugar Shock, CWrpf, J2, NC-17
Title: Sugar Shock (Kisses Sweeter Than Wine)
Fandom: CWrpf
Pairing: J2
Rating: NC-17
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
without_me's birthday, a tiny bit early. She might or might not be enabling me in this crazy AU where Jared is the latest winner of the reality show America's Next Celebrity Chef, and Jensen is the uptight foodie who has to interview him, but I got this this "anonymous" sugar cookie snowflake gift that wondered what Jensen might be making for Jared this holiday season, and this is the (long-form) answer.
eta: Now with an awesome banner fromfacesplitgrin to go along with the rest of the AU, which I did indeed manage to write for the 2010 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spn_j2_bigbang
At a month out, it wasn't that Jensen didn't know that he was maybe going a little off the charts with the organizing thing--the spreadsheet had six different colors and four tabs and he thought he should probably split out one or two of them into sub-categories of their own--it was just that this was important. And it wasn't that he didn't think that Jared didn't think it was a big deal--he knew Jared was pretty excited about the whole thing, too--but Jared's idea of planning was to write a shopping list on his palm and wing it when he got to the store, and that just wasn't going to cut it. Not this time.
And, okay, it was just a party, but it was the first time they'd done anything like this together, and so far, no one had called with their regrets (and Jensen knew that didn't mean that people weren't going to bail without calling, but he thought at least some of their friends understood the basics of civility and would take the time to let him know if they couldn't make it. Then again, that group included Chad and Chris, so he was maybe being a little too optimistic.)
Still.
His parents were coming. Jared's parents were coming. It was a big deal. It was serious.
"Babe," Jared said, on the third night he'd woken up to find Jensen huddled under the covers with his laptop. "I've met your family. You've met mine. Everybody likes everybody else. It'll all be okay."
He didn't say like he thought Jensen was a freak; he said it like he was worried about Jensen, and his hand, where it was stroking up and down Jensen's thigh, was warm and strong.
"I don't want 'okay'," Jensen admitted. "I want--well, I want it to be perfect, but I know that's not going to happen, so I'll settle for jaw-dropping."
Jared looked at him for a couple of seconds before he nodded. "Jaw-dropping. Okay, I can get on board with that. But, in the morning. Sleep now." He held out his hand, waiting patiently until Jensen saved his changes and handed over the laptop. "Glasses, too," he said, dropping them gently on the bedside table before he wrapped both arms around Jensen and dragged him down. Jensen had never been one for cuddling, but with Jared, it was more like being wrapped up in a living, breathing comforter. It was a subtle difference, Jensen thought, already halfway to sleep, but important.
*
"Okay," Jared said. Breakfast was done; showers were accomplished; emergency emails were dealt with. "One journeyman baker, reporting for duty. What's the plan, chief?"
"I know you don't get into baking--" Jensen started, because Jared really didn't. He liked to cook by feel and taste and smell--hell, he'd built a career on it--and you had to pay attention to measurements with baking, but Jared waved off the objection. He whistled when Jensen showed him the spreadsheet, but didn't give him any grief, just studied it with a commendable attention to detail. Then again, it did deal with food, so that made it easier to catch his attention.
"So," Jared said. "The blue rows are chocolate things; the yellow rows are fruit-based; green are cookies; orange are spice-based; the teal ones are … ?
"Savory things," Jensen said, quickly. "Like that rosemary cheesecake you made on the show last year. Stuff like that. And the red ones are family recipes," he added. "I only have one thing from your mom; we should get more."
It was a lot, he knew, but once he'd gotten started it had snowballed. Jared nodded absently, his eyes still on the computer screen.
"I'll ask her for the red velvet cake with the peppermint frosting." Jared looked up briefly. "What are you thinking for the showstopper?"
"Buche de Noel?" Jensen hadn't quite gotten as far as really getting down into the nitty-gritty, but what was a Christmas dessert buffet without a buche de Noel? "um, or maybe croquembouche? It's not traditional, but it'll look awesome as a centerpiece."
"Both?" Jared was still peering at the computer, and had started typing, his hunt-and-peck almost as fast as Jensen's ten-fingered, correct style. He chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip, which really shouldn't have been as distracting as it was, but Jensen was getting better at just admitting the distractions and enjoying. Then he looked up and grinned, a full-on, blinding, megawatt charmer, and Jensen was toast. "Can I make a gingerbread house?"
"Sure," Jensen said, a little breathless from the smile, not even caring that combining Jared with bags of candy and unlimited royal icing was never going to be a good idea. "We can put it in the great room."
"Yeah, and put all the cookies around it." Jared tapped out a few more notes and went back to biting on his bottom lip. "Do you think you have enough variations on chocolate?"
"Five isn't enough?" Jensen thought about it. "No, you're probably right. I'll see what else I can come up."
"Something uncomplicated," Jared said, putting the laptop down and standing up to stretch, which, again. Distracting.
"I'll try to come up with something that won't tax your minuscule attention span." Jensen was getting better at not sounding as distracted as he was, even with knowing how much Jared liked it when Jensen mouthed along the very skin that he was displaying at the moment, that smooth strip that arched up and over his hip… Jensen gave himself an internal head smack, coming back to the here-and-now to find Jared stuffing his feet into his running shoes. "Where are you going?"
"To get all the stuff I need to make the gingerbread. I can make the dough today and be ready to roll it out and cut it as soon as I sketch out the plans for it." Jared grabbed his keys and wallet, hesitating as he got to the door. "It doesn't have to be a gingerbread house, right? Think how cool it would be if I could do the Alamo…"
Jared was gone before Jensen could react, but Jensen told himself Jared was just kidding. Nobody sane would try to recreate the Alamo in gingerbread.
*
Jared wasn't kidding, which Jensen should have expected, but he changed his mind once he started to plan things out, for the simple reason that the Alamo offered limited decorating potential. Jensen closed his eyes and breathed a small thanksgiving--the first one ever--for Jared's candy addiction. As far as he could tell from the sketches Jared was turning out, this was going to be the most complicated gingerbread house ever, but… that was Jared, so he couldn't be surprised.
Jensen finished the master list, and then started on the staging plan. At least they'd finished the kitchen remodel, and with it having been done so Jared could shoot the new show there, they had a professional level facility to work with. Even with three ovens and the extra freezers, though, it was going to be tight at the end. Jared watched him mutter and mumble for a couple of days, then hid his computer and only let him have printouts of the recipes and shopping lists.
"You're kidding me, right?" Jensen was almost shaking, he was so furious. "Give me my computer."
"Sure," Jared said, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, and pissed Jensen off even more. "Just as soon as you admit you have a problem."
Jensen stormed out in a righteous fury, not bothering to keep his voice down as he called Jared every name in the book. He got on the phone to Chris, who only laughed at him, and then ended up sitting in the car for a couple of hours, not sulking, thank you very much. It was dark when he finally went back inside.
Jared was in the kitchen, bandanna tied around his head, keeping his hair out of his eyes, liberally dusted with flour, and surrounded by a staggering number of dirty mixing bowls and measuring spoons and cups. He had to have pulled out the sets he used for the show, as well as their own personal stuff, to end up with so many. He glanced up when Jensen came in, but turned back to unwrapping sticks of butter and dropping them in the work bowl of the red KitchenAid.
"Hey," Jensen said, after the silence stretched out long past awkward and into apocalyptic. He really wanted to wipe the smudge of flour off Jared's forehead, but he wasn't sure that Jared wouldn't break his wrist if he got too close. "I, um--"
"I'm sorry," Jared blurted out. "That was really--rude. And annoying. And obnoxious. I was all those things."
He stared at Jensen like he only expected to have a few seconds to explain himself, and it was all so stupid.
"Yeah," Jensen sighed. "You were. And I've been a pain in the ass about this whole thing, so can we call it even and, and, not pretend like it didn't happen, but maybe just… try not to be so incredibly stupid with each other again?"
Jared nodded, shaking his head so hard Jensen thought he might lose the bandanna. "I am so good with that, you don't even know. Just--don't leave, okay?"
"I didn't," Jensen said, giving in to what was growing into a screaming need to get his hands on Jared and crossing the kitchen. "I was out in the truck the whole time."
He chickened out of going for the smudge on Jared's forehead--and there was another one along his cheekbone--and settled for touching his hip instead, so he could pretend it was just a casual touch on the way to getting a glass out of the cupboards behind them if Jared hadn't quite gotten to the same point as he had. He should have known better--Jared was the guy who could solve half the world's problems with a hug; Jensen was the one who held people at a distance. Jared slid his hand over Jensen's and, when Jensen didn't pull away, wrapped it around Jensen's wrist and tugged him closer. Jensen could feel the tension bleeding out of Jared; if he was honest, he could feel it bleeding out of himself, too. They stood there, not hugging, just close enough to feel each other breathe, for a long couple of minutes, until Jensen finally shifted and broke the spell. Jared let him go easily.
