"I get it man, I really do. You keep sayin' this is about me not bein' a father but I just gotta say - you need to look at yourself. Just...look at what you really want and don't make this all on my shoulders." Jared takes a deep breath and leans over, kissing Chris right on his surprised open mouth. "I love you but it isn't helpin' no one if you're not honest with yourself."

Those words follow Chris around for three months. Two of those months are spent on the road and that helps with avoidance but not with coming up with an answer. It also doesn't help that the month he's home Jared is pleasant, sucks good dick and never brings it up again.

What.the.hell?

Chris tries to be honest with himself but it hurts his brain to try and imagine Jared's point. HE wants to be a father? He was fairly sure he didn't want that. At all. To the point of being allergic. He never had a moment where he was going about his daily life, paused and thought, "Golly gee willigers, I think I want to be a DAD."

Although it would have probably been more of a "Fuck, I wanna be a Daddy" reveal.

But nothing. He even spent an inordinate amount of time in a Toys 'R' Us, browsing the baby department until he'd run out of fake names to ask them to run in the registry (because he needed some reason to be staring at bibs for so long and he didn't want to frighten the staff).

All that happened were his various nieces and nephews via Jensen and Jared's family got a shit load of presents shipped to their homes and a bunch of parents asking him to please stop spoiling them!. He made no promises because that's what he did. Good uncle material. With the spoiling and the snuck cookies and the complete dismissal of things like sugar content.

Good uncle, not good father.

A good father was Jared. Jensen. Jeff. People with J names and his name was Christian.

It was all so clear. Except for the parts where it wasn't.

***

"So here's the thing," he says, sitting on Jensen and Brig's back patio, looking out at the Valley. He's had four beers since he got off the plane (and the four he had ON the plane) and he's buzzy and jet lagged from the flight from Austin, slightly lonely and craving advice. Possibly. Or else he just wants Jensen to hurry up with those steaks and get him another beer.

"Oh God, there's a thing? I thought you were just comin' for a visit." Jensen sighs, flipping over the row of prime marbled beef on his deluxe extra special grill. Chris and Jared gave it to them for Christmas...and Jensen almost cried.

"I'm visitin'. But I was also thinkin' there might be some advice in that pretty head of yours."

"About...?" Jensen prompts, taking a long swig of beer. Like he'll need it.

"About me and Jared." Chris taps the half-empty bottle against the arm of the Adirondack chair he's occupying.

"Yeah, specifics are necessary for that particular realm of my expertise."

"Me and Jared and uh...future stuff we might do. Together."

"This isn't about sex is it?"

"Yeah, actually. Do you think we should finally go all the way?" Chris would throw something but all he's got is the bottle and no one's getting that til it's dry.

"Not unless you're gettin' married. Wait til your wedding night like good Christians." Slamming the lid of the grill down, Jensen fetches two more cold brown bottles from the cooler and plops down next to Chris. "I'm the best man right?"

"Stop fishing for compliments." Chris snatches a beer, now officially two fisting it. "We're not gettin' married."

Jensen grunts. He might be disappointed by that or maybe he just wants to get to the point. "Then what?"

"Kids."

"No see, you already had this problem. Jared doesn't want 'em remember." Jensen scratches his nose with the unopened bottle. "Right?"

"Right. He just thinks I did. Do." Chris makes the admission and a face, like he's smelling something bad. He finishes beer four and drops the empty at his feet.

"He thinks...he thinks you want kids?"

"Yeah."

"Why does he think that?" The idea is clearly preposterous to Jensen, his eyes slightly wider as he opens his own beer.

"Because...because I don't know! He just said it, said I was sublimating or some such shit, a word he clearly should not know because he's PRETTY." There's a full out "stomp" of both Chris' booted feet as he opens number five.

Jensen chokes on a mouthful of beer. "Jared said you were sublimating your secret desire to have kids? What the hell? Has he been readin' again?"

"I know, I've begged him to stop," mutters Chris. His hands flutter against damp glass. "You think he's right?"

"To read? Reading IS fundamental Chris..."

"Jenny..."

"Oh right, sorry. Uh...I have no fuckin' clue. You like kids okay but you never talk about havin' your own. You spoil Jilly and Jared's nephews like you're Daddy Freakin' Warbucks but that doesn't mean you want to change diapers and shit."

"Diapers OF shit. And exactly! But he thinks I'm making this about HIM when it's about ME and if I wanted to have these sort of conversations I would have married Veronica Higgins..."

"If you'd have married Veronica Higgins you'd be in prison right now."

"Besides the point."

"Or she'd be in prison and you'd be worm food."

"Focus please!"

