Thawing Distance
By Simarillion

Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Universe: Alternative Universe
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, others
Warnings: slash, M/M
Word Count: 3,118 (6,508 total)
Summary: Tell it like it is. (Of settling and living)
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 6 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 are Invisible Glaciers, Iceberg Anatomy, Avalanches Approaching, Crevasse Rescue, and Shelf Ice Meander.

[Masterpost]



Part Two

Returning to the States after trekking through the jungle for a month, seeing more death and horror than Jensen ever thought he would see, is like returning to a different world, a completely different universe. It’s like this nineties TV show, where the ragtag group of main characters are jumping through some kind of bizarre worm whole and slide from one universe to the next, in the search for their own home universe.

The people and the noise of machines are so different to the jungle with its animals and plants. There are so many people at the San Francisco airport, and while Jensen waits for his connecting flight to Los Angeles, he can’t help but compare the lives of the rather ignorant crowd around him, to the tribes of Natives in the jungles, who are hunted and killed on sight.

Pictures of dead animals, polluted nature, and shot people is something that will stay with him forever, and he feels bizarrely grateful that he was able to witness these things. It was a necessary wake up call from the life he’s been leading so far.

He said his goodbyes to David, Peter and Sarah right after they landed, and now he’s sitting in a Starbucks sipping over priced coffee in a paper cup that gets thrown away and adds to the ever growing pile of garbage that is produced by civilization. Jensen knows that he judges rather harshly right now. The images of what he saw in Ecuador are still too fresh, to not be like that.

As he takes another sip, his phone vibrates in his pocket, and Jensen flips it open to find a message from Jared waiting for him. Jensen opens it and starts reading.

Will be waiting 4 u @ airport.

This has Jensen smile for the first time since he arrived in San Francisco. Seeing and being with Jared is just what he needs right now. Jared’s cheerfulness and happiness will be like a soothing balm on his soul. Combine Jared with Linda’s cooking and Dean, and Jensen is almost back to his old self.

At the bookstore he gets a newspaper and a magazine (this is almost a ritual with him now), and waits at the gate for it to open and let the passengers board the plane. There’s a young mother with a very whiny child sitting next to him, the boy constantly screaming and throwing a tantrum because of one thing or another. It doesn’t take long before Jensen can feel a headache coming on.

Unfortunately there’s nowhere he can go, and with the woman flying to LA as well, it means that Jensen will get to listen to the spoilt brat for at least another hour. When he suddenly remembers that he packed his ipod, Jensen sighs with relief, and starts digging through the backpack, searching for the mp3 player.

The buds plugged into his ears, Jensen enjoys the Kate Nash album Sarah foisted onto him. But even the music can’t drown out the ruckus going on.

The boy shouts and screams, and throws tantrums, and bites one of the flight attendants who tries to calm him down, and pours his coke all over the guy sitting right across the aisle of the family, and screams some more, and throws another tantrum. Jensen just wants to strangle the kid. Never before in his life has he longed to do another person bodily harm, but with this boy he wants it so much, he can almost taste it.

Even the ipod is of no help. The music is blaring into his ear, but the boy manages to be even louder than that.

When they are preparing for the landing, Jensen thanks every deity he can think of and buckles in, all anticipation for the boy to leave.

The other passengers are divided into two groups. Those who flee the plane as fast as possible, to be gone before the family with the horrible boy de-boards, and those who stay a bit longer, to wait until the family is gone. Jensen is one of the latter. He figures that if he waits on the plane, chances are his bags are already on the luggage carousel, and he won’t have to wait for them to arrive, together with the hell spawn.

And his plan works. When he arrives to get his bags, the boy is already gone. The silence the kid left in his wake is almost over-whelming after the hour-long (with the time at the gate even longer than that) duration of constant screaming. For the first time in his life Jensen is glad that he can’t become a father (not naturally at least) with his partner.

Packing his luggage onto a cart, he pushes it to the exit, already anxious to meet Jared again. His month in the Ecuadorian jungle put a lot of things into perspective for him, and Jensen has come to the conclusion that he forgives Jared (already did so in fact). Which doesn’t mean that he’ll make it easy for him. Jared will be the last to know that he’s off the hook.

Internally chuckling about his terrific plan, Jensen reaches the arrival area, where he promptly meets his nemesis, the annoying kid, again.

The boy is lying on the ground, beating his fists, and kicking with all his might. His face is all crunched up and bright red with anger, tears streaming down his cheeks.

When Jensen sees the look on Jared’s face, the shock and horror, he can’t help himself, he starts laughing. Loud and from deep in his belly. The sound drowns out even the kid’s screaming, and it has a very interesting effect on the boy, who stops his tantrum and looks at him with confusion. Apparently this is the first time his behavior got this particular reaction.

With a wink and a broad smiles Jensen carts his bags past the boy on the floor, and joins a Jared, who grins amused him.

“It’s good to see you again, child whisperer.” Jared chuckles about the joke he made.

