FIC: Of Your Desire

[nilchance]

Title: Of Your Desire
Author: nilchance
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Renee Walker (OFC)
A/N: Sequel to If Bird or Devil. Teenaged hormones and het. I have SHAME.



Texas, 1996

"It's not the end of the world," Jensen says, and pushes his glasses up. "I can help. It's easy."

Renee grunts and lights another cigarette.

The old tree is really too small for them now. It has been since Jensen grew about two feet overnight and Renee sprouted tits. That doesn't stop them. It has a crook that fits her right, lets her dangle over it like the black jungle cats she's seen on TV. She doesn't tell Jensen about the knot in that branch that hits her between the thighs. He'd probably get a nosebleed.

Jensen can't climb up anymore. The branches groan under his weight. But that's all right, he sits on the ground.

"Enjoy your lung cancer," Jensen says under his breath, and swats up at her as she drops ashes on him. "Anyway. English."

"Fuck English," Renee says. "Fuck high school. I'll get my GED."

Jensen ignores her, and she doesn't blame him. "You need to read a few sonnets and write a paper by Monday. That's nothing."

"Write it for me," she suggests. Rocking idly against the branch, she swings her foot down to hit him in the head. He dodges without looking up. It's an old routine, and she's bored with it. She's bored with their stupid town, the boys with their clumsy hands and the girls who call her a slut because she likes black eyeliner. A few more years of this and she'll become a cliche of herself, when a thousand compromises makes her into her mother.

Frowning up at her, Jensen says with typical geek outrage, "I'm not writing it for you. You wouldn't learn anything."

Renee huffs out a breath and takes another sip off her cigarette. She doesn't like the taste as much as the attention she gets, but hey, at least she's honest about it. "Why is everybody crazy about Shakespeare anyway? Overrated hack."

Sometimes she says shit just to get Jensen riled. He's pretty like that. Poor guy's the prettiest one in town, all green eyes and lush mouth and freckles, skinny hips and pianist hands. Half the girls in school want to get in his pants but he's oblivious, too busy ducking his head and reading his books. Renee remembers sharing grape juice with him and punching the boys who shoved him off of swings. He's like her brother, her wicked-smart drama nerd of a brother. It should make her feel filthy at night, when she's got one hand circling, thinking about his mouth on her, thinking of how he'd blush. It only makes her wetter.

Jensen's eyes go sharp and he points up at her, real stern. "Shakespeare isn't overrated. Putting aside the fact that he's lasted this long, all he writes is sex and violence. Half these sonnets are addressed to his underaged boyfriends. I mean, Marlow's still better, but--"

"Whoever that is," she says, like she doesn't know.

Jensen actually sputters.

Shifting a little, Renee catches him before he can go off on a rant. She tries to sound like some old movie star, all smoky voiced: "So read me the sexy ones, Jensen."

He hesitates, his long fingers on the spine of his textbook. The back of his neck is pale and bare. She wants to touch it and see if it feels as soft as it looks. "You should read them," he says, but it's soft. Half-hearted.

"It's better when you do it," Renee says, and it's so damn wrong to move a little so she can rub against the knot. Her little secret, balmy wet between her thighs while he talks to her. Could she do it like this?

Jensen sighs but opens the book, paging through. It's marked up on the margins with his notes. He pauses on one page, holding it open with two spread fingers. "'Thy b-bosom is...'" Stopping abruptly, Jensen coughs into his fist and turns another page. "Not that one."

"But it has bosoms in it," she teases. "Bosoms are sexy."

The blush creeps up the back of his neck. He coughs again and settles on another poem, resting his fingers on the words. It's dogeared and has notes all over it. His favorite? The sudden intimacy of it creeps up on her, makes her sweat a little. Her cigarette tastes stale now, so she drops it and Jensen automatically grinds it out for her. She drapes an arm over the branch, near her face, and presses her mouth against it. She used to practice kissing like that.

When Jensen speaks again, it's in the voice she knows from drama and from English class. Pitched low and soft, it could be meant for anybody, but he's talking to her tonight. "'Being your slave, what should I do but tend / upon the hours and times of your desire?'"

The words are old, and she could never feel them on her own. Not just ink on a page. But in Jensen's voice, she can feel the longing and the sweetness of it. She grinds lazily against the knot, listening to the rhythm of his words, and feels... she feels good. Desired. It's heady and it's dangerous, this creeping warmth in her belly, coiling like a snake around her spine. She feels dangerous, like she could drop from the tree and pin Jensen to the ground, eating those pretty words out of his mouth.

It's powerful. She's powerful.

