Title: Near You Always --pieces of you-- Part 5 of 19

Chapter Summary: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the city.

Series Summary: When Jensen gets tired of soulless hotel rooms and moves in with Jared at the beginning of Season 2, the boys realize that what they feel for each other is much more complicated than friendship.

Disclaimer: I am a lying liar who lies.

Author's Notes: You may or may not remember this fic from an INCREDIBLY long time ago. *hangs head in shame* I suck. Credit goes to everyone who has pestered me about this fic and made me feel guilty for not updating (it's true what your mother tells you-nagging works!), and also to seedyapartment for her totally awesome song, The Ballad Of Jared And Jensen, which you seriously have to go check out if you haven't already. I listened to it on repeat and was inspired to write J2 after a months-long dry spell, and lo, there was fic. If you need a refresher on the fic, go here. Also, thanks to huntress69, and to Pam and Rhonda, who I'm sure would have beta'd this for me if I was less impatient, and also for the makers of Bejeweled 2, which helped me keep my sanity while I wrangled this out of my brain and onto the screen.

Warnings: wet dogs, wet shirtless boys, schmoop, contrived plot devices, domestic billing and cooing, clueless!Jensen, brokenhand!Jared, and another cameo by my aunt.

"Oh, God. Kill me." Jensen flopped into the director's chair next to Jared, stripping off Dean's leather jacket and and flannel button-up. "Kill me and put me out of my misery."

"Dude, 's not that hot out," Jared protested, sprawled lazily in his own chair, slurping an iced cappuchino. Jensen raised one eyebrow and sort-of glared, which Jared interpreted as Dude, are you fucking kidding me? He shrugged. "Okay, that was a lie."

"Hey, not all of us can consume our own body weight in empty calories all day to beat the heat." He eyed the iced capp in Jared's hand enviously.

He slurped some more and grinned evilly. "Are you sure you don't want one?" Jared had single-handedly been keeping Tim Hortons' in business since they started filming, drinking six or seven iced capps a day, until he was ridiculously sugared-up and overcaffienated and driving everybody nuts.

"I hate you. My hips hate you, my stomach hates you-"

"You love me. You know you do." Another smile, flashing the Dimples of Doom. "And if you're mean, you don't get your surprise."

That gave him pause. "You got me a surprise?"

A big shit-eating grin.

"What is it?"

"Well, then it wouldn't be a surprise."

"Dude. You can't tease me like that."

"C'mon, you can take it until Friday."

"Jared. It is Friday."

His brow furrowed. "What happened to Thursday?"

"The third law of thermodynamics."

"Smartass." Jared shrugged. "Okay, you can wait until the end of the day."

"Come on, Jared, tell me!"

"If I tell you, that will totally ruin it!"

"If you don't tell me, you won't live to the end of our day," Jensen pointed out.

Jared shook his head with mock despair. "You were one of those kids who sneaked downstairs at three a.m. on Christmas morning, weren't you?"

Jensen's lower lip poked out the slightest bit. "What's your point?"

Jared sighed heavily. He couldn't resist The Pout any more than Jensen could hold out against his puppy eyes. "You know Alanna?"

"The PA?"

"Yeah. Her brother has a cabin on Vancouver Island, and I rented it for the weekend."

"Oh, yeah?" Jen raised his eyebrows. "And if I happened to have plans for this weekend?"

"Come on, dude. Your plans all involve sleeping. You can do that anywhere."

"Not anywhere," he muttered petulantly. "So, when you say 'cabin,' we're not, like, roughing it, right? Cuz I don't do the camping thing."

"Pussy. Are you sure you're from Texas?"

"Jare..."

"No, we're not roughing it, Princess. Electricity, plumbing, all the comforts of home. I booked us on the last ferry over."

Jen looked faintly green. "A boat?"

"Relax, dude. It's like a floating mall. You're not gonna get seasick."

"I'm gonna hold you to that."

The cabin was actually more of a beach house, located on a long (and probably pricey) stretch of dunes. The dogs took off as soon as the car door was opened, bulleting over a hill covered in sea grass and onto the sand. Jensen could smell salt air and pine trees, undiluted by the city stink of exhaust, garbage and concrete, and it was at least ten degrees cooler.

"Still think this was a stupid idea?" Jared drawled smugly as he unlocked the front door.

Jen followed him in and hit the lights, revealing one room, except for a small box that was probably a bathroom. There was a kitchen area with a bar counter, a living room area with built-in bench seats and a couple of easy chairs, and one bed. "The stupidest," Jen muttered. "We got electricity and plumbing, but you forgot to ask about the sleeping arrangements."

