Suspended Harmonies, Part Three
He wandered around the campus for hours. He wasn’t ready to go home, but he couldn’t go back to where Jensen was. Just the thought of watching Jensen listen to an old lover sing him a love song filled Jared with anger and defeat. So he just walked and thought. He remembered Sandy and how much she had wanted to have a life with him. The rational part of him recognized that she’d had other issues that fed into her depression. He knew he hadn’t caused her downward spiral, but he felt like he’d been the key that ignited the engine. After an hour or so, he found himself outside a small dive near his apartment. It was a gay bar-complete with drag shows, hidden pleasure rooms, and many many young beautiful men. He went in and sat at the bar, ordering drink after drink.
“Jared?”
He turned and saw Matt standing next to him. He must’ve been on his fourth… tenth drink, he’d lost count. Matt looked as gorgeous as ever, as he took the seat next to him. It’d been over a month since he had seen the guy…the night before he and Jensen broke up. The thought of Jensen, and then Chris and Jensen, pissed him off so he muttered, “Fuck him.”
“Who?” Matt asked smiling.
“Nevermind. Nobody. So how’s the acting going?” That led to an hour discussion about Matt’s play and the gossip around the two lead actresses and their tawdry affair. Jared was bored, but he kept looking at Matt and wondering what it would feel like to bend the man over the nearest chair and fuck him until he couldn’t stand.
He reached out and grabbed Matt’s ass, squeezed it, and then nodded towards the backroom. “You wanna?”
Matt smiled widely. “Hell yeah, been wanting to since I saw you at that first event back in September.”
“Good, let’s do this then.” Jared got up and didn’t wait, expecting Matt to follow. He hadn’t been in here before, so he just went by instinct and found an empty corner in one of the back bars. It was dimly light, almost dark and there weren’t many people around.
Matt groaned as Jared’s hand moved down, cupping his hip and shifting them in the small space. Jared leaned over him, laying his chest against Matt’s back. He pushed Matt into the wall, massaging the tight muscles of his lower back. He rubbed the heel of his hand into the dip of his spine, making small circles that led lower until he let his finger tip tease the small round muscle he was seeking.
What had begun slow, suddenly turned urgent as skin slid against skin. All the while, Matt echoed his need and desire with harsh breaths. “Do it.” He growled and bit into Jared’s upper arm. But there was a distance in Jared, a sense that he was watching this happen rather than feeling it happen. He watched his hand slide over Matt’s hard cock, felt his own rub against a denim clad thigh. It was so mechanical, and he cursed. Matt seemed to get off even harder. As Jared let out a stream of curses, Matt’s body tightened and then he spilled over Jared’s hand. Jared detachedly felt his own orgasm hit and soak his jeans. But in that moment, he realized his mistake and had his epiphany.
He could live without sex all of the time…he just couldn’t imagine life without Jensen.
He didn’t say a word as Matt zipped himself up and didn’t respond when Matt asked to dance. Jared simply turned and walked away, wondering what other failures he was bound to meet come morning.
*******
After showering, Jared laid in bed clutched by panic over Jensen and his life and his education. His project for Misha was due in two weeks, and he had yet to finalize what he wanted to do. Finally, not getting any sleep, he moved to get up and that’s when he saw the book of poetry Jensen had left behind.
All of a sudden, Jared knew. He knew what he wanted to build, what he wanted to make.
Early the next morning, he hurried to campus with the materials he had and reserved a workshop room in the engineering department. Because so many students were working on projects at the same time, Jared had to trot out his charm and his flexibility-late night reservations-to guarantee he could use the tools and space he needed. He was lucky that the department allowed the senior students to reserve the rooms for projects. He carried the rest of his materials in over the weekend and began drawing the sketches. He checked out books that would help him in designing the item. When he got to the department’s building and his reserved space, the hall filled with the sounds of cutting, shaving, sanding, and other echoes of work.
Jared felt good as he worked. It was the first time in a long while that he felt the adrenaline of creating something rush through him. He took the sketches and laid them out as he designed and built.
Late on Sunday he was in the middle of a particularly delicate stage in building so he hadn’t answered his phone for a long time, even as it rung again and again. Finally, he checked to see that Chad had called over ten times. Fearing there was something wrong, he called back immediately. Chad’s irritated voice greeted him.
“Come home and get your drunk ass boyfriend out of our apartment.”
Jared laughed. “What?”
“Your drunk boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or ex-friend with no fucking benefits…is now sitting in our living room waxing poetic about your goddamn body and your dick. Which by the way, I never need to know about.”
Chad sighed. “No, Jensen. You can’t sleep in his bed! I don’t care if it smells like him! You’re a creeper, man!”
“Chad. Just let him go in there,” Jared told him.
“Get home now,” Chad ordered and hung up.
Jared looked down at his work and sighed. He was just about to start the hard part and needed all the time he could get. But he pushed his protective glasses up on his head and started getting ready to go home.