Jensen chuckles into his beer and they sit in silence for a moment. Chris squirming, Jensen contemplating. Possibly.

"I don't know if you want kids Chris, only you can answer that question. But I gotta say, if Jared's feelin' that, he must have a good reason. The boy's a freak of nature but he ain't stupid."

"Yeah, I hate that about him."

***

The steaks are fabulous and Chris' eighth beer is delicious. Brig makes lemon squares for dessert while Jilly insists on eating the entire meal with her chair pressed up against Chris'. She asks where Uncle Jared is every hour on the hour and seems completely unsatisfied with "shooting a movie in Paris" as her answer.

Chris tends to agree with her that this is a poor excuse for Jared not to be here.

Time differences are balls out shitty especially when you miscalculate and forget to turn your phone on. Chris ends up in bed before midnight, listening to a tired drawl on the other end of his phone, hoping he's in LA all safe and shit and hoping he remembered to give Jilly her present and a hug for Jen and Brig and Jared will call again tomorrow.

Sucks, Chris decides as he snaps off the light in the Ackles very shades of trendy blue guest room. There are no dogs here and no giant boyfriend and no instant answers, none of which does much good for Chris' cranky beer-infused person at the moment.

He falls asleep and dreams of herding cats.

***

Jensen tells Brig about Chris' comments when they get into bed because he's incapable of not telling her shit and screw Seinfeld for putting that into his head.

He's George Constanza, how depressing.

Brig says, "Jared's a smart man" and makes that sound which indicates she's light years ahead of him in figuring something out.

"You see this in Chris?"

"Of course!"

"I don't!"

"You're a man."

"So is Jared."

"It's different."

Jensen doesn't pursue the matter but lays in stewing silence while Brig falls asleep. He isn't enamored with the idea of not knowing so intensely weird and personal facts about his best friend or the fact that Jared didn't share this keen observation with him. The couple dynamic still trips him up sometimes, like he forgets that his two friends are not friends with each other but like him and Brig with each other and he wonders if Chris tells Jared everything and Jared goes, "of course!" and makes that sound like Brig does.

He thinks he'll ask next time they talk but then maybe that's entirely too intimate a thing to know.

***

"I think you'd make a good dad," Jensen says the next day, as he and Chris tee off at the local course.

"Don't make jokes." Chris doesn't look moved by Jensen's comment or really anything but slightly hung over and squinting beneath his sunglasses.

"Not jokin'. Totally serious. Brig thinks so too."

"GOD. You're discussin' us in your marital bed? That's gross." Chris fingers a nine iron like it's a weapon and Jensen is relieved his bow legs can still outrun a half-drunk and easily winded Christian.

"Durin' sex even." Jensen takes his shot and shades his eyes like he's Tiger Freakin' Woods.

"GOD." Chris puts a ball on the tee, hacks three times (with the club) and hits it into the trees.

***

The director of Jared's movie is a bit of a jackass so of course everything goes over schedule. It's a big film but Jared is second string so he can't bitch to anyone but Chris.

And Chris? Chris gets an earful.

Paris is rainy and Jared is bored and he missed home in a way that makes him pathetic. Chris, in turn, apparently misses him a LOT because he doesn't point this out. Much.

"How much you gettin' paid again?" Chris asks dryly after Jared finishes a monologue about the gourmet food he had to endure for dinner.

"It's not just about money you know."

"How're Harrison Ford, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts and Meryl Freakin' Streep?"

"Fiiiine." Jared's mumbling, throwing "decorative" pillows at the too-small-for-him decorative chair in the corner. Truth is they're all so nice he's almost to the point of hanging out with them and Clive was all "let's get together in LA" even. He's being spoiled rotten on this set.

"You're just complainin' cause you miss me."

"Yeah. I suppose. And the dogs."

"Least I got first billing."

"Why don't just you just fly over for a few days?" Jared's voice drops down to cajoling. "I only have a few hours on set for the next two weeks..."

"Jeeze why?? IT's rainin' and the food sucks!"

"I'm here and I'm LONELY."

"Don't they have pay porn in Paris? Ask Clive, he seems a dirty sonovabitch."

Jared sighs dramatically. He should not be this damn cranky, especially when his time on the phone with Chris can be so hit or miss.

"Whatever." Jared shifts on the bed, hating the plushness and missing his Bionic Woman Certified bed back home. "How was your trip?"

"Whatever? You pickin' a fight?" Chris sounds suddenly exasperated. "Baby, I got ribs marinatin' on the grill and a game on in half an hour - come on now!"

"That really isn't makin' me feel better," Jared points out.

"I didn't know I was supposed to be doin' that!"

"Good boyfriend cred slipping, call to Brig in the future..."