"All right," Jensen said, clearing his throat. "So, don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell is all this?" Jensen waved at the bowls and mixers--both KitchenAids were out of their cabinets--and the opened five pound bags of flour and sugar. And brown sugar. And chocolate chips, the good Madagascar vanilla, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, dried cherries, four lemons skinned of their peels, and enough almonds to feed a small country. Jensen thought about looking for partridges and pear trees.
"It's an I'm-sorry-I-was-a-jerk gesture," Jared said, very seriously. "I'm almost done and then you can mark off all the cookie dough as being made and in the freezer and ready to be baked." He pointed to where Jensen's laptop sat on the big farmhouse table on the other side of the kitchen, then turned back to the mixer in front of him. "I just have to do the last batch of sugar cookie dough and, y'know, clean up this mess, and I'll be through."
He started creaming the butter, measuring out the sugar and stretching out his shoulders and back while he waited, and Jensen gave himself a mental shake. They'd agreed on six types of cookies, with at least two batches of all of them, and if Jared was on the last of them, he'd been working the whole time Jensen had been sitting out in the truck, sulking.
"Go," Jensen said, bumping Jared's hip with his own, nudging him toward the door. "There's a shower with your name on it upstairs. I got this."
"Jen--"
"It's an I'm-sorry-I-was-a-jerk gesture," Jensen told him, just as seriously. Jared hesitated, and Jensen bumped their hips again. "What? I can't make the big gesture, too?"
"No!" Jared shook his head again. "I--you don't have to do that, though. Clean up my messes. I don't expect you to, you know that, right?"
"Yeah" Jensen slowed the mixer speed so he could start adding the eggs, not looking up as he said, "That's not what I'm doing here, okay? It's more like I'm cleaning up after myself."
Jared stayed still for another few seconds, then bumped his hip back into Jensen's and stepped away. "I'll call for take-out when I'm done," he said. "Want anything in particular?"
"Whatever you're in the mood for is fine." Jensen started adding the flour, and thought about the last time he'd eaten, breakfast, way on the other side of the explosion in the middle of the day. "Just get a lot of it."
"I can do that," Jared said, and Jensen looked up in time to see the flash of a smile as he headed out of the kitchen. He smiled a little himself, because that was practically Jared's life motto. Jensen liked knowing that, and liked it even more that Jared was okay with him knowing that, because there had been a good long time that neither of those things had been true. He whipped through the last of the cookie dough, double-wrapping it in plastic wrap and then again in foil before stashing it next to two shelves of similarly wrapped lumps in the big stand-up freezer in the pantry. The dishes gave him a little more trouble--too many of the giant bowls and not enough dishwasher space, not even with two--but he reminded himself that doing them by hand wouldn't actually kill him.
Right as Jensen wiped down the final counter, Jared came wandering back into the kitchen, 'beater and track pants and bare feet, with two of the giant size boxes from the pizza place that was tucked into the corner of the closest strip mall, the place that Jensen always expected to find closed down by the health inspector, but that had the best New York style pizzas outside of the five boroughs, balanced on his hip.
"One margherita, one pepperoni-sausage-extra cheese," Jared said, opening the refrigerator with his free hand. Jensen's stomach made its approval known. "And a six of whatever Chris left the last time he was here."
"Works for me," Jensen said, taking the beer out of Jared's hands before he dropped everything. If they were treating each other with a little more care than usual--margherita was definitely not what Jared would order on a normal pizza run--Jensen didn't see how that was anything bad.
*
At two weeks out, Jensen finalized the schedule. Jared wouldn't tell him exactly what he was doing with the gingerbread, but swore he'd be done baking all the pieces in another couple days.
"Worst case?" Jensen hated to be pushy, but they might have bitten off more than they could chew here, and if they were going to run out of time, he'd rather know that up-front, rather than figuring it out the hard way.
"Four days, tops," Jared said. He was sprawled out next to where Jensen was propped up in bed with his laptop balanced on his knees, and as working environments went, Jensen couldn't complain about having all that skin right there on display. Especially not when Jared kept one hand on Jensen, absent, small strokes against his arm and shoulder and hip.
No complaints at all.
*
At ten days out, Jared announced he was through baking all the gingerbread, even extra pieces in case something important cracked, and that the kitchen was at Jensen's disposal. Jensen looked at the box in the freezer and deliberately didn't even try to figure out what Jared was trying to do, just made a note to move one of the bigger tables into the great room to hold the masterpiece.
Jensen started with the sturdier stuff: the marbled red velvet cake from Jared's mom, his own mother's rum cake (though he was using actual rum and not the fake extract she'd always used, but nobody needed to know anything about that), the carrot cake (he was probably going to have to come clean on the Baileys that went into the frosting of that one, but only because it was impossible to miss once anyone took a taste), and the pie crusts for the apple and banana cream pies. All of those could go into the freezer without making him cringe at the thought.
*
At a week out, the guys came out to string the lights outside. Jensen made himself sit calmly on the back deck while Jared climbed up to help them with the ones that ran along the roof ridge, for no reason other than it looked like "fun." Jensen didn't even try to talk him out of it, just made sure the phone was handy in case he needed to call 911.
*
At eighty-four hours out, the serious baking began. Jensen had the recipes printed up and taped at eye-level on the cabinets. He worked his way through them while Jared rolled and cut and decorated sugar cookies. Even with expecting it to be a mess, Jensen still couldn't believe how many smears of colored frosting Jared managed to accumulate on his shirt and face and hands.
They both hit the wall after six solid hours, so Jensen got out the chocolate and the heavy cream and Jared raided the liquor cabinet and they made truffles. They ended up with only about half as many as Jensen had thought they would, but since the other half ended up being licked off each other, Jensen really didn't care.
*
At forty-eight hours out, Jensen stopped thinking and just did what was listed next on the schedule. He'd put a lot of thought into it earlier for just that reason, so he trusted in what was in front of him and didn't try to second-guess himself.
The deliveries from the florist arrived, right as scheduled, so at least he could get away from cooking--and who thought he'd ever be saying something like that?--and make sure the poinsettias and miniature evergreens were set up right.
Jared barely looked up from where he was mortaring gingerbread together with heavy lines of royal icing, only said, "No peeking," when Jensen came into the room to show the florists where he wanted things.
*
At thirty-six hours out, Jensen looked up from heating the sugar syrup he needed for the next batch of buttercream to see Jared eying the sponge cake roll for the buche de Noel with a speculative gleam in his eyes.
"They have those roller things that you can use to mark up fondant," Jared said. "It's pretty easy to get the log pattern that way."
"Fondant tastes like crap," Jensen answered. "I've got the buttercreams, and a fork."
"That's what I thought you'd say," Jared said, and Jensen didn't think he was imagining the indulgence he heard in Jared's voice.
"If it was good enough--"
"If it was good enough for Julia Child, it's good enough for you; I know," Jared said, laughing. "Just thought I'd put it out there."
Jensen thought about it but didn't think he was being too crazy: fondant really didn't taste good; and it wasn't going to be all that big of a deal to swirl the white and dark chocolate buttercreams together and make it look like bark. Most importantly, he didn't think he'd lost it enough to drive Jared to attempt another lame intervention, so he nodded and got ready to start adding the hot syrup to the butter-sugar-cream mixture.
"Hey, Jay," he said, as Jared turned to amble back out to the gingerbread madness. "Check the top shelf in the fridge."
He hid his smile as Jared found the spatula sitting on top of little glass bowls filled with all the extra frostings Jensen had put aside for him during the past few days.
*
At twenty-four hours out, Jensen heard Jared moan, "No, no, no," right before there was a muted thudding, and Jared snarled, "Goddamned cocksucking craptastic icing can't hold anything worth shit."
Jensen thought about venturing out of the kitchen to offer sympathy, but the meringue mushrooms for his goddamned buche de Noel had ended up looking like something from a demented Disney holiday special, and he was working as fast as he could to make new ones--they were barely going to have time to dry even if he stuck them in the oven overnight--so he had his own hands full.
*
At twelve hours out, the smell of brewing coffee woke Jensen. When he stumbled into the kitchen, Jared was staring intently at the coffee maker, like he was afraid it might run away.
"Easy, Jay," Jensen mumbled, coming up behind Jared and resting his forehead between Jared's shoulders. "Stare any harder and it might explode."
Jared muttered something unintelligible back that sounded vaguely insulting, but he filled a mug for Jensen, so Jensen didn't feel the need to answer in kind. It was quiet and almost peaceful in the kitchen; Jensen didn't think about his lists or what else needed to be done, at least for as long as it took to finish off the coffee.
"We're quitting at six," Jared said. "I don't care what is or isn't finished; we're done." He found a red Sharpie and wrote 6 p.m. QUITTING TIME in heavy block letters on one of the index cards Jensen kept around to scribble himself notes on. He propped it against the timer on the stove, clearly visible to all. "That gives us an hour to shower and get ready, okay?"
