Iceberg Anatomy
By Simarillion

Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Universe: Alternative Universe
Rating: PG-13 (this instalment)
Beta: asm z
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, Jared Padalecki/Sandra McCoy (mentioned), others
Warnings: slash, M/M
Word Count: 3,245 (10,355 total)
Summary: Movie meets reality. At the end of the world a fateful meeting takes place.
Disclaimer: None of the herein presented happenings and events are true. Everything is 100% fiction and that includes the sexuality of the characters. I don’t claim to be in the know about their relations and private affairs, and I don’t make any money with the creation of this story.

Author’s Note: I changed the age of Jensen and Jared, they are the same age now. The plot wouldn’t really work otherwise.

This is part 2 of the Glaciology! ‘verse. Jensen is a scientist in the field of glaciology and he spends most of his time surrounded by ice, whereas Jared is a Hollywood movie star. Prequel to this story is Invisible Glaciers.

[Masterpost]



Part Three

The next morning after the dogs are fed, and they are back from taking Dean for a walk, Jensen has Jared help him with setting up the sled. He wants to show them today the basics in dog sledding. After the exhausting snow shoe excursion, they’ll get to ride on a dog sled.

Dean is excited about the prospect of running with the other dogs, and his constant darting between Jensen, Jared, and the sled makes the preparations rather difficult. Finally they have everything prepared, and go to get some breakfast.

The news about today’s lesson plan travels fast, and throughout the morning, Jensen gets held up by excited people who can’t seem to stop talking about dogs and sleds.

“So, are we going to take them out as well?” Ever since Jensen asked him to help with getting the gear and sled out of the shed, Jared hasn’t left his side. If he could, the tall guy would bounce off the walls. The image reminds Jensen of Dean when he’s returning to all the snow and ice after a trip down to Texas.

“We’ll see. First we’re going to cover dog handling, and feeding, and taking care of the gear, and a lot of other stuff.” Seeing the crestfallen look on Jared’s face he quickly adds, “But, if you want, we can take a short ride after class.”

“Great!” With this everything’s alright again.

For the first time since the Polar Boot Camp started, the recruits are right on time, properly prepared, and eager to go. Jensen is actually the last to show up. Even Chad seems to be interested in what they will learn today.

“Okay, since everyone’s here, let’s head out.” The group trails after him. Dean runs ahead, greeting his friends, and then bounds back to weave through the humans. He can feel the excitement. In his canine brain he most likely thinks that all of them came outside to play with him.

The dogs sit up as Jensen and the others approach. They watched him get the sled out, and preparing the gear. Usually that means that they are going for a ride, and it has been some time since Jensen took them out.

Sammy and Cas yip happily at Jared who crouches down next to them, scratching behind their ears. Ash and Ada are joining their friends and cover Jared’s face with doggy kisses.

“They are so cute.” Hayden’s delighted comment has Jensen fight hard not to roll his eyes. Leave it to the blonde cheerleader to fawn over Jared and the dogs like a teenage girl.

“Alright. Before we can actually go for a ride on the sled, there’s a lot of things that you have to learn.” This earns him groans and moans, but he ignores the looks he gets and shepherds the actors over to the sled and the gear.

“First of all, you need to know how to take care of the gear, know where to find what.” And with that the lesson starts. He explains everything to them, demonstrates how to prepare the sled for the dogs, shows them what to do when something breaks, tears or is jammed, and has them repeat everything he does.

After three and a half hours the basics are covered, and once he’s sure they retained at least a part of what he taught them, Jensen unties the dogs and introduces humans and huskies to each other. He knows this means t he won’t be able to continue the lesson until everything’s calmed down, but after the looks he had been getting (more than one of them murderous) for going over all the theory and maintaining, he prefers the chaos to any attempts on his life.

He watches the interaction between the huskies and the actors. At first there are tentative sniffs and careful pats. Once both sides are convinced that everything is fine, the crowd gets more lively. Ash bowls over Chad who squeaks at the impact, but then the dog is busy nosing the human’s crotch.