“How funny, idiot.” Jensen grins back, and tries to hug Jared, who leans down and captures Jensen’s lips in a kiss. Jared gathers Jensen close to him and deepens the kiss. In broad daylight. In public.

Blood is rushing to his head. To both of them. While his face is hot and red, a little embarrassed by the public display of affection, his other head is very turned on by it. Who would have thought that Jensen gets all hot and bothered by Jared staking his claim in front of strangers. Not him, that’s for sure.

“Huh, is this what I think it is?”

Jensen buries his face against the side of Jared’s neck and mutters “idiot” against the skin. Leave it to Jared to make an already embarrassing situation twice as embarrassing.

Jared just laughs and hugs Jensen closer to his body, hiding Jensen’s reaction to the PDA from the people (more like a crowd actually) that are watching them with interest. Which shouldn’t really come as a surprise, Jared can’t go anywhere without being recognized, and ever since Jared’s public outing on TV, Jensen’s face has gotten its fair share of public exposure as well. It’s just that with his time in South America, in the jungle, Jensen all but forgot about it.

A girl, maybe she’s a young woman, steps up to them, clutching a small notebook and a pen, eyeing Jared nervously. She stops a couple of steps away and seems to gather all her courage to finish what she started.

Jensen untangles himself from Jared’s embrace and watches amused how the girl/woman shuffles closer and then holds out the open notebook and the pen.

“Can I have your autograph?” She blushes when Jared smiles brightly at her.

“Sure. What’s your name?” Jensen has always known that Jared is good at this celebrity thing but the easiness with which he deals with strangers, walking up to him, wanting him to sign pictures, books, clothing, and other stuff, takes Jensen by surprise every time. He knows that if the same thing happened to him, he would be flustered, and blushing, and make himself look like a complete idiot.

Jared signs the blank page of the notebook with flourish and writes a short message above his autograph. When he hands pen and paper back to the girl, or woman, she blushes some more and clutches her treasure to her chest, as if to protect it from possible thieves. Maybe there are a lot of autograph thefts in reality, how should Jensen know?

The sudden direction of her attention from Jared to Jensen, takes him by surprise. She shuffles a little and then she holds the notebook out to him as well. This time around, she blushes so hard; Jensen thinks her head might explode with the sudden rush of blood.

“Uh, can I have your autograph as well?” She looks at him all hopeful, and Jared gives him a nudge into the girl’s direction.

“Go on, sign it.” Jensen stares at the blank page next to Jared’s autograph, and at the pen that is being held out to him. When his hesitation has her believe that he refuses to sign her notebook, and she starts to retreat, Jensen finally manages to get out of the daze he’s been in.

“Um, sure, I can sign your notebook.” He stumbles over the words, and blushes, embarrassed by his less than smooth handling of the request. His way of dealing with it is far less smooth than Jared’s had been.

When he takes the notebook and the pen from the girl/woman, she smiles brightly at him, totally excited by the idea of getting Jensen’s autograph, like he’s famous or something. Jensen wrecks his brain until he remembers her name and writes ‘To Marie, with love. Jensen Ackles. He glances at Jared’s autograph, and decides to add a sketch of a husky to his own.

Once his quick drawing is finished he hands the book back and watches her reaction. Jensen is not sure what the rules of writing autographs are, and he’s nervous he forgot to add something, or that he should have written a different message.

All his fears and worries are for nothing. Marie sees the sketch next to Jensen’s autograph, and smiles so brightly at him that Jensen blushes at the radiance. She breaches the distance between them and gives him a quick hug, mumbling her thanks against Jensen’s chest.

Once she lets go of Jensen again, she waves at Jared and him and turns around to go back to her friends, who’ve been watching the whole exchange from the sidelines. Jensen looks over to Jared, and finds him grinning happily at Jensen.

“Should I be jealous?” Jensen just rolls his eyes and starts to push the cart towards the exit to the parking lot. “Hey, I asked you a legit question!”

Jared follows him and continues his barbs and jokes, but Jensen just raises an eyebrow and otherwise ignores the childish behavior.

At Jared’s truck they stop both, their walk and Jared’s teasing. Jared helps Jensen stack the bags into the trunk and then he starts the car while Jensen pushes the cart back to the entrance of the airport. Turning around he finds Jared’s truck idling at the curb, Jared waiting for him to get in.

“You did great with the fan.” Jared’s comment comes as a surprise and has Jensen swivel his head around to him. There is a warm and soft look, full of affection, in Jared’s eyes and it has Jensen relax, suddenly realizing how tense he had been all this time. First the annoying kid, and then the attention they had been getting at the airport, Jensen can let go of things now. He’s with Jared and he’s going to stay with him for about a week, before he has to return to San Francisco and start his preparations for the fall semester.