Jared mumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath. "Alana knows we're living together...she probably thinks what everyone else thinks."

"That you're my bitch?" Jen inquired, an edge in his voice.

"Dude, chill. Seriously. It's a king-size bed. Let's be adults about this. You didn't mind sharing when Mike and Tom stayed over."

"I was drunk," Jen pointed out.

Jared held up the case of beer. "Well, that can be arranged."

They set up a driftwood bonfire on the beach just as the sun disappeared over the horizon, flaked out on the sand drinking beer while Harley and Sadie quartered the beach, noses down in pursuit of anything interesting. "I was looking for our scripts when I was getting changed, and I couldn't find them. Jared?" Jen added suspiciously.

"Oops." Jared's grin was utterly unrepentant.

"Jay!"

"Dude, you've been channeling emo-Dean all week, you need a break! One angst-free weekend with nobody in your head but you-that's not too much to ask. We can run lines in the truck on Monday, all right?"

"Yes, Mom," Jen murmured into his beer, suitably chastened.

"Sorry, it's just...I worry about you, you know?"

No, Jen wanted to say. He had good friends, people who were there for him, hell, he'd known Chris for years; but Jared was...different. About as good at staying out of other people's business as he was at respecting their personal space, and yet he did it with such genuine caring that Jensen didn't feel smothered or harassed.

"Jensen? You wander off in there, pal?"

"Mmm? Sorry, 's just thinkin'."

"You must be confused. You're s'posed to be drinking."

"Well, then you'd better get me another beer."

Jared didn't move an inch. "What did your last servant die of?"

"Blue balls. Now beer, wench. Get on it!"

"Yes, sir!" Jared grinned and passed him another bottle. "And if you call me 'Mom' one more time, I'mma put you over my knee."

And Jen's brain immediately went to a dirtybadwrong place, which was weird, because he wasn't into kinky shit like getting spanked during sex. Sure. You're perving on your best friend, but the SPANKING KINK is what makes it weird.

That lobotomy was looking better all the time.

It was like sleeping with an amorous octopus. Jared had managed to stealth-cuddle him overnight, one heavy leg between his and a two-armed deathgrip around his waist and shoulders to prevent escape. "Dude, get off," Jen protested, eyes still closed, firmly ignoring the part of him that wanted to snuggle up to Jared's heat and let the gentle whuffs of breath against the nape of his neck lull him back to sleep. "I'm not the little spoon, okay? Leggo."

Jared's arms tightened. "Nuh," he insisted, still mostly unconscious. "Sa'urday, no work."

"Jared!" Jensen used a well-placed elbow to fight his way loose and was faced with heavy-lidded puppy eyes and identical expressions of sleepy indignation on Jared, Harley and Sadie. "I'm not your cuddle-bitch," he pointed out, refusing to feel guilty.

A faint hint of embarassment colored Jared's cheeks, but being Jared, he tackled Jensen to the mattress and started groping and nuzzling. "Sure you are, Jennybean!" he insisted cheerfully, tickling Jensen's ribs and rubbing morning whiskers over his cheeks. "I will call him SQUISHY, and he will be mine. He will be my SQUISHY!"

"Fucker!" Jensen choked out through very unmanly giggles as he tried to protect his ribs. "You tickle me again and I'll kill you and let Chad have your dogs!"

"Sic 'em, Harley!" Jared ordered, which naturally resulted in Jen getting a faceful of slobber as Harley tried to lick him to death.

"You're a dead man, Padalecki!"

"Oh, I better sleep with one eye open tonight, huh?" Jared teased, fingertips ghosting up Jen's side and inspiring more violent struggling and cursing. Jensen bucked and actually dumped Jared right off the bed with a spectacular crash. "Fuuuck."

"Dude, you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." Jared rose out of his untidy sprawl on the cabin's wood floor and shook his hand gingerly, grimaced. "Ow."

"I'd say sorry, but...I'm not. 'S what you get for tickling me."

"Damn, that's cold, Jen!"

"Don't even start. I haven't had coffee yet, Jay."

"Uh-huh," was his affable reply. "C'mon, Grouchy McCrankypants, I'll make you breakfast."

"Oh, God. You really are trying to kill me."

