twentysomething

Title: The One Where They're Ice Dancers

Fandom: CW RPS (If I use abbreviations, I feel less ashamed.)

Pairing: Jared/Jensen

Summary: "So how do you feel about their chances for gold, Scott?"

Length: 5k

Warnings: Genderfuck. Jensen Ackles is a lady you'd really like to take home to your momma. Also, I fucking made them teenaged ice dancers, so there's that. Oh, also, Chad Michael Murray. Watch out.

Notes: If you, like me, watched a lot of Olympics this February, you might be wondering- WHAT THE CRAP AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY TIME NOW THAT IT'S OVER? So I did this. merelyn IS SUPER DUPER TO BLAME. She wrote delicious awful chunks of this, so please, let her know she's TERRIMAZING. rageprufrock is actually to blame, for realsies. I mentioned J2 ice dancing and she tried to Buzzshame me out of it... which only made me write it. She also did a dirtyquick beta on this at 11 pm at night on a Sunday, because she's my boo.



It's a terrible idea to be in love with your skating partner- but if you're a straight dude and an ice dancer, the best defense you can get is being 6'4" with an eight pack and a smoking hot lady partner and Jared's done pretty well in that arena. Jared is used to the taunting now, but now he’s a thousand feet tall and can beat the crap out of anyone he wants, but ages 6 through 13- before Jared grew 6 inches one summer- resulted in a lot of beat downs. Jen tried telling him violence isn't the only answer, but it's worked pretty well in the locker room so far. Also, Jen doesn't get it- because despite the fact that she thought she should wear a bag over her head while they skated for about three years during puberty- she's the prettiest girl he's ever seen in his life and always has been.

There's a certain amount of fuckery in the whole business though, because at this point Jared's hands have a casual familiarity with the curve of Jen's hips and the inside of her thighs, but it's all through layers of nylon or spandex or, on one memorable occasion, day glo sequined flamenco costumes. Which is super messed up and he's certain Coach Morgan knows what a terrible, pigtail-pulling, Taylor Swift-style crush he has on Jen, because seriously, there is no other reason for the amazingly terrible song choices he keeps making.

Jen can just laugh it off, but Chad makes fun of him for a solid week when he finds Katy Perry on Jared's iPod.

"It's for a new routine with Jen," Jared insists, because seriously, this is not his fault.

"Is she going to be dressed like a showgirl? That'd be hot," Chad allows. Jared gives him the hairy eyeball.

"Chad, I am so not too old to put your head in a toilet and flush until you die," Jared offers, because more than enough guys at school show up to competitions to enjoy the gratuitous number of panty shots ice sports allow for, he does not need Chad showing up to hit on the Junior Nationals girls and perv on Jenny.

"Dude, whatever, you're an ice dancer. It's like ice skating and dancing weren't gay enough, some cornholer had to put them together." Chad argues. Jared frequently wonders why he's friends with Chad.

"It involves a lot of athleticism. People can get seriously injured." Jared mutters, because it's in the Olympics, it's a real sport. Chad pantomimes shooting it in Jared's eye.

"Whatever, Johnny Queer." he says, walking off toward his car. "Catch you later, bitch."

"The fact that you know who Johnny Weir is makes you gay, Chad, super GAY!" Jared shouts after him. God, he hates Chad.

Anyway, none of this would even be an issue except that the next morning, when he hangs around Jen's lime-green truck waiting for her to drive them to practice, he sees her kissing a boy.

***

Jared tries to remind himself that Coach Morgan will knife him if he has an interpersonal issue with Jen that affects their skating. He wonders, though, if he can really subtly drop her today. Which really, it's not like they're dating, but Jared had gotten Jen emergency tampons three times, which, in Jared's opinion, makes them married. So he's felt like a wronged woman all day and listens to Carrie Underwood on repeat, wondering if he should be keying her stupid truck.

And really, this is probably why people think he's gay.

