Michael was giggling in tiny helpless bursts of breath, and it was all Jensen could do to keep him quiet as they moved forward, bumping elbows.

“Shut *up*, Rosenbaum,” he hissed, pushing Michael aside and taking the lead. The figure ahead of them at the coffee bar was broad through the shoulders, tall but hunched slightly inside the oversized black hoodie. The hood of the shirt was pulled up over the man’s head, and really, only criminals and Inuit people wearing parkas could make that look natural.

Jensen was now only one foot away, ready to make his move, barely breathing while the barista on the other side of the bar cast a worried look in his direction. In five seconds -- four -- three -- two --

Michael pounced before Jensen could finish his internal countdown, seizing the man at the bar by the shoulder and wrenching him around as Michael tugged at the ridiculous hood. Jensen wanted to be annoyed, but he was too busy laughing his ass off at Mikey’s antics.

“Oh my *GOD*!” bellowed Michael into Tom’s startled face. “You’re TOM WELLING!!! Hey, everyone, it’s TOM WELLING, the WB’s own SUPERBOY!”

The patrons of the Starbucks turned at the sudden explosion of noise, but few seemed interested beyond a first curious glance. Regulars, then -- all the better to prove Mike and Jen’s point.

Jensen slung an arm around Tom’s shoulder with fraternal ease and dipped his head in with a confidential air. “Tommy,” he said in a stage whisper, “just between you and me and the doorknob here” -- nodding in Rosenbaum’s direction -- “the hoodie? Not as sneaky a disguise as you might hope.”

The barista laughed and stopped abruptly when Tom turned his grumpy look on her.

“Oh my god, I *love* your work,” Michael now enthused in his campiest voice, clutching handfuls of the black polar fleece and twisting it urgently to get Tom’s attention back. “Did you, like, go to Julliard?”

“You guys are *so* not funny,” Tom grouched, taking his cappuccino off the bar and trying to act as though he hated the way Michael was pawing at him.

“We,” Jensen said, hijacking the cappuccino and taking a sip, “are freaking hilarious.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Tom asked, leveling a dirty look in Jensen’s direction. “Don’t you have your own co-star to torment nowadays?”

“He’s got the day off,” Michael said, finally locating one of Tom’s nipples through the shirt and giving it a vicious pinch and twist, “and shockingly, he decided that he and Jenny had spent enough quality time together for now. What with the eighty-hour work week and all.”

Michael had been working with Tom for almost five years, and oddly enough, it showed most when it came to Tom’s nipples. Tom’s nipples were like a normal person’s version of a ticklish foot -- one twist and pinch and Tommy couldn’t help but smile and giggle and become all sweetness and light and pretty green eyes. “Too bad you don’t show the same restraint,” Tom said to Michael, but the words lost their impact when accompanied by a flutter of heavy lashes and the curve of Tom’s sensual mouth.

“Oh, come *on*,” Michael said, releasing Tom’s nipple and reaching up to muss his curls. “Like you don’t love every second you get to spend with me.”

Tommy’s tongue got caught behind his bottom front teeth and curled there as he surveyed Michael, his face all pointy grin and playful eyes. “So what’s the big plan? Other than ambushing me in my local Starbucks?”

“The plan,” said Jensen, suddenly missing Jared, “is to take you out and make you enjoy the fact that we’re all stranded up here in Canuck-land together.” Tom hesitated, the effects of Mike’s nipple-tweaking wearing off. “What? The wife is south of the border, isn’t she?” Jensen prompted. “You’re worried about your dog now?”

Tom looked at Jensen thoughtfully, and then with a slight frown, reached out as though to reclaim his drink.

Of course, he was faking Jensen out, and the next thing Jen knew, his own left nipple was getting twisted cruelly. “Ow ow owww,” Jensen exclaimed, scrunching up his face in pain and trying to get away as Tommy cackled.

“Oh my god, he’s touching another guy’s nipples!” screeched Michael. “SUPERBOY IS GAY!”

“Well, *yeah*,” muttered the barista, but Tom and Michael were on their way out the door already. Jensen winked in her direction and toasted her with the cappuccino before following.

***

Tom could never ever tell Jamie, but he loved days like this -- rainy miserable Vancouver days when the sky was close and the insides of his shoes were wet and there was nothing to do but drive around with Rosenbaum and Ackles, the three of them acting like a bunch of idiots. They hit Steveston Village first, eating chunky ice cream at a table with the view of the ocean, taking turns mixing the most disgusting ingredients they could imagine, and then playing one of Tom’s favorite games: Things That Shouldn’t Taste Like Beef.

“Toothpaste,” Jensen said, licking off his spoon to catch the last drops of his pineapple-pecan ice cream.

“They have that for dogs,” Tom said, shaking his head, and dug his spoon into his cup of mango-butterscotch. “Here’s a good one -- coffee.”

Jensen and Michael gagged and groaned in unison, Michael kicking his feet with disgust. “I know!” he exclaimed, grinning suddenly. “Lube.”

“Gaaah,” said Jensen, sticking out his tongue. “No, wait -- vodka martinis.” Then, as Tom and Mike made grossed-out sounds, he disgusted them more by eating a spoonful of the ice cream they’d all rejected -- peanut butter-mint-toffee swirl.