Jensen started to object--an hour was a lot of time, especially right at the end--but one look at Jared's face and he nodded. Jared rolled his shoulders in the familiar way that meant it was time to get serious and dropped his coffee mug in the sink.
"Back to do battle with the gingerbread?" Jensen asked.
"It's me or it," Jared answered. "Deathmatch."
"In case there's any doubt, I pick you," Jensen said, just to be sure. Jared grinned at him and pulled him in close for a kiss that still tasted sweet, even under the sharp bite of his industrial strength coffee, but didn't linger.
Jensen still had plenty of crap to do, but he didn't feel awake enough to start the drama of creating a croquembouche that was going to top out at over four feet tall, so he headed into the dining room and arranged the cake stands and plates and platters and the place cards he'd already written out. The theory was that anyone could then lay out all the stuff that had currently taken over every square inch of refrigerator space, but Jensen didn't think he was fooling anyone. Nobody was going to be putting out the final settings but him.
Jared had some godawful music going in the other room, singing along at the top of his lungs, and Jensen couldn't help smiling. He sounded happy--completely off-key, but a thousand times better than the non-stop cursing that had been the soundtrack for the night before. Jensen found himself humming along as he laid out the cream puffs and crème and ganache and started building himself a pastry tree.
*
At two hours out, Jared started cleaning up around Jensen. He slammed as much as he could into the first dishwasher and got it started and plowed through everything they'd left scattered around the kitchen, even while Jensen was working as fast as he could on anything he thought he might manage to finish up. He got three banana cream pies into the freezer to chill hard, and by the time he walked back into the kitchen, Jared had already washed the mixing bowl Jensen had used to whip the cream and had it back on the counter for the next use.
"Thirty minutes," Jared said, as Jensen started melting chocolate in the double-boiler and got the last of the cream and egg whites going for the espresso-chocolate mousse to fill the bittersweet chocolate layer cake that was absolutely the last thing on the list. The white chocolate buttercream had gone over the raspberry-filled white chocolate cake like a dream; the praline cheesecake was holding up well, even though the caramel topping had been a little too thin when Jensen had poured it on; the croquembouche had turned out pretty fucking stunning if he did say so himself; and the buche de Noel wasn't half-bad, even with less than perfect meringue trimmings. Jensen had no idea what Jared had done in the other room, but Jared seemed fairly happy with it, so that was good enough.
*
At an hour out, Jared took the frosting spatula out of Jensen's hand and put it straight into the dishwasher, and then somehow managed to find a spot for the final cake in the refrigerator. He turned around, with a determined look in his eye, but Jensen surprised the hell out of both of them, and didn't fight.
"All done, Jay." He looked down at the t-shirt and track pants he was wearing and tried not to wince at how much stuff he'd gotten covered with in the last few hours.
"Yeah?" Jared let the refrigerator door close behind him and started back to where Jensen was standing. "For real?"
"For real." Jensen let Jared crowd him step by step across the kitchen, until he backed into the island, Jared pressed up warm and solid in front of him, both arms bracketing Jensen as he braced them on the island. Jensen rested his hands on Jared's hips, finally not surprised at how well they fit, but grateful for it still.
"Who are you and what did you do with the obsessive freak I live with?"
Jensen could have taken offense but since Jared had leaned in closer and whispered it in Jensen's ear, he let it slide and tipped his head back so Jared could get at that spot, the one just under his jaw that tripped every nerve in his body. Jared took the hint, and Jensen was more than happy to reciprocate, getting his hands up under the ratty t-shirt Jared was wearing. When Jared finally let him up for air, Jensen could barely see straight, and he didn't think Jared was in much better shape.
"Are we going to do this right here?" Jensen didn't let go of Jared, but he did manage to make his hands relax enough that he wasn't leaving marks. Probably. "I'm not opposed to it, but…"
"But one of our mothers is likely to be coming through that door any minute." Jared took a deep breath and eased back a step. "Yeah. Okay. Good point. Letting go now."
"Don't make any plans for after," Jensen said.
"You mean other than fucking you through the bed?" Jared asked. He didn't move closer but the way he looked at Jensen, his eyes dark and hungry and knowing, made the physical distance mostly irrelevant.
"Yeah," Jensen said, swallowing hard. "Other than that."
"You got it," Jared said. "But if you don't get out of here, I'm right about to the point where I don't care who walks through the door or what they might see."
Jensen more-or-less agreed, but didn't think mentioning that was going to be in their best interests, so he got himself the hell out of the kitchen and upstairs to the shower. The rush to get clean and get back downstairs to take care of the last minute crap helped distract him from the thought that it wouldn't matter who walked in the front door if they were fucking in the bedroom. Once again, Jensen managed not to say that to Jared, but it was a near thing.
*
At fifteen minutes out, Jensen had gotten everything on the tables but the last of the cakes --Jared's mom's marbled red velvet with peppermint cream cheese frosting and about a pound of smashed candy canes for garnish--when the thunder that was Jared coming down the stairs in boots gave him a five-second warning to get his game-face on, so he didn't insult Jared's fashion sense. It sometimes helped to have a head start in dealing with Jared's more enthusiastic choices, but this time Jensen ended up needing every second of prep time not to make an idiot of himself when Jared walked into the dining room in black jeans and a black t-shirt, shrugging into the black cashmere jacket Jensen had found for him but never quite expected him to wear.
"Holy crap," Jensen said. "I think it's my turn to ask who you are and what you did with the dork I live with."
"I figured if Johnny Cash could work the look, I could maybe give it a try," Jared said, with the expression on his face that meant he was ready to run and hide. "Please tell me I don't look too stupid."
"No," Jensen said, as quickly as he could. "No. Not at all."
Jared eyed him as though he were just saying things to make Jared feel better. Before he could make a move to go change--which Jensen wouldn't put past him, not at all--Jensen gestured to the table behind him, saying, "Okay, we're ready to go here, except for the cookies to lay out around your masterpiece," and Jared's face lit up in one of those huge smiles that Jensen had thought were completely fake until he got the full force of one in person.
"C'mon," Jared said, grabbing Jensen's hand and dragged him back through the kitchen and into the great room. "Wait, don't look until… Okay, now. Check it out."
It took Jensen a couple of seconds to place the scene, but then he thought his own smile might match Jared's, even if it was for other reasons, like how he really had no idea how this whole thing between them worked, except that it did and he was really thankful for that.
"Dude," Jensen said, laughing helplessly. "Did you really make Christmastown from Rudolph? Out of gingerbread?"
"Well, only Santa's castle and a bunch of trees," Jared said, still with that smile. "But there's Sam the Snowman and the Abominable Snowman in gum paste."
"Dude," Jensen said, again, because what else could he say?
*
An hour into the party, right as Jensen started to relax--which probably had as much to do with the glass of Wild Turkey that was always in his hand, the one that Chris made sure was never empty, as it did with everything going well--Jared appeared at Jensen's side, smiling in the way that Jensen knew was fake, even though it fooled everyone else, and saying, "I'm so sorry to interrupt; I just need Jensen for a couple of minutes."
Jensen made his apologies with what he hoped was a polite smile, but Jared had him by the elbow and was hurrying him away, and all he could think was that they'd managed to send someone to the hospital with custard gone bad or something equally disastrous. He kept that same smile plastered on his face while he hissed at Jared, "What? What happened? Just tell me and let me try to figure out what to--"
Jared pushed him into the powder room, kicking the door closed behind them and for a single, heart-stopping second, Jensen couldn't even imagine what was wrong, except that it was going to be bad, but then Jared pinned him to the wall and kissed him.
"Nothing's happened," Jared said, in between kisses, his hands yanking Jensen's button-down out of his slacks, big hands sliding up Jensen's back. "I just needed to see you."
"Oh, for fuck's sake--" There was a lecture there that Jensen needed to deliver, all about scaring the crap out of him, to say nothing of the fact that their older brothers were probably right outside the door, plotting ways to humiliate the both of them, just for old time's sake, but since Jensen had his own hands in Jared's jeans, Jensen didn't think it was going to make much of an impression.
*
Three hours into the party, Jensen found Jared's mom in the corner of the dining room, staring at the cake he'd made from her recipe and looking as though she might be crying. Before he could step back and pretend like he hadn't seen anything--Jared had been right, everyone had gotten along just fine when Jensen had been introduced to the family, but that didn't mean Jensen wasn't acutely aware that before him, Jared's family had been in the get-married-have-babies mindset and he still wasn't sure how they really felt about things--Sherry saw him and there was no escape.
"I hope I didn't screw up the recipe," Jensen said. "Jared said it looked right, but we didn't have time to make a test run, so I don't know if it tastes--"
"Oh, honey, it's fine," Sherry said. "It's lovely." Jensen nodded, but apparently needed to work on his of-course-nothing's-wrong face, because she smiled at him and shook her head. "There's nothing wrong, Jensen. I'm just--of all my children, JT… All that energy, it's just for show, to keep people away. It's, well, it's one of those things I worried about, him never letting someone get close, and now, here we are and it's just… lovely."