But Jen is on Cloud 9 all day and skates her cheating, cheating heart out. Jared is that guy girls call to get them ice cream and tell them they're beautiful no matter what when they feel fat and ugly, and he's incapable of being a dick, despite the fact that he's going to go home and be the one to eat his pain this time.

Jared attempts to be casual about it, but really, subtle isn't in his nature.

"So, I saw you kissing some dude," he drops. Jen flails for a second, fingers stumbling on her laces.

"Oh, yeah?" she asks, trying equally hard to be casual, but her cheeks are pink under her freckles and Jared wants to die.

"I wish I was gay," Jared tells Chad when the loser finally picks up his phone. The guy was back again that morning. His life is sucking hard.

"If this is your way of trying to get in my pants, bro, I hate to break it to you but I like poon. You know, poon? Look down between your legs if you don't remember what that is."

"I'm serious," Jared says, because he is. His life would be so much better if he was into dudes instead of his backstabbing partner with pretty hair and an awesome double axel. Also, guys hit on him all the time while girls always seem surprised that he wants to date them instead of going shopping together and drinking cosmos.

"Yeah, okay," Chad says, and hangs up. Jared also wishes he had better friends.

His mother stares at him when he only eats four pancakes the next morning.

"JT, that's just wrong," she says solemnly. "Are you sick?" Jared wonders if he got "I'm in love with a girl who's probably going to get roofied by the quarterback" tattooed on his face, if he could just avoid ever talking about it, ever.

"I guess I'm just tired," he says, trying his best to look sunny and happy- which judging from the unimpressed expression on his momma's face, goes about as well as he thought it would.

"You talk yourself out with Jensen. Stop looking like she ran over your dog," she instructs him fiercely. Jared throws his hands up in the air.

"I didn't do anything!" he cries. His mother fixes him with a look.

"Exactly." she says, crossing her arms, which Jared knows means the subject is closed.

"You know, I'm your kid, shouldn't you take my side?" Jared grumbles. She kisses the top of his head.

"Oh, JT. I just like Jen better," she says with a cheerful smile. Jared thinks about drowning himself in the bathtub.

His day doesn't really get any better when he sees Jen warming up in a giant varsity jacket that says "KANE" in huge letters on the back that might as well read "DOUCHEBAG." It's not like he can complain- Jen is skating better than ever. Last year, Katie had started dating some guy and Tom had confessed in the locker room that he was thinking about trying to kill one or the both of them, because Katie's head was in the air all the time and murder was the only solution and he was certain Mike would help him hide the bodies- but Jen is just the opposite, razor-sharp and practically perfect in every way, and even just watching her warm up, loose and happy and throwing herself into lazy double salchows, hair streaming out behind her- Jared can’t stand it.

He's known Jenny since he learned to add, and he's always wanted her to be terribly, grossly happy, but he'd always thought that he'd be the person to do it. And he knows he should just be happy that she's happy, and he will be- but he's not there yet, so he pushes it into skating, and ignores the way Coach Morgan eyeballs him when Sera wanders over to tell him that their artistic points are going to go way up for a season high on Tempest- that Jared looks desperate and wrecked on the ice, that it's good that he's putting so much thought into the emotional aspect of the performance. Jared's face is undeniably shifty, because yeah, tortured, it's Beethoven, he's a... really good actor. Sure. But the upside is, he's too exhausted to really give a crap about how much he hates his life, so there's that.

Which is why in the truck on the way home, Jen stops at Sonic and buys him two milkshakes so he can double fist them, and doesn't say anything else, and that's something he's always loved about Jen- she doesn't push. She knows Jared feels like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, and rather than digging at what's bothering him- like, oh- Chad- she just waits and knows that he'll either tell her or he'll get over it. They're parked outside his house and she's sipping her cranberry limeade as he sullenly tries to slurp up the chalky, syrupy bottom using both his straws and wishes he didn't love her so much.