Jared's idea of 'breakfast' turned out to be peanut-butter-and-banana quesadillas a la Jared and blackberries and cherries from the snarl of vegetation beyond the porch that had probably been a garden once upon a time. His hand swelled up a little and even though Jared didn't complain, Jen felt bad enough to volunteer for dish duty.

By that afternoon, Jared was popping Tylenol like Tic-Tacs and looking faintly green. "Uh, Jen...dude?" he called out at last.

"Yeah?"

"I think my hand's broken."

Jen put his head in his hands, imagining what Kripke would say when they had to tell him that Jared broke his hand because Jensen accidentally pushed him out of bed. "You sure?"

He lifted his right hand, which was now extremely swollen and had a nasty rainbow bruise. "Pretty sure, yeah." The dumbass at the end went unsaid, but they both heard it.

"All right, I'll pack the car. There's gotta be a hospital on this island, right?"

"Christ, I hope so."

The ER was packed-apparently a lot of kids decided to pull dumbass stunts that weekend-and Jensen had signed five autographs and drank three cups of coffee by the time triage got to them. Jared was looped on something the nurse had given him, either morphine or demerol, probably, and was talking to the Kleenex box. Jensen would have videotaped it for posterity and later blackmail if he didn't feel slightly responsible for the state Jared was in.

Okay, more than slightly responsible. When the harried ER doc finally called for Jared, mangling his last name horribly, Jen went to the lobby to call Kripke.

"Eric?"

"You better not be calling me to bitch about the heat, I already heard from Kim," was how he answered the phone. "Be glad you don't get earthquakes up there."

"Uh, Jared broke his hand."

"You better be fucking kidding me, Ackles."

"I'm not. We're at the ER now."

"How did it happen?"

"Uh."

"Talk," he ordered, and Jen noticed, not for the first time, that Kripke could be fucking scary when he wanted to be.

"I maybe accidentally pushed him out of bed?"

Kripke exhaled through his teeth. "The only reason I'm not booking a flight right now to come up there and kill you both is because Ostroff would fry up my balls and serve them for breakfast. And Jared broke his hand on the stunt scene we filmed on Friday. Clear?"

"Crystal. I'l tell him."

"You're going to be working a lot of overtime. We'll have to write Jared out of the next episode."

"Yes, sir."

"Four a.m. call on Monday."

Jensen winced, controlled it. "I'll be there."

"You're damn right you will."

Which left Jensen to retrieve a high-as-a-kite Padalecki from a gaggle of nurses, wrangle him back into the car, and get to the ferry terminal just in time to watch the boat pull away. Another two hours to wait. Fantastic.

On Tuesday, Jared was already sick of daytime TV. For some reason, even though it was August, A Charlie Brown Christmas had been on cable, reminding Jared that Jensen was impossible to shop for.

It had driven Jared nuts last year and this year was worse because...because it just was, that's all, and he wanted to get Jen something...meaningful.

And I really am turning into a teenage girl.

But he was still determined to get him something special and have it be a surprise, which meant a little light snooping, which was easier than it was the year before now that Jen was very conveniently living with him. He noted Jen's book collection contained a lot of existentialist writers-Marquez, Goethe, Kafka-and a memory nudged its' way forward. A book he'd read at a friend's Galveston beachhouse one summer, when everyone else was nursing their hangovers. The Centaur In The Garden. Moacyr Scliar. He had vague memories of a narrative that felt like something out of a fever dream, and made a mental note to hunt up a copy on amazon.com. He continued poking around, browsing through the framed pictures on Jen's dresser and the dust-catchers on his bookshelf. He just about jumped out of his skin when he heard a key scraping in the lock and Harley and Sadie in joyful frenzy.

"Hey, Giganto-gimp! Where y'at?" Jen hollered.

Oh, shit! Quick-lie! "I'm in your room!" he called back, because he'd always sucked at lying.

"What are you doing in there?" Jen wanted to know, already coming up the stairs.

"Looking for a book," Jared replied, inspired. It was even the truth-sort of.

Laughter from the doorway. "I don't have any books with pictures, dude," Jensen teased.

"But I'm boorred!" Jared whined, and he was. Having a broken hand sucked ass. Not only had his doctor demanded he stay off set for the next week, but he couldn't play video games with a busted hand, and he'd been forbidden from going running with Harley and Sadie, too.

"Okay, get outta the way, Jare." Jensen softened the order with a crooked smile, nudging him with one hip. "I'll pick you something."

"Dude, I'm not five," Jared protested. "You gonna cut my meat for me, too?" he asked before he thought. "Fuck. Don't answer that."