Sherry sniffed once, and leaned up to kiss Jensen on the cheek.
"Well. Now that I've embarrassed myself and made you feel awkward in your own home, why don't you show me where you're keeping the extras and I'll fill up the empty plates while you go enjoy yourself."
"Okay," Jensen said. "But only if you promise to tell Jared that I let you do it, because he swears I'm too much of a control freak to let anybody do anything."
"Of course," Sherry said, linking her arm through Jensen's. "You are that much of a control freak, though, aren't you?"
"Absolutely," Jensen said, smiling down at her. "But I can make a special exception, just this once."
"It never hurts to keep a Padalecki man on his toes," Sherry said, laughing.
*
Five hours into the party, Jared started bellowing for help from the great room, but before Jensen could completely freak, he heard Jeff yelling just as loudly for a camera and Josh's cackle under it all. By the time Jensen got there, Jared in the last stages of holding back a mob that included both their brothers, plus Chris and Chad and Jensen wasn't exactly sure who else.
"Get a picture of the castle," Jared said, laughing so hard Jensen could barely understand him. "Before the assholes get past me."
Jensen got the camera turned on and held down the button, the flash firing repeatedly as Jared lost the battle and gingerbread went flying.
*
Seven hours after the first person walked in the front door, Jared threw Chad and Chris out and locked the door behind them.
"So, that went… pretty good?" Jared leaned against the door and shoved his hair out of his face with both hands.
"It did," Jensen answered, with no small amount of satisfaction.
"Jaw-dropping?"
"Close enough for me." Jensen made one final trip around the main floor, blowing out the last candles and grabbed Jared's wrist as he looped back to the front of the house. "You didn't make any plans, did you?"
"Nope," Jared said, following along behind Jensen. "Not other than the one I had before. But I've been working on the details of that one all night."
"Good," Jensen started to say, but it got lost in the rush of Jared's mouth on his, Jared's body pressing close. The last few steps to the bedroom were endless, but when the finally got there and Jensen started to unbutton his shirt, Jared grabbed his hands.
"I get to do that," Jared murmured, backing across the room and pulling Jensen with him, until he was sitting on the bed with Jensen standing between his legs. Jensen put his hands on Jared's shoulders and closed his eyes, the cashmere of Jared's jacket soft and warm against his skin.
"Take this off first," Jensen said. Jared didn't say anything, but he shrugged out of the jacket; when Jensen put his hands back on Jared's shoulder, there was soft cotton and warm skin and Jared under them, the flex and pull of hard muscles as Jared pulled Jensen's shirt free and unbuttoned it. He worked slowly, deliberately, the brush of his fingers against Jensen's skin like the lightest of shocks.
When he got to the top button, he paused for a second, then traced his thumbs across each collarbone, barely harder than those light touches on the way up, but the focus was enough that Jensen dug his hands into Jared's shoulders. Jared made a soft noise and then trailed his fingers down, a straight path over Jensen's chest and abs to the buckle on his belt.
"'s good, Jay," Jensen whispered, and it was; it always was. It was crazy how turned on Jared could make him, his dick and balls heavy and aching and Jared hardly even touching him yet. Jared kept the same deliberate pace, first undoing his belt, then the button on his slacks, then detouring to slide his hands, big and warm and rough from work, back up Jensen's chest to push his shirt off his shoulders. Jensen finally let go of Jared's shoulders and opened his eyes as his shirt slipped down and off his arms. Jared looked up at him, hungry and wanting, and Jensen knew he had the same look in his own eyes.
Jared stopped fucking around, tearing at the zipper on Jensen's slacks, pushing khakis and boxers off Jensen's hips, and finally, finally, getting his hands on Jensen's dick, squeezing and stroking until Jensen was half-blind with want. When he stopped, though, Jensen didn't whine, just drew in a long, shaky breath.
"Promised to fuck you through the bed," Jared said, rough and hoarse, through lips he'd bitten until they were already red and swollen.
"And you always keep your promises." Jensen was probably a little too proud that he'd managed to pull himself together enough to find a decent teasing tone, but he was going to take his self-respect when he could, even if he knew he was going to be begging for Jared's dick soon. Especially then.
"I do," Jared teased back, his mouth quirking up into an unexpectedly sweet smile. "But only 'cause I only promise things I really, really want to do anyway."
Jensen reached out and ran his thumb over the curve of Jared's bottom lip, shivering as Jared chased it with his tongue.
"Fuck," Jensen hissed, as Jared bit down on the fleshy part of his thumb, hard enough to sting, a reminder and a promise of how it felt, how it was going to feel, everywhere else. "I'll--I'll get the stuff."
They kept the condoms and lube in the bedside drawer, right on the other side of the big, king-sized bed, but by the time Jensen made it across the mattress and turned back, Jared had already lost his boots and t-shirt, and was working on his jeans.
"My turn," Jensen said, dropping things where they fell and reaching out to bat Jared's hands away. He'd gotten his jeans open enough that Jensen could see the head of his cock, pushing up from under the elastic of his boxer briefs, already swollen and hard. Jensen couldn't resist ducking his head for a quick taste, pre-come salty and bitter on his tongue, even as he shoved the jeans and underwear out of his way.
Jared hissed and made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and his hands tightened in Jensen's hair, a sharp, hard pull that fucking hurt, even while it made Jensen want more.
"Don't," Jared choked out, pulling Jensen away from him. "Fuck, Jen, I'm too close." He didn't move, though, only waited until Jensen finished undressing him. When he was done, and Jared was naked, too, Jensen sat on the bed, easing back until he could stretch out full-length, the sheets cool against his skin.
"Fuck, yeah," Jared whispered, and Jensen barely had time to catch his breath before Jared was all over him, rough hands and hot skin and hard muscle. Jensen arched up to meet him, wrapping his legs around Jared's waist and swearing as their cocks rubbed together. Jared bit a hard kiss into the curve of his neck, and pulled back long enough to get his hands on the lube.
Jensen made himself keep his eyes open even when Jared pushed two fingers up inside him, let Jared see everything he was doing to Jensen. Jared fucked him slowly, opening him up with deep, careful strokes that only made Jensen writhe for more. It would scare him, how much he wanted, except that he knew Jared now, knew Jared would give him everything he wanted, even if he couldn't ask for it.
Jared fumbled a little when he reached for the condom, his hands still slick with lube, but his eyes were steady on Jensen's and Jensen couldn't see anything but how much Jared wanted, too.
"C'mon, Jay," Jensen said, sliding one leg up over Jared's shoulder, and crying out when Jared drove into him with a single hard thrust. "Fuck, again, like that, god, don't stop--"
Jared listened, pinning both Jensen's wrists over his head with one big hand and fucking him hard and steady, not gentle at all, but right, exactly how Jensen wanted it, how he needed it, pushing his cock into Jensen again and again, until Jensen needed to come so badly he thought he might go insane.
Jared knew, though, and didn't make Jensen ask for it, letting Jensen's wrists go and driving into him more and more quickly while Jensen jerked himself off. Jensen worked himself hard, more roughly than he'd ever thought he'd like, lost in watching Jared, feeling him move deep and rough, coming with a last hard thrust that pushed Jensen over the edge, too.
Jared dropped his head against Jensen's shoulder, mouthing over the marks he'd made earlier; Jensen couldn't help shivering at the careful touches on already sensitized skin. He could feel Jared smile, and tugged not-quite-gently at his hair in response.
"Smug is a really annoying look on you," Jensen said, but then ruined the effect by almost whimpering as Jared's cock slid free.
"Not smug," Jared mumbled, rolling over to deal with the condom. "Satisfied. Kept my promise. Right?"
"Right." Jensen thought about not getting out of bed for a couple of days. His body was definitely okay with that idea, and his brain was getting there, too.
"Good." Jared dragged Jensen closer, throwing one arm and a leg over him and pushing his face into the curve of Jensen's neck. "Means I get cake for breakfast, right?"
"God, your stomach is incredible," Jensen answered. "How you can stand to even look at that stuff still is beyond me, but if you want cake, you got it."
"I like getting what I want," Jared said, his breathing slowing down and sliding toward sleep. "Wanted you. Got you. Like it."
"Go to sleep, dork." Jensen wriggled around until Jared's knee wasn't threatening to cut off circulation. "I like it, too," he added, after a bit.
Jared didn't laugh at him, not exactly, but his breathing changed enough that Jensen knew he would have, if sleep hadn't been dragging him down. Jensen was sure he'd be gone in less than a minute, but Jared had other ideas.
"I'll make you a real breakfast," he said, lifting his head up so he could look at Jensen, his mouth curved in a happy, wicked smile. "And then I'll fuck you again. Okay?"
"Okay." Jensen smiled back. "Seriously. Go to sleep."
Jared burrowed down again, heavy and warm against Jensen, boneless and relaxed almost immediately, but it was Jensen who fell asleep first.