Jen has always been quiet and he knows that terrible hateful thirteen year old girls write on message boards that she's an actual ice queen, because Jared is the one who is always bubbling over in interviews, gushing about how he loves skating, how he loves skating with Jen, all of it, but he's watched footage of them and wonders how anyone can look at her amazing, triumphant, joyful smile at the end of a program and think she's an ice queen. Jared blew out his knee when they were 14 and when he'd said Jenny could skate with someone else while he recovered- he didn't want her to wait for him- Jen had just punched him in the shoulder and smiled at him and told him he'd better get well faster, because she was going to be so bored otherwise, with no Sasquatches in the rink to lift her around and he had been so convinced that they were going to get married and have kids and dogs.

Which is why he is going to smile, crush Jenny into a hug until she complains about permanent damage and get over himself. He will.

He thinks he's doing a super great job with it, but three days later, Sera corners him to talk about feelings and steroids and possibly anorexia. Sera had grown up on the Soviet team and probably been emotionally abused into some kind of terrifying Judy Garland-like complexes and over-compensates for it by loving all the skaters at the rink with a kind of psychotic fierceness that Jared appreciates from a distance, but not at point blank range talking about how his testicles will evaporate.

"I'm fine, really," he insists, but she just stares at him.

"You are conflicted and angry, Jared. You need to confront these feelings- skating will only take you so far from them," she tells him solemnly, and he feels like the one time he ever got high with Chad and they watched Miss Cleo for five hours.

When he tells Jen about his hideous traumatizing experience, she just laughs at him- which is good- it's normal. It's them. He thinks maybe Chad said something, or maybe not, because Jenny is intuitive like that, but either way she kidnaps him that afternoon and the two of them stare at clouds and argue about whether that one is shaped like a t-rex or a chicken, laying on the musty old blankets in the back of Jen's truck and by the time she's slapped at him, laughing and happy when he says that cloud looks like her butt, Jared feels a bit like his old self again.

"Jay, you're my best friend," she says solemnly, and it still feels the same way it did when they crossed their pinkies and hoped to die. They're still them, even though Jared will never ever stop loving her and Jenny is dating Christian Kane.

"So cheer the fuck up, Emo Kid," she jokes, punching him hard in the shoulder and Jared just laughs and laughs. His momma smiles when Jen drops him off and stays for dinner and strokes a hand over his hair, like saying ‘well done.’

Which, it figures, right when he feels like he's managed to balance the whole thing out in his mind, he shuts his locker the next morning to find Chris Kane smiling at him.

"Hey, Jared," Chris says cheerfully, and Jared has talked to Chris maybe a sum total of ten times before, but he likes him in an abstract sense- he's a nice guy and manages to not be a tremendous asshole for the quarterback of a Texan high school football team, but all Jared can do now is look down and wonder what the crap he did to deserve this fresh, fresh hell.

"Hey," Jared manages and really, he thinks he did pretty well.

"So, you're Jen's best friend in the whole world. What should I get her for Christmas?" Chris asks in hushed tones, like Jenny will show up around a corner any minute, which is ludicrous, her biology class next period is across the school, she'd never be here this time of day. More to the point- Jared has had Jen's Christmas present for six months and it's hidden in a locked box under his bed until December 24th- two weeks from now. Jared thinks of a million different ways he could fuck Chris over right now, but really, he doubts it'll make him feel any better- okay it would, but it wouldn't make Jen feel better, so he shrugs and tells the truth.

"She likes to steal clothes, you could give her your letterman jacket for real. I know you let her borrow it the other day." Jared says, because it’ll probably piss him off to no end, every day, but he's lost countless items of clothing over the years- favorite flannel shirts and gym shorts and even a leather jacket, once, to Jen's thieving hands and she'd confessed that she thought it was like a good luck charm, and then had promptly made a face at how dorky it sounded, but Jared had never minded again when his gloves went missing. Chris stares at Jared who just shrugs defensively. "What, man, you asked." Chris just smiles and shakes his head.

"No, thanks, brother, I was just thinking it's nice that you guys are friends. Any other guy, you know- might be weird, like you guys have known each other forever, you're besties, right? I might be jealous, but no, you're a good guy, Jared." Chris says with a firm clap to Jared's shoulder, wandering off, whistling.

