Being found wrapped around another man's boyfriend with a t-shirt covered in cookie crumbs was not on Jared's list of fun things to do before death. Of course life was a bitch, and if there was a God, the dude had a pretty twisted sense of humor. He woke up next to Jensen with Stereophonics playing through the headphones of his iPod, a book strewn across his lap, and David sitting quietly at the foot of the bed.

"Jesus Christ, D!" Because that wasn't creepy at all…

"Didn't wanna wake you." David shrugged one shoulder artlessly, his hands resting lightly in his lap. "Sam told me you've been busy."

Jared looked across at Jensen, then up to David, and wondered if busy was maybe a polite way of saying, well….busy. Jensen did look as if he'd been fucked six ways to Sunday…or maybe Jared was just paranoid. It wasn't like he had 'I Heart Jensen' tattooed on his forehead. David didn't know. David couldn't know.

"Jared?" It was only then that Jared realized he had been spacing. And hyperventilating.

"Wha? Oh, yeah. He sick. He got sick, I mean. Gave him a bath. Sam. Sam and I gave him a bath. Put him to bed. Straight to bed. Thought I'd keep him company, in case…you know."

Fuck, Padalecki. It was a damned good thing he was an actor, because he couldn't bullshit his way out of a soggy paper bag.

In which case David was the most gullible man on the plant. He simply nodded and said "Thanks. Again. You're starting to be a real knight in shining armor, Jay, we'd better be careful or you'll get a complex."

Jared's answering laugh was the shrill kind, usually heard from a vapid Hollywood bimbo over a political debate of famine in West Africa.

"Yeah, well, I figured someone needed to be there." He left Sam's presence an unnoted fact, his own guilt making the words leaving his mouth more accusing than they had any right to be. David picked up on it instantly.

"I had an audition." He offered by way of explanation. Jared's eyebrows rose. Not the explanation he'd expected. Jensen had been sick for hours, and David had been at a fucking audition?

"You think I'm a bastard for not ditching it." David stated mildly.

"Man, it's nothing to do with-"

"Jen gets like this a couple of times a month. He's had this condition longer than I've known him, and he'll continue to have it long after I get job offers. So yes, I did think about standing them up and coming home. And I knew that if I did, he'd never let me hear the end of it."

Jared shuffled forwards in earnest. "Hey man, I get it. You're two people, you don't have to be glued at the hip. After today…after watching that, man, I don't know how you and Sam can do it."

He didn't know if he could stand to see Jensen suffer like that over and over and know that there was nothing he could do but cling onto the precious days in between.

"When we first met, man…" David's smile was wistful, "it was like getting hit by a truck. I wasn't gay, you know that, but he was smart and funny and so damn gorgeous. Like a drug. The more I found out about him, the more I needed to know." Jared could sympathize there a hundred percent. He wondered if David had spent three days parked outside Jensen's house. "You know he turned me down when I asked him out."

Jared blinked. He could count on no fingers the number of people who'd outright said no to a date with David. Trust Jensen to be the first. "You're kidding."

David grinned and laid a hand on Jensen's head. "Nope. A sensible man would have packed it in…I didn't even know if he was gay, and it was right at a time when it could have ruined my career. I just kept on bugging him. I think he went out with me just to get me off his case." David admitted reluctantly, a fond smile on his face as he began to stroke Jensen's forehead.

"I dunno man, you're such a tragic dresser, no surprise he didn't fall head over heels at first sight of you." Jared teased, pleased when it earned him an exasperated eye-roll. "So what changed?"

Jensen lit up like a room full of Christmas tress when he was in David's presence…however reluctant he might have initially been, it was obvious that David emerged from their courtship victorious.

Again, David smiled. "Sam, actually." He said with a roughish smirk. "I went to pick him up for our date, kissed him on the cheek, and he chose just that minute to have an attack. Freaked me the fuck out, man. I thought I'd killed him."

"The Boreanaz Kiss. Known to kill on contact." Jared intoned dryly.

"Asshole."

"Douchebag."

"I think you're confusing me with Murray." David sniffed. "Anyway, she kinda glared at me, told me to stop being…I think the words she used were 'pansy ass son of a bitch' and to either be useful, or to get out of her way."

"She's one of a kind." Jared admitted, privately a little in awe of the tiny woman. Besides, she brought him cookies, and Jensen baked the world's greatest cookies. That gave her major gold star appeal. "So you decided to be useful."

David nodded. "I just kinda clung to him, and I haven't been able to let go since."

Jensen stirred, almost as if he could sense the combined love Jared and David shared for him. You and me both, bro, Jared though. You and me both.

*****

David's audition, it turned out, was for a new crime show called Bones, and Jensen was even more excited about it than David was. First thing he asked when he woke up and saw David's face; did you get it? Right then, Jared figured that even if he'd failed miserably, David would have said yes just to keep Jensen smiling a second longer.

Jared had snuck quietly from the room, forgoing his chance to say goodbye to Sam in order to get as far away from Jensen as physically possible without leaving the greater LA area. Sadly, it wasn't far.

He got home, climbed in the shower, and stayed there until the water grew cold enough to make him shiver as hard as Jensen had.

