Like a Shoebox of Photographs (A Sort of Fairy Tale 10/14)

Title: A Sort of Fairy Tale
Chapter: Ten: Like a Shoebox of Photographs
Author:
Fandom: SPN RPS
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Warning/spoilers: None.
Word Count: 1200
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Misha loves Jensen. Jensen is … getting there.
Chapter ten summary: “I’m too happy to sleep. I want to share it.”
Notes: Thank you to for beta.

day ten: women of color

“Come home with me tonight,” Misha says to Jensen in an undertone as they walk back to the costume trailer. It’s late, everyone’s tired and punchy, but there are more scenes in the can and the episode will be handed in on time.

“I don’t know if I’ve got the energy for more than sleeping tonight,” Jensen says in the same tone.

“That’s okay,” Misha says and puts an arm around Jensen’s waist. “I just want to wake up with you.”

Jensen stops walking and puts an arm around Misha’s neck to hold him close. Misha shuts his eyes and leans their foreheads together, and smiles when Jensen plants a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Okay,” Jensen says, and keeps his arm around Misha until they reach the costume trailer.

Getting Jensen to his place is no trouble — Jared only gave them both an amused look when Jensen told him he was going home with Misha — but once he’s there, Misha has to step back a moment. Of course Jensen has been here before — his boots have been under the couch, he has a favorite glass in the cupboard, his brand of beer is in the fridge — but he’s always been here as a friend, never as a lover.

He shouldn’t be worried, Misha think as he watches Jensen stretch before taking off his pullover. It’s like a hundred times before, only instead of going home at the end of the night Jensen will stay.

“Do you want anything?” he says, hanging up his own coat, and Jensen shakes his head.

“Just to go to bed.” He pauses, and adds a soft, “Hey,” as he cups Misha’s cheek.

“Hey,” Misha answers, and they kiss like they have all night.

They strip off their clothes and crawl under the sheets. It takes a few tries to find a way they fit together, long limbs pressing against long limbs, but then Misha bends his knee the right way and Jensen moves his hip, and they are just right: close enough to feel heartbeats and breathing, warm together but not too warm, arms crooked so that they can caress the softly curling hair at the back of a neck or rub lazy circles on a chest with a thumb.

Misha breathes in Jensen’s scent. He traces the line of Jensen’s shoulder and Jensen blinks at him sleepily. Misha traces his eyelashes, too, and quotes to him, “‘Your lashes are longer than anyone’s.'”

“Hm,” Jensen says and moves closer to Misha, tucking his head under Misha’s chin. Misha kisses his hair.

The urgency they felt earlier is not gone, exactly, but it has been satisfied for now. The thrum Misha feels at Jensen’s closeness isn’t quite as demanding. He can hold Jensen just like this, feel Jensen’s back rise and fall under his hand, inhale the end-of-the-day scent of him.

He quotes again, because his heart is still beating too fast to sleep with Jensen is right there, “‘I dreamed you were a poem, a poem I wanted to show someone.'”

Jensen smiles, his eyes still shut. “You’re not going to let me sleep yet, are you?”

“I’m too happy to sleep. I want to share it.”

Jensen unfolds himself from Misha’s arms and pushes him onto his back. Misha opens his legs to wrap them around Jensen’s hips, wraps his arms around Jensen’s back. Jensen kisses Misha slowly, his arms framing Misha’s head so he can dip and move as much as he wants. The way he moves is so graceful and so purposeful, like a big cat slinking along the Serengeti — it’s positively feral, Misha thinks, and that gives him an idea. He catches Jensen’s head in one hand and whispers in his ear, “Once upon a time there was a little barn cat who thought he was the greatest singer who ever lived and wanted everyone to know it.”

“Yeah?” Jensen whispers. “And what did the little barn cat do?” His tongue writes a symbol on Misha’s cheekbone.

“He went out into the world, of course, and sang for his supper on fences and back porches as he made his way to the city. No one was appreciative of his talent — in fact, he frequently had to end his performances by running away from the shoes people tossed at him. It was,” Misha says thoughtfully, “better than rotten tomatoes.”

“Poor little barn cat.” He kisses Misha’s throat and Misha shivers.

“Yes,” he says after he’s collected himself. “Poor thing. Soon he reached the city where he could sing for people on street corners and fire escapes, but they didn’t appreciate his talent anymore than the country people and just threw more shoes at him.”

Jensen leans on his elbow and looks at Misha, amusement in his eyes. “And I thought you wanted me to stay awake so we could fuck again.”

“Story first. The story always comes first.” He places his hands on Jensen’s shoulders, runs them over the smooth skin. “So, as the little barn cat was walking dejectedly along the streets of the city after yet another ruined performance on his sore, tired paws, a little alley cat approached him and said, I love your voice and I want to listen to you sing all the time. The barn cat said, You’re the only one who does. And the alley cat told the barn cat, If you’ll sing for me every night, I’ll show you all the best places to beg for fish or steal some cream, or where there’s a kind-hearted woman who’ll brush your fur. And the barn cat agreed and was happy, because an appreciative audience of one is much better than an unappreciative audience of six million.” He pauses, thinks over the story, and says, “The end.”

“Is there a particular reason you told me that story tonight?” Jensen’s hands weave through his hair and tilt back his head, and Jensen’s lips start tasting his neck.

“No. The way you moved just now made me think of it. Though,” he adds thoughtfully, as thoughtfully as he can while Jensen is writing a story of his own along Misha’s throat, “maybe the moral of the story is no matter what you do and what other people think of you, I’ll always be your biggest fan.”

“Misha,” Jensen says and kisses him, “I know that. I know all that.”

“Okay,” Misha says and kisses him back. “It’s one of those things you can’t say too often, though.” He pulls Jensen on top of him, his body all angles and lean muscles, his cock brushing hotly against Misha’s. The urgency he thought they’d satisfied flares up again, demanding as a volcano god, and Misha crosses his ankles at the small of Jensen’s back and says, “More?” and laughs at Jensen’s enthusiastic nod.

It’s simpler this time, just each other’s hands as they suck and lick at each other’s mouths, but what matters is that it’s Jensen’s hand, Jensen’s mouth. Misha hears himself groaning, “Oh, Jen, I love you,” as his come paints Jensen’s stomach. Jensen finishes moments later, shivering down his back, and as Misha slows his hand Jensen curls into him, breathing hard and one hand clenched into a fist, eyes wide and astonished. His arm winds possessively around Misha’s waist.

They look at each other, sweaty, sticky, panting, and they both start laughing.

Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it’s so hard?
♪ “Better Together”—Jack Johnson

The poems Misha quotes are II from Twenty-one love poems by Adrienne Rich and Where does this tenderness come from? by Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva. (I wanted Misha to quote that one in Russian but couldn’t figure out the transliteration.)