Jared has no idea what the fuck just happened, but he kind of feels like Chris thinks Jared is Jen's big gay best friend.

And despite that, Jared still likes the little fucker.

***

They're in practice pretty much all the time, because they took Southwest Regionals and qualified for Nationals this year and Coach Morgan is like, maybe the devil, but there's still only a little over a month before the competition and Jared's family has resigned themselves to not seeing him until February, essentially. Jared still remembers the way his stomach had dropped out because he believes in him and Jen- to a really embarrassing degree- but he'd never expected them to go this far, and sitting there, waiting, he knew Coach Morgan was saying something important, but the only thing he remembers was Jenny's hand, squeezing his tight. He remembers being prepared to slap a smile on his face when they wouldn't win- but their scores were called out and they had won- they'd won- and he knows he's smiling like an idiot, but they had won together, and they were going to Nationals to skate against some of the most amazing people in the world, and if they do well, they can go to World's and okay, he's getting ahead of himself, but still. They're only in Juniors, still, but they're good. They're really good and they only get better.

Jared's still breathing with his head between his knees when Jen walks in, unfairly beautiful in dark green, and she pauses to watch him.

"You okay, Jay?" she asks, sitting next to him on the bench. He gives her a weak smile from somewhere around the bottom of his stomach because really, his whole future is dependent on the tiny, sassy girl next to him and he's okay with that.

"Yeah. Yeah, let's skate," he says, and he'll give Coach Morgan this- the routine is amazing. He'd looked at them and yelled at them that they were going to learn a new program for Nationals and well, no one defied Coach Morgan. So right after Thanksgiving they'd started work and okay, it's a Katy Perry song, but this shit is goddamn good. Jared is under control. He's venting all his weird, terrible, partner-loving crazy into skating, and Jen is doing what she does best- which is to say, being better at skating than everyone else ever, and it's just good and Jared feels the pieces of his life clicking into place again, slowly but surely as the routine goes from taking shape to being polished and say what you want about ice dancing, but Jared is never going to want to do anything else with his life.

His mother had taken him to an ice skating rink when he was four, because it was the middle of the summer and he was being intolerable. For a Texas boy who loves being outside in the sun, he's happiest here, the quiet shushing of blades, the smooth confidence he only has on ice.

***

When winter break rolls around, he and Jen spend every moment possible on the ice, and so it shouldn't surprise him- but it does- when he finds Jen with delicately red-rimmed eyes looking at her cell phone on a five minute break. Jen blinks up at him and smiles which really only goes to show how probably not okay she is.

"I broke up with Chris," she offers, fiddling with her phone, sliding it open and closed again and again. Jared pulls her into the biggest bear hug he can manage, perched sideways on the narrow wooden bench.

"Jenny, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he says because he never wanted her to ever date Chris, but he never wanted to see her break up in the locker room, over a phone, either. She laughs, but it sounds gross and snuffly and Jared feels like sending Chad to egg Chris' house.

"It's not- I chose to break up with him. Don't let Chad set his house on fire," she says and Jared figures there are some downsides to knowing a person really well, and the fact that Jen knows all of his dirty tricks- i.e., Chad- is one of them.

"He didn't... he didn't pressure you... about stuff, did he?" Jared asks, because he's watched a lot of Lifetime movies and there is some shit he is so ill-equipped to talk about, but for Jenny, he'd try and then he'd murder Chris with his bare hands. She laughs and this time it sounds closer to normal.

"Jared, you girl. I never get to see him, that's all. It's not fair to him. Besides, he was a good kisser, but..." She wrinkles her nose. "That was about it. He orders pizza without pineapple." Jared huffs a laugh against her hair.

"Terrible," he agrees, because he and Jen have been ordering the same terrible pizza for years, pineapple and ham and pepperoni and mushrooms and it's disgusting and they love it- which Jared guesses is actually a sign.

