(no subject)
Hello, internet!
Guess what I have for yoooooooouuuuuuuu!
Yes, Mishaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Before you read this, watch this. You will see where I'm coming from.
This is part of a series. See my cock rock is balls tag for more.
No hipsters were harmed in the creating of this story, which is a shame.
Knowing better doesn't mean much.
So Misha's minding his own business, as much as he ever does which means he's sending Jim a text message and eating an Icee, and Jensen interrupts this with his scene baggage.
"So we're going to the Echo tonight to see my ex's band..." he lets that dangle for a few seconds. "Wanna come?"
Now Misha is not freshly minted in this life. He knows that he's not really allowed to decline this invitation. Sometimes friendship is a fine balance of shared indulgences and grunt work. "Sure," even as he says it he knows he's consigning himself to a night spent telling himself stories about Grigory the Talking Russian Bear and imagining his companions with mustaches.
"Great!" Jensen seems genuinely thrilled. Jensen's like that sometimes, pure of heart and sweet-natured. Misha has had more than one occasion to wonder how Jensen survives in this industry, if this guy on the phone with him, the one who blushes when people compliment him and earnestly likes his friends' bands, is the fundamental Jensen and the guy who flips people off behind their backs and has a "hit list" is an overlay--that is if at his most realized palimpsest Jensen is a school teacher who sings in the church choir. Everyone's life forks, Misha is still very unsure which fork in Jensen's life lead him to a life that seems very ill-suited to him.
"You're doing that silence thing. I hope you're not building a bomb in your head of something, man." Jensen laughs, easy, free, and Misha answers with his own laughter.
"No, not unless by that mean pondering your inexplicableness."
After a long pause Jensen says "Yeah, you're a weird guy. You'll like this band tonight. I think."
"I like whatever you like, dear," Misha replies. He sucks on his Icee and ponders his laundry situation.
"I'm hanging up now," Jensen declares and does.
"Boo, hiss, Icee, if only you could accompany me into the sluggishly beating heart of Hollyweird tonight, alas, I fear your life is limited to a matter of moments." Misha sighs.
*
Jared arrives in his usual frenetic cloud of elbows and flying hair. He's wearing a cowboy shirt with snaps and the jeans with the frayed hems from him treading on them.
"Where do you find jeans long enough to be too long?" Misha looks up from The Guardian and eyes Jared's flashing teeth and dimples. "I find you deeply suspect when you wear cowboy gear. Before I venture out with you, you must swear to return me in the same state that your found me."
"And if by that you mean really drunk and well fucked then we have a deal." Jared grabs him and waltzes Misha around the room a bit, he's all huge smiles and raw enthusiasm this evening.
Misha goes limp in his arms and affects a pained expression.
"Playin' hard to get?" Jared up close is dazzling, hair curling against his cheek and indeterminately colored eyes, he smells like pot and Downey, a little of chocolate.
"I think you've already caught me," Misha murmurs. Jared guffaws at that, huge booming laughter shattering around the room.
Misha is still waiting to find out if he's falling in love, never really sure about that until too far down the path, usually when he's suddenly aware of falling out again, but Jared is tragically enjoyable either way.
Jared's eyebrows come down into a pondering expression, the smile pulls into his thinking face. "Guess I have, yeah." He sounds ambivalent about that. Yes, getting what you wish for is often loaded. Misha can understand a cautious approach at this juncture, but Misha's intemperate and doesn't make the well-considered decisions for his own life most of the time.
Jared releases him and runs a hand through his hair with the other planted on his hip. "I'm out of the habit of being around people who are smarter than I am. That sounds asshole-y, but there you go." He looks at Misha out of the corner of his eye with his head cocked.
"Why are you convinced I'm the more intelligent party here? Don't mistake quirkiness and an inability to think linearly with intelligence," Misha mimics the hand through the hair gesture and sighs. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but--don't over think this." He immediately laughs at himself.
Jared stares at him with his bottom lip between his teeth. "Goddamn it, dude, you're so fucked up!" Jared's laughing again and reaching out, because he can't keep his hands off people when he's interacting with them, all hands all the time. "So let me lay out the groundwork on this Jensen-Jana situation...once upon a time, Jensen had this spectacularly awesome girlfriend, we will call her Jama..."
"Or we could call her Princess Charlie the Unicorn..." Misha interjects. "Work with me here."
Jared just plows on like Misha didn't say anything. "And because Jensen is a fuck up, he fucked it up. Not how you'd think though. Did he fuck around? No. Did he forget her birthday? No. He has douchebag friends who Jama can't stand who hung around being douchey all the time..."