After Steveston, they headed north again, all the way across the Lion’s Gate and into the gathering gloom of the North Shore. They hit a few slick indy boutiques in West Van, the sort of thing Allison favored. Jenny and Tom narrowly managed to talk Michael out of buying a t-shirt that had a picture of Jesus hang-gliding, captioned “What wouldn’t Jesus do?”

“You’re *Jewish*,” Jensen repeated slowly, drawing out the syllables.

“That’s why it’s funny,” Michael insisted, waving the shirt and laughing.

“You’re a *moron*,” Tom tried, more emphatically.

“Exactly, I have a reputation to maintain,” Michael answered evenly, holding the shirt up to himself.

“Oh, hey! Mikey, check out this one!” Jensen cried, and forced another shirt into Michael’s line of vision. This one was bright green and had a Nintendo cartridge printed on it, with the caption ‘blow me’.

Diversion almost always worked on Michael. He walked out of the store with the green shirt instead.

They grabbed dinner in a nearby café while playing Tom’s second favorite game: “Top Three Personal Best Farts”.

“And number one,” said Jensen, holding up his index finger high for his triumphal moment. “I’m on the set” -- Michael began laughing too loudly for Jensen to continue, and Tom shushed him with a punch in the side. “I’m on the set,” Jensen repeated, “of Smallville, and it’s that scene where Lana’s trying to seduce Jason, only she’s wearing her kindergarten painting shirt to do it for some reason, and I swear to god, twenty-seven takes” -- here he was interrupted by Mike and Tom booing him, because Kristin never had to do more than five takes of anything, it was like a law -- “no, seriously! And finally, we stick the goddamn lines right, and just as we go to cut, I just -- let it rip. And Kristin cracks up, and the sound guys come and yell at *her* for farting.”

“They did *not*,” Tom scoffed, smiling in spite of himself. Jensen was a damn liar, but he was cute when he did it.

“They did, I’m telling you! And she was laughing too hard to tell them the truth, and I was all, ‘Kristin, what the hell?’”

Michael was too busy laughing to express his own doubt.

“Your turn, Welling,” Jensen said, when Michael finally stopped slapping the table and wiping his eyes.

“Number three: on my wedding night,” Tom began, and Michael started laughing all over again because of *course* he’d heard this a dozen times before. “In the hotel suite,” Tom continued loudly, “and I’ve, you know, been saving up because it’s supposed to be this incredible night of sex, except Jamie forced me to eat spring rolls at the reception and now I’m so fucking gassy, and of course I didn’t exactly think to pack Pepto in my suitcase, so when she comes out of the bathroom all sexy and half-naked with this black thong, I -- god, I tried so hard to hold it in, but --” And he couldn’t finish, laughing too hard at the memory of Jamie’s face, so Michael took over.

“He just fires off this window-rattler, right?” Mike wheezed as Tom struggled for air. “And the best part? It’s a three-part fart.”

“A -- three-part…” Jensen repeated haltingly, looking from one face to the other and grinning hugely.

“It’s, like --” and Michael and Tom both pursed their lips and blew a raspberry in unison, high squeak, medium-pitched toot, and then a low rumble. And while Tom began wiping his own eyes, Michael managed to sing the words to the fart-song. “Three blind mice,” he crooned, and Jensen exploded into giggles.

“You *farted* ‘Three Blind Mice’ to your *wife* on your *wedding night*?” Jensen gasped, hysterical by now.

Tom could only nod, shakily grabbing for air between bouts of laughter and pummeling Mike for lack of anything better to do with his hands.

“Shit, man, what did she say?” Jensen asked, all disbelief.

“She just shook her head and said, ‘It begins’,” Michael joked.

“No, she -- she went and called the front desk for some antacids,” Tom corrected, slowly regaining motor control. “And the story *somehow* got around the crew and next thing I know, the director on an ep called ‘Solitude’ inserts this ridiculous tag to a Lionel and Lex scene where Lionel plays ‘Three Blind Mice’ on the piano. I have no clue how it got through editing, but it did.” Tom cast a look in Michael’s direction, but Michael looked as sweetly oblivious as he always did when this subject arose.

“And thus endeth the legend of the three-part fart,” Mike concluded grandly.

“And that’s just your number three?” marveled Jensen.

“Tommy here is a *very* gassy individual,” Michael said proudly, seizing Tom around the neck and pulling Tom’s head down to be kissed.

“I don’t deal well with cabbage,” Tom protested.

Yeah, these were the best days of all.

***

They wound up back at Tom’s place because he was the only one of them with permanent digs in Vancouver and thus had the biggest living space. He and Jamie had bought a good-sized but unpretentious house in a south Vancouver neighborhood back in the third season of Smallville, though these days it was mostly Tom and his dog alone in the house since Jamie seemed unwilling to spend as much time in Canada as she used to do. The rain was still pissing down outside while they flopped onto various chairs and couches and watched a local news item about the danger of landslides on the North Shore due to the recent deluge.