"Oh for cryin' out loud," Chris grumps, thumping his head against the wall - the sound of which make Jared more homesick than ever. "I was hoping for some phone sex and I get drama!"

"Go date some ribs then," Jared grouses.

"Well you know, ribs taste good and they don't bitch long distance."

***

They've been together long enough that the bickering moves to dirty talk in less than five minutes. by the time Chris groans something about "fuckin' you for hours", Jared has forgotten about being cranky.

Now he can concentrate on "horny and homesick".

Later in the shower, Jared smacks his head on the shower head (clearly designed for ELVES) and curses until he grows hoarse. He's well aware of his ridiculousness earlier but he's running out of Zen patience with his boyfriend.

He hasn't pushed on the fatherhood issue, or insisted on long discussions. He wants Chris to reach his own heartfelt conclusion - but he would like for that to occur before they both die of old age. He would also like to not be thinking that the reason Chris isn't coming to visit him in Paris is because Chris is avoiding this (as per usual) and wishing it would go away. That sucks. And Jared would like to give him the benefit of the doubt but he continues to be more than just a pretty face. Damn it.

He wonders if he shouldn't go back to LA after this and tell his agent to shop him around for a series. There have been offers since Supernatural ended; he just hasn't been interested. You can't replicate perfection and frankly he thinks anything after working with Jensen for five years would be doomed to suck, at least in HIS head. Besides, movies meant more money and less work and if that was what came in with almost scary regularity, why not keep going?

On the other hand (and GOD, was there a pill you could take to shut off your smart parts), Jared had to consider worldwide movie work on a relationship and if you added kids into the mix...

Jared winds up hunched up in the shower with a weak cold spray of water hitting his chest and way more open-ended questions than answers on his plate.

***

Chris enjoys his ribs and the game at almost full capacity; the phone sex erased most of the near-fight so he could chill on the couch with the dogs...except for when the food coma started to wear off.

He wasn't stupid enough to believe the fight was just about Paris and rain and bad food. He knew he was avoiding Jared to a certain extent and if Jared had figured it out (and there was very little reason to expect he hadn't), Chris knew he was hurting his boyfriend's FEELINGS and that was a no-no. His boyfriend had FEELINGS and while they generally made Chris nervous, he knew he liked them (most of the time) on Jared.

Chris knew he had to face Jared's questions eventually. It was too much to ask that his boyfriend had forgotten or that it had been solved without his input. Having Jared continent-hopping for work (and not nagging him) gave him almost too much breathing room.

He needed to get a clue and then get into the mix.

He hated having a clue and being in the mix.

He had FEELINGS but he liked to keep them in the spare room, under some old yearbooks and covered in dust. There but not active.

That wasn't going to cut it this time.

***

Chris actually resorts to pen and paper for this one; in the studio with some root beer (probably this was a decision he should make SOBER) and the dogs and scratches and doodles of music notes with cowboy hats until he finds a place to start.

Pros and Cons.

Numbered Lists.

Most of the stuff that came out on the first pass involved "baby shit" and "being quiet in bed" and "Jared would be a great dad" - none of which actually touched Chris' feelings on this one. Jensen thought he'd be a good father but that could mean he probably wouldn't drop the kid or scar them so bad they'd set fires. Expanding their household seemed risky because what happened if they broke up or something? Who would the kid live with? It was bad enough that Chris broke into a cold sweat imagining that with the dogs. Some kid calling him Daddy?

Now his stomach was starting to hurt.

So he tapped the pen against the paper for awhile, doing the usual Chris thing where he took a worse case scenario and ran with it until the sky was raining blood and the devil stood up ahead with a pitchfork. He thought he couldn't just pack his shit and leave if they had a kid and really - was he planning on leaving? Ever?

That lead to "what could make him leave" which ended up with him getting incredibly depressed at the idea of Jared running away with Clive Owen and them adopting a bunch of kids like Brad and Angelina and then it was time to hit the beer.

***

"Whyareyoucallingme?" came out in a single rush of air, mostly moaned and semi-articulate. Chris checked his watch and winced, then played dumb.

"What? Isn't it breakfast time there? Sorry." He coughed loudly and Jared cursed him soundly, or started snoring, he couldn't tell. "I needed to tell you somethin'."

"Somethin' wrong?" Jared woke up a little more; Chris nudged away the guilt.

"No no. No one's dead, nothin's on fire."

"Then what?"

"Just this once - you might be right."

"Wow, that's amazing." Jared paused. "Could you be more specific?"

"Maybe I'm thinkin' about being a dad and makin' it about you when it's maybe about me. MAYbe." Chris shifts in the dark of their bedroom, watching the dog pile on Jared's side and wondering if they needed to get a bigger bed...