"Are you making a pointed comment about Chris Pine?"
Jared slaps a hand over Misha's mouth. "And one day Jama had just had enough of these douchey friends and told Jensen to lose her number. He didn't lose her number, of course, because Jensen doesn't know how to move on. And now we're going to tag along as he stalks her."
"I'm fairly certain," Misha says when Jared releases him. "That Jensen has a completely different version of this story in his repertoire."
"And his version is WRONG!" Jared flings himself on the couch. "Get your shoes on, I don't wanna miss a second of this hot mess."
Misha looks down at Jared's sprawled form and Jared is still bright carnelian. "You, sir, need to read Emily Post." Misha wonders if his flip-flops are under the bed.
*
Misha is trying to update his Twitter when Jared snatches the phone out of his hand. "Be here, now. Be present."
This moment crystallizes, spins out into a telescoping sequence of seconds prolonged as Misha looks up at Jared and they make eye contact. This is the first time that Jared has touched directly this fundamental truth of Misha's character--he is always swirling in a cacophony of competing thoughts, meta critiques of the behavior of the people around him, of the decor, of the heaviness or lightness of the air surrounding his physical form. Jared just recognized this truth out loud and asked Misha to focus on this exact experience, to be with Jared in spirit as well as body.
"Yes," Misha replies staring back at Jared. "Yes, I'm here."
Jared hands his phone back, but he's turned it off. "No affairs with Michelle Obama tonight, tune into station reality for a couple hours."
"Fuck you," Misha responds around a laugh. "Mishaworld is waaaay better than the squalor and rapine of the so-called real world."
"Most people fantasize about fucking people, you spend all your time fixing social problems. Give that a couple brain cells at some point..." and with that, Jared tugs Misha to the bar.
At the bar is Zachary Quinto in the flesh. Zach blinks at him from behind his glasses and jabs a hand onto his hip. "Should I address this hallucination?"
"No, I'm real," Misha informs his confused friend.
"We're in the Echo." Zach waves his hand to indicate the room. He has a point there. Misha may have made some intemperate remarks about the Hollywood nightlife previous to falling in with Young Hollywood types.
"The thing about that..." Misha's about to make up a story about parrots, time travel, and national security issues when he hears Jensen over his shoulder.
"Dudes," Jensen's hand slaps him on the back. "You beat me..." he sort of trails off.
"That happens a lot these days," Zach says with a wide smile. "Hi, I know who you are, too, Mr. Ackles. Big fan of Dark Angel." Zach sticks out his hand.
Jensen, as anyone who has spent more than two seconds with him knows, is unflaggingly polite. The handshaking and pleasantries commence. Misha starts to think about the baby hippos on Cuteoverload but Jared's solid weight presses against his side and Misha focuses instead on...
"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!"
Tonight might go down in the Annals of How Things Should Never Happen Again.
Chris is wearing bright red jeans.
"Where do people buy those crayon-colored pants?" Misha asks him.
"Misha Collins, what the FUCK are you doing on Sunset after dark?" Chris has sunglasses on top of his head even though it's nine o'clock at night.
"Hunting vampires?" Misha attempts.
"Leave Misha alone," Zach jabs Chris with his elbow when Chris takes up his point position hanging against Zach's side.
"I think we're holding up the line..." Jared looks forlornly towards the bartender. "Double jack and diet, no ice. Make it two of them," Jared shouts over Zach's head.
More pleasantries--well, as pleasantry as Chris gets--are exchanged to the side of the line as people jostle them, most pretending not to recognize anyone, others taking cameraphone pictures.
The evening officially commences. Misha promises himself to drink enough rapidly to not remember anything the next day. This seems like a good idea at the time, which is what Misha's grave marker is going to read, except with a tense shift.
*
"You, my friend..." Chris has his arm around Misha, that's been going on a while, but the room's become crowded enough that it's actually more comfortable tucked under Chris's arm than knocking into each other in drunk enthusiasm.
Chris doesn't get to finish his words of wisdom because a severely inebriated young woman wearing a bright blue and pink shirt and what appears to be no pants crashes into them. Misha reaches out to steady her and Chris careens into a stack of speakers.
"Oh shit!" the young woman declares.
"Yes, pretty much," Misha's laughing, still holding the her arms. "Are you ok?" They're in a lull while one band has finished and another is setting up.