Fandom: CWrpf
Pairing: J2
Rating: NC-17
Notes: For
without_me's birthday, a tiny bit early. She might or might not be enabling me in this crazy AU where Jared is the latest winner of the reality show America's Next Celebrity Chef, and Jensen is the uptight foodie who has to interview him, but I got this this "anonymous" sugar cookie snowflake gift that wondered what Jensen might be making for Jared this holiday season, and this is the (long-form) answer. eta: Now with an awesome banner from
facesplitgrin to go along with the rest of the AU, which I did indeed manage to write for the 2010 spn_j2_bigbangAt a month out, it wasn't that Jensen didn't know that he was maybe going a little off the charts with the organizing thing--the spreadsheet had six different colors and four tabs and he thought he should probably split out one or two of them into sub-categories of their own--it was just that this was important. And it wasn't that he didn't think that Jared didn't think it was a big deal--he knew Jared was pretty excited about the whole thing, too--but Jared's idea of planning was to write a shopping list on his palm and wing it when he got to the store, and that just wasn't going to cut it. Not this time.
And, okay, it was just a party, but it was the first time they'd done anything like this together, and so far, no one had called with their regrets (and Jensen knew that didn't mean that people weren't going to bail without calling, but he thought at least some of their friends understood the basics of civility and would take the time to let him know if they couldn't make it. Then again, that group included Chad and Chris, so he was maybe being a little too optimistic.)
Still.
His parents were coming. Jared's parents were coming. It was a big deal. It was serious.
"Babe," Jared said, on the third night he'd woken up to find Jensen huddled under the covers with his laptop. "I've met your family. You've met mine. Everybody likes everybody else. It'll all be okay."
He didn't say like he thought Jensen was a freak; he said it like he was worried about Jensen, and his hand, where it was stroking up and down Jensen's thigh, was warm and strong.
"I don't want 'okay'," Jensen admitted. "I want--well, I want it to be perfect, but I know that's not going to happen, so I'll settle for jaw-dropping."
Jared looked at him for a couple of seconds before he nodded. "Jaw-dropping. Okay, I can get on board with that. But, in the morning. Sleep now." He held out his hand, waiting patiently until Jensen saved his changes and handed over the laptop. "Glasses, too," he said, dropping them gently on the bedside table before he wrapped both arms around Jensen and dragged him down. Jensen had never been one for cuddling, but with Jared, it was more like being wrapped up in a living, breathing comforter. It was a subtle difference, Jensen thought, already halfway to sleep, but important.
*
"Okay," Jared said. Breakfast was done; showers were accomplished; emergency emails were dealt with. "One journeyman baker, reporting for duty. What's the plan, chief?"
"I know you don't get into baking--" Jensen started, because Jared really didn't. He liked to cook by feel and taste and smell--hell, he'd built a career on it--and you had to pay attention to measurements with baking, but Jared waved off the objection. He whistled when Jensen showed him the spreadsheet, but didn't give him any grief, just studied it with a commendable attention to detail. Then again, it did deal with food, so that made it easier to catch his attention.
"So," Jared said. "The blue rows are chocolate things; the yellow rows are fruit-based; green are cookies; orange are spice-based; the teal ones are … ?
"Savory things," Jensen said, quickly. "Like that rosemary cheesecake you made on the show last year. Stuff like that. And the red ones are family recipes," he added. "I only have one thing from your mom; we should get more."
It was a lot, he knew, but once he'd gotten started it had snowballed. Jared nodded absently, his eyes still on the computer screen.
"I'll ask her for the red velvet cake with the peppermint frosting." Jared looked up briefly. "What are you thinking for the showstopper?"
"Buche de Noel?" Jensen hadn't quite gotten as far as really getting down into the nitty-gritty, but what was a Christmas dessert buffet without a buche de Noel? "um, or maybe croquembouche? It's not traditional, but it'll look awesome as a centerpiece."
"Both?" Jared was still peering at the computer, and had started typing, his hunt-and-peck almost as fast as Jensen's ten-fingered, correct style. He chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip, which really shouldn't have been as distracting as it was, but Jensen was getting better at just admitting the distractions and enjoying. Then he looked up and grinned, a full-on, blinding, megawatt charmer, and Jensen was toast. "Can I make a gingerbread house?"
"Sure," Jensen said, a little breathless from the smile, not even caring that combining Jared with bags of candy and unlimited royal icing was never going to be a good idea. "We can put it in the great room."
"Yeah, and put all the cookies around it." Jared tapped out a few more notes and went back to biting on his bottom lip. "Do you think you have enough variations on chocolate?"
"Five isn't enough?" Jensen thought about it. "No, you're probably right. I'll see what else I can come up."
"Something uncomplicated," Jared said, putting the laptop down and standing up to stretch, which, again. Distracting.
"I'll try to come up with something that won't tax your minuscule attention span." Jensen was getting better at not sounding as distracted as he was, even with knowing how much Jared liked it when Jensen mouthed along the very skin that he was displaying at the moment, that smooth strip that arched up and over his hip… Jensen gave himself an internal head smack, coming back to the here-and-now to find Jared stuffing his feet into his running shoes. "Where are you going?"
"To get all the stuff I need to make the gingerbread. I can make the dough today and be ready to roll it out and cut it as soon as I sketch out the plans for it." Jared grabbed his keys and wallet, hesitating as he got to the door. "It doesn't have to be a gingerbread house, right? Think how cool it would be if I could do the Alamo…"
Jared was gone before Jensen could react, but Jensen told himself Jared was just kidding. Nobody sane would try to recreate the Alamo in gingerbread.
*
Jared wasn't kidding, which Jensen should have expected, but he changed his mind once he started to plan things out, for the simple reason that the Alamo offered limited decorating potential. Jensen closed his eyes and breathed a small thanksgiving--the first one ever--for Jared's candy addiction. As far as he could tell from the sketches Jared was turning out, this was going to be the most complicated gingerbread house ever, but… that was Jared, so he couldn't be surprised.
Jensen finished the master list, and then started on the staging plan. At least they'd finished the kitchen remodel, and with it having been done so Jared could shoot the new show there, they had a professional level facility to work with. Even with three ovens and the extra freezers, though, it was going to be tight at the end. Jared watched him mutter and mumble for a couple of days, then hid his computer and only let him have printouts of the recipes and shopping lists.
"You're kidding me, right?" Jensen was almost shaking, he was so furious. "Give me my computer."
"Sure," Jared said, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, and pissed Jensen off even more. "Just as soon as you admit you have a problem."
Jensen stormed out in a righteous fury, not bothering to keep his voice down as he called Jared every name in the book. He got on the phone to Chris, who only laughed at him, and then ended up sitting in the car for a couple of hours, not sulking, thank you very much. It was dark when he finally went back inside.
Jared was in the kitchen, bandanna tied around his head, keeping his hair out of his eyes, liberally dusted with flour, and surrounded by a staggering number of dirty mixing bowls and measuring spoons and cups. He had to have pulled out the sets he used for the show, as well as their own personal stuff, to end up with so many. He glanced up when Jensen came in, but turned back to unwrapping sticks of butter and dropping them in the work bowl of the red KitchenAid.
"Hey," Jensen said, after the silence stretched out long past awkward and into apocalyptic. He really wanted to wipe the smudge of flour off Jared's forehead, but he wasn't sure that Jared wouldn't break his wrist if he got too close. "I, um--"
"I'm sorry," Jared blurted out. "That was really--rude. And annoying. And obnoxious. I was all those things."
He stared at Jensen like he only expected to have a few seconds to explain himself, and it was all so stupid.
"Yeah," Jensen sighed. "You were. And I've been a pain in the ass about this whole thing, so can we call it even and, and, not pretend like it didn't happen, but maybe just… try not to be so incredibly stupid with each other again?"
Jared nodded, shaking his head so hard Jensen thought he might lose the bandanna. "I am so good with that, you don't even know. Just--don't leave, okay?"
"I didn't," Jensen said, giving in to what was growing into a screaming need to get his hands on Jared and crossing the kitchen. "I was out in the truck the whole time."
He chickened out of going for the smudge on Jared's forehead--and there was another one along his cheekbone--and settled for touching his hip instead, so he could pretend it was just a casual touch on the way to getting a glass out of the cupboards behind them if Jared hadn't quite gotten to the same point as he had. He should have known better--Jared was the guy who could solve half the world's problems with a hug; Jensen was the one who held people at a distance. Jared slid his hand over Jensen's and, when Jensen didn't pull away, wrapped it around Jensen's wrist and tugged him closer. Jensen could feel the tension bleeding out of Jared; if he was honest, he could feel it bleeding out of himself, too. They stood there, not hugging, just close enough to feel each other breathe, for a long couple of minutes, until Jensen finally shifted and broke the spell. Jared let him go easily.