When he was dry he checked his phone, and there was already a message from Jensen, and one from David.

Dinner. Thursday. Bring dessert. 5.

Then

Thanks bro. Come 2 dinner. Bring food. Chocolaty food.

One word. No. Two letters. Not hard. He texted back.

Cheesecake?

*****

"Where's David?" Jared asked as he walked into Jensen's kitchen on Thursday evening, brown paper box in hand.

Jensen wouldn't meet his eye.

"He got called out to meet his agent and some guys from the production studio." Sam explained for him, her voice oddly flat.

Jared's spider sense began to tingle. He blamed it on an empty stomach.

Two hours later, he and Jensen were on the couch, a game the TV, volume turned low as subtitles scrawled across the bottom of the screen. Neither of them knew the score. Jared could barely recall who was playing. Sam had cooked again, though Jared was immensely proud of the kickass salad he had whipped up. She'd then left them unsupervised to watch Lost on the TV in her room. Between bites of fajitas, Jensen had playfully taunted Jared with all the nasty things the writers were planning to inflict on Sam and Dean.

Jared had a feeling that Season Two was going to kick ass. His, in particular.

They both washed the dishes before Jared cracked open the cheesecake he'd picked up at Morgan Montana's.

Today's special, Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake. The three greatest words in the English language, all combined into one orgasm inducing dessert.

They balanced the dish between them on the couch, forks battling in the hunt for chocolate pieces. Jensen captured the last one, holding teasingly on his fork out of Jared's reach, tongue between his lips and smirking. This was a treat for him.

Jared pouted and poked him in the ribs.

A fond, long-suffering sigh left Jensen's lips. He bit half the chocolate and let Jared claim the second half.

The man even shared his chocolate.

Right then, the synapses in Jared's mind crashed. Jensen's lips were chocolate sticky and just there. With his brain cells gone AWOL, there was nothing left to reign in the desperate need to know if Jensen tasted as sweet as he looked.

Jared let his fork clatter into the dish, one hand gently capturing Jensen's cheek, fingers curled under his jaw. It might just have been the light in the room, or the reflection of the television, but Jensen's eyes had never looked brighter.

Jared kissed him. Gently. Chastely. Such a barely there kiss that it almost remained in the realm of acceptable friendly gestures.

Except that this was Jensen, his best friend's lover, and one touch wasn't close to being enough.

His tongue brushed lightly across the full lips against his, and he waited for the moment when Jensen would push him away, and reality would crash back into focus.

Then Jensen had to spoil it all by pulling him closer. The bowl of cheesecake clattered messily to the floor as Jensen twisted himself closer, his lips parting just enough for Jared to slip his tongue between them.

Without even realizing it, Jared had wrapped Jensen even tighter in his arms, pulling him closer and closer, until Jensen, always the more practical of them, slid awkwardly onto Jared's lap.

Chocolate sticky fingers left messy prints on Jensen's white pullover, and the fingers tangled in Jared's hair held on so tight it was almost painful. If there was any chance of Jared pretending this was all just a twisted little delusion cooked up by his mind, it was destroyed when his hands slid under Jensen's sweater, and he moaned sweetly into Jared's mouth.

Jensen's skin felt warmer than the last time Jared had touched it. Not the cold damp chill of sickness, but the soft clean warmth of a healthy, inviting body.

Jared? Not gay. Not at all. Men didn't turn him on. There was nothing at all attractive about the idea of someone putting a…well, anything up his ass, thank you very much. So it stood to reason that having his hands on a man's ass, and his tongue in their mouth would be a little on the freaky side of normal.

Apparently Jared and normal were like star players on opposing teams. They knew of each other's existence, but went out of the way to pretend they didn't.

Then Jensen was squirming, pushing at the circle of his arms and right….David. Bad. This totally sucked.

His mom had taken him to see the ballet of The Little Mermaid when he was a shy and geeky kid. He'd left more than a little traumatized, and ready to sue Walt Disney's ass. Now he understood a little more. Loving someone who would never love you back…a total and utter fucking bitch.

Fuckity fuck. He opened his eyes and saw Jensen barely an inch away. His eyes were greener than Jared had realized, wide, utterly…

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't do anything stupid. Molesting Jensen is his own damn living room qualified as stupid. And then some.

And if Jensen had been a willing participant? It didn't matter. He wasn't thinking straight. He was on drugs. He was a writer, and writers always did stupid emo things like repaying a man who'd taken care of him with hardcore, pornographic sex on the couch.

"Jared?" Jensen whispered.

"David." Jared choked.

Sam cleared her throat loudly, and Jared all but threw Jensen off his lap in startled guilt. "Jared?" Sam asked, eyebrows at her hairline.

"Sam." Jared groaned.

Jensen summed everything else up with one sheepish word. "Cheesecake?" He offered, holding out the bowl of partially munched dessert.

Jared must have been Hitler in a past life. Or Attila the Hun. Nothing else could explain the bad karma that was intent on kicking him repeatedly in the ass.

"I'll get my keys." He muttered, and didn't look back when Jensen called after him.

Read Part Nine Blank. Puppy. Blank. Tequila. Blank. in the Louder Than Words 'Verse by SplashPink