Chris pops back up with a huge grin on his face, a bruise already blooming on his forehead. "Dude, I almost got knocked the fuck out at a shitty Echo show by a girl with no pants on!" His laughter spins around them, golden like the rest of him, the color of wheat or quality beer.
The young woman looks at Chris, throws her hands up to her face, and starts laughing, too. "Oh. My. God." That's all she says before she unsteadily flees the scene of the crime.
Chris watches her scamper away. "Hey, I'm so ugly women run the fuck away from me? Naw, must be you, because I'm fucking famous and shit."
"Are you claiming I frighten people? I could stand to frighten a whole lot more people, I'll have you know--starting with the staff at Fred 62."
Chris wraps his arms around Misha and hugs him into submission. Chris is one of those drunks, hugs and "I love you, man"s. Misha prefers hugs over punches to the face, so that works out for both of them. Particularly since Misha always ends up with Chris in tow when they go out. How that works out, he's unsure.
Misha sees at least three people unsubtly take cameraphone pictures of them. "I've never been on Perez Hilton, this should be fun."
Chris laughs harder, hugs him tighter. "Could slip you some tongue..." Chris winks at him.
Misha can't decide if he should say "Go ahead" or "Please refrain."
The drumkit kicks to life and someone shouts into the mic "WHO THE FUCK ARE ALL OF YOU PEOPLE?"
A very good question, rocker.
*
Misha knows the moment the whole shebang unravels and becomes too Hollywood to bear--when he first spies Kristen Bell.
*
Jensen is down to his t-shirt, so sweaty he's wiping his face with the balled up button-up in his hand. "Dude," the smile on his face is so pure, so open, that Misha really hopes no freaks turn up to ruin this. By freaks he means fans. "They KILLED!"
They're standing outside of the venue in the requisite California mall environment as Jensen smokes. Jared is typically AWOL. Chris is also smoking near-by, screaming into his phone about weed.
"Hey, Chris!" Jensen propels a bottle cap in Chris's direction and Chris looks over with raised eyebrows. "Just grab Jared, man, he's always holdin'."
Chris approaches, easy swagger and flip-flops smacking lewdly. He walks with a swing to his hips. Everything Chris does has a vague texture of a lingering dirty joke about it. Misha loves that about him. Chris is completely and totally the guy who can always be counted on to deliver the "I fucked your mom" joke. And most people wouldn't really mind at the end of the day if he really had.
"Yeah?" Chris slithers to a halt next to them. "He's a sharing kind of guy?"
"Especially his crabs." Misha can't believe he just said that. And at the same time, he thinks it's completely hilarious that he did. He commences to laugh at his own joke while Chris joins in and Jensen stares at them with his quizzical expression #3.
"Not only are you here, but you're cracking wise about STDs? That should've probably been a herpes joke. Not harshin' your technique, but...yes I am." Chris lights a cigarette off the ember of the one he smashes out.
"Chris is the expert in bad sex jokes," Misha explains to Jensen.
"Is that so?" Jensen says because he's polite.
"You're polite." Misha says.
Chris almost falls to the ground when he starts to laugh.
"We're drunk," Misha informs Chris.
"YOU DO NOT FUCKING SAY!" Chris shouts back.
This, sadly, is the moment when they're approached by a group of ladies who are also drunk and Misha misses the beginning of the exchange because he's looking through the contacts in his phone to see if he has the number to a cab service in there, but he gets the overall impression they're Jensen's fans not Chris's.
"Alright," Jensen says when he's asked to pose for a picture. He smiles his uneasy fan smile and Misha has vast, deep pity for him.
"This is not cool," Chris says with violence in his tone. Misha knows Chris can be a brawler. He looks Chris over, but he's not exactly the best candidate to assess the threat level.
"Jensen's used to it..." Misha goes for placating, even if his instinct is to ask these people why they think this is appropriate himself.
They are "saved" from this situation by an unlikely source. Jana, the ex-girlfriend.
The door to the venue bangs open and Jana flutters out towards them in a kicky red and white, retro, polka-dotted dress and pumps that unfortunate individuals call "fuck me pumps." Misha doesn't think any article of clothing begs for sexual favors. What would "fuck you pumps" look like?
"Um, ok, I don't want to be Debbie Downer but Jensen's here in his capacity as a music fan." Jana steps up to Jensen's side and smiles brightly at the fans. She offers no bitchy attitude or condescension, which is weird for a girl in a Silver Lake band. Chris huffs out a "huh."
"Yeah, I agree," Misha responds. He suddenly remembers he has a drink in his hand. He swallows half of it and hands it to Chris who stomps out his cigarette and polishes it off.