Michael glanced across at his friends and wondered why he felt completely unbothered by this -- hanging out with the guys in Canada instead of flying back to L.A. as usual. Jensen had talked him into it, and because Michael was Michael, he’d been determined to make the best of it -- but now he’d surprised himself by genuinely enjoying their day. They’d only planned to make a pit-stop here, get a buzz going with some B.C. weed before calling a cab and heading down to Gastown to pick a fight or two, but now they’d all mellowed into contentedly stoned puddles of their former selves and it seemed less and less likely that they would venture out into the dark and rain again today.

And Mike was actually okay with that. He was getting more okay with it by the minute, in fact, because when Tom got high, he got all tactile. Michael had an excellent view of Tom’s stomach where he’d absentmindedly hiked up the black hoodie and was now stroking his big hand over his taut skin while he watched the news. Michael cast a look over at Jensen to see if he’d noticed too, and caught Jenny with his eyes locked on Tom’s body. But the look in Jensen’s eyes was somehow more melancholy than lustful, and Mike had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. This day hadn’t really been about hanging out with Tom and Mike, not for Jensen. It had been about Jensen trying to distract himself from what he would otherwise be missing like hell -- and judging by the distant-sad way Jensen was taking in the long sprawl of Tom on the couch, it wasn’t even working.

Michael got up on impulse, walked across the room, and dropped down on top of Tom, making him grunt with surprise. “Tom, Jenny’s bored,” he drawled in his best Texan accent. “Shouldn’t you try to keep him entertained, be a good host?”

Tom wasn’t the quickest draw in the world even when he was sober, and so it took him a bit longer than usual to catch on to Michael’s meaning. “Should we watch a DVD?” he asked, rearranging Mike’s limbs so that he could still see the TV. “I just got an advance copy of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.”

“I was thinking,” Mike said, shifting back into Tom’s line of vision, “something more immediately entertaining.” And to make his meaning absolutely clear, Mike dipped his head down and nipped at Tom’s full lower lip sharply, pulling a startled breath from Tom.

“Mike, I’m not nearly high enough,” Tom said, almost wistfully, his green eyes flickering between Michael’s mouth and his gaze. “I can’t -- I mean. No, Mikey.”

He’d said ‘Mikey’, and that meant he was absolutely high enough. Pausing to hit the power button on the TV remote, Mike dropped his mouth back for another kiss and this time Tom opened up under his lips, hot and liquid and hungry, his heavy hands moving up and around to glide up under Mike’s t-shirt, delicately scratching ten curved lines of want across Mike’s back.

Jensen made a soft noise from the armchair nearby, and Michael broke the kiss to turn and see. Jensen was watching them avidly, mouth slightly open, hitching his narrow hips up just a little as he tried to fight his increasingly obvious hard-on.

“Let me know,” Michael said neatly to Jensen as he pulled his own shirt over his head, “if I’m blocking your view at all.”

***

Like it was a take on set and Jensen was a camera operator, that line tossed so casually in his direction, and Jensen couldn’t exactly complain because Michael was a professional and Jensen had a perfect view of the arc of Tom’s throat as he gasped shakily under the trace of Michael’s tongue on his skin.

Jensen hadn’t hung out with the Smallville boys very often last year, but when he had, it had been a lot like today -- low-brow humor, Tommy laughing while Mike acted like an idiot, the three of them having stupid conversations about stupider things. Sure, Jen had always been aware of the sexual tension between Tom and Mike, but between Mike’s predilection for talking big about his female conquests and Tom’s quiet confidence in his marriage, Jensen had assumed that it wasn’t an active thing, just something passive and cute that everyone knew about but no one mentioned. Sort of like -- well, like other co-stars.

But apparently Jensen’s intuition had been way off, because the way Tommy was reacting, this clearly was no first time. His fingers were drifting down the back of Michael’s neck, slow and familiar and encouraging. Tom’s eyes were closed with pleasure as Michael gently pivoted Tom’s chin back, exposing more throat to lick.

Michael must have had a shirtless scene in a recent episode, because he was all smooth white skin and freckles and though Jensen hated his own freckles, they were undeniably attractive on someone else’s body. There was a little cluster of them on Mike’s left shoulder blade, and it shifted now as Mike moved up and looked down at Tom, eyes heavy-lidded and mouth open. “You’re so fucking hot,” he said quietly, as though he’d momentarily forgotten that he had an audience in the armchair nearby.

But he hadn’t forgotten, not really, because when Mike moved down Tom’s torso and began kissing the exposed strip of belly between the hoodie and the line of Tom’s denim waistband, Tom’s arm moved too. Tom’s arm was in the way now and Jensen had just about made up his mind that he didn’t care and that he should really just call a cab and get the hell out of this fucking unbelievably weird situation, but then Michael gently moved Tom’s arm, shifting it so that Jensen had a perfect view of Michael’s tongue fucking in and out of Tom’s navel.

And Jensen was so hard, and the lean sprawl of Tom’s limbs on that long sofa was just so -- so *pretty* -- and the soft little noises Tom made as he reacted to Mike’s motions, and the way Mike was paying such detailed homage to the gorgeous dip of muscle and bone that was Tom’s pelvis, the converging lines running down either side of Tom’s stomach before dipping down under his jeans, like an arrow, like a road, and when Jensen let himself look, he could see the long thick ridge of Tom’s cock just nudging to the right of his fly.