"All right," Jensen said, clearing his throat. "So, don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell is all this?" Jensen waved at the bowls and mixers--both KitchenAids were out of their cabinets--and the opened five pound bags of flour and sugar. And brown sugar. And chocolate chips, the good Madagascar vanilla, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, dried cherries, four lemons skinned of their peels, and enough almonds to feed a small country. Jensen thought about looking for partridges and pear trees.
"It's an I'm-sorry-I-was-a-jerk gesture," Jared said, very seriously. "I'm almost done and then you can mark off all the cookie dough as being made and in the freezer and ready to be baked." He pointed to where Jensen's laptop sat on the big farmhouse table on the other side of the kitchen, then turned back to the mixer in front of him. "I just have to do the last batch of sugar cookie dough and, y'know, clean up this mess, and I'll be through."
He started creaming the butter, measuring out the sugar and stretching out his shoulders and back while he waited, and Jensen gave himself a mental shake. They'd agreed on six types of cookies, with at least two batches of all of them, and if Jared was on the last of them, he'd been working the whole time Jensen had been sitting out in the truck, sulking.
"Go," Jensen said, bumping Jared's hip with his own, nudging him toward the door. "There's a shower with your name on it upstairs. I got this."
"Jen--"
"It's an I'm-sorry-I-was-a-jerk gesture," Jensen told him, just as seriously. Jared hesitated, and Jensen bumped their hips again. "What? I can't make the big gesture, too?"
"No!" Jared shook his head again. "I--you don't have to do that, though. Clean up my messes. I don't expect you to, you know that, right?"
"Yeah" Jensen slowed the mixer speed so he could start adding the eggs, not looking up as he said, "That's not what I'm doing here, okay? It's more like I'm cleaning up after myself."
Jared stayed still for another few seconds, then bumped his hip back into Jensen's and stepped away. "I'll call for take-out when I'm done," he said. "Want anything in particular?"
"Whatever you're in the mood for is fine." Jensen started adding the flour, and thought about the last time he'd eaten, breakfast, way on the other side of the explosion in the middle of the day. "Just get a lot of it."
"I can do that," Jared said, and Jensen looked up in time to see the flash of a smile as he headed out of the kitchen. He smiled a little himself, because that was practically Jared's life motto. Jensen liked knowing that, and liked it even more that Jared was okay with him knowing that, because there had been a good long time that neither of those things had been true. He whipped through the last of the cookie dough, double-wrapping it in plastic wrap and then again in foil before stashing it next to two shelves of similarly wrapped lumps in the big stand-up freezer in the pantry. The dishes gave him a little more trouble--too many of the giant bowls and not enough dishwasher space, not even with two--but he reminded himself that doing them by hand wouldn't actually kill him.
Right as Jensen wiped down the final counter, Jared came wandering back into the kitchen, 'beater and track pants and bare feet, with two of the giant size boxes from the pizza place that was tucked into the corner of the closest strip mall, the place that Jensen always expected to find closed down by the health inspector, but that had the best New York style pizzas outside of the five boroughs, balanced on his hip.
"One margherita, one pepperoni-sausage-extra cheese," Jared said, opening the refrigerator with his free hand. Jensen's stomach made its approval known. "And a six of whatever Chris left the last time he was here."
"Works for me," Jensen said, taking the beer out of Jared's hands before he dropped everything. If they were treating each other with a little more care than usual--margherita was definitely not what Jared would order on a normal pizza run--Jensen didn't see how that was anything bad.
*
At two weeks out, Jensen finalized the schedule. Jared wouldn't tell him exactly what he was doing with the gingerbread, but swore he'd be done baking all the pieces in another couple days.
"Worst case?" Jensen hated to be pushy, but they might have bitten off more than they could chew here, and if they were going to run out of time, he'd rather know that up-front, rather than figuring it out the hard way.
"Four days, tops," Jared said. He was sprawled out next to where Jensen was propped up in bed with his laptop balanced on his knees, and as working environments went, Jensen couldn't complain about having all that skin right there on display. Especially not when Jared kept one hand on Jensen, absent, small strokes against his arm and shoulder and hip.
No complaints at all.
*
At ten days out, Jared announced he was through baking all the gingerbread, even extra pieces in case something important cracked, and that the kitchen was at Jensen's disposal. Jensen looked at the box in the freezer and deliberately didn't even try to figure out what Jared was trying to do, just made a note to move one of the bigger tables into the great room to hold the masterpiece.
Jensen started with the sturdier stuff: the marbled red velvet cake from Jared's mom, his own mother's rum cake (though he was using actual rum and not the fake extract she'd always used, but nobody needed to know anything about that), the carrot cake (he was probably going to have to come clean on the Baileys that went into the frosting of that one, but only because it was impossible to miss once anyone took a taste), and the pie crusts for the apple and banana cream pies. All of those could go into the freezer without making him cringe at the thought.
*
At a week out, the guys came out to string the lights outside. Jensen made himself sit calmly on the back deck while Jared climbed up to help them with the ones that ran along the roof ridge, for no reason other than it looked like "fun." Jensen didn't even try to talk him out of it, just made sure the phone was handy in case he needed to call 911.
*
At eighty-four hours out, the serious baking began. Jensen had the recipes printed up and taped at eye-level on the cabinets. He worked his way through them while Jared rolled and cut and decorated sugar cookies. Even with expecting it to be a mess, Jensen still couldn't believe how many smears of colored frosting Jared managed to accumulate on his shirt and face and hands.
They both hit the wall after six solid hours, so Jensen got out the chocolate and the heavy cream and Jared raided the liquor cabinet and they made truffles. They ended up with only about half as many as Jensen had thought they would, but since the other half ended up being licked off each other, Jensen really didn't care.
*
At forty-eight hours out, Jensen stopped thinking and just did what was listed next on the schedule. He'd put a lot of thought into it earlier for just that reason, so he trusted in what was in front of him and didn't try to second-guess himself.
The deliveries from the florist arrived, right as scheduled, so at least he could get away from cooking--and who thought he'd ever be saying something like that?--and make sure the poinsettias and miniature evergreens were set up right.
Jared barely looked up from where he was mortaring gingerbread together with heavy lines of royal icing, only said, "No peeking," when Jensen came into the room to show the florists where he wanted things.
*
At thirty-six hours out, Jensen looked up from heating the sugar syrup he needed for the next batch of buttercream to see Jared eying the sponge cake roll for the buche de Noel with a speculative gleam in his eyes.
"They have those roller things that you can use to mark up fondant," Jared said. "It's pretty easy to get the log pattern that way."
"Fondant tastes like crap," Jensen answered. "I've got the buttercreams, and a fork."
"That's what I thought you'd say," Jared said, and Jensen didn't think he was imagining the indulgence he heard in Jared's voice.
"If it was good enough--"
"If it was good enough for Julia Child, it's good enough for you; I know," Jared said, laughing. "Just thought I'd put it out there."
Jensen thought about it but didn't think he was being too crazy: fondant really didn't taste good; and it wasn't going to be all that big of a deal to swirl the white and dark chocolate buttercreams together and make it look like bark. Most importantly, he didn't think he'd lost it enough to drive Jared to attempt another lame intervention, so he nodded and got ready to start adding the hot syrup to the butter-sugar-cream mixture.
"Hey, Jay," he said, as Jared turned to amble back out to the gingerbread madness. "Check the top shelf in the fridge."
He hid his smile as Jared found the spatula sitting on top of little glass bowls filled with all the extra frostings Jensen had put aside for him during the past few days.
*
At twenty-four hours out, Jensen heard Jared moan, "No, no, no," right before there was a muted thudding, and Jared snarled, "Goddamned cocksucking craptastic icing can't hold anything worth shit."
Jensen thought about venturing out of the kitchen to offer sympathy, but the meringue mushrooms for his goddamned buche de Noel had ended up looking like something from a demented Disney holiday special, and he was working as fast as he could to make new ones--they were barely going to have time to dry even if he stuck them in the oven overnight--so he had his own hands full.
*
At twelve hours out, the smell of brewing coffee woke Jensen. When he stumbled into the kitchen, Jared was staring intently at the coffee maker, like he was afraid it might run away.
"Easy, Jay," Jensen mumbled, coming up behind Jared and resting his forehead between Jared's shoulders. "Stare any harder and it might explode."
Jared muttered something unintelligible back that sounded vaguely insulting, but he filled a mug for Jensen, so Jensen didn't feel the need to answer in kind. It was quiet and almost peaceful in the kitchen; Jensen didn't think about his lists or what else needed to be done, at least for as long as it took to finish off the coffee.
"We're quitting at six," Jared said. "I don't care what is or isn't finished; we're done." He found a red Sharpie and wrote 6 p.m. QUITTING TIME in heavy block letters on one of the index cards Jensen kept around to scribble himself notes on. He propped it against the timer on the stove, clearly visible to all. "That gives us an hour to shower and get ready, okay?"