"...Jensen deserves the same respect for his safe places as you do, right? He shouldn't have to work 24/7, and that's what you're asking him to do." With that Jana grabs Jensen's elbow and tugs him back into the club. Misha notes that Jensen's open, happy smile has returned.
Misha watches the door close and thinks he could fall in love with Jana with her strappy red shoes and bow in her hair.
The fans turn on him then. Yes, Misha is caught in Hollywood at midnight without armor or a sword.
"Misha?" One of the girls says, the questioning tone is just a clever biological adaptation to predatory behavior, he knows it.
"Yes?" He responds.
Chris's laughter jabs at Misha's very soul.
*
One of the fundamental laws of physics is that when you get drunk, you think it's a good idea to drink even more. This continues until you die, get arrested, or pass out.
Misha is currently standing in a kid's pool shaped like a turtle with his jeans rolled up to his knees drinking applejack loaded cider as Zach explains the finer points of dirty knock-knock jokes to Jared. Jared and Zach are apparently now bffs.
"Fiiiiiine," Misha says and flaps his hand in their direction. They're all the way across the yard, so they can't hear him.
"Why don't you sit down?" Chris is also in the pool, but he's in his underwear sitting down.
Misha promptly follows directions. "Hi," he says to his drink and Chris.
"You shoulda switched to weed like me...like three hours ago. What're you even drinking?" Chris puffs away on his cigarette. His sunglasses are back on.
"Apples," Misha is pretty sure that's what he intended to say, but the word comes out a bit garbled.
Chris begins to laugh. Misha suspects he's the butt of the joke. "You let Zach hook you up with that fucking cider and applejack shit?" Chris's laughter turns meaner. "You're gonna puke. I think he puts ipecac in that shit to induce vomiting. He's a serial drink despoiler."
"What?" Misha should probably go to bed.
This is the point at which Misha loses the entire plot of the evening. Sadly, he does not, in fact, go to bed right then, either. Glory be, he's even old enough to know better.
*
Misha wakes up around one in the afternoon and has to pee very badly. His body informs him that he's a great evil in this world and must be punished in all ways, starting with his brain swelling.
Jared is in his kitchen.
Jared looks at him over his shoulder and lifts an eyebrow. "How's tricks, scout?"
"Should I just start apologizing without asking?" This is not Misha's first experience with this sort of thing. The worst drinking night being, of course, Viggo related--come to think of it, most of Misha's really bad decisions since he moved to LA have been Viggo-adjacent.
Jared cracks a smile. "Have you composed your Fuck My Life entry yet?"
Misha begins to fake cry in sputtering wails. "I'm not in jail, so I suppose I didn't kill anyone?" He realizes he should have pretended to not know what Fuck My Life is, but it's too late now.
"You weren't nearly the drunkest person there." Jared, Misha finally figures out, is washing dishes. He is also a figure of great compassion to offer this reassurance.
"No?" Misha doesn't really believe this unlikely fact.
Jared shakes his head. "Jensen banged his the ex and Danneel..."
"He has a habit of threesomes, so..."
"You didn't wait for the good part, dude! In Zach's guest room...without locking the door!" Jared, unsurprisingly, is rather triumphal about this turn of events.
"Oh bother," Misha proclaims. He collapses in his usual chair at the dinette.
"Nothing really crazy went on. Just the usual people being too stupid to live and the usual Los Feliz and Silver Lake types blah blahing about work and the housing market. How many conversations can people really have about that shit?" Jared's about to get wound up about intellectual curiosity, and Misha's barely alive, he doubts he can hold his own in a conversation about conversations.
"But whatever, you've heard that song and dance before. I'll spare you." He will? Is this a relationship milestone? "Zach and me got going about horror movies and Chris started acting up. Me and Chris nearly got in a bit of a dust up, and that's when we blew the party."
"Did I at least get paid for those services?"
Jared does him the service of laughing at this pitiful excuse for a joke. Must be love after all. "Hey, what were you drinking anyway?"
"Oh good god, what did I say?" Misha pillows his head on his arms on the table and wonders if hangovers are an acceptable reason for dialysis treatment.
Jared's laughter echoes around the room.
"Oh god," Misha wails.
*
I really hate to say this, but Chris Pine is swiftly becoming my new favorite flavor. He is just so YEAH THAT. Sorry, Chris, I'm sure you're a swell guy, but I know your type.
There might have to be a Chris/Zach companion piece to this story because Misha just misses huge aspects of things going on around him.
Yeah, go out and have this kinda night, kids. You have too many braincells.