Jensen licked his lips and tried to look away, but couldn’t -- tried to close his eyes, but couldn’t. Mike was still kissing and licking in intricate patterns, still somehow finding the strength to ignore that insistent hard line of cock just under his chin. Tom had opened his eyes now and was watching as intensely as Jensen, holding his head up to see the games Mike was playing. Tom’s throaty noises were getting heavier, more desperate, sharp clicks of exhaled breath mixed with rough airy sighs of sound.

“Ah fuck, do it.” But it wasn’t Tom who said it, it was Jensen. The sound of his own voice pulled Jensen back from the brink, pulled him back into his own skin and he found himself with one hand over his own throbbing dick, his hips grinding up slowly into the wide pressure of his palm through layers of boxers and denim.

“Do what?” Mike asked, and Tom’s eyes slammed shut again, his cheeks flushing red and his hands settling on Mike’s shoulders. Clearly Tom had forgotten about Jensen, and his good-boy politics were finding a serious opponent in his unquenched need for the thing Jensen wanted to see.

“Suck his cock,” Jensen answered openly, because only one of the three of them was a blusher, and it sure as hell wasn’t Jensen. “Make him come.”

Tom’s eyes cracked open again to meet Mike’s smiling gaze, and Jensen could see that Tom, adrift on a sea of ‘shouldn’t’s and ‘can’t’s, was grounded in Mike’s bright open expression. His hand moved up from Mike’s shoulder, rested on Mike’s lightly-furred scalp, and then, inexorably, pushed Mike down further between his legs. “I need to stop thinking,” Tom said in a broken voice.

If Mike had prolonged things to torment Jensen, he lost no time now in answering Tom’s unspoken plea. Nimble practiced fingers, the shush of cotton and zipper, Tom’s hips twisting up off the couch and back down again, and Mike was holding Tom’s big cock in one fist, stroking up and down. Tom’s breath hitched, his hips lifted again and stayed there for a moment, and Jensen watched as the head of Tom’s cock suddenly slickened with the first rush of precome. “Wet for me,” Michael said approvingly, his breath exploding past the end of the brief sentence like Michael’d been holding the words in for long seconds. “Oh, god, Tommy, I’ve missed this.” And Michael went down, and Tom cried loudly, and Jensen wasn’t sure exactly when he’d gotten his own jeans open, but his zipper was down and his dick was in his fist, his hand jammed down inside his boxers like a thirteen-year-old getting himself off under the covers at a slumber party.

But Michael’s mouth, open wide because it wasn’t just a figure of speech, Rosenbaum really *did* have a big mouth -- his lips, rolled over his teeth just slightly, and the way he just *took* Tom’s length, down his throat and swallowing until Tom’s struggles for control became tiny reflexive jumps of his hips. Tom was watching, and Jensen couldn’t figure out why, but that was almost as hot as what Michael was doing, those clear innocent-seeming green eyes focused on Michael deep-throating Tom’s cock. Jensen stuck his other hand inside of his boxers and tugged at his balls, not sure if he was trying to speed up his orgasm or stave it off, only knowing that Michael was really damn coordinated, because he was actually slipping his own pants off as he sucked Tom, shimmying and kicking and wriggling until he was naked, Tom’s cock in his mouth the whole time like it was some kind of obscene anchor. But now Mike was naked and Tom was still almost completely clothed, and Jensen didn’t get why that was so amazingly hot, but it was. Michael had slowed his rhythm and Tom’s noises were subsiding a little, so that Jensen was abruptly aware of the slap of skin sounding as he jerked himself off.

“Oh, god, oh god,” Tom managed, and at first Jensen didn’t know why, but when he looked up, he saw that Tom was looking over at Jensen, and that Tom was actually getting into the fact that Jensen was beating off to this. “God, Jensen, this is so fucked up,” Tom said, but he was licking his lips and his eyes were tracing the motion of Jensen’s forearm as he pulled on his cock. It must be hot inside that hoodie, because it was warm in the room and Tom was working up a bit of a sweat, and now his dark curls were sort of sticking to his forehead, but Jensen hoped fervently that Tom kept the damn thing on. Jensen had slowed his pace now, too, and took a second to push down his pants and boxers, kick them down around his feet, and spread his knees apart to accommodate his erection.

Tom made a hurt noise because Mike was pulling off and getting up from the couch. For a terrifying-exciting second, Jensen thought Mike was going to invite him over, but then Mike was headed for a bookshelf on the far wall. “Same place?” he asked over his shoulder, and Tom nodded, now working his cock lazily, his gaze flickering between Mike’s bare freckled ass and Jensen’s pumping hand. Mike was digging in some sort of wicker basket and now he was crowing triumphantly, and now he was holding up --

Oh, christ. Jensen didn’t know if he’d last until Mike got back to the couch. That was lube, and those were condoms, and fuck if Mike wasn’t going to just amble back over to Tom and fuck his brains out on the couch right in front of Jensen and his overeager cock.