A half hour later, he was standing in the doorway to his bedroom and trying not to laugh at Jensen laid out on his bed.
He jostled Jensen awake. “Hey man, you better get up so I can make the bed.”
“No,” Jensen protested. “It smells like my Jared.”
“Your Jared?”
Jensen peered up at him through blurred eyes. “Yeah, my Jared. Will you be my Jared?”
“Jensen.” Jared sighed and sat down on the bed next to him. “Let’s just let you get sober and then we can have this talk okay?”
Jensen spooned his body around Jared’s leg, holding tight against his thigh. “I’ll do what you want,” Jensen whispered into his jean leg. “I’ll make love to you every day, I promise.” He walked his fingers up the inside of Jared’s thigh, moving fast towards his crotch. Jared put his hand over the wandering fingers.
“Don’t,” Jared told him and ran his fingers through Jensen’s short hair. “Sober up and let’s talk, okay? I have stuff I need to say.”
“No talking.” Jensen pulled Jared down and kissed him long and hard. It was the most erotic kiss he had ever felt, and he wanted to fall into the feeling but they couldn’t fix this with sex. In fact, sex would be the most terrible decision they could make..
“Later,” Jared murmured as he pulled away.
“Sleep with me,” Jensen pleaded. “I miss you in my bed. I miss your body.”
“And Chad wants you to never discuss my body in public again, just so you know,” Jared scolded as he kicked off his shoes.
“He’s a prude,” Jensen complained and Jared guffawed.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
They settled in. and Jared admitted that he had missed this more than anything-just being with Jensen, holding him as they fell to sleep.
Later, Jared woke up and reached out, only to find Jensen gone. . He hurried out, hoping that Jensen hadn’t left the apartment, but he encountered Chad instead.
“Hungover, ex-friend with no sexing left this morning with shame and humiliation clinging to him. I’d ask if you had a good time, but apparently you can regret things other than bad sex.”
“Chad, stop.”
“What? True fax.” Chad made a peace sign to underline his point. Jared responded with his middle finger.
Jared tried to call Jensen, but it went straight to voicemail. He wanted to talk to him, but the project needed his full attention, as did his last assignment for Morgan’s class. He sighed and hoped that Jensen would be more reachable after the week passed.
*****
After days of working on the project, Jared was just about to begin the final stages when Misha found him in the storeroom.
“Hey, Jared.” Misha walked into the room and walked around as Jared set down his box of items.
“Not Katherine?” Jared asked as he took a container of turpentine out and began removing some rags.
“You’re more like an Indie Brad Pitt/Joseph Gordon Levitt hybrid now. I’ll figure out a name at some point. I’m just ruminating now.” Misha smiled slightly as he looked down at Jared’s project. He whistled in appreciation at the almost finished guitar.
“This is beautiful,” he said as he ran his finger along the spine. “Baroque?”
“Yeah, from the late eighteenth century. I found some books at the library and just went from there.”
“Does it work?”
Jared put his hand out before Misha could touch the body, “Not right now. I have work left to do on it and the varnish is still delicate.”
Misha must have noticed the tools in his hand at that point. “What are you planning to do?” They both knew this was built for one person and one person only.
“You’ll see,” Jared promised and then shooed his professor out the door. “All in good time, my friend.”
*******************
Jared kept trying to get a hold of Jensen, but as the semester wound down, his workload picked up. He had one final essay for Morgan. He wrote it over the next week, trying to pour everything he learned from Jensen and from Morgan into the work. He looked at it one final time before hitting the send button on his email. Morgan had asked everyone to email the final paper as he was planning to be out of town the week of finals with his now fiancée, Amanda.
After that essay was finished, he grabbed his things and went to his final class for engineering. He was presenting his project today, and he was nervous.
He grabbed the guitar from the workroom and headed to class. He entered and looked at all the other projects. Tam’s work centered on creating a deluxe size engine for a vacuum cleaner, one that would increase suction. Jerry brought his structural engineering background into play and designed a new type of slide for playgrounds. Others had elaborate and mystifying projects, and he could see the pride on Misha’s face as he showed the Dean of Engineering each and every one. Today, Misha was dressed in an understated suit with brilliant pink cufflinks and a bright blue tie.
They made their way to his table, and Jared stood the guitar up on a stand. It was delicately constructed from the plans he had created, and had a dark varnished finish with a bowed neck. The strings were in tune and he had etched out five of Shelley’s poems on the body. Near the strings, the words of “Love’s Philosophy” melted into “An Ode to Intellectual Beauty.” On the back “Music, When Soft Voices Die” danced alongside “Prometheus Unbound” and on the neck, “Ozymandias” made its way down the spine.
“Jared, this is fantastic,” Misha breathed out as the Dean reached out to touch the guitar.
“This is astounding,” the Dean spoke reverently and plucked at the strings. They played through the room with purpose and finely tuned melody.
“Oh my god.”