Guess what I have for yoooooooouuuuuuuu!
Yes, Mishaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Before you read this, watch this. You will see where I'm coming from.
This is part of a series. See my cock rock is balls tag for more.
No hipsters were harmed in the creating of this story, which is a shame.
Knowing better doesn't mean much.
So Misha's minding his own business, as much as he ever does which means he's sending Jim a text message and eating an Icee, and Jensen interrupts this with his scene baggage.
"So we're going to the Echo tonight to see my ex's band..." he lets that dangle for a few seconds. "Wanna come?"
Now Misha is not freshly minted in this life. He knows that he's not really allowed to decline this invitation. Sometimes friendship is a fine balance of shared indulgences and grunt work. "Sure," even as he says it he knows he's consigning himself to a night spent telling himself stories about Grigory the Talking Russian Bear and imagining his companions with mustaches.
"Great!" Jensen seems genuinely thrilled. Jensen's like that sometimes, pure of heart and sweet-natured. Misha has had more than one occasion to wonder how Jensen survives in this industry, if this guy on the phone with him, the one who blushes when people compliment him and earnestly likes his friends' bands, is the fundamental Jensen and the guy who flips people off behind their backs and has a "hit list" is an overlay--that is if at his most realized palimpsest Jensen is a school teacher who sings in the church choir. Everyone's life forks, Misha is still very unsure which fork in Jensen's life lead him to a life that seems very ill-suited to him.
"You're doing that silence thing. I hope you're not building a bomb in your head of something, man." Jensen laughs, easy, free, and Misha answers with his own laughter.
"No, not unless by that mean pondering your inexplicableness."
After a long pause Jensen says "Yeah, you're a weird guy. You'll like this band tonight. I think."
"I like whatever you like, dear," Misha replies. He sucks on his Icee and ponders his laundry situation.
"I'm hanging up now," Jensen declares and does.
"Boo, hiss, Icee, if only you could accompany me into the sluggishly beating heart of Hollyweird tonight, alas, I fear your life is limited to a matter of moments." Misha sighs.
*
Jared arrives in his usual frenetic cloud of elbows and flying hair. He's wearing a cowboy shirt with snaps and the jeans with the frayed hems from him treading on them.
"Where do you find jeans long enough to be too long?" Misha looks up from The Guardian and eyes Jared's flashing teeth and dimples. "I find you deeply suspect when you wear cowboy gear. Before I venture out with you, you must swear to return me in the same state that your found me."
"And if by that you mean really drunk and well fucked then we have a deal." Jared grabs him and waltzes Misha around the room a bit, he's all huge smiles and raw enthusiasm this evening.
Misha goes limp in his arms and affects a pained expression.
"Playin' hard to get?" Jared up close is dazzling, hair curling against his cheek and indeterminately colored eyes, he smells like pot and Downey, a little of chocolate.
"I think you've already caught me," Misha murmurs. Jared guffaws at that, huge booming laughter shattering around the room.
Misha is still waiting to find out if he's falling in love, never really sure about that until too far down the path, usually when he's suddenly aware of falling out again, but Jared is tragically enjoyable either way.
Jared's eyebrows come down into a pondering expression, the smile pulls into his thinking face. "Guess I have, yeah." He sounds ambivalent about that. Yes, getting what you wish for is often loaded. Misha can understand a cautious approach at this juncture, but Misha's intemperate and doesn't make the well-considered decisions for his own life most of the time.
Jared releases him and runs a hand through his hair with the other planted on his hip. "I'm out of the habit of being around people who are smarter than I am. That sounds asshole-y, but there you go." He looks at Misha out of the corner of his eye with his head cocked.
"Why are you convinced I'm the more intelligent party here? Don't mistake quirkiness and an inability to think linearly with intelligence," Misha mimics the hand through the hair gesture and sighs. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but--don't over think this." He immediately laughs at himself.
Jared stares at him with his bottom lip between his teeth. "Goddamn it, dude, you're so fucked up!" Jared's laughing again and reaching out, because he can't keep his hands off people when he's interacting with them, all hands all the time. "So let me lay out the groundwork on this Jensen-Jana situation...once upon a time, Jensen had this spectacularly awesome girlfriend, we will call her Jama..."
"Or we could call her Princess Charlie the Unicorn..." Misha interjects. "Work with me here."
Jared just plows on like Misha didn't say anything. "And because Jensen is a fuck up, he fucked it up. Not how you'd think though. Did he fuck around? No. Did he forget her birthday? No. He has douchebag friends who Jama can't stand who hung around being douchey all the time..."