"... he thinks no ill.'" The words drain out of Jensen, a hoarse whisper. His spread fingers curl in towards his palm. She can see that he's sweating, too, feverish. She can see him wet his lips, a shy motion that makes her hips jerk cruelly forward, and then he closes the book with a snap. "I should-- it's late."

And she sees. She sees every time they practiced kissing, every look he gave her, every boy she toyed with in front of him. Every girl he turned down. For her, it was for her.

Renee sits up, and she can smell herself, ripe like a fruit. Swinging her leg over the branch, she drops in front of Jensen and stands over him. His lowered head is so close to her, and some wild urge in her says to grab him and press his face there, where she's hottest. Instead, she says, "Hey."

"Don't." That one word is dangerous. Not her little brother, no, a bristling male anger. "I don't want to hear it, whatever you're gonna say."

"What if I'm saying yes?"

"Leave me a little fucking dignity, just this once--" Jensen stops and raises his head to blink at her. "Yes?"

"Yes, I said." Renee kneels beside him. The tree, their tree, is hidden enough from view. Their little secret. Reaching out, she takes his hands off his book. He trembles in her grip and that's a high as sweet as honey. "Yes," she repeats, and eases his hands up under her shirt. They're cold and rougher than she thought. Her breath shudders out, and he looks at her, wonder in his eyes. Her cupped hands close around his, trapping them to her breasts, and she says, "Yes."

Comments

[spae.livejournal.com]

Well even your threat of het couldn't override the fact that it's you writing ... and so it had to be read. And - not scary at all! With writing like this I could get over my het phobia (which arrived with the advent of Mary-Sue).

Oh Jensen ... half the town wet for you and you're oblivious. (And oh where did this romantic boy go, to become the driven cynic flirting with death that we were first introduced to?)

I might be missing a hefty clue in pages past, but how much older than him is she? She seems to waver between much older and same age ... is that meant to imply just girlish maturity?

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

*beam* Thank you!

Renee's a little older than him, but less than a year. They were in the same grade at this point.

[hucknclem.livejournal.com]

That was sweet and sad and sexy, all at the same time. I love Rene lounging in the tree, and Jensen worrying she wouldn't learn anything, LOL. And you wrote Jensen so beautifully; as if that crush needed any help! Thanks for this; I really enjoyed the backstory. :)

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[poisontaster]

I love pieces like this, fractal, seedling microcosms that echo and reveal so much about the larger issues, the personalities, the conflicts. Even from Renee's perspective, the sense of Jensen's huge, hopeless love is so strong, perfuming everything.

[lomer.livejournal.com]

I have totally done that sonnet as a monologue. *g* It's a great one and a perfect choice for this!

I love seeing younger, more innocent Jensen. He's so feral later on and almost all we hear about Renee is from Jeff who was her dom, so it's surprising that she's the one who makes the advances here. I always imagined that Jensen initiated. I love being surprised though. *g*

[deathangelgw.livejournal.com]

rawr...nice...hehehe

[qwertypoiuq.livejournal.com]

Oh, Jensen. This was lovely and heartbreaking and hot. Great combination!

[bathsweaver.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, this is such a sweet, but reading it breaks my heart a litte, knowing what comes after. And Jensen forgot to mention how Shakespeare's sonnets are also obsessed with aging and lovers' time running out.

[embroiderama]

She feels dangerous, like she could drop from the tree and pin Jensen to the ground, eating those pretty words out of his mouth.

Nnnnnnnnnggh. Wow!

[gypsy-atavari.livejournal.com]

God, reading this hurts so good.

[vinylroad.livejournal.com]

This was wonderful. I hope there's more :)

[mona1347.livejournal.com]

The words are old, and she could never feel them on her own.

WOW. Dude, THAT is GORGEOUS. Just. Wow.

And ya know, whatever, underaged het, tree-sex, Shakespearean poetry, shame, etc, etc... *handwave and sparkly grin* (I LOVE YOU MORE THAN PIE.) But that phrase right there is poetry.

[doctor-dorothy.livejournal.com]

This made me so sad -- knowing how it all ends, for her anyways. I'm glad you humanized the victim; now I want some justice for her, too!

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

I really like that we get to see this from Renee's pov and particularly this sweet interlude but shaded by what's coming--Renee, a real girl with a powerful and growing awareness of her own needs, and a much more innocent, completely romantic, and deeply in love Jensen. Only someone who was that idealistic can get that deeply bitter and undone. Oh kids!

[azephirin.livejournal.com]

I loved this.

[ysbail.livejournal.com]

Oh, he was an innocent wasn't he? And she was his passion - his childhood, his first, and probably only, love.

Such a tragedy he had to lose her. Such a tragedy she did things that allowed his loss.

[gretazreta.livejournal.com]

Mmm lovely.
You can see in this all the seeds of everything that went right and went wrong between them. And the tension and the heat (lit and fig) so tangible here.