“Dude!” Jensen can’t help but laugh at the picture in front of him. The blonde actor looks like a blushing virgin, trying to defend her chastity, and the dog just does what every dog does, he sniffs. “The dog’s trying to molest me!”

It’s Jared who comes to his friend’s rescue, and after directing the dog to another human, he helps Chad up. “Seems like not only the women have the hots for you, Chad-man.”

“Shut up, asshole.” The retort is without heat though.

Jared just drags his friend over to the group of dogs and humans and makes the blonde rub Cas’ belly. Chad is reluctant at first, but when this husky does not go for his crotch, he relaxes, and finally gets into the spirit of playing with the sled dogs.

While everyone is enjoying themselves, Jensen gets the harnesses for the dogs. He checks them over, not because they’re not well maintained, but out of habit. There’s the sound of laughter and he looks up from his task, seeing Hayden running after Ada. The husky chases off, the girl running right behind her, cheerful and relaxed.

“Jensen!” Jared calls out for him, and waves him over.

It’s strange how things changed during the last week. Jensen still catches himself sometimes, just staring ahead and wondering how it happened that he got to be friends with Jared Padalecki. Back, during high school, when he spent his days watching from afar, longing for and at the same time fearing the attention of the star quarter back, he’d never imagined that he would ever be in the position he’s now.

The mostly easy-going nature of Jared makes it impossible not to be friends with him. Even though Jensen is still attracted to the other man, their relaxed interaction, and Jared’s infatuation with the dogs, makes it easy to forget about it, and to focus on the friendship that has been steadily developing.

Times like this, when Jared is standing in the midst of all that snow, his face flushed with the cold, the exercise, and the excitement, it hits Jensen. It is an ache that has him wanting what he can’t have.

He walks over, avoiding to be run over by Hayden and Ada. He doesn’t care for the blonde overly much, but the way she clowns around with the dog, makes him thaw to her. She stops her chase right next to him, panting for breath and grinning widely.

“Jensen,” her arm wraps around him and she clings to him. Suddenly, he knows exactly how Jeff felt the last couple of days.

“Yeah?” Her grip is not overly tight, but he’d prefer her to take a step back and let go of him.

“Can we go dog sledding?” She bats her eyes at him, and Jensen almost laughs out loud. Here he was anxious that she might try to hit on him, and all she wanted was to take the dogs out for a ride. If he wasn’t feeling so relieved, he would actually be insulted.

“First we have to hitch them into their harness, and then we have to go through the most important commands.”

“And then we can?” He doesn’t even have to respond to that. Hayden hugs him tightly and then chases off to catch Ada.

“So we’re going to go dog sledding?” Jared’s question surprises him. He can be rather quiet and stealthy if he wants to.

“We’ll start at least.” He looks around, making sure that none of the dogs ran off and all of the actors are alright. “There are six of you, and seven dogs, I guess one dog per person, and I’ll take Dean.”

Jensen whistles and suddenly the chaos stops as all of the dogs obediently come to him. The team sits down and looks at him, waiting for what Jensen wants to do.

The humans are not that coordinated and well-behaved. Some of them goof around, while others want to pet the dogs. Jensen wants to whistle again, maybe this time the actors will behave?

But things settle down quickly when Jared takes it upon himself to restore order. “Hey, everyone! Get a move on and shut up. Jensen said we’ll go dog sledding… ,” at this he’s interrupted by excited chatter, “Hey! Quiet!”

Jensen takes over from this point on. “Okay, each of you gets a dog that he or she has to harness. I’ll show you how and where the dog is to be positioned.”

At this point arguments start up about who gets to choose what dog. This time Jensen does whistle, and surprisingly enough it works. The ruckus quiets down and once more everyone pays attention to what he has to say.

“I’ll tell you which dog you get to take care of.” And, with that, he pairs up humans and dogs. Once everyone has their assigned canine partner, he has them follow the dogs to the sled. The huskies assume their position without any prompting from anyone.

“Why isn’t Ada running with Ruby?” Hayden is petting her new friend.

“Because Ada’s a swing dog, and Ruby is a team dog. Can’t pair those two together.” He waits until all the actors are next to their dogs.