Tom was looking oddly serious, his expression sober and his brows darkly drawn together. Michael swung one leg over Tom’s narrow hips, smiling and dirty, before reaching down to twist Tom’s left nipple under the polar fleece of the hoodie.

Tom’s grin flooded over his face like it was a goddamn happy button, and Mike laughed knowingly. Five years of familiarity, and it was obvious that they knew each other’s buttons with utter certainty. Five years and still grinning at one another like goofy kids over a trick normally reserved for fourteen-year-old boys. The ache in Jensen’s chest, the dull throb of pain that had been plaguing him all day, suddenly became acute.

Jensen found himself wondering distantly if, five years from now, it might be like this with him and Jared, Jared sprawled along a couch between Jensen’s naked thighs, Jared wearing dark jeans and a darker hoodie and turning an alluring damp shade of pink as he watched Jensen fuck himself open on his own fingers.

If, five years from now, Jensen would be sitting back on his heels, bracing himself with a hand in the center of Jared’s broad chest, and sinking down onto Jared’s heavy hot cock until his ass was resting in the cradle of Jared’s hips.

Jensen came first, hard and fast and watching the roll of Michael’s hips over the tan planes of Tom’s body -- but seeing something else entirely inside his head.

***

The other thing he could never tell Jamie -- that there was nothing in the world like a tight slick ass squeezing his cock, the fast-hard beat of a pulse against his balls, the hungry-fearful clamp of that ring of muscle at the base of his dick, right where he needed it -- and, yeah, the heat and tug of that first withdrawal, the suspense and need before Mike slammed back down again. Too good, too much, and having this every day would be like subsisting on a diet of Belgian chocolate and expensive champagne. No, it was a rare occasion and a special occasion, and Tom could never ever tell Jamie that Michael Rosenbaum’s ass was the sweetest tightest fuck he’d ever had, that he ever would have.

Tom’s body didn’t know what direction to go, whether to flee or greet the overwhelming pleasure, and it was always like this with Michael on top, Tom’s whole body shaking here and there, his toes curling and his fingers trembling, his breath like a knife and his heart like a drum.

Through his sweatshirt, Tom could feel each point of Mike’s fingertips on his chest, five little circles of pressure that clenched and released with the rise and fall of Mike’s ass. Somewhere to Tom’s right, he could dimly make out the sounds of Jensen jacking off, but his ears were ringing and his eyes couldn’t seem to move past that gorgeous notch of Mike’s collarbone, the centre point from which Mike’s whole lean muscled body hung. They were noisy together because there was no point in having chocolate and champagne if you couldn’t show that you enjoyed them, but in spite of that, part of Tom’s brain was straining to hear the silences, to hear the moments when the only sound between them was the wet click of Tom’s cock sliding in Mike’s ass.

Tom’s eyes finally broke free and now they drifted down, down to where Mike’s slender long cock was curved up with want, flexing every time Tom’s own cock sparked against Mike’s prostate. The first time they did this, Tom had been shy about looking at Mike’s cock, like they were peeing at the urinals and it was rude to watch. But now Tom loved to watch, loved to see Mike’s cock jumping, loved to watch it get even thicker and more blood-dark, loved the slow liquid spill of precome when the angle was just right.

Jensen let out a rough noise and Tom could hear the abrupt irregularity of his strokes, could even hear the soft sounds of Jensen’s come hitting his cupped hand, and that was how Tom realized that he and Mike were both listening, that they’d both gotten quiet to hear that sound. But Jensen’s breath soon shuddered back into tempo and Michael groaned, and now it was as though they were the only people in the room.

Tom was too warm, perspiration-wet and confined in his sweatshirt, but Mike wanted it like that, had wanted it all day if those looks Tom pretended not to notice were any indication.

Harder now, Michael was working with new energy, his eyes were grey and half-closed and he was driving down onto Tom’s cock with his whole lower body, using his knees and thighs to thrust back harder. Tom slipped one hand under his own shirt, swept his palm in the wet sheen of his sweat, and then wrapped that hand around Mike’s cock, slicking the precome down the shaft to mix with Tom’s perspiration. Michael bucked into Tom’s fist with a sharp “Fuck!” and Tom knew this, knew that what Michael needed now was this cruelly even and smooth hand-fuck. Michael tried for a rhythm, found it, and lost it again within four strokes, his ass and his cock battling in uneven counterpoint until it was all Tom could do to keep from screaming with need.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” chanted Michael, and opened bluer eyes to catch Tom’s gaze, to warn him and thank him and -- and --

Michael’s ass like a vise, rippling and clenching and seventeen kinds of unfair when Michael was coming so hard and Tom could barely manage to keep moving in and out through the irregular rapid pulse of Mike’s ass. But Michael was beautiful when he came, not contorted face and painful grimace like Jamie, just dropped lower lip and thrown-back head and long long throat extended in ecstasy. Tom could wait for his own release if this was his reward, and so he was patient, drawing out Mike’s climax until Mike made a soft noise of protest.

