Jensen was an anal retentive bastard, and Jared, it seemed, was completely pussy whipped. Or cocked whipped. Or something.

His status as tallest dude in the house sure as hell didn't mean he got to wear the trousers when it came to being domesticated.

That was an honor reserved entirely for Sam.

"What?" He exclaimed, jugging three boxes full of Jensen's clothes. "I didn't say anything." He protested, sticking his tongue out at Jensen when he sniggered.

Sam huffed. "Boy, you didn't have to." She had an armful of various little bottles, all full of Jensen's medication, and spared only a second to chastise Jared with a glare.

Sooty the cat darted between Jared's feet, almost tripping him up. Jensen sniggered again. "Fucking conspiracy, that's what it is." Jared grumbled to himself, insanely gratified by the meow of agreement he received from the small feline.

Jensen's second cat was curled up around her master's neck like a real live fluffy boa. Cliché's bright eyes followed Jensen's hand obsessively as he fed Tweety the bird sesame seeds through the bars of his cage. Between feeding the menagerie and mocking Jared, both human and cat seemed quite content to remain curled up on the couch, toes -stripy socks and all- peeking out from under the edge of the afghan throw.

Nineteen hours ago Jared had found him curled up between his desk and the wall, hands clutching at his head in misery. The attack had passed after twenty minutes, but Jared made it perfectly clear that Jensen's timing was nothing if not convenient. Jensen had looked stunned for a moment before he collapsed into giggles.

"Asshole." His grin was so bright it momentarily distracted Jared from the paleness of his skin. Hoisting a box onto his hip, he paused long enough to steal a kiss.

"Oh get a room." Jeff sighed, sweater crumpled and his hair a wild, untrimmed mess around his sunny face. Jensen tried to turn away, but Jared held him still long enough to kiss him twice, before flipping Jeff the finger. Insults were one aspect of sign language he had picked up pretty quick.

Jensen waved cheerfully at Jeff and Jared watched his friend's expression soften. Jensen had that effect on people. It had never failed to amuse Jared when grumpy Papa Jeff was reduced to the consistency of warm butter after being hit by one of Jensen's smiles. For all that Jeff played the John Winchester card, he was nothing more than a fluffy kitten buried under a rather stubbly exterior. Why else would he have traveled all the way down to LA to help them drive all the way to Vancouver?

Jared had promised a batch of Jensen's cookies, but Jeff had a lifetime supply with his name on it already.

And Marc- Marc had already driven up with Jared's things, and with the dogs. It was a multi-person operation of awesomeness that Jared happily took blame/credit for.

He was going to live with Jensen.

He giggled gratuitously, dropped a box on his toe, and tripped over the coffee table.

******

"My big sister went and married a Texas boy." Jeff explained as he navigated the lanes. They'd set out early on the Sunday morning and avoided the worst of the traffic. Jared had crawled into the back of his truck, long legs stretched out across the seat with Jensen, loopy from the sedatives Sam had slipped him, dozing lightly against his chest. Their plan of attack had them crashing for the night at Jeff's place in Washington before hitting the last stint of their thirteen hundred mile trip up north.

They were all frigging nuts. The things Jensen had them doing...

Dean's rule of driver picking the music was an unprecedented disaster. Jeff had the lousiest taste in tunes. His country selection featured numbers even Chris wouldn't touch, not with a ten foot pole and full body radiation suit.

Sam, bless her, had threatened their taxi driver with GBH, and in the silence that had followed, Jared had taken the opportunity to grill Jeff on his relationship with Jensen.

"Ha! Proof that Texas rules. We are slowly integrating ourselves into every family, every daytime soap, and every cheesy commercial. We're like Starbucks." Jared crowed, finding Jeff's connection to his home state amusing if not a little bizarre. He was meeting Texans everywhere these days.

"What a horrible thought." Sam shuddered in shotgun, her long hair tangled at the nape of her neck, the AC toying with the few strands hanging loose.

"My old man wasn't all that impressed." Jeff chuckled, obviously making something of an understatement. "She moved to Dallas to be with him, took up a job as Jensen's nurse when he was a kid. I met him a couple of years later."

Jared tried to imagine Jensen as a teenager, all long, coltish limbs and sunny freckles. Too freaking cute.

His Jensen snored and drooled on Jared's shirt.

God, he was so whipped.

"Yeah? What was he like?" Jared was so used to the feel of Jensen, in his arms, against him, beneath him, that even the cramped condition of the truck couldn't erase the sense of peace it brought him. He imagined that would change after the first three hundred miles, but still.

Jeff's eyes met his in the rear-view mirror. "You know that film with Jake Gyllenhaal trying to get to Niagara in a bubble?" he asked.

Jared blinked, nonplussed. "Bubble Boy?"

Jeff nodded. "That was Jensen."

"Jensen had a bubble?" Jared clutched Jensen tighter, paranoid that a giant bubble would appear out of nowhere and steal his snuggle space.

"Jensen was a bubble." Jeff said, frowning once he began to elaborate. "Asides from me and Mel, the only people he ever spent any time with was his family. Home schooled, no sleep-overs, no playing with the other kids, no dating. Bubble Boy." Jared listened, his hearts growing ever heavier, his mind turning to Jensen's hands, his long, pianist's fingers, and his unblemished palms. A sign of a childhood spent watching the world, not joining it.

"That sucks." He said flatly, angry with Jensen's parents for stealing what little childhood the disease had left him.