Jensen restrained himself, but he didn't have to say a word-Jared still felt the tips of his ears turning red at the memory of Jen cutting his steak for him the night they'd come home from the hospital. Jensen masked a chuckle as a cough and perused his bookshelf before decisively selecting four volumes. "You'll like these."

Jared had a look. They weren't by any authors he recognized. "I'll take your word for it. What happened at set today?"

Jen snorted. " 'How was your day, dear?' " he drawled. "To quote you, it's not like we're married." He turned to leave the room, clearly expecting Jared to follow. "It was good, but I'm sore as hell. I had a pipe digging into my spine for six takes. Did Deb come and get the dogs today?"

"Her husband did, at oh-fuck-thirty this morning," Jared replied with a wince. "He took them to Golden Ear with Nevada and Cheyenne and Brasha."

"Playdate at the lake?" Jen echoed with a fond smile. "I bet they came back wet and happy."

"You have no idea. They've been asleep in the living room all day. Harley didn't even wake up for lunch."

"What? Better call the vet," Jen joked.

"Funny. So...what do you want to do now?"

Jen groaned. "Not your entertainment director, Jare. Since I-thank God-don't have to take the dogs for a run, we need to go to the grocery store."

"What's with this 'we' shit?" Jared ragged him, nudging him into the wall as they went down the narrow stairway. "We're not married. You go."

"Eh, bite me." Jen nudged him back-hard-and beat him into the living room. "Sadie, I'm home, girl." Sadie lifted her head from the throw rug in front of the fireplace, blinked a couple of times, yawned, and put her head back down. "Sadie, it's me!" Harley was a total daddy's boy-basically a carbon copy of Jared in canine form. Sadie had more or less adopted Jen, who was, like her, not quite as hyper, and she'd never failed to come to the door to say hi when he got home, even if he'd only been gone five minutes.

"Told ya." Jared crouched on the hearth and rubbed Harley's ears. He woke enough to lick Jared's hand, then closed his eyes with a muffled groan. "They're ok, just tuckered out. I guess if we seriously have to go to the grocery store, now's a good time."

"Your enthusiasm is overwhelming," Jensen drawled.

"Dude, at this point you are abusing sarcasm," Jared protested, but he was still gathering up a light jacket to keep off the rain and looking around for his shoes.

"Under the coffee table," Jen directed him. "Where you left them yesterday."

"Okay, you're not allowed to move out," Jared decided. "I'll have empty cupboards and I'll never be able to find my shoes and I'll die of scurvy or rickets or something. Screw marriage-we have dogs together. That's commitment."

Jen snorted with laughter. "Come on, you big dork."

The Ruskin General Store was a little out of the way, but it was a compromise they'd come to before hiatus-enough fresh local produce to keep Jen happy, enough gourmet candy to satisfy Jared's sweet tooth, and a clientele mostly comprised of organic-happy families and aging urban hippies, allowing them a degree of anonymity that would not be possible anywhere in the US. Jen knew his publicist would have a nervy b if she found out he was living with his male co-star-in Canada, he actually had a shot at keeping it under wraps without ridiculous Mission-Impossible style tactics.

"Come on, Gimpy McGee," Jen prodded, tugging Jared in the doors. "I promise it will be almost painless."

"Dentists say that right before they yank a tooth," Jared muttered rebelliously, but he followed. "Okay, let's get this over with."

"To quote your momma, if you can't behave yourself in public, I won't let you have a chocolate bar."

"How do you know that's quoting my momma?" Jared asked, distracted from his sulking.

"That's what she told me to say the last time she called. Said it worked when you were a kid."

"Well, you're outta luck, pal." Jared offered him a gleeful grin. "I'm a big star now-I can buy my own candy bars. You need to make sure I want what you're offering before you try an' bribe me."

Jen's mind immediately offered up the taunt, So you'll behave if I offer to blow you, then? and an accompanying IMAX sexual fantasy with Dolby digital surround sound. He shoved both back into his subconscious and said lightly, "I'll make lasagna."

Jared's eyes glazed over, his expression remarkably similar to Harley's when someone held out a piece of Pupperoni. "I'll be good," he promised fervently, then scowled at Jensen. "Don't look at me like that," he ordered, lips pursing in a petulant pout.

"I wasn't looking at you like anything," Jen protested.

"Yes, you were. This...smug look, like, 'That's right, I always get my way cause you're my bitch.' I'm not your bitch."