No point in continuing with the fuck, not now, because Michael almost always checked out for a while after he came from Tom fucking him. Sure enough, Michael was going boneless and fluid, his upper body collapsing down onto Tom’s chest as Michael’s eyes literally rolled back in his head, his breath coming preternaturally slow and his heartbeat bumping contentedly and lazily around Tom’s erection.

“Is he okay?” Jensen asked, and Tom jumped a little because he’d almost forgotten they weren’t alone.

“He’s fine,” Tom answered, stroking fingers over the pleasing burr of Mike’s scalp. “He gets like this, give him a minute.”

Give him a minute before what? Tom asked himself, unwilling to answer but already wondering with part of his mind if Jensen was expecting this to become less of a voyeuristic display and more of an interactive tangle of limbs. He couldn’t begin to process the complexity of what had just passed -- the silent ‘only when we’re fucked up’ pact between him and Michael was old news, long-ago relegated to the guilty recesses of Tom’s mind -- but now Jensen knew, and Jensen might just want in.

Tom rolled his hips up to distract his thoughts, watching as Michael’s slack open mouth twitched a little at the corners. Give him a minute, Tom coached himself, and let Mikey decide.

Then a cell phone trilled, and it seemed that all decision-making might be done for them.

***

Michael was only vaguely aware of a conversation going on somewhere outside of his brain. First it was Tom and someone -- and Michael only knew the Tom part because he could feel the buzz of Tom’s broad chest under his face -- and then there was an alarm or a doorbell or maybe an oven timer, and Tom stopped talking. Michael lay still and waited patiently for the floating black pieces of his mind to bump into each other again, form connections that might someday lead to the return of linear thought.

Until then, his existence, his inner game, was more sensory than verbal -- the breadth of Tom’s cock in his ass was foremost, followed closely by the too-good slip of come around his sensitive cock. Then there was the heat of Tom’s body, the rapid muffled snap of his heart valves that meant, yeah, Tom still hadn’t come. The scent of Tom, familiar and clean and warm. The comforting weight of Tom’s hand on the small of Michael’s back, stroking the skin there, transmitting an easy sense of safe and known and wanted.

One of the floating black pieces merged with another, and suddenly Michael had words again, at least inside his head. It had been almost half a year since this had happened last, since opportunity, motive, and means had shown up all at the same time, and already Mike was regretting not having made even more of it. There should have been a bed, with crisp snowy linens to accent Tom’s golden skin. There should have been more kissing, and Michael definitely should have planned in some serious rimming because no one gave a rim-job like Tom fucking Welling.

But there was a reason why that hadn’t happened, Michael knew, and another black piece of consciousness drifted into place, and words started happening on the outside too.

“-- and then we had dinner in West Van and now we’re just hanging at Tom’s,” said a voice, abruptly clear and close like Michael’s head had just broken from the surface of a deep pool of water. “Smoked some weed, watched some TV. How was your day?”

Tom was going soft inside Michael, and now it was all blinking back into place for Michael, the day’s events, Jensen’s presence, and that hard delicious fuck that had, of course, sent Michael off into one of his post-coital blissed-out trances. Michael was back now, and he hoisted himself up into a sitting position, reaching behind and holding the condom around the base of Tom’s cock while Michael pulled off with a flash of regret. Totally sober, fucked back to level ground, and that meant that they might not get to finish this.

“Did you miss me?” Jensen asked, cupping his hand around his cell phone like he was talking to a girlfriend, but he cracked up the next second, and Mike knew it was Jared on the other end.

Michael found his t-shirt wedged in the space between Tom’s torso and the couch cushions, pulled it on inside out. His jeans weren’t on the couch with them and neither were his boxers, but Michael wasn’t ready to leave, so he merely pushed at Tom until there was room for him to insinuate his thin body between the solidity of Tom and the shelter of the couch back, like he himself was the discarded item of clothing guiltily stuffed out of view.

Tom was fastening his jeans shut, pulling his hoodie down, eyes averted and mouth grim. This was why they didn’t do mornings after, Mike remembered too late -- it was always the last night before hiatus, or the last night before second unit, before Michael flew back to L.A. Hard, dirty fucks under the influence of whatever was handy, no stopping until they’d each come, and then one of them would leave before the high could wear off. They always gave each other room, room for buried guilt and rationalized anger and by the time they saw each other again, it was all solved and forgotten until the next last night.

But Jensen had fucked that up -- oh, hell, *Mike* had fucked it up in front of Jensen, and now Jensen had Jared on the phone. Michael had left Tom alone with Jensen for however many minutes Mike’d been mentally gone, and everything seemed to have grown gnawing teeth in his absence.

But Tom was looking at Michael now, eyes as earnest and clear as ever, and Michael felt his throat catch. “I like it better when it’s just you and me,” Tom said in an undertone, and kissed Michael’s eyebrow like it was something he often did.

***

Jensen got up halfway through the phone call, because it was just too weird to sit there playing at casual chatter with Jared while Rosenbaum and Welling were practically *cuddling* on the couch, Tom murmuring something soft and broken to Michael and Michael’s bare leg appearing as he threw it across Tom’s hips. Into the kitchen, where Jensen found a handful of paper towel and tried to clean himself up while making the appropriate interested noises whenever Jared paused for breath.

