I Am It: 30/30
SEEK;
5) To go to
The phone’s ringing, but Jensen is spread-eagled over his suitcase, wrestling with the zipper. It’s only going to be one of two people - Jared or Mack - and they can both wait until he’s finished.
Readjusting his weight, there is some wiggle room to run his fingers along the seam and shove in button downs, denim, and dirty socks. It’s his shaving kit - or maybe the Pumas - that are giving him a problem.
Time is ticking. He’d planned on being on the road right now, but the morning had started off slow. Jared wouldn’t get out of bed, warm and soft-skinned and smiling, which was a project all on its own. As soon as he was kicked out and downstairs, Nick and Misha stopped in to fill Jensen’s phone with every choreographer and agent they had between them. From the hallway, Devin had heard the murmurs and come in to tell Jensen he’d made a few phone calls on his behalf as well.
Jensen had nodded his thanks, heart in his throat, not hesitating when Devin pulled him in to hug it out. Nick and Misha wrapped arms around them too, and as soon as Chuck noticed, he was shoving himself into the mess.
Then Tyne stopped by, and Jensen and the rest cleared a path. She and Chuck smiled gratefully and slipped off down the hallway, quiet and close.
Jensen resigned to the fact that it was time for goodbyes; had made his way to Daniel and Shannon’s to find them in the hallway, having had just cleared out of their place. They met up with Chris and Mekia, who were on the same flight out, and Jensen hadn’t ever seen these guys so still, so quiet. It was heavy over him, colored in grief and the general misery of an ending.
Now that Jensen’s alone, showered, dressed, aviators in place, he’s feeling the clock. He’s feeling time.
The sound of the zipper sliding home is a small victory and Jensen levers himself off his suitcase, straightening his clothes. Looking around the room, he realizes the only thing to do is double-check the drawers, the bathroom, under the bed. He remembers the white envelope in his back pocket; pulls it out, taps his fingers in thought. Finally he simply writes, Thank you on the front and slides it under the vase of flowers he’s leaving for the housekeeping staff.
There’s a knock on his door then, so he shouts, come in, and commences his final check of the apartment.
Jared comes in, leaving his baggage in the entryway and following Jensen from room to room.
“Printed your confirmation,” Jared says, holding it up while Jensen opens the medicine cabinet. “And mine.”
“Awesome. They close?”
“Two hours apart. I’m first. I think - ”
Jensen turns at Jared’s hesitation, asks: “Hm? What?”
Jared takes a deep breath. “I don’t think we should wait together. I think we should just. And then, you know. Call me when you land?”
“Oh, okay,” Jensen says. “That’s, fine.”
He leaves the bathroom and takes a quick glance around the bedroom; in the closets, the drawers, under the bed. There so many things he wants to say, takes him so long to decide which might be best, that he feels the moment pass over him like a track light. Here, full of momentum and heat, and then gone.
Finally, back where he started, gathering his things and not looking at Jared, he says, “Okay, I’m ready when you are.”
Jared murmurs an agreement, quiet, gathering up his bags. Jensen stops when Jared’s frozen in the doorway, looking past Jensen to the apartment. Jensen realizes that after Jared leaving his own place, this is the second time he’s had to leave the Orsini.
Closing the door to his apartment makes Jensen sick.
He and Jared make it to the airport with plenty of traffic time to sit quietly and stare out over the palm fronds and the 405. Through check-in and security, they move without discussion or incident. Crowds are flowing from greater concentration to less, and it pushes them along at a brisk pace. Jensen measures the time in seconds left with Jared.
They step out of the way to pull their shoes back on; to put their laptops away, pull out their iPods, and shove wallets back into their pockets.
Jensen says, “Wanna get a coffee real quick? There’s a Starbucks right around that corner.”
When Jared says his name and then stops, Jensen looks away, down the concourse. He’s pushing, can’t help it, wants to swallow his fist with how much he feels like he can’t say. His eyes fall on a guy and a girl with matching backpacks; he can feel Jared looking at him and doesn’t want to get into it. Doesn’t want to talk about the fact that it hurts.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to,” Jared says.
“Believe me - I know. I’m the last person you have to explain yourself to, Jay. It’s fine; I get it.”
“Well, I want to say it anyway.”
Jensen looks over and finds Jared is stepping close. Jensen’s heart responds in kind, dipping and twisting, sending a rush from chest to head to fingertips to warmth pooling under his skin. He turns into the space Jared’s surrounding and looks up; Jared is torn, resigned, sad. His eyes beg Jensen to really see him.
“I can’t spend another second with you,” Jared says slowly. “Seriously. I - this has been, the most intense three months of my life, and it doesn’t make any sense, but the best thing to come out of it, I think - I feel - is this.
“And if you come with me to that gate, and we sit for an hour, and get comfortable, and whatever - and then I have to leave? Get up, pull away, say goodbye? I’m gonna start to get mad. I’m trying so hard not to, Jen. But I’m gonna get real mad that things happened this way. And I don’t want to feel that about the tour, about what happened with Michael, about any of it. I don’t want to face the fact that I’m fucking selfish.”
Jensen hesitates; whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.
“Jay,” he says. “Man, that’s what people do: they grieve, and then fight not to dwell on how it’s affecting them. But that’s what it’s about: he built this life for us, took us with him; man, I left everything back home for this. Didn’t count on finding you, which is a whole other issue. But Jay, I’m mad. No way around it. We’re all mad. It’s alright.”
“Not to me, it’s not. I want to remember well. I don’t want to be bitter. I don’t want it to mess with anything we started, you know?”
“Well, luckily I got this here phone number -”
Jared laughs, rolls his eyes and shoves at Jensen.