Coach Morgan clears his throat from the door of the locker room and Sera pushes him out of the door with an airy "take as much time as you need, dears." Jen and Jared look at each other and laugh sheepishly, because it's usually a bad sign when Sera is abusing her powers in your favor- like, you have to be some kind of hot mess. Jared tugs gently on Jen's glossy light brown ponytail.

"C'mon, Jenny, race you," he says, pulling her up with him. Jen rolls her eyes, but puts her phone back in her bag and follows Jared back out on to the rink.

It says something about her total professionalism that she doesn't let it affect her skating- she's a little low energy for the rest of the day, but she smiles readily enough when Jared insists they go to Dairy Queen after practice and insists on asking the amused woman behind the counter to double the fudge on top of Jen's sundae.

"I don't know, I thought it was what I should want, maybe?" Jen finally says as they perch on the gate of the truck. "You know, the quarterback picks the dorky girl over the head cheerleader- social anarchy! Happily ever after!" Jen waves the spoon around before shoving it back in the dish. "Is that dumb?" Jared stares at her.

"Yes." he replies, and shoves Jen with his shoulder when she frowns at him. "You're not a dork, Jenny. And I'd like to see the guy who picks Annabel Glover over you. She's had crabs since like... 6th grade."

Jen smiles small and pleased into her ice cream and Jared smiles like he's going to crack his face open with it, because as much as he hates that Jen probably still feels sort of crappy about the whole thing- this is what it's supposed to be like. The two of them, together, hanging out- and yeah, he probably sounds like a Jewel album, but this is better- this is right.

"Well, anyway, I guess it's not for me. Besides, we're too busy to date, I'm surprised that Coach Morgan let me go out with Chris even once, really," Jen says, and when she slips her hand into Jared's it's cold from holding her ice cream but he doesn't care. "Right now, I just want to focus on us."

Jared nearly has a spasm or something, but he just bites his lip and nods, because really, that's like the greatest thing he's ever heard, but... not really.

***

Chad yells at him over the phone.

"Do you even like pussy, man?" Chad wails. "No, really, are you sure you're not some kind of cocksaurus rex, because I have never seen a straight man pass on such a beautiful set up before!" Jared rolls his eyes and, for the billionth time, tries to figure out why he's friends with Chad.

"Okay, one, Chad, I've never been caught with a picture of Ryan Reynolds with my hand down my pants, and two, gross, and three, she just broke up with Chris! I wasn't going to hit on her!" Jared hisses. He can hear Chad roll his eyes over the phone.

"Whatever, dude, the point is you- you dumb motherfucker- had the perfect opportunity to nail the girl of your dreams and you missed out. How does it feel, Gaylord McFuckingscrewup?" Chad argues back. Jared sighs.

"Chad, you're a dick," he says, because it's true and yeah, he probably should have made a move. Chad snorts.

"At least I got one, Meat Curtains. Later."

Jared stares at his phone for a solid minute, trying to figure out what he did in a past life to deserve this.

Apparently the answer is murdering babies, because the next day Jen stares at him in an evaluating sort of way and says, "You know, you're really good looking and a great guy. Why don't you have a girlfriend?" Jared resists the urge to take the toepick to his face.

"Uh, you know, what you said. Busy. Wouldn't be fair," Jared tries. Jen cocks her head slightly to one side and slaps a hand on his thigh.

"Well, then, that's settled. After Nationals, I'll totally set you up. Maybe Sandy? Kristen?" Jen offers, waggling her eyebrows.

Sera compliments his expressions of Byronic manpain again.

Coach Morgan gives them all of Christmas Day off, although they practice on Christmas Eve, so Jared finally cracks open the box under his bed and because he's a total girl when it comes to Jen, it's been wrapped since he got it in the mail. He puts it gently in his practice bag, hidden under skates and clean t-shirts and a bunch of other stuff. He and Jen give Coach Morgan the traditional card made out of macaroni and the less traditional bottle of scotch and they get pulled into a fierce hug, and Sera kisses their cheeks in terrible, oppressive European fashion over the poster of her they'd found on eBay and mercilessly sniped out from under the nose of like, five creepy basement dudes, and had framed.