“What’s a swing dog, and what’s a team dog?”

He takes a deep breath. “The team is made up of pairs. You can see here that there are six dogs, three pairs, with a single dog at the lead.” Jensen scratches Dean behind the ears to show him that even though he’s talking to his fellow humans, he’s not forgetting the husky. “I told you before that the human at the back is called the musher. As the musher you’ll be responsible for giving directions, pacing, and some cases you’ll be running behind the sled and push.”

There is some muttered comment from Chad, but he can’t hear what the other his saying. Whatever it was, it earns him a shove from Jared, and an annoyed look.

“Now the dogs are positioned according to their abilities and strengths. Sammy and Ash, the two at the back, right in front of the sled, are our wheel dogs. They are the strongest dogs of the team. Maybe you’ve noticed how they are sturdier than the other dogs, that’s because they’re not huskies. Sammy is an Alaskan Malamute, and Ash is a Greenland Dog. The two of them are the slowest of the dogs, but they are sturdier and stronger than anyone else. They’ll also make sure that we’ll get to perform tight turns.”

Everyone’s listening attentively, looking at the dogs he’s talking about, and comparing them to the others.

“The next pair, the ones right in front of the wheel dogs, are our team dogs, Cas and Ruby. You could say that they provide the horse power to our sled team. They add more strength. Cas is also no husky, he’s a Qimmiq, or Canadian Inuit Dog. All of the other dogs are Siberian Huskies. Chuck and Ada are the swing dogs, the ones making sure that the sled gets manoeuvred around corners and twists. The dog at the top, Dean, is the lead dog, and he’s the one responding to your commands. He’s responsible for finding the right trail, and he’s also the one setting the pace.”

Jensen crouches down next to Dean and holds his harness up for everyone to see. “Okay, everyone pick up the harness next to their dog. I’ll guide you through hitching the dogs into them.”

For all the excited laughing and giggling from Hayden and bitchy grumbling from Chad, they are finished with the task rather quickly. When all the dogs are hitched in, and Jensen has checked everything’s alright, they finally get to the commands and the practical part of today’s lesson.

They don’t go very far but everyone gets to take the dogs out. There is a lot of laughter when Chad can’t get the dogs to stop, and it takes Jensen to run after him, calling out ‘stop’ at the top of his lungs, to end the excursion.

Most of the actors are doing rather good though, and he promises to give them another lesson, some time to practice, in a couple of days. When they are finished with the day, he’s surprised by everyone’s insistence, that they’ll take care of ‘their’ dog. The huskies follow them obediently back to the pole, and are petted and fed with treats that mysteriously everyone has on them.

Jared notices his dislike about feeding the dogs. “Don’t worry. I told them at breakfast what they can feed the dogs, and what is forbidden.”

He nods and forces himself to ignore the candy Hayden is feeding Ada. Next time he’ll just give them proper dog treats to hand out.

“Okay, today’s class is over. Tomorrow Sam will talk about climate change and its impact on the Polar Regions, and I think that in the afternoon you get to practice some more snow shoeing with Jeff.” The last addition earns him moans and cries of distress, but he just smiles at them and herds them back to the compound.

“You’re enjoying this too much.” Jared’s pacing him, without even bothering to check they match. They just do. “I think that all of this Polar Boot Camp is just a smoke screen for something else. Some nefarious plan that we are unaware of.”

“Nefarious?”

“I do know words other than ‘yes’ and ‘no’.” He’s looking at him, all hurt and disbelief. Fake, but almost that real that Jensen’s not really sure at the beginning. Once he knows that Jared is joking, he snorts and hurries his pace up.

“Nefarious?” It’s not fair that Jared has legs that are two feet all on their own. There’s no way Jensen could ever outrun the actor. Maybe if they were both in snow shoes.

The compound feels like a sauna, after spending the whole day outside. He parts with the group, who is interested in resting or taking a shower, and heads for his office. There isn’t much time left until dinner, but he wants to work some more with the data he received yesterday.