Jensen started to object--an hour was a lot of time, especially right at the end--but one look at Jared's face and he nodded. Jared rolled his shoulders in the familiar way that meant it was time to get serious and dropped his coffee mug in the sink.
"Back to do battle with the gingerbread?" Jensen asked.
"It's me or it," Jared answered. "Deathmatch."
"In case there's any doubt, I pick you," Jensen said, just to be sure. Jared grinned at him and pulled him in close for a kiss that still tasted sweet, even under the sharp bite of his industrial strength coffee, but didn't linger.
Jensen still had plenty of crap to do, but he didn't feel awake enough to start the drama of creating a croquembouche that was going to top out at over four feet tall, so he headed into the dining room and arranged the cake stands and plates and platters and the place cards he'd already written out. The theory was that anyone could then lay out all the stuff that had currently taken over every square inch of refrigerator space, but Jensen didn't think he was fooling anyone. Nobody was going to be putting out the final settings but him.
Jared had some godawful music going in the other room, singing along at the top of his lungs, and Jensen couldn't help smiling. He sounded happy--completely off-key, but a thousand times better than the non-stop cursing that had been the soundtrack for the night before. Jensen found himself humming along as he laid out the cream puffs and crème and ganache and started building himself a pastry tree.
*
At two hours out, Jared started cleaning up around Jensen. He slammed as much as he could into the first dishwasher and got it started and plowed through everything they'd left scattered around the kitchen, even while Jensen was working as fast as he could on anything he thought he might manage to finish up. He got three banana cream pies into the freezer to chill hard, and by the time he walked back into the kitchen, Jared had already washed the mixing bowl Jensen had used to whip the cream and had it back on the counter for the next use.
"Thirty minutes," Jared said, as Jensen started melting chocolate in the double-boiler and got the last of the cream and egg whites going for the espresso-chocolate mousse to fill the bittersweet chocolate layer cake that was absolutely the last thing on the list. The white chocolate buttercream had gone over the raspberry-filled white chocolate cake like a dream; the praline cheesecake was holding up well, even though the caramel topping had been a little too thin when Jensen had poured it on; the croquembouche had turned out pretty fucking stunning if he did say so himself; and the buche de Noel wasn't half-bad, even with less than perfect meringue trimmings. Jensen had no idea what Jared had done in the other room, but Jared seemed fairly happy with it, so that was good enough.
*
At an hour out, Jared took the frosting spatula out of Jensen's hand and put it straight into the dishwasher, and then somehow managed to find a spot for the final cake in the refrigerator. He turned around, with a determined look in his eye, but Jensen surprised the hell out of both of them, and didn't fight.
"All done, Jay." He looked down at the t-shirt and track pants he was wearing and tried not to wince at how much stuff he'd gotten covered with in the last few hours.
"Yeah?" Jared let the refrigerator door close behind him and started back to where Jensen was standing. "For real?"
"For real." Jensen let Jared crowd him step by step across the kitchen, until he backed into the island, Jared pressed up warm and solid in front of him, both arms bracketing Jensen as he braced them on the island. Jensen rested his hands on Jared's hips, finally not surprised at how well they fit, but grateful for it still.
"Who are you and what did you do with the obsessive freak I live with?"
Jensen could have taken offense but since Jared had leaned in closer and whispered it in Jensen's ear, he let it slide and tipped his head back so Jared could get at that spot, the one just under his jaw that tripped every nerve in his body. Jared took the hint, and Jensen was more than happy to reciprocate, getting his hands up under the ratty t-shirt Jared was wearing. When Jared finally let him up for air, Jensen could barely see straight, and he didn't think Jared was in much better shape.
"Are we going to do this right here?" Jensen didn't let go of Jared, but he did manage to make his hands relax enough that he wasn't leaving marks. Probably. "I'm not opposed to it, but…"
"But one of our mothers is likely to be coming through that door any minute." Jared took a deep breath and eased back a step. "Yeah. Okay. Good point. Letting go now."
"Don't make any plans for after," Jensen said.
"You mean other than fucking you through the bed?" Jared asked. He didn't move closer but the way he looked at Jensen, his eyes dark and hungry and knowing, made the physical distance mostly irrelevant.
"Yeah," Jensen said, swallowing hard. "Other than that."
"You got it," Jared said. "But if you don't get out of here, I'm right about to the point where I don't care who walks through the door or what they might see."
Jensen more-or-less agreed, but didn't think mentioning that was going to be in their best interests, so he got himself the hell out of the kitchen and upstairs to the shower. The rush to get clean and get back downstairs to take care of the last minute crap helped distract him from the thought that it wouldn't matter who walked in the front door if they were fucking in the bedroom. Once again, Jensen managed not to say that to Jared, but it was a near thing.
*
At fifteen minutes out, Jensen had gotten everything on the tables but the last of the cakes --Jared's mom's marbled red velvet with peppermint cream cheese frosting and about a pound of smashed candy canes for garnish--when the thunder that was Jared coming down the stairs in boots gave him a five-second warning to get his game-face on, so he didn't insult Jared's fashion sense. It sometimes helped to have a head start in dealing with Jared's more enthusiastic choices, but this time Jensen ended up needing every second of prep time not to make an idiot of himself when Jared walked into the dining room in black jeans and a black t-shirt, shrugging into the black cashmere jacket Jensen had found for him but never quite expected him to wear.
"Holy crap," Jensen said. "I think it's my turn to ask who you are and what you did with the dork I live with."
"I figured if Johnny Cash could work the look, I could maybe give it a try," Jared said, with the expression on his face that meant he was ready to run and hide. "Please tell me I don't look too stupid."
"No," Jensen said, as quickly as he could. "No. Not at all."
Jared eyed him as though he were just saying things to make Jared feel better. Before he could make a move to go change--which Jensen wouldn't put past him, not at all--Jensen gestured to the table behind him, saying, "Okay, we're ready to go here, except for the cookies to lay out around your masterpiece," and Jared's face lit up in one of those huge smiles that Jensen had thought were completely fake until he got the full force of one in person.
"C'mon," Jared said, grabbing Jensen's hand and dragged him back through the kitchen and into the great room. "Wait, don't look until… Okay, now. Check it out."
It took Jensen a couple of seconds to place the scene, but then he thought his own smile might match Jared's, even if it was for other reasons, like how he really had no idea how this whole thing between them worked, except that it did and he was really thankful for that.
"Dude," Jensen said, laughing helplessly. "Did you really make Christmastown from Rudolph? Out of gingerbread?"
"Well, only Santa's castle and a bunch of trees," Jared said, still with that smile. "But there's Sam the Snowman and the Abominable Snowman in gum paste."
"Dude," Jensen said, again, because what else could he say?
*
An hour into the party, right as Jensen started to relax--which probably had as much to do with the glass of Wild Turkey that was always in his hand, the one that Chris made sure was never empty, as it did with everything going well--Jared appeared at Jensen's side, smiling in the way that Jensen knew was fake, even though it fooled everyone else, and saying, "I'm so sorry to interrupt; I just need Jensen for a couple of minutes."
Jensen made his apologies with what he hoped was a polite smile, but Jared had him by the elbow and was hurrying him away, and all he could think was that they'd managed to send someone to the hospital with custard gone bad or something equally disastrous. He kept that same smile plastered on his face while he hissed at Jared, "What? What happened? Just tell me and let me try to figure out what to--"
Jared pushed him into the powder room, kicking the door closed behind them and for a single, heart-stopping second, Jensen couldn't even imagine what was wrong, except that it was going to be bad, but then Jared pinned him to the wall and kissed him.
"Nothing's happened," Jared said, in between kisses, his hands yanking Jensen's button-down out of his slacks, big hands sliding up Jensen's back. "I just needed to see you."
"Oh, for fuck's sake--" There was a lecture there that Jensen needed to deliver, all about scaring the crap out of him, to say nothing of the fact that their older brothers were probably right outside the door, plotting ways to humiliate the both of them, just for old time's sake, but since Jensen had his own hands in Jared's jeans, Jensen didn't think it was going to make much of an impression.
*
Three hours into the party, Jensen found Jared's mom in the corner of the dining room, staring at the cake he'd made from her recipe and looking as though she might be crying. Before he could step back and pretend like he hadn't seen anything--Jared had been right, everyone had gotten along just fine when Jensen had been introduced to the family, but that didn't mean Jensen wasn't acutely aware that before him, Jared's family had been in the get-married-have-babies mindset and he still wasn't sure how they really felt about things--Sherry saw him and there was no escape.
"I hope I didn't screw up the recipe," Jensen said. "Jared said it looked right, but we didn't have time to make a test run, so I don't know if it tastes--"
"Oh, honey, it's fine," Sherry said. "It's lovely." Jensen nodded, but apparently needed to work on his of-course-nothing's-wrong face, because she smiled at him and shook her head. "There's nothing wrong, Jensen. I'm just--of all my children, JT… All that energy, it's just for show, to keep people away. It's, well, it's one of those things I worried about, him never letting someone get close, and now, here we are and it's just… lovely."