***

Jared comes home from Paris a few days later (thank God Harrison Ford was Harrison Ford enough to make a little noise and voila! Everyone was free to go!) full of questions and germs. By the time he clears customs, a fever has begun consuming his brain and he's convinced there's actual steam pouring from his ears.

The chills hit on the escalator down; he spies Chris lurking in the corner wearing a Dodgers cap and sunglasses.

"You're either here to pick me up or assassinate me," he announces woozily as Chris scowls.

"You drunk?"

"Nope. Possibly dyin' of some French disease however," Jared lists slightly to the left. A skycap appears like magic, grabbing the bags as Chris grips his arm.

"Easy does it," he murmurs and Jared isn't so sick he misses Chris' low intimate tone. He gets a goofy grin on his face and lets himself be led out the sliding doors.

It's good to be home.

***

The drive to their actual home is long on a good day but when you're on fire and seeing quadruple, it's an eternity. Jared lays sprawled in the back seat of the Blazer under a dog blanket, alternating between deep dark sleep, moaning, and waking up now and again to mumble something incoherent.

He dreams of serpents and swimming pools and killer snails the size of buffalos, and rooms of babies which he and Chris peruse like they're shopping for a couch.

"No snails, they might eat the baby," he mutters as rough but tender hands pull at his arms.

"Agreed. Now c'mon baby, we're home and you gotta get inside before you blister my seats."

Jared obeys Chris' voice, still feeling the bump and rumble of the road underneath him.

"The truck's still movin'," he points out, sliding out the door and hitting his knees on the driveway.

"Uh huh. Let's hurry up for the snails get us." Chris gets him up, gets him to move one foot then the other. Maneuvers him up the stairs (and there are SO many stairs) until Chris' cursing indicates they've reached the end of the line.

Jared must have passed out at some point because he wakes up naked on the bed, covered with what must be every blanket in the house.

"Hey," he croaks out from the depths of the mattress. "Anyone here?"

Sadies barks in response and Jared hears his girl snuffling and circling the bed. He could cry at how happy it makes him.

"Just me and the dogs," Chris says and Jared would absolutely throw off the covers and tackle him if he could move.

"Am I dreaming? Cause last thing I remember I was on a plane."

Chris pulls the covers back, cool air hitting Jared's skin and igniting a bone deep shiver. If this is a dream, it SUCKS.

"Yeah you were pretty out of it." Chris kicks off his boots in a hurry and slides into the bed, grunting at the weight of the blankets over them.

"How'd you get me from the airport to here?" Jared can't move much but he leans into Chris, pressing up against him with a chattery sigh of happiness.

"I've been workin' out," Chris says dryly, arranging himself around Jared, filling in all the gaps between their bodies. "You need a doctor you think?"

"No idea."

"The vet up in Claymore Falls does house calls."

"Ha. And yet again. Ha." Jared snuffles against the dryer fresh scent of Chris' flannel shirt. He doesn't have the sniffles or a cough or anything else but a bitch of a fever and every inch of his body feels beat with a baseball bat. He's pretty sure his mom would recommend soup and water and sleeping with his boyfriend for hours and hours...so he's going to pretend she's here and follow that prescription.

"I got some soup downstairs if you're hungry," Chris mentions, petting Jared's neck in soothing circles.

"Ha," Jared says again but this one is much less sarcastic. "Not now. This is good now. I missed you."

"Of course you missed me. I'm ME." But he can't hide the mushy dork in his voice and Jared grins.

"And you missed me. And you did deep thinkin' while I was gone."

"You smelled the smoke all the way in France?"

"It was pungent man. PUNgent." Jared pauses, almost drifting off on the wave of damp feverishness to sleep but he forces his eyes open, trying to focus. "But uh...I appreciate you thinkin' on it. I just want...I want you to feel right about stuff. Whatever you decide."

"Whatever we decide. You ain't droppin' this in my lap."

"I could drop myself in your lap."

"You're half dead. I'm not takin' advantage of you until you're at least only a quarter dead."

"Such a gentleman."

"I try."

"You'll make a good dad."

Chris sighs, rapping Jared against the back of his head gently. "Shut up. We're not doin' this til you're better."

"Well shit, what are we doin' then?"

"We're goin' to sleep then we're gonna get up and you're gonna shower and we're going eat soup and THEN we're gonna talk."

"Okay." Jared's eyes have closed as the haze rolls back in. Chris is comfortable and the bed is cozy and he's so damn tired... "Can we amend that to include sex?"

"After soup, before talking. Now shut up."

"I love you too."