Jensen couldn’t quite get the point of hearing the words Jared was saying. It was far too crowded inside his head already, surges of current panic washed over by recent lust and occasionally replaced by a bizarre sense of warmth, like Jared’s low-pitched rambling was somehow necessary to Jensen’s continued sanity.

“Really?” Jensen half-laughed because Jared had half-laughed. Jensen had a wad of scrunched-up paper towel in his fist and he couldn’t decide if it was polite to throw your come-rag into the garbage under the sink or if it should go in the toilet.

He walked further, now with some notion of finding a bathroom, and Jared was saying something about his big brother and a job, and Jensen found a little tiled room where someone he hardly recognized stared back at him from the mirror. His pants were still hanging open, so after disposing of the paper towel, he tucked the phone under his chin and zipped up, then washed his hands out of habit.

“Are you in the can?” asked Jared. Maybe because it was all monosyllabic words, or maybe it was just the immediacy of feeling water run down his fingers, but Jensen was abruptly aware of the question, aware that he’d just flushed the toilet and washed his hands while talking on the phone.

“Maybe,” Jensen hedged, fighting back a grin for no reason at all.

“I -- I feel so *close* to you, man,” Jared said in a broken theatrical voice. “I can’t tell you how special it makes me feel to know that you’ll share your urination with me.”

“Only you, little guy,” Jensen said fondly, wiping his hands on a peach-colored hand towel. “Only for you.”

Jared snorted, dropping the cute voice. “Even when I get away from you, you find a way to make me feel like I never left.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Jensen, flipping out the lights and leaning in the doorway of the bathroom, liking the darkness and the solitude, the way Jared’s voice was the only thing around. “Is that why you felt the need to call me the one day you manage to break free of my evil clutches?”

There was a pause on the other end, and then Jared’s laughter, not the bright giddy kind, but the low sweet roll of amusement that only happened at the end of long days when a normal person would get short-tempered. It made Jensen feel warm in the centre of his chest, made Jensen think again about Tom and Michael and the way they looked at each other without even realizing how damn obvious they were being.

“So,” Jensen said, running one hand up and down the other side of the frame, liking the glide of smooth painted wood under his fingers, “have I proven my point, or do you still feel the need to be all independent and shit?” He toed the metal strip separating hardwood from tile. “Do you wanna go and grab a beer or something?”

“I thought you said you guys smoked up,” Jared said suspiciously. “You shouldn’t drive if you’re high.”

“So,” Jensen said, “come and get me.” He pushed off the doorframe and headed back towards the light of the kitchen and the living room. Tom and Mike were gone, but where they’d been lying, there was Tom’s half inside-out hoodie. The sight of it made Jensen’s fingers tighten around the phone.

“What about Tom and Mike?” asked Jared.

Jensen went over to the couch and picked up the discarded garment, rubbing fleece between the pads of his fingers and then, experimentally, lifting it to his nose to sniff. Tom didn’t smell familiar -- he smelled like dog and pot and deodorant and wet Vancouver days. “They’re doing other stuff,” Jensen said obliquely. “Hey Jared -- top three best personal farts. Name ‘em.”

Jared’s laugh was shocked. “You *are* high,” he said, almost affectionately.

Jensen’s grin split his face in response, bright and crazy and fond. “See you in five,” he said by way of farewell, and they hung up.

***

Jared hadn’t been to Tom and Jamie’s house before, but it was just what he might have imagined - two-storey stucco, neat green lawn, and a golden retriever woofing at the front door when Jared knocked. He half-expected Jamie or Tom to open the door looking well-groomed and polite and adult and twenty other things Jared rarely was, but instead, it was just Jensen and the dog who greeted Jared.

“Hey, come in a sec, I gotta grab my jacket,” said Jensen, waving Jared in out of the wet cold. “Still pissing down, huh? Most fucking depressing city in the known universe.”

Jared stepped into the front entrance, wiping his shoes on the mat and shaking raindrops out of his overlong hair as he absently stroked the dog’s ears. “Where’s the lord of the manor?” he asked, squeaking two steps into the foyer before remembering it was stupid Canada and he was supposed to take his shoes off.

“Um,” said Jensen unhelpfully, five paces ahead already. Jared took a few long steps to catch up but stopped short as they entered the living room, which didn’t look anything like the prim exterior of the house. It was messy, strewn with pieces of scripts, beer bottle caps, and -- huh. Clothes. Jensen seemed a bit lost in the drift of clothing, in fact, picking up one thing after another, presumably in search of his coat.

“This is nice,” Jared said. “I’m guessing the wife is away?”

Jensen nodded, kicking aside a pair of long-legged jeans that looked like they might fit Jared.

“And Tom and Michael?” Jared prompted yet again, but Jensen was either far more stoned than he’d seemed at first, or he was inexplicably reluctant to answer. Jared rolled his eyes and flopped into an armchair to wait, lolling his head back and sighing.

And then held his breath, because --

That was a definite thumping noise, coming from the ceiling overhead.

A distinctive kind of thumping noise.

And really, there was no mistaking it when it was being accompanied by increasingly loud male cries.