They're sitting on the benches out by the rink by themselves as the Zamboni runs and Jen hands him a big rectangular package. He raises his eyebrows.

"Just open it, Jared," she says, poking him hard, so he grins and rips the paper to find--

She got him a Dorothy Hamill Barbie doll.

Jared can't stop laughing. Oh, god. He grabs Jenny into a vicious octopus hug.

"So you like it?" she asks him, cheerfully, muffled against his collarbone.

"Jenny, this is the greatest Christmas present ever," Jared declares solemnly, but it really kind of is, because how in God's name did Jenny remember- his mom had owned one, and it was secretly Jared's favorite toy as a kid until she sold it at a garage sale- which he didn't forgive her for until she made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich- okay, he was easy to please back then, but- god. Best Christmas present ever. Jared feels super dumb about his present but there's really no going back now, so he hands it over, covered in six month old newspaper comics.

Jen rips it open and then pauses, running her fingers over the glossy brochures and pictures, shifting them to look at the white hoodie underneath. Tracing her index finger over the ‘Sochi.ru 2014’ on the front she looks at him with a questioning face.

"Uh, flip it over," he instructs, shiftily, and on the back of the sweater, just like he remembers, it says "JARED/JENSEN: TEAM USA". Jenny runs her hand over the screen-printed letters silently.

"It's kind of... it's kind of like a promise. We'll get there, together. I promise," Jared says, because the first time he and Jen skated together he'd known this is where they'd end up. She's still quiet, though, looking at the pictures Jared called the travel agent for, the maps of the Olympic plaza they were building printed out from Google, and Jared's feeling kind of like a moron.

"I mean, I guess it's pretty stupid, but-" he starts but Jen whips her face up, and her eyes are huge and green and full of tears and she kisses him.

Jen kisses him.

"It's not stupid," she says fiercely. "I love it."

She pulls it on immediately, scattering the brochures and making her hair stand up like a fuzzy gold halo around her head. Jared is pretty sure he's hallucinating, but this is probably actually the best Christmas ever.

"Uh, I don't want you to fix me up with Sandy or Kristen. I don't want you to date Chris. I want to date you," Jared says, in what may be the most spectacular case of word-vomit, ever, but it's been bubbling up under his skin for- for forever, and the beautiful bright smile on Jensen's face is like-- finally. Finally.

"Okay," she whispers, leaning in close. "Okay, Jared."








EPILOGUE.



"And that is the end of the free skate for Team USA tonight- here in Sochi are Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, long time partners from Texas, in their Olympic debut performance."

"That's right, Bill, Jensen and Jared have been skating together since they were 6."

"What do you think, Scott?"

"Oh, hands down, they are adorable, Bill. I've been watching them very closely since they took the National Championship on the Junior Level, back in 2011. They have just been on fire since then and I was happy to congratulate them myself a couple of weeks ago for their silver medal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. They're a wonderful pair- it's been amazing to watch them grow over the past few years, and when they were named to the Olympic team I knew we going to do well."

"So how do you feel about their chances for gold, Scott?"

"Well, Bill, they lost to Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who are in the lead now, at the Championships and at World's last year, but it was close- from what we've seen in the compulsory and the original programs, and their, frankly, stunning program tonight, they've really stepped up their game. They're young and honestly, just getting started."

"Okay, Scott, here we go, America's Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, about to receive their scores."

Jen squeezes his hand tightly. All Jared can think is "I love you, we're going to win" over and over again, and Jeff and Sera are crammed in on either side of them. He's staring at the scoreboard where it says 108.14 to take the lead and thinking they've done it.

"For the United States of America, the program scores for Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, please," goes the PA and the Russian translation mumbles after it. The numbers blink up between one breath and the next and oh, god.

They did it.

The only think he can think about is Jen and he turns to find her wearing her ratty old hoodie over her costume and he kisses her and kisses her, because he loves her and oh, god, they just won the gold medal.

"Thanks for keeping your promise," Jen whispers, and Jared laughs and kisses her again, because life doesn't get any better than this.