“I looked like an idiot, staring at her when she asked me.” He watches Jared’s profile as he concentrates on the traffic, navigating the expressway into town and towards Jared’s home. Jensen scans the face, noting slight changes, soft lines where there will be wrinkles in the future, tanned skin from the time outside, and always a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Nonsense. Dude, you made her day with the drawing.” Jared sends him a soft smile, and then he’s back to keeping a close watch on the road. There’s heavy traffic, and they stop every so often, waiting for the cars in front of them to continue driving.

Jensen cranks up the air condition and enjoys the cool air that blows at his face. He didn’t get a chance to shower between changing planes and he feels rather sticky. The lower temperature will dry the sweat (which he absolutely hates, it makes him feel dirty), but Jensen is determined that the first thing he does once they arrive a Chez Jared, is to take a long and cleansing shower. Alone, because before he is clean again, he really doesn’t want to take shower that ends up with him being dirty.

“So, how was your time in the jungle? Lots of bugs and critters?” Jared lowers the volume of the car radio that plays some pop song that seems to be all the rage this summer. It’s not like Jensen would know, having been away for the last four and a half weeks.

“Yeah, we had our fair share of animals crawling around the house, but after the fourth night waking up next to some bug or lizard, you get used to it.” Jensen remembers the first day and nights when he had been surprised and repulsed by the critters and crawlies turning up everywhere, but even Montezuma, their pet tarantula hadn’t scared him at the end anymore.

“Get used to it?” Jared’s disbelieving question has Jensen just shrug and grin at him.

“They are harmless anyway.” Once again they stop and wait for the lane to start moving again, and Jensen turns to look outside the window. There are so many cars, so much pollution. He has been working for and with AE for years, but during this expedition it had been the first time that he had faced so much destruction on the name of civilization and industrialization. The pictures in his head from some of the sites they had visited, cast the traffic jam and the city around him in a completely different light.

“What are you thinking about?” The question has Jensen blink and return to the here and now. He shrugs off the memories of what he saw and turns to Jared.

“Just some things we saw in Ecuador.” He doesn’t explain any further. If he starts talking about it in detail he will never stop, and his time with Jared will be tainted by it.

“Was it that bad?”

“It was even worse.” And with that Jensen turns away and continues staring out of the window, signaling his desire to stop this particular conversation. Jared seems to get it, and once more concentrates on driving through the traffic jam. The traffic doesn’t ease up for about three miles, and then they take the exit to leave the expressway to Jared’s neighborhood.

The closer they get to the villa; Jensen grows more anxious and excited. Never before has he stayed away for so long from Dean, and even though he knows that Jared and Linda took good care of his dog, he wants to see for himself how the husky is doing.

There are two vans parked outside the gate into Jared’s home. Two photographers and two reporters are waiting beside it, and once they recognize the truck nearing them, they run out on the street, eager to get to talk to Jared. Jensen is grateful that the windows are tinted and that they can’t see him sitting inside as well.

Jared slows the care considerably down, but he doesn’t show any signs of planning to stop. Once the reporters realize that they won’t get their interview or statement, they move to the side but follow behind the car almost to the gate. Only the security guard stops them from getting any closer.

Jensen watches in the side mirror how they try to get a look at what is happening, but a second security guard joins the first, and the usher the reporters and the photographers away. Jensen takes a deep breath. He really can do without him on photos on the first day he’s back in the States.

The truck stops and Jared kills the engine. When he doesn’t make a move to get out of the car, Jensen turns to Jared and finds him watching Jensen closely. The scrutiny has him swallow, and he can feel his cheek heat up.

“What?” Jensen feels strangely defensive.

His question has Jared just smile at him, and then he leans in closer, crushing his lips against Jensen’s. It’s almost as if Jared welcomes him into his home with it. Jensen reaches out and clutches at Jared’s shirt, and returns the kiss he’s receiving.

They deepen the kiss, tongues tangling and pressing ever closer together.

When the car door at Jared’s side is pulled open, and a loud and annoyed “Dude!” startles them, Jensen realizes that they are no longer alone. Chad is grimacing at them.

“Afraid to get turned on?” Jensen can’t help but tease Chad who looks affronted at the question.

“Have you forgotten who you are seeing in front of you? The Chad does not get turned on by dudes.” With that Chad turns around and stomps back to the house, where Linda is waiting at the entrance, smiling happily at them.

Jared just chuckles amused at his friend and leans in for another quick peck, before he gets out of the car, and goes to the back, opening the trunk. Jensen needs a second longer to collect himself, and then he gets out of the car himself, being greeted by an excited Dean, who barks and dances around Jensen, making it impossible to take a single step.

“I missed you too, Dean.” He squats down and scratches behind the husky’s ears, receiving doggy kisses, and enjoying every minute of it. He really missed his dog. It had been strange to go away without Dean.

“Come one, the two of you.” Jared is waiting for them at the house, Jensen’s bags at his feet. “Let’s get inside.”

After a last pat, Jensen and Dean walk over and join the others inside the villa.



continue: Part Three