Sherry sniffed once, and leaned up to kiss Jensen on the cheek.
"Well. Now that I've embarrassed myself and made you feel awkward in your own home, why don't you show me where you're keeping the extras and I'll fill up the empty plates while you go enjoy yourself."
"Okay," Jensen said. "But only if you promise to tell Jared that I let you do it, because he swears I'm too much of a control freak to let anybody do anything."
"Of course," Sherry said, linking her arm through Jensen's. "You are that much of a control freak, though, aren't you?"
"Absolutely," Jensen said, smiling down at her. "But I can make a special exception, just this once."
"It never hurts to keep a Padalecki man on his toes," Sherry said, laughing.
*
Five hours into the party, Jared started bellowing for help from the great room, but before Jensen could completely freak, he heard Jeff yelling just as loudly for a camera and Josh's cackle under it all. By the time Jensen got there, Jared in the last stages of holding back a mob that included both their brothers, plus Chris and Chad and Jensen wasn't exactly sure who else.
"Get a picture of the castle," Jared said, laughing so hard Jensen could barely understand him. "Before the assholes get past me."
Jensen got the camera turned on and held down the button, the flash firing repeatedly as Jared lost the battle and gingerbread went flying.
*
Seven hours after the first person walked in the front door, Jared threw Chad and Chris out and locked the door behind them.
"So, that went… pretty good?" Jared leaned against the door and shoved his hair out of his face with both hands.
"It did," Jensen answered, with no small amount of satisfaction.
"Jaw-dropping?"
"Close enough for me." Jensen made one final trip around the main floor, blowing out the last candles and grabbed Jared's wrist as he looped back to the front of the house. "You didn't make any plans, did you?"
"Nope," Jared said, following along behind Jensen. "Not other than the one I had before. But I've been working on the details of that one all night."
"Good," Jensen started to say, but it got lost in the rush of Jared's mouth on his, Jared's body pressing close. The last few steps to the bedroom were endless, but when the finally got there and Jensen started to unbutton his shirt, Jared grabbed his hands.
"I get to do that," Jared murmured, backing across the room and pulling Jensen with him, until he was sitting on the bed with Jensen standing between his legs. Jensen put his hands on Jared's shoulders and closed his eyes, the cashmere of Jared's jacket soft and warm against his skin.
"Take this off first," Jensen said. Jared didn't say anything, but he shrugged out of the jacket; when Jensen put his hands back on Jared's shoulder, there was soft cotton and warm skin and Jared under them, the flex and pull of hard muscles as Jared pulled Jensen's shirt free and unbuttoned it. He worked slowly, deliberately, the brush of his fingers against Jensen's skin like the lightest of shocks.
When he got to the top button, he paused for a second, then traced his thumbs across each collarbone, barely harder than those light touches on the way up, but the focus was enough that Jensen dug his hands into Jared's shoulders. Jared made a soft noise and then trailed his fingers down, a straight path over Jensen's chest and abs to the buckle on his belt.
"'s good, Jay," Jensen whispered, and it was; it always was. It was crazy how turned on Jared could make him, his dick and balls heavy and aching and Jared hardly even touching him yet. Jared kept the same deliberate pace, first undoing his belt, then the button on his slacks, then detouring to slide his hands, big and warm and rough from work, back up Jensen's chest to push his shirt off his shoulders. Jensen finally let go of Jared's shoulders and opened his eyes as his shirt slipped down and off his arms. Jared looked up at him, hungry and wanting, and Jensen knew he had the same look in his own eyes.
Jared stopped fucking around, tearing at the zipper on Jensen's slacks, pushing khakis and boxers off Jensen's hips, and finally, finally, getting his hands on Jensen's dick, squeezing and stroking until Jensen was half-blind with want. When he stopped, though, Jensen didn't whine, just drew in a long, shaky breath.
"Promised to fuck you through the bed," Jared said, rough and hoarse, through lips he'd bitten until they were already red and swollen.
"And you always keep your promises." Jensen was probably a little too proud that he'd managed to pull himself together enough to find a decent teasing tone, but he was going to take his self-respect when he could, even if he knew he was going to be begging for Jared's dick soon. Especially then.
"I do," Jared teased back, his mouth quirking up into an unexpectedly sweet smile. "But only 'cause I only promise things I really, really want to do anyway."
Jensen reached out and ran his thumb over the curve of Jared's bottom lip, shivering as Jared chased it with his tongue.
"Fuck," Jensen hissed, as Jared bit down on the fleshy part of his thumb, hard enough to sting, a reminder and a promise of how it felt, how it was going to feel, everywhere else. "I'll--I'll get the stuff."
They kept the condoms and lube in the bedside drawer, right on the other side of the big, king-sized bed, but by the time Jensen made it across the mattress and turned back, Jared had already lost his boots and t-shirt, and was working on his jeans.
"My turn," Jensen said, dropping things where they fell and reaching out to bat Jared's hands away. He'd gotten his jeans open enough that Jensen could see the head of his cock, pushing up from under the elastic of his boxer briefs, already swollen and hard. Jensen couldn't resist ducking his head for a quick taste, pre-come salty and bitter on his tongue, even as he shoved the jeans and underwear out of his way.
Jared hissed and made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and his hands tightened in Jensen's hair, a sharp, hard pull that fucking hurt, even while it made Jensen want more.
"Don't," Jared choked out, pulling Jensen away from him. "Fuck, Jen, I'm too close." He didn't move, though, only waited until Jensen finished undressing him. When he was done, and Jared was naked, too, Jensen sat on the bed, easing back until he could stretch out full-length, the sheets cool against his skin.
"Fuck, yeah," Jared whispered, and Jensen barely had time to catch his breath before Jared was all over him, rough hands and hot skin and hard muscle. Jensen arched up to meet him, wrapping his legs around Jared's waist and swearing as their cocks rubbed together. Jared bit a hard kiss into the curve of his neck, and pulled back long enough to get his hands on the lube.
Jensen made himself keep his eyes open even when Jared pushed two fingers up inside him, let Jared see everything he was doing to Jensen. Jared fucked him slowly, opening him up with deep, careful strokes that only made Jensen writhe for more. It would scare him, how much he wanted, except that he knew Jared now, knew Jared would give him everything he wanted, even if he couldn't ask for it.
Jared fumbled a little when he reached for the condom, his hands still slick with lube, but his eyes were steady on Jensen's and Jensen couldn't see anything but how much Jared wanted, too.
"C'mon, Jay," Jensen said, sliding one leg up over Jared's shoulder, and crying out when Jared drove into him with a single hard thrust. "Fuck, again, like that, god, don't stop--"
Jared listened, pinning both Jensen's wrists over his head with one big hand and fucking him hard and steady, not gentle at all, but right, exactly how Jensen wanted it, how he needed it, pushing his cock into Jensen again and again, until Jensen needed to come so badly he thought he might go insane.
Jared knew, though, and didn't make Jensen ask for it, letting Jensen's wrists go and driving into him more and more quickly while Jensen jerked himself off. Jensen worked himself hard, more roughly than he'd ever thought he'd like, lost in watching Jared, feeling him move deep and rough, coming with a last hard thrust that pushed Jensen over the edge, too.
Jared dropped his head against Jensen's shoulder, mouthing over the marks he'd made earlier; Jensen couldn't help shivering at the careful touches on already sensitized skin. He could feel Jared smile, and tugged not-quite-gently at his hair in response.
"Smug is a really annoying look on you," Jensen said, but then ruined the effect by almost whimpering as Jared's cock slid free.
"Not smug," Jared mumbled, rolling over to deal with the condom. "Satisfied. Kept my promise. Right?"
"Right." Jensen thought about not getting out of bed for a couple of days. His body was definitely okay with that idea, and his brain was getting there, too.
"Good." Jared dragged Jensen closer, throwing one arm and a leg over him and pushing his face into the curve of Jensen's neck. "Means I get cake for breakfast, right?"
"God, your stomach is incredible," Jensen answered. "How you can stand to even look at that stuff still is beyond me, but if you want cake, you got it."
"I like getting what I want," Jared said, his breathing slowing down and sliding toward sleep. "Wanted you. Got you. Like it."
"Go to sleep, dork." Jensen wriggled around until Jared's knee wasn't threatening to cut off circulation. "I like it, too," he added, after a bit.
Jared didn't laugh at him, not exactly, but his breathing changed enough that Jensen knew he would have, if sleep hadn't been dragging him down. Jensen was sure he'd be gone in less than a minute, but Jared had other ideas.
"I'll make you a real breakfast," he said, lifting his head up so he could look at Jensen, his mouth curved in a happy, wicked smile. "And then I'll fuck you again. Okay?"
"Okay." Jensen smiled back. "Seriously. Go to sleep."
Jared burrowed down again, heavy and warm against Jensen, boneless and relaxed almost immediately, but it was Jensen who fell asleep first.