SPN J2 AU fic: Green Means Go (Epilogue)

[electricalgwen]

Masterpost

Epilogue

There’s a knock on their bedroom door.

“You decent?” Mike says, poking his head around before they have a chance to answer. “We’re about to broadcast the instructions out worldwide. Wanna come watch?”

“Give us two minutes,” Jensen grumbles.

“Pants optional!” Mike says, disappearing again.

“Don’t traumatize Sandy!” Jared yells after him.

They join the others in the office a few minutes later. Jensen’s eyes are gritty and he needs coffee, but he’s not going to miss this historic moment. Mike’s typing away at the ComNet connection, eyes gleaming. Misha is running through a series of poses on the newly repaired futon.

Sandy looks at the large canvas on the wall above Misha. “What on earth is that supposed to be?”

“It’s art,” Jared says. “Misha painted it the other day. He says it’s an abstract representation of the intersection between the animal and the divine.”

“Weird,” says Sandy. “I like the blue, but that bit over there looks like an ass print.”

“Very perceptive of you,” Jensen says.

“Who’s got a timer?” Mike says. “The system’s going to come down on this one fast; I’m sending it to some high-level addresses. I figure we have thirty seconds before the mask fails.”

“What?” Sandy says. “That’s ridiculous. Who installed that?”

“Me,” Mike says, “and let me tell you, thirty seconds is pretty impressive against…”

“That’s your problem,” Sandy says, already crawling under the desk. “You do realize you have your actual tech agent in house now, right?”

She unplugs Mike’s blocker, fiddles with it a few seconds, swaps a couple of switches and hooks the cables back up in a slightly different arrangement. “Good to go. Take as long as you want.”

Mike stares for a moment, then folds his hands in front of himself and bows low.

“You’re welcome,” she says. Jensen doesn’t blame her for sounding a bit smug.

“What’s it called?” Misha says.

“What’s what called?”

Misha waves a free hand. “It. The cube. What’s it called?”

They all stare blankly.

“He’s right,” Sandy says. “It needs a good name.”

“This isn’t a marketing campaign,” Jensen says. “It works. Who cares what it’s called?”

“People care,” Misha says. “We’re funny that way.”

“Besides,” Jared says, “we want to sound cool in the history books.”

“We can call it M-Power,” Mike says brightly.

“No you can’t,” says Jared, “I veto that. It’s Jensen’s secret, he gets to name it.”

“Actually, I think that’s a pretty good name,” Jensen says. “Snappy.”

“Huh,” says Jared. “I keep forgetting you’re brain damaged.”

“And you’re dating me,” Jensen retorts.

“I’m not sure staying in bed all day counts as dating,” Mike says. “I think you need to go out somewhere at least once to qualify.”

“We went out,” Jared says. “Two days ago.”

“Beer and grocery runs don’t qualify either,” Mike says. “Okay. Here we go.”

He presses the link.

There’s no good reason for Jensen to hold his breath and watch the screen, as the data scrolls out into the ether. But he does.

He’s a secret agent. He just changed the world. He has no idea what happens next.

That’s pretty fucking cool.

The trouble with saving the world is that it tends to be not so much a one-time event as a lifelong commitment.

Still. It does come with some perks.

Jared blinks up at the blinding sky. Timing is critical here.

He decides he’s been on his back long enough, and rolls over to get some sun on his shoulder blades. Attention to detail, that’s what makes a perfect tan.

“So, I heard from Jeff,” he says.

“Yeah?” Jensen adjusts his sunglasses. “Why, does he want somebody dead?”

“Probably no deaths. Some well-deserved beatings, maybe.” Jared grins. “But I might get to kill Tom Welling.”

“Bloodthirsty,” Jensen says mildly. “You don’t have to avenge me. I’m fine.”

Jared doesn’t respond to this, because he knows that Jensen is not a damsel who needs rescuing and does not like to be thought of that way, but he also knows that one of these days he is going to kill Tom Welling.

When the opportunity presents itself. He’s in no rush to get off this beach where Jensen is mostly naked next to him, getting more freckled by the minute despite SPF of one-fifty or something.

He props himself up on one elbow. “The Republic’s pretty well stabilized now. With the oil company influence out of the way, the more liberal faction’s got the upper hand for now, and it’s a couple of years before the elections. Jeff figures they’re all set, gonna push through the reforms they’ve been talking about.”

“Maybe,” Jensen says, “but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Anyway, he says they don’t need him, and he wants a new challenge. He’s never liked what’s been happening in Utah. Figures it’s time for a change.”

“Do you?”

“In Utah? Sure,” Jared says.

“I mean, in general,” Jensen says. “You wanna go on doing this stuff?”

Jared doesn’t know how to take that question. He sits up. “Uh. I guess?”

“It’s just…” Jensen sits up too, folding his arms around his knees. “You don’t have to. You’ve been risking yourself a long time. If you’re burned out, or, you know, bored or whatever. We don’t have to.”

Jared frowns. He loves his job, but he doesn’t want to push Jensen into something Jensen’s not keen on. “Dude. Are you saying you’d rather not? Because I get that this is kind of a weird life.” He pushes a hand through his hair. “I just – I don’t really know what I’d do with myself. How to have a ‘normal’ life.”

Jensen’s already shaking his head vigorously. “Hey. No!” He reaches out, grips Jared’s arm. “I had a normal life, and you know what?” He grins. “In retrospect, it was boring as hell. This is exactly what I wanna be doing.”

Jared leans over and hugs him, because that’s exactly what Jared wants to be doing now.

A few minutes later, Jensen says, “So why do you think Tom Welling’s there?”

“He’s a right-wing douchebag who needs a job,” Jared says. “I bet you a blowjob he’s working there, for someone.”

“Giving or receiving?” Jensen inquires.

“Whatever,” Jared says, and they both grin, because really, it’s not like they need an excuse.

“You’re on,” Jensen agrees.

“I could teach you some tricks in that department, too,” Jared says with a straight face.

“Yeah?” says Jensen. “Bet they were all mine to begin with.”

“You’ll never know,” Jared says.

Jensen’s quiet for a minute.

“You don’t care if I never remember?” he says finally.

Jared laughs. “Are you kidding? This way you don’t remember all the dumb shit I pulled when I was young and clueless. It’s like a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

He watches a muscle clench and release in Jensen’s jaw.

“Quit thinking stupid stuff,” he says, leaning over and kissing him.

“You say the sweetest things,” Jensen grumbles. “Jerk.”

“Yeah,” says Jared. “I love you too.”


the end

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ETA July 2011: This story now has a prequel! Black Flag Over Texas tells the story of how Jensen and Jared first met.


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