"Okay, first of all, you clearly need to lay off the Oxycontin if you're reading that much into my facial epxression," Jen objected as he commandeered a shopping cart and headed for the produce section. "And second, you totally are my bitch."

"Am not!"

"Did you forget the part about how you'd be lost without me? Never be able to find your shoes? Die of scurvy? Does that ring a bell?"

"I do hear an odd chiming sound," Jared admitted sheepishly. "This doesn't make me co-dependent or any of that crap, does it?"

"Our litttle secret," Jensen assured him with a smirk.

"Smug bastard," Jared muttered rebelliously.

"Whiner," was Jensen's calm retort.

"I'm allowed to whine. I have-"

"A broken hand, I know. That excuse has a limited shelf life, you know. Too much whining and I'll beat you over the head with that cast."

"Fascist."

"Mama's boy. Do we have any oranges left?"

"Nope, ate 'em. Anal-retentive perfectionist."

Jen selected a five-pound mesh bag of oranges and put them in the cart. "Flaky, fashion-challenged doofus. Want some apples?"

"I'll pick 'em. You always get the little ones. Metrosexual."

"Dude. Not an insult. Giant Pada-sloth." Jen wandered a few bins down the row and looked over the spinach. If he wilted it before he put it in the lasagna, Jared wouldn't even know it was there.

"Smeckles!" Jared called over the space between them, in that carrying pitch that would have made him an excellent theater actor or high school teacher-plenty loud enough for everyone else in the store to hear.

"Oh, you did notjust call me Smeckles, bitch. It's on now."

"Okay, maybe that was going a little too far," he backpedaled when he saw Jensen's face. "Definitely. Definitely too far, especially for someone who wants lasagna. I take it back."

"You're gonna eat your words, Padalecki," Jen vowed.

Jared's face scrunched up in a manner that made Jen think he was still pretty loopy from the pain meds. "You're gonna make me eat your freckles? Gross." He started snickering drunkenly.

"Holy crap. No alcohol with those, dude," Jen ordered, picking out some ripe red peppers and roma tomatoes for the sauce, half-expecting them to be gold-leafed for the prices.

"Not my mother," Jared objected.

"Yes, we've already established that I'm not your mother or your wife," Jen agreed patiently. "But you're a one-man gong show, dude, and doctors don't tell you not to mix pain meds with alcohol just to hear themselves talk. You weren't like this when I got home-how many did you take?"

"Two, like the doc said," Jared replied, his smile-and his head-sliding to one side. "Right before you got home."

Jen barely restrained himself from smacking the crap out of his friend. "You could have told me you were going to be like this before we left for the grocery store," he grumbled.

"Dude, I told you to go without me," Jared reminded him. "Not my fault you don't listen." He perused the stock, selecting an oddly-shaped maroon fruit. "Do you know what this is?" he asked. "I'm gonna get it."

Jen resigned himself to a cartful of whatever brightly-coloured or -packaged item that happened to catch Jared's eye. He was thinking up a way to sneak the alien fruit out of their cart when Jared was thankfully distracted by the appearance of their landlady.

"Jared! Hey, sweetie, how are you feeling? Russ told me about your hand."

Jared turned. "Deb! Hey, Deb!" He gave her a bearhug, lifting her right off her feet. She squeaked in surprise and gingerly patted his back, looking to Jensen for an explaination, or possibly rescue.

"Pain meds," Jensen mouthed, before convincing Jared to turn her loose. "Come on, don't maul the nice lady, Jare," he chided.

"Dude, get offa me. I'm not five."

"Oh, that's right, you had a birthday! He's six now," Jen confided to their bemused landlady.

"I see that," she murmured, watching Jared snoop through her cart. "How are the kids?"

"Sleeping," Jensen answered for his friend, who had been distracted by something shiny. "I guess they had fun at Golden Ear."

"Hey, let's get some of these!"

Jensen glanced at the display of Soup-At-Hand on sale. "Jare, you don't like mushroom soup," he reminded his friend with what he considered really admirable patience.

"Oh, yeah." Jared smiled sheepishly. "Forgot."

Jensen handed him a paper bag. "Why don't you pick us some cherries, okay? I'll make a pie."

"Dude, don't tease me. You hate making pie. You're always sayin' how it's a giant pain in the ass and you don't even like pie crust."

