Jensen was painfully reminded of the episode Phantom Traveller where he’d had no trouble playing Dean since he was scared as shit of flying.

The plane shook slightly as they hit some turbulence and he grabbed Jared’s arm squeezing hard without even realising what he was doing.

“Ok…ow,” Jared said after a few seconds.

Jensen looked down in shock at his hand and removed it quickly like he’d been burned, “Sorry man.”

He felt sweaty and sick as the plane shook again and the ‘fasten seatbelts’ sign flicked on, “Oh shit,” He whispered.

“I know you’re scared of flying alright but…take it easy, nothing’s gonna happen,” Jared tried to reassure him softly as Jensen leant back in his seat and shut his eyes trying to breathe deeply.

“Yeah you can tell me that when we’re on the ground,” Jensen managed to squeak.

“Well we nearly are,” Jared pointed out and nudged Jensen, “Look out the window we can see the bright lights of LA.”

He sounded slightly sad and Jensen had no idea why but didn’t spend too long thinking about it because as the ground got closer he started sweating more, “Oh my god, we’re gonna fucking crash, ohmygodshitfuckwank.”

It didn’t help that Jared was laughing at him, “Dude, I’ve never heard you swear as much as when we’re flying.”

“Shutup you’re not helping,” Jensen muttered averting his eyes from the approaching ground out of the window.

 “Alright whatever, just if you’re gonna try and squeeze my arm off again give me some warning.”

Jensen spent the rest of the way down gripping Jared’s arm and trying to pretend that he was managing to overcome his fear instead of it being the way Jared’s muscles bunched under his hand that distracted him.

As soon as the plane had taxied and was at the right gate Jensen shot up out of his seat but being in the window seat, he had to wait for Jared to move his ass.  His perfectly sculpted…shut up brain.  

“Could you take any longer?”  Jensen whined as Jared stretched as he stood up revealing a thin sliver of skin and Jensen tried his best not to stare at the muscles that peeked out from under his shirt…he really did.

“Probably, you wanna see if I can?”  Jared yawned lazily and grinned at him knowing how wound up Jensen was right then.

Jensen sighed, he didn’t care if Jared Padalecki happened to be almost godlike in appearance, he wouldn’t hesitate to punch him out right then if he didn’t get out of his freaking way.

It took them another hour to go through passport control and collect their bags but then they were free and it was only as they wandered out to the taxi ranks that the awkward silence fell as they both tried to figure out how to say goodbye.

“I’ll give you a call yeah?  We’ll meet up sometime next week,” Jared said confidently and Jensen hoped, he really did, that he would call but sometimes hiatus just got so hectic and Jared had Sandy…

“Yeah, alright man.”

And that was it; they walked off to separate taxis, gave separate addresses and took separate routes out of the airport.

 

The sound of his phone ringing woke Jensen up from a particularly vivid dream, involving a bath, foam and Jared.  He groaned and rolled over. Flipping it open, he managed to groan, “Whaa?” 

“Dude are you seriously not up?”  Chris’s energetic voice resonated through the phone.

“S’early,” Jensen grunted.

“Ah, I see we’re in a monosyllabic sort of mood right now,” Jensen could hear the grin through the phone, “Well, just thought I’d let you know we’re going out tonight, so you might want to get your extra fine booty out of bed some time soon, it’s nearly one you know.”

Jensen blinked and turned to look at his clock, to find that Chris was, unfortunately, telling the truth.

“Shit,” He mumbled, well at least that explained the bright sunlight streaming in between the blinds.

He had come back from the airport in the early hours of the morning and had just flopped thankfully onto his bed, foregoing all thoughts of unpacking.

“Shit is right my friend, now get moving,” Chris said forcefully, before hanging up.

Jensen spent the rest of the day watching bad daytime TV, and drinking copious amounts of coffee, until he felt roughly human again.  And I wasn’t even drinking last night, he thought ironically.

Evening rolled around, and he felt like just crawling back into bed, so he could huddle up under the warm covers and think about that dream he had been having…

He shook his head before his thoughts could get carried away; danger lay down that path.

He was just heading for the shower, eagerly anticipating a nice hot steamy one, when his phone rang again, and he seriously contemplated chucking it out of the window, but paused mid-swing when he saw the caller ID.

“Jared”

“Hey Jen, how was your first day of freedom?”  Jared’s warm voice rolled through the phone, smothering him in its familiarity.  He gulped.

“Full of sleep and coffee,” He said, while grabbing a clean towel from the cupboard, “You?”

“Oh, it was great man; I got to see Sandy…” Jared continued to babble on about how great it had been to see his girlfriend again, and Jensen couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He really didn’t need to hear this right now, “So anyway, what are you doing tonight?”

Jensen was caught unawares, “Tonight?”

Jared laughed, “Yeah man, as in this evening, in like the next few hours...are you sure you drank enough coffee today?”

“Yeah m’just tired,” Jensen replied, sinking down onto the sofa, “I’m going out with Chris and Steve, they’re in town for the next few weeks.”

There was silence for a few seconds, before Jared said abruptly, “Okay man, that’s cool, we’ll meet up some other time, yeah?”

Jensen wondered briefly why Jared sounded annoyed, but replied, “Yeah, speak to you soon” and hung up.

He changed his mind about the hot shower he’d been anticipating; he definitely needed a cold shower just then.