Jared turned and saw Jensen walk into the room. He hadn’t expected him to be there, but as he looked up he saw that Misha was smiling and knew what or who had brought Jensen there.
“You made this?” Jensen whispered and took the guitar from the Dean’s hands. He gasped when he saw the writing. Jensen had left the volume of Shelley’s work at Jared’s when they had broken up. It was the thing that had inspired Jared to make the guitar.
“I wanted you to have something that no one else would ever have,” Jared whispered, now embarrassed and afraid that Jensen wouldn’t like it or would reject what it meant.
“You did this for me?” Jensen stared at the instrument and everyone in the room fell silent as he strummed the strings, a song emerging from his fingers with ease and skill.
“Who else would love a baroque guitar etched with Shelley poems?” Jared laughed nervously. Tam giggled, and Misha turned to hush her.
“Engineers don’t giggle, Tam.” Misha adjusted his pink cufflinks for emphasis.
Jensen laid the guitar down and grabbed Jared by the back of the neck, pulling him down for a kiss. Everyone in the room erupted in applause, and Jared ignored them as he closed his arms around Jensen’s body.
“I love you,” he whispered into Jensen’s ear after he had pulled away from the kiss. “I love you more than anything in the world.”
“You have all of me, Jared.” Jensen promised and took Jared’s hand to lay it across his heart. “This belongs to no one but you. No one.”
“We still have to talk,” Jared said, and Jensen nodded.
“Yes, but we’ll do it together. Because you’re not leaving me. You’re here for the long haul. We’re gonna build a life together that’s as beautiful as this guitar. You and me against the world…in the world.”
Jared smiled, and he was still clinging to Jensen when Misha leaned over and whispered in his ears, “You passed with flying colors, Katherine. And you got the boy, too.” Misha pulled back and winked as he turned to shoo the other students out.
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?-
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
- “Love’s Philosophy,” Percy Bysshe Shelley
Epilogue:
Jared and Jensen were cleaning out their stuff for the move when Jensen came across an old envelope from Jeff Morgan, addressed to Jared.
“Hey, what’s this?” Jensen asked as he opened it. They’d been together for five years now. Jensen had finished his dissertation over two years ago and-instead of going into academics, had parlayed his experience as the LGBTQ director into a position for the local state representative. He was her speech writer and top researcher for human rights.
Jared laughed as he saw Jensen draw out the paper. “Oh, that was my really emo final exam paper for Morgan. That was during our breakup.”
“Aww, did you miss me?” Jensen teased as he opened the paper. He fell silent as he read.
“I made you a fucking guitar, man. So yeah, I missed you.”
Jared continued packing and left Jensen to his reading. He remembered the paper and was kind of embarrassed by it. He and Jensen had long since moved past any awkward revelations between them, so he thought he would just let Jensen have his amusement in private.
“You’re a beautiful fucker.” Jensen tackled him from behind, and they fell on the bed laughing. Jensen had the paper in his hand, and Jared tried to take it. Jensen held it up and out of reach.
“Don’t you dare,” Jared warned as Jensen scooted back toward the headboard and situated himself. He started to read.
Letters should be written in love, for love. Communication is, by its very nature, one soul reaching out to another. But can we ever guarantee that letters arrive to their intended, full and complete? If I would write a letter to my love, I would write simply this…I love you more than you know and language can never show you what that feeling is. I can recite you poetry. I can build you castles of rock or sand, but really, every act in my life is my love letter to you.
“Okay, I get it. It was bad. Do not even think about correcting my grammar, dude. Or I will bite you in places that will hurt.” Jared wiggled his eyebrows at Jensen, who smirked and continued.
I don’t have a lot to write about the eighteenth century epistolary tradition because I’ll be honest, it just seems like overwrought texting. But I can say that no matter if it’s the eighteenth century, the twenty-first century, or beyond, a letter is just a note in a song we’ll never hear.
“What does that even mean?” Jared laughed at his own writing. “God, I was messed up.”
“Aw, Jared. You were so in wuv with me!” He kissed Jared on the top of the head. “Hey, wait a minute. Did you read the note Morgan left you?”
“No, I’ll be honest. I was just happy to have passed and I was surprised he sent it back to me. I figured everyone got theirs back.”
Jensen shook his head, “Well as Morgan’s former TA, I can guarantee you that not everyone got their final papers mailed back to them.”
“Well what does it say?”
Jensen smiled. “It says, ‘Dear god, Jared. Go get Jensen back and promise me you won’t ever read bad poetry, listen to emo music, and try to write a paper again. Okay? You passed, but just promise to stick to engineering as a profession…Good luck.”
Jared laughed. “I’m gonna tease him so bad when I go to see him and Amanda next week.”
“We’ll bring your paper…” Jensen teased. They fell into each other’s arms, laughing as they playfully tumbled over the unpacked clothes.
Jensen had been right from the start. It was them against and in the world. Together.