[cream-fudge.livejournal.com]

Fucking Christ!
I dunno who's hotter. Shy, geeky, adorable Jensen or sexy, slutty, wonderful Renee. Mmmh, ignoring the fact that I'm probably hopelessly het... (well, I guess everybody's a little bi more or less)

Thank you so much for this amazingly romantic backstory! Not that I loved the character of Jensen already enough - now it gains a painful state.

Sheesh this part has so much innocense in it, which made me all sad as I know their fate.
Lovely, hun.

[hederahelix.livejournal.com]

I've read a lot of fic. I adored this fic before you got to this part. I did. I adored it so much I was trying to read the whole thing a few times to come up with a suitable bit of feedback to express how much I loved so much of what you did.

But this?

This was flat out brilliant.

This is the kind of female character that the show itself cannot handle. You've crammed foreshadowing of so much of what's to come later in here, but it doesn't come off as foreshadowing--more, well, more that these are young-enough versions of those later people that these versions don't realize how much they are giving away, which is so incredibly true of high school-aged teenagers.

Loved it.

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Makes me think interesting thoughts about their power dynamics, for starters...Renee may only be "less than a year" older than Jensen, but she does seem ages older in cynicism. Town bad girl-with a trampy mom whom she's afraid of turning into? Sex as power, and she uses the symbols of it with awareness (the cigarettes, eyeliner, and allowing heavy petting, at least, to those "boys with their clumsy hands")...does she actually enjoy any of it, or is it the thrill of the control itself that turns her on? And what does that say about her past and future relationship with Jensen, if that's true-and she decides to stop pushing his buttons and turn to other games? That she cares for him deeply is obvious, but...hmm.

How accurately does he see her, I wonder? They've known each other a long time...Is he truly as besotted as he seems? Or is she "safe" for him, so he doesn't need to explore any unfocused needs?

I think it's worse, in a way, that they *did* grow up together. Jensen is grieving not just for his wife and lover, but for a friend who was a long and important part of his life and childhood memories. I doubt there's much he can look back on that didn't have Renee in it.


I'm hoping that was profound and shit. I'm hungry and all I can think of is pizza. :D

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

You nailed Renee in a heartbeat. She's kinda based on a girl I knew in Catholic school all grown up, hairspray and leather jacket and attitude, poor with a single mom she loves and hates by equal measure. Unhealthy attitude towards sex and commitment, obviously. Renee needed to have years of exploration before she married, to get her head straight, but she married right out of college. So she cheated. Frequently.

Jensen THINKS he's besotted with her. He loves the idea of her, certainly. He was her best friend. And marrying her allowed him to follow the default relationship pattern: high school sweethearts, straight monogamous marriage, kids and a white picket fence. He didn't WANT to explore; he was afraid of what he'd find.

Again, thank you! I love talking this out. And I hope you got your pizza. ;)

wild-eyed speculation, here

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

So Renee acted out sexually, and frequently, expressing her issues...and Jensen *didn't* act out, at all, hiding his. It seems to me they're coming from a similar place, using different methods.

We know a little something about Renee's background. I wonder...what is Jensen's family like? What is making him so afraid to face what he wants? Because, true, for anyone to come out, there's going to be some fear, some denial or working out *what* they want, etc...but for such a smart man, he's...too afraid? And that is likely to come from not just school/church/society, but from within the family...*eyes you with speculation*


I *did* get my pizza, thank you. :D

Re: wild-eyed speculation, here

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

I think Jensen's family was aggressively normal, in that Texas way. Backyard barbeques. Church on Sunday. Spare the rod. I think he may not have wanted to disappoint them, because hell, his parents were so happy together living like this. There was nothing wrong with it. Why try to fix what wasn't broken? Never quite understanding that one mold doesn't fit all people. He may not have even MET an openly gay person until college. Before that it was all "art fag" cracks at school, and his dad dragging him away from the books to toss the ball around. A sense of disappointing his parents anyway for going into academia rather than a working class industry. That unspoken fear of the unusual; nobody ever TALKED about diversity. "I don't care if a person's blue" secretly hiding a sense that different was alien and wrong.

Re: wild-eyed speculation, here

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Non-conformity in a very conformative group *can* be extremely alienating! Class differences are just as pernicious a problem as any other -ism, but less recognized as such. There's a real and deep divide between intellectuals and non, too-contempt in many cases on the one part, and suspicion on the other.

Add to that the masculine tendency to not talk about things, anyway, and there you go.

[aerynsun5.livejournal.com]

I guess that black eyeliner does make you slutty. I can just see Jensen, blushing and catching his breath.

You are good, girlie.