"Are you making a pointed comment about Chris Pine?"
Jared slaps a hand over Misha's mouth. "And one day Jama had just had enough of these douchey friends and told Jensen to lose her number. He didn't lose her number, of course, because Jensen doesn't know how to move on. And now we're going to tag along as he stalks her."
"I'm fairly certain," Misha says when Jared releases him. "That Jensen has a completely different version of this story in his repertoire."
"And his version is WRONG!" Jared flings himself on the couch. "Get your shoes on, I don't wanna miss a second of this hot mess."
Misha looks down at Jared's sprawled form and Jared is still bright carnelian. "You, sir, need to read Emily Post." Misha wonders if his flip-flops are under the bed.
*
Misha is trying to update his Twitter when Jared snatches the phone out of his hand. "Be here, now. Be present."
This moment crystallizes, spins out into a telescoping sequence of seconds prolonged as Misha looks up at Jared and they make eye contact. This is the first time that Jared has touched directly this fundamental truth of Misha's character--he is always swirling in a cacophony of competing thoughts, meta critiques of the behavior of the people around him, of the decor, of the heaviness or lightness of the air surrounding his physical form. Jared just recognized this truth out loud and asked Misha to focus on this exact experience, to be with Jared in spirit as well as body.
"Yes," Misha replies staring back at Jared. "Yes, I'm here."
Jared hands his phone back, but he's turned it off. "No affairs with Michelle Obama tonight, tune into station reality for a couple hours."
"Fuck you," Misha responds around a laugh. "Mishaworld is waaaay better than the squalor and rapine of the so-called real world."
"Most people fantasize about fucking people, you spend all your time fixing social problems. Give that a couple brain cells at some point..." and with that, Jared tugs Misha to the bar.
At the bar is Zachary Quinto in the flesh. Zach blinks at him from behind his glasses and jabs a hand onto his hip. "Should I address this hallucination?"
"No, I'm real," Misha informs his confused friend.
"We're in the Echo." Zach waves his hand to indicate the room. He has a point there. Misha may have made some intemperate remarks about the Hollywood nightlife previous to falling in with Young Hollywood types.
"The thing about that..." Misha's about to make up a story about parrots, time travel, and national security issues when he hears Jensen over his shoulder.
"Dudes," Jensen's hand slaps him on the back. "You beat me..." he sort of trails off.
"That happens a lot these days," Zach says with a wide smile. "Hi, I know who you are, too, Mr. Ackles. Big fan of Dark Angel." Zach sticks out his hand.
Jensen, as anyone who has spent more than two seconds with him knows, is unflaggingly polite. The handshaking and pleasantries commence. Misha starts to think about the baby hippos on Cuteoverload but Jared's solid weight presses against his side and Misha focuses instead on...
"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!"
Tonight might go down in the Annals of How Things Should Never Happen Again.
Chris is wearing bright red jeans.
"Where do people buy those crayon-colored pants?" Misha asks him.
"Misha Collins, what the FUCK are you doing on Sunset after dark?" Chris has sunglasses on top of his head even though it's nine o'clock at night.
"Hunting vampires?" Misha attempts.
"Leave Misha alone," Zach jabs Chris with his elbow when Chris takes up his point position hanging against Zach's side.
"I think we're holding up the line..." Jared looks forlornly towards the bartender. "Double jack and diet, no ice. Make it two of them," Jared shouts over Zach's head.
More pleasantries--well, as pleasantry as Chris gets--are exchanged to the side of the line as people jostle them, most pretending not to recognize anyone, others taking cameraphone pictures.
The evening officially commences. Misha promises himself to drink enough rapidly to not remember anything the next day. This seems like a good idea at the time, which is what Misha's grave marker is going to read, except with a tense shift.
*
"You, my friend..." Chris has his arm around Misha, that's been going on a while, but the room's become crowded enough that it's actually more comfortable tucked under Chris's arm than knocking into each other in drunk enthusiasm.
Chris doesn't get to finish his words of wisdom because a severely inebriated young woman wearing a bright blue and pink shirt and what appears to be no pants crashes into them. Misha reaches out to steady her and Chris careens into a stack of speakers.
"Oh shit!" the young woman declares.
"Yes, pretty much," Misha's laughing, still holding the her arms. "Are you ok?" They're in a lull while one band has finished and another is setting up.
Chris pops back up with a huge grin on his face, a bruise already blooming on his forehead. "Dude, I almost got knocked the fuck out at a shitty Echo show by a girl with no pants on!" His laughter spins around them, golden like the rest of him, the color of wheat or quality beer.