“Oh,” said Jared, and listened more. He didn’t know either Michael or Tom very well, but their voices were pretty different and he thought he was hearing the sound of television’s Lex Luthor taking it up the ass.

Jensen’s face was interesting -- not one to blush, not Jenny, but his jaw was tense and he was moving faster, trying to find his jacket like he was on a schedule, like there was a deadline. Jared watched, torn between amusement and a weird variety of arousal, but he couldn’t tell if he was more interested in the too-vivid images evoked by the sounds from upstairs, or in the elastic energy of Jensen trying to pretend that nothing was happening.

“Here, man,” said Jared, taking pity on him at last. “Just wear this for now, I’ve got enough layers on underneath.” And he unzipped his jacket and tugged it off, rolling it into a taut ball before pitching it at Jensen’s bent-over ass.

Jensen turned around when the jacket hit him and plucked the denim bundle up from the floor. It was a little big through the shoulders, long in the arms, and when Jensen looked up at Jared again, his expression was the same as he got whenever the director told him to get up on an apple box so he’d be closer to Jared’s height.

It only stayed that way for about three seconds though, before Jensen’s eyes dropped down from Jared’s face to his body, and the gaze turned hot and focused and not at all dissimilar to the noises Michael was making.

“What?” Jared asked, deeply uneasy all of a sudden. He hunched his shoulders reflexively and pulled the hood up on his sweatshirt, trying for bored coolness with the added bonus of hiding his reddening cheeks. This had to be some kind of fake-out on Jensen’s part, and Jared wasn’t going to fall for it.

But Jensen’s look didn’t change, only intensified. “You’re wearing a hoodie,” he said, and his voice was about fifteen degrees warmer than Jared had ever heard it.

“So what?” said Jared. “It’s cold outside.”

Jensen blinked twice, his intense gaze finally breaking away. “I just -- *damn*.” And then Jensen was walking closer, and then he was straddling Jared’s lap, pushing the hood back and carding his fingers through Jared’s messy hair, he was tilting Jared’s chin back and leaning in and --

“Yeah, yeah, *fuck*,” shouted Michael ten feet above them, and the bed’s frame slammed faster and faster.

And Jensen opened his mouth slowly on Jared’s, a kiss so chaste and small that it took Jared about two seconds to even believe it was happening. And then it all got even better, hot tongue and slick lips and Jensen leaning down to -- christ, *sniff* at Jared’s neck, at his sweatshirt, and it shouldn’t be hot but it was.

“What the hell?” Jared asked, but he was too turned on to sound anything like angry. Jensen’s nose had freckles when you got up close, it turned out. Under his eyes, too, and Jared kissed the soft skin just beneath before drawing back to await Jensen’s answer.

Above them, the bed had stopped thumping and Michael had gone quiet, and now Jared could hear the soft counterpoint of his own breath with Jensen’s, the silence of the living room and the open-wide space of possibility that surrounded the two of them. Jensen was looking at Jared’s mouth, licking his own lips and stroking one thumb over Jared’s jaw line.

“I like it better when it’s just you and me,” said Jensen at last.

Jared’s smile was goofy and reflexive. “You just can’t get enough of me,” he teased, and tilted his face up, ready for another kiss.

Ready for wherever Jensen wanted to take him.

***

Epilogue

“Hey, look at this,” whispered Michael, and Tom poked his head around the edge of the doorway too, resting his chin on Michael’s fuzzy scalp. Jensen and Jared, tangled up on the couch, Jensen’s shirt off and Jared flopped across his bare chest, both of them sound asleep.

Tom smiled and shook his head, pulling Michael back into the kitchen, away from temptation and whatever wicked tricks Michael was thinking of playing on the hapless duo. This was the first time this had happened, he and Michael spending the night together, waking up together, and it was surprisingly comfortable.

“They’re new at this,” said Tom as he measured coffee into the percolator. “Be nice.”

Michael hopped up to sit on the counter and drummed his heels against the cupboard doors, too energetic for a guy who’d barely gotten any sleep and who’d only been properly awake for about five minutes.

“You’re hyper,” Tom observed, pouring in the water and flicking the switch before shifting over to stand between Michael’s knees.

“I’m new at this, too,” said Michael casually, meaning mornings after, and Tom brushed a kiss onto the smooth place between Mike’s eyebrows.

“Okay,” Tom said, abruptly businesslike, pushing off the counter and heading for the cupboard to get a couple of coffee mugs. “Say you die and go to heaven and it’s just like you would want it to be, except you have to ride the bus from place to place. Because heaven’s environmentally friendly. Would you stay?”

Michael frowned with thought, chewing on his lower lip. “Can you car-pool instead?”

“No, only buses,” Tom answered soberly.

“So it’s buses for all eternity or hellfire?”

“Yep.”

“Can’t we play the ‘things that shouldn’t taste like beef’ game?” asked Michael, hopefully.

“Buses or hell?” Tom pressed, brooking no opposition, and Michael groaned theatrically at his resolve.

Tom smiled to himself as Michael began to deliberate out loud. Outside the window, rain was pouring down in buckets. It was a low-skied wet-sock kind of day.

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