"I got that recipie for 7-up crust from your Nana, remember? I figure you being injured warrants testing it out. Jensen was treated to an arms-and-legs climbing tackle hug before Jared took the bag and concentrated on selecting cherries as though the fate of the nation depended on it. "Sorry," he said to Deb. He was well used to Jared using him as a jungle gym in public, but Jared usually restricted his overexuberance to good friends. "I'm always nagging him to take his pain meds and he won't because they make him spacey. Figures the one time he listens to me is when we're going out in public."

"It's okay." Deb gave him one of 'those' smiles-the aww how cute smiles that he figured grammas were pulled aside in the maternity ward and taught so that they could use it to embarass the younger generations. "You're such a cute couple."

Jen winced, once again profoundly grateful that Deb had no idea who they were, and for the lack of paperazzi that made such ignorance possible. "I really wish people would stop saying that."

"You mean you aren't...oh." Deb's cheeks flushed. "Well, I feel like an idiot. I just assumed, with you two living together..."

"Yeah, we get that a lot. Jare actually has a fiance back home. Coming up here for work, and such crazy hours, it's depressing to go home to an empty apartment, that's all. Jare and I share Harley and Sadie."

"Oh. Right. Well." She offered a self-deprecating grin. "You wouldn't happen to have a crowbar I could borrow to get my foot out of my mouth?"

"It's okay, really. And listen, I was meaning to ask you if you know anyone who quilts."

She blinked a couple of times. "I do, as a matter of fact," she said at last, baffled. "Why?"

"Christmas present for Jare. One of 'em, anyway. He's always bitching that between being so tall, and Harley's blanket-hog tendencies, he can never stay covered at night. And they don't make comforters in Jolly Green Giant size. I thought maybe you'd know someone local..."

"My sister's daughter's daughter's grandmother-in-law, if you followed all that," Deb replied with a little laugh. "She's in a quilting league over on the island-they specialize in 'green quilts' made of recycled denim. Sue gave me one for my birthday last year-they're great if you have dogs."

"Sounds perfect. Have you got a number?"

"Yes, I think..." Deb broke off to rummage through her purse. "Here. Ask for Viv and tell her Sue's family referred you." She handed Jen a business card bearing the slogan 'Quick Quality Quilts,' a phone number, and an e-mail address. "Apparently they got an order from Tamara Taggart for Christmas-she's a news anchor with BCTV. They probably won't let you cut the line in front of her-a celebrity order like that is good for business-but as long as you pick out a pattern by September, it should still be done in time."

Jensen managed to keep his laughter in check somehow. "Thanks Deb," he said blandly, tongue firmly in cheek as he added, "I can't expect them to put me ahead of a star like that; just so long as it's finished for December 25th, I'll be happy."

"Oh, Good. I'll tell Viv she'll be hearing from you."

"Thanks." He glanced at Jared, who now had five bags of apples. "I'd better get him home before he buys out the store."

"Good luck." Deb offered him a sympathetic smile. "Russ'll be by for Harley and Sadie tomorrow after work."

"Okay. Thanks." Jen sketched a brief wave and went to collect Jared.

The wished-for luck never appeared, and Jen could have used it. Jared wasn't one for cooking to begin with-he favored anything that involved a microwave and a minimum of cleanup. Jared shopping high and hungry meant that he bought every overpackaged overpriced impulse or convenience item that crossed his path. They came home with two cases of Soup-At-Hand, assorted frozen foods lacking any redeeming nutritional value, break-and-bake cookies, twinkies, Dunkaroos, and three dozen honey-glazed buns stuffed with BBQ pork, carmelized onions, and, Jen was sure, thousands of empty calories. Jen did his best to ignore them while he put away the fresh fruit and vegetables, boneless skinless chicken breasts, and makings for enough lasagna to feed a small country.

"I don't know why you bought ten boxes of lasagna noodles," Jared said. "Even I can't eat that much."

"I'm going to freeze some of them," Jen replied, head half in the vegetable crisper. Cooking in bulk was a habit he'd picked up from his mother, who was always sending casserole dishes home with visiting family and friends. Even though it wasn't necessary, Jen did it anyway. Once he'd bothered to cook, making a lot of the same thing wasn't really much more difficult, and having leftovers in the freezer was great for when they got home from set at 3 a.m., too tired to make anything and too sick of the 24-hour pizza from the delivery place down the block.

And they really were an old married couple. Even worse, Jensen was the wife. He winced. "I'm not cooking tonight," he called to Jared, who poked his head out of the fridge with half a pork bun in his mouth. "Where do you want to order from?"

"Anywhere that serves stuff I can eat one-handed," he decided.

"Pizza it is."