The young woman looks at Chris, throws her hands up to her face, and starts laughing, too. "Oh. My. God." That's all she says before she unsteadily flees the scene of the crime.
Chris watches her scamper away. "Hey, I'm so ugly women run the fuck away from me? Naw, must be you, because I'm fucking famous and shit."
"Are you claiming I frighten people? I could stand to frighten a whole lot more people, I'll have you know--starting with the staff at Fred 62."
Chris wraps his arms around Misha and hugs him into submission. Chris is one of those drunks, hugs and "I love you, man"s. Misha prefers hugs over punches to the face, so that works out for both of them. Particularly since Misha always ends up with Chris in tow when they go out. How that works out, he's unsure.
Misha sees at least three people unsubtly take cameraphone pictures of them. "I've never been on Perez Hilton, this should be fun."
Chris laughs harder, hugs him tighter. "Could slip you some tongue..." Chris winks at him.
Misha can't decide if he should say "Go ahead" or "Please refrain."
The drumkit kicks to life and someone shouts into the mic "WHO THE FUCK ARE ALL OF YOU PEOPLE?"
A very good question, rocker.
*
Misha knows the moment the whole shebang unravels and becomes too Hollywood to bear--when he first spies Kristen Bell.
*
Jensen is down to his t-shirt, so sweaty he's wiping his face with the balled up button-up in his hand. "Dude," the smile on his face is so pure, so open, that Misha really hopes no freaks turn up to ruin this. By freaks he means fans. "They KILLED!"
They're standing outside of the venue in the requisite California mall environment as Jensen smokes. Jared is typically AWOL. Chris is also smoking near-by, screaming into his phone about weed.
"Hey, Chris!" Jensen propels a bottle cap in Chris's direction and Chris looks over with raised eyebrows. "Just grab Jared, man, he's always holdin'."
Chris approaches, easy swagger and flip-flops smacking lewdly. He walks with a swing to his hips. Everything Chris does has a vague texture of a lingering dirty joke about it. Misha loves that about him. Chris is completely and totally the guy who can always be counted on to deliver the "I fucked your mom" joke. And most people wouldn't really mind at the end of the day if he really had.
"Yeah?" Chris slithers to a halt next to them. "He's a sharing kind of guy?"
"Especially his crabs." Misha can't believe he just said that. And at the same time, he thinks it's completely hilarious that he did. He commences to laugh at his own joke while Chris joins in and Jensen stares at them with his quizzical expression #3.
"Not only are you here, but you're cracking wise about STDs? That should've probably been a herpes joke. Not harshin' your technique, but...yes I am." Chris lights a cigarette off the ember of the one he smashes out.
"Chris is the expert in bad sex jokes," Misha explains to Jensen.
"Is that so?" Jensen says because he's polite.
"You're polite." Misha says.
Chris almost falls to the ground when he starts to laugh.
"We're drunk," Misha informs Chris.
"YOU DO NOT FUCKING SAY!" Chris shouts back.
This, sadly, is the moment when they're approached by a group of ladies who are also drunk and Misha misses the beginning of the exchange because he's looking through the contacts in his phone to see if he has the number to a cab service in there, but he gets the overall impression they're Jensen's fans not Chris's.
"Alright," Jensen says when he's asked to pose for a picture. He smiles his uneasy fan smile and Misha has vast, deep pity for him.
"This is not cool," Chris says with violence in his tone. Misha knows Chris can be a brawler. He looks Chris over, but he's not exactly the best candidate to assess the threat level.
"Jensen's used to it..." Misha goes for placating, even if his instinct is to ask these people why they think this is appropriate himself.
They are "saved" from this situation by an unlikely source. Jana, the ex-girlfriend.
The door to the venue bangs open and Jana flutters out towards them in a kicky red and white, retro, polka-dotted dress and pumps that unfortunate individuals call "fuck me pumps." Misha doesn't think any article of clothing begs for sexual favors. What would "fuck you pumps" look like?
"Um, ok, I don't want to be Debbie Downer but Jensen's here in his capacity as a music fan." Jana steps up to Jensen's side and smiles brightly at the fans. She offers no bitchy attitude or condescension, which is weird for a girl in a Silver Lake band. Chris huffs out a "huh."
"Yeah, I agree," Misha responds. He suddenly remembers he has a drink in his hand. He swallows half of it and hands it to Chris who stomps out his cigarette and polishes it off.