Dean is conflicted about who to follow when Jared walks into one direction, and Jensen into the other, but then he seems to remember who his real owner is, and he trots after Jensen. Curled up under the desk, the dog sleeps while he compares data, and takes notes about differences and similarities.

It is only the soft knock against his door jamb that raises him from the rows and columns of numbers and figures. Sam and Jim are waiting for him, and he sets the print outs to the side, without even tidying up before he goes for dinner. He’ll be back later on anyway.

“How was your day?” Sam sounds sincere, but he can see the amusement in her eyes. Well, he will be the one laughing tomorrow.

“It was great. They liked working with the dogs.” Dean trails after them to the cantina. “They’re looking forward to tomorrow’s class with you.”

This earns him a whack against his shoulder, and a glare that would have Hannibal Lecter running for the hills. “Very funny.”

“I thought so.” He chuckles amused, and Sam can’t help from laughing with him. Jim just grins, but otherwise stays quiet.

The cantina is full. It’s a lot noisier than usual with the Hollywood table talking loudly about their day with the dogs. They brag about ‘their’ dog to whoever is willing to listen, and even to some who aren’t. Jeff is standing at their table, talking with Jared and ignoring Hayden.

Jensen gets his food and makes for his own table. Everyone is watching the excited group of actors. The scientists are smiling at the antics and the stories that are being told about today’s class. Sitting down next to Jim, he pours himself a glass of juice.

“I hear that the class was a success?” Alona grins at him. She keeps on glancing at the noisy table.

“Yeah, they had a lot of fun.” Dean wedges through his legs and curls up on his feet. He takes a meatball from his pasta and reaches under the table. The dog carefully snatches the food up and then licks Jensen’s finger clean.

Before Alona can ask some more about the dog sledding, Jeff joins them, and sits down opposite Jensen. “That’s the first time they are this happy and excited since they arrived.”

Jensen nods, “They’ll be much calmer tomorrow evening, after you took them to their next snow shoe trek.”

“Yeah.” Everyone at the table chuckles. They remember the subdued actors of two days ago, who almost fell asleep during dinner. A very different scene than the one today.

Danneel sits down on his other side. She elbows Jensen teasingly. “Next time you’re planning something fun, tell me. I want to be included.”

“I take it your day wasn’t fun then?” He swipes another meat ball from his plate and smuggles it under the table for Dean.

“You would be right about that.” She groans and shares a pained look with Alona. “The samples we got at station 5 last week, turns out that they were somehow contaminated. So, the testing we’ve been doing the last days, and the reports are all useless. We had to trash everything. And, retest all the other samples to make sure that they are alright.”

“Man, that sucks.” There’s nothing worse than to find out that your work has been for nothing. “You want me to take the dogs out tomorrow, and get you a new sample?”

“No, we’ll take the results from station seven, it’s rather close to five, and we’ll get new samples next time.” If Jensen is honest, he’s relieved that he doesn’t have to head out for new samples. He’ll need the time tomorrow to work through the Russian data.

“Okay, but if you want me to get some sooner, tell me.”

“Sure.” They return to their food, finishing dinner quietly. There’s enough chatter going on at the other end of the room to entertain all the tables anyway.

Once he’s finished, Jensen goes out and rechecks the dogs, and then returns to his office. Dean abandoned him between the two tasks, following Danneel to the lab. Jensen heard her say something about beef jerky, and he knows that the dog will follow her to the end of the world for one of those meat strips.

Exhaustion is creeping up on him as he pours over digits and graphs, but he forces himself to work some more. Even if Danneel said that they don’t need him to get new samples tomorrow, he wants to finish his own work earlier, to be able and go out with the dogs once he’s finished.

Only when the prints and the data onscreen start to blur in front of his eyes, he decides to call it a night. He saves the changes he made, and sorts the printed sheets. Dean, who returned two hours ago, is snoring under the desk.

Jensen calls out to the dog, and heads for his quarters. His step is heavy, and he physically craves his bed. Taking care of the dogs and the actors all day long and then work until late into the night, he’s more tired than he’s been in a very long time.



continue: Part Four