"His father and his grandmother have Ménière's." Sam put in calmly, twisting to look over her shoulder. "They didn't know how to cope with the fact that Jensen got it so young."

"Still sucks." Jared muttered. "So how'd he end up in LA?" He asked, suddenly wondering how Jensen had managed to find himself in Los Angeles of all places. Jared had never met any of Jensen's family, Sam aside, and he could only assume they were still in Dallas.

"Because he is an idiot." Jeff responded affectionately. "Kid decided at seventeen that it would be a good idea to catch a Greyhound up to Seattle."

"From Dallas?" Jared shrieked. He considered waking Jensen up just to throttle him for sheer stupidity but decided against it. "Pretty idiot." Jensen stirred at the tension that flared through Jared's body but quickly settled again.

"He's a stubborn little bastard, I'll give him that."

Jared shook his head and whispered, "Idiot." The thought of any seventeen year old taking a fucking Greyhound from Texas to Washington was enough to set him on edge. He'd had the whole Greyhound experience as a teen, his father and brother had been with him, but he'd still been freaked out.

But Jensen was sick, he was vulnerable. Jesus Christ, was there no end to the depths of his stupidity?

"Yeah, well, he was intent on moving to LA, whether I helped him or not. Obviously I wasn't about to let him go to a place like LA by himself, it was bad enough that he'd made it all the way up north. I helped him move down a few months later. He'd already scored a book deal by that point, some internet thing I think."

"And that is where I come in." Sam put in, casting an affectionate smile over her shoulder. "Mel called me before they moved him down and managed to blackmail him into hiring me."

Jared snorted. "What, a hire you or get dragged home deal?"

"Oh his folks tried it alright." Jeff nodded, slamming his fist against the horn after some prick in a Chevy cut them up. "His big brother Josh is worse than a momma bear with cubs when it comes to Jensen. Jeff gave him a black eye once."

"No, that was all Jensen. I just got the blame." Jeff sounded suspiciously like he was pouting.

"They weren't happy with him being so far away from home." Sam elaborated with a small shrug.

"Wasn't like he was by himself." Jared was thankful for small mercies. Sam and Jeff both looked after him, kept him from doing something stupid. "He had you guys."

"Of course he did." Sam said, sounding motherly for the first time Jared had heard.

Then there was the forbidden topic. The exes. Jared wasn't curious…okay, lie, he was really curious, but there were some topics not to be discussed when your boyfriend snoozed against you, deaf or not. "What about, you know…boyfriends? Or girlfriend?"

"Wanna know how many people that kid has dated?" Jeff asked calmly. His fingers twitched and reached for the stereo.

"Um?" Yes. No. He'd take the Fifth, thank you.

"You'd be the second."

"I…wait…what?"

Huh? Double huh. Second…which made David the first…which made Jensen single for the first twenty six years of his life. Weird, even by Jared's standards.

"LA wasn't all he hoped it would be." Sam explained quietly. "Time was when I could count the number of times he left the house in a year on one hand."

Jesus. Giggling at parties!Jensen suddenly made a horrifying sense.

Jensen chose that moment to blink and open his eyes. "We there yet?" he asked, less than an hour into the trip.

*****

Marc was waiting with fucking gift baskets. The dogs hung at his heels as if he were a long lost brother, and he hugged Jensen on first sight.

"No hug for me?" Jared pouted playfully, looping an arm around Jensen's waist in case the second dose of drugs decided to kick back in. He regretted opening his mouth when Marc cracked one of his ribs in greeting.

You are so gay. Jensen signed sleepily, a wide, dopey grin stretching his lips as Jared steered him through the front door of their new apartment building. Marc ambled over to help Sam and Jeff unload the truck, and Jared gleefully led Jensen into their new home.

They'd signed the lease on a penthouse -a freaking penthouse! - apartment on West Georgia Street. He'd said it before, and he'd say it again, Jensen had seriously expensive taste. the expense was worth it though. Both Jared and Marc had received a rather substantial pay rise for season three and Jensen's pockets seemed to be bottomless from where Jared was standing. The view out the window was breathtaking, and there was enough space to hope that Cliché and Sooty wouldn't feel the need to bully Sadie and Harley excessively.

Then there was the balcony sex.

They had to have balcony sex. It was written in stone, right up there with the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta in importance.

So was the law that said he had to carry Jensen over the threshold, whether the he liked it or not. Fixed with a glare that promised pain, and lots of it, Jared opted for the only defense he could, and quickly located the bedroom. Still swimming under the lingering effects of the sedatives, Jensen was asleep as soon as his head hit the overly indulgent pillows.

It was growing to be habit with them, and Jared didn't care in the slightest. He liked taking care of people, he liked taking care of Jensen.

He liked that Jensen trusted him enough to allow it.

Quickly working to unfasten the laces of Jensen horrendously battered Converse sneakers, Jared let his mind wander. It wasn't going to be easy living with Jensen, he had no delusions about that. There would be days when they wanted to strangle each other, and there would be days when Jared would just want to hold Jensen close and cry.

He was looking forward to it, gross, knee high in sweat and vomit parts an all. If that made him less of a man, then just call him Sappy McSaperson, because he loved Jensen, figurative warts and all, to hell with the world, and to hell with anyone who said otherwise.

And Jensen loved him, Jared had the cookies to prove it.

Read Part Nineteen Sleeping with the Enemy in the Louder Than Words 'Verse by SplashPink