"...Jensen deserves the same respect for his safe places as you do, right? He shouldn't have to work 24/7, and that's what you're asking him to do." With that Jana grabs Jensen's elbow and tugs him back into the club. Misha notes that Jensen's open, happy smile has returned.
Misha watches the door close and thinks he could fall in love with Jana with her strappy red shoes and bow in her hair.
The fans turn on him then. Yes, Misha is caught in Hollywood at midnight without armor or a sword.
"Misha?" One of the girls says, the questioning tone is just a clever biological adaptation to predatory behavior, he knows it.
"Yes?" He responds.
Chris's laughter jabs at Misha's very soul.
*
One of the fundamental laws of physics is that when you get drunk, you think it's a good idea to drink even more. This continues until you die, get arrested, or pass out.
Misha is currently standing in a kid's pool shaped like a turtle with his jeans rolled up to his knees drinking applejack loaded cider as Zach explains the finer points of dirty knock-knock jokes to Jared. Jared and Zach are apparently now bffs.
"Fiiiiiine," Misha says and flaps his hand in their direction. They're all the way across the yard, so they can't hear him.
"Why don't you sit down?" Chris is also in the pool, but he's in his underwear sitting down.
Misha promptly follows directions. "Hi," he says to his drink and Chris.
"You shoulda switched to weed like me...like three hours ago. What're you even drinking?" Chris puffs away on his cigarette. His sunglasses are back on.
"Apples," Misha is pretty sure that's what he intended to say, but the word comes out a bit garbled.
Chris begins to laugh. Misha suspects he's the butt of the joke. "You let Zach hook you up with that fucking cider and applejack shit?" Chris's laughter turns meaner. "You're gonna puke. I think he puts ipecac in that shit to induce vomiting. He's a serial drink despoiler."
"What?" Misha should probably go to bed.
This is the point at which Misha loses the entire plot of the evening. Sadly, he does not, in fact, go to bed right then, either. Glory be, he's even old enough to know better.
*
Misha wakes up around one in the afternoon and has to pee very badly. His body informs him that he's a great evil in this world and must be punished in all ways, starting with his brain swelling.
Jared is in his kitchen.
Jared looks at him over his shoulder and lifts an eyebrow. "How's tricks, scout?"
"Should I just start apologizing without asking?" This is not Misha's first experience with this sort of thing. The worst drinking night being, of course, Viggo related--come to think of it, most of Misha's really bad decisions since he moved to LA have been Viggo-adjacent.
Jared cracks a smile. "Have you composed your Fuck My Life entry yet?"
Misha begins to fake cry in sputtering wails. "I'm not in jail, so I suppose I didn't kill anyone?" He realizes he should have pretended to not know what Fuck My Life is, but it's too late now.
"You weren't nearly the drunkest person there." Jared, Misha finally figures out, is washing dishes. He is also a figure of great compassion to offer this reassurance.
"No?" Misha doesn't really believe this unlikely fact.
Jared shakes his head. "Jensen banged his the ex and Danneel..."
"He has a habit of threesomes, so..."
"You didn't wait for the good part, dude! In Zach's guest room...without locking the door!" Jared, unsurprisingly, is rather triumphal about this turn of events.
"Oh bother," Misha proclaims. He collapses in his usual chair at the dinette.
"Nothing really crazy went on. Just the usual people being too stupid to live and the usual Los Feliz and Silver Lake types blah blahing about work and the housing market. How many conversations can people really have about that shit?" Jared's about to get wound up about intellectual curiosity, and Misha's barely alive, he doubts he can hold his own in a conversation about conversations.
"But whatever, you've heard that song and dance before. I'll spare you." He will? Is this a relationship milestone? "Zach and me got going about horror movies and Chris started acting up. Me and Chris nearly got in a bit of a dust up, and that's when we blew the party."
"Did I at least get paid for those services?"
Jared does him the service of laughing at this pitiful excuse for a joke. Must be love after all. "Hey, what were you drinking anyway?"
"Oh good god, what did I say?" Misha pillows his head on his arms on the table and wonders if hangovers are an acceptable reason for dialysis treatment.
Jared's laughter echoes around the room.
"Oh god," Misha wails.
*
I really hate to say this, but Chris Pine is swiftly becoming my new favorite flavor. He is just so YEAH THAT. Sorry, Chris, I'm sure you're a swell guy, but I know your type.
There might have to be a Chris/Zach companion piece to this story because Misha just misses huge aspects of things going on around him.
Yeah, go out and have this kinda night, kids. You have too many braincells.