“I’m serious,” Jensen says. “I have no interest in letting this all become some surreal, fucked up memory. As long as you’re okay with it, I want to try.”
“Try? Jen - I am so okay with that. Don’t be stupid.”
They’re edging so close they’re almost at an airport goodbye. Jensen looks down at their feet, trying to convince himself it’s a good idea to step back. He can’t get there; he likes the singing feeling under his skin, likes Jared’s tee-shirt sleeve brushing his, likes that their carry-on bags are relaxed over one another on the floor beside them.
“If you don’t move,” Jensen says softly. “I’m going to do something you don’t want me to do.”
“I want you to do it,” Jared says.
Jensen smiles for a moment, feels how Jared’s waiting for it, fingers twitching in Jensen’s shirt sleeve. He tips his head up and lets himself kiss Jared, soft, quick, just barely enough.
“I’m serious about running away together,” Jensen jokes.
“I know you are. We’ll figure it out.”
Watching Jared walk away was almost the hardest part of this entire odyssey.
Jensen sits at his gate; he’s early, it’s empty, and he’s got nothing to do but think. He thinks about being alone, he thinks about how he needs to ice his knees, about what work there might be and how long before he gets a phone call.
He thinks about how he has friends in the business; friends who make calls for him, shoot emails, send him casting calls, talk to their agents about how good he is. He thinks about how he’s a dancer. And how he’s not alone.
He texts Mack - See you tonight. She says, can’t wait.
It’s two hours until boarding. Fidgeting and looping thoughts, and in the end, poor impulse control. He gets up, shoulders his bag, and walks. He walks right back through security, out to the flight check-in desk. Asks if there are any seats left on the 2:30 to San Antonio.
“Only first class, sir,” the attendant says, asking the rest of her question with her eyes.
“Perfect,” Jensen says.
"The Sun Is Shining Down," JJ Grey & Mofro
And it's the little things, not expectations - that make this life worth livin'
Glory, glory - hallelujah - The sun is shining down
I'm alive, and I'm feelin' fine
Second ticket in hand, he paces the gates, trying to decide. He’s most concerned he won’t be welcomed. Jensen knows very well the distance between idealistic whispering between the sheets and getting on a plane and changing the way a life is lived. And the fact that he has to consider there might not be enough built between he and Jared hurts.
He lingers outside Jared’s gate, aimlessly pushes at a rack in front of the Hudson Newsstand, eyes flipping over the area. Finds Jared, headphones on, facing the picture window. The plane sits there, fat on the runway, heavy, like Jensen can’t imagine it’s able to get off the tarmac, let alone take Jared with it.
He knows they’re due to board; that Jared’s in coach; that he’ll patiently wait his turn.
Jensen waits, watches the rows line up and get fed down the jet bridge. Jared doesn’t get up. He’s looking to his left and to his right, then ahead again. He gazes briefly at the people boarding; then down at his ticket. Jensen’s frozen in place, waiting, feeling Jared’s hesitation in his own gut and bones. Whether he wants for Jared to stay, or for him to get on the plane, Jensen doesn’t know yet.
The line has dwindled to a family of three when Jared finally pulls up his bag and stretches to full height. Cracks his neck, runs a hand through his hair and joins the line. He takes a long look around - down each end of the concourse, and Jensen’s so nervous he ducks behind the news rack. Only when Jared disappears into the mouth of the tunnel does Jensen step out with a deep breath.
The worst that can happen is: Jared says no.
That is absolutely the worst thing that can happen to Jensen.
He moves to the empty ticket scanner, smiling and holding out his ticket. She scans it, then pauses awkwardly as he hesitates.
“Plane’s gonna leave without you, honey,” she finally laughs.
Jarred into motion he nods quickly, thanking her and trotting into the tunnel and down to the plane. Heart’s pounding, he’s sick with it. Slips onto the plane to find a line of passengers settling, blocking the aisle, heaving rolling luggage over their heads. He can’t see more than four rows ahead of him. He passes first class, slowly makes his way as the path clears.
His eyes sweep the flushed warm faces of strangers, looking for the familiar dark hair stuck to a broad forehead and sweeping down into weightless brown eyes. For a few agonizing seconds, he worries he won’t find Jared, that he’s ducked down, or in the bathroom, or somehow not on the plane, and Jensen will just be wandering around the plane like a fool.
But he does find Jared. In the middle section toward the back, looking straight at Jensen. When their eyes meet, Jared stands up, silently asking a hundred questions with wide, confused eyes and a dropped mouth. Jensen stops for a second, caught, and he’s so still the person behind him says, excuse me.
He apologizes and continues to make his way to Jared. Under the intensity of an unrelenting stare, Jensen tries an awkward wave. Jared cracks a smile, shaking his head, mouthing, what. Jensen replies, no idea. They wait for the space between them to close, thoughts progressing to things that can’t be mimed.
“What are you - Jen, are you okay? What are you doing here?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Hi.”
“Hi, do I have something of yours, I thought we already, did all of that. Seriously, how’d you even get on? The plane’s gonna take off with you on it, you idiot.”
“Well, that was sort of the plan,” Jensen says, meekly flipping the ticket toward Jared.
“What the - fuck, Jen, aren’t you booked on a flight to Chicago?”
“Yeah, I still am, in case, I don’t know what I was just thinking. I just panicked and bought this, I don’t even know what you’re going home to, I just, was thinking if you maybe had a few days we could spend some time or something. But if not, I probably need to, uh, get out of here.”
“Holy - this is crazy. Are you serious? Y’all, this guy just followed me onto a plane, is he for real?”
“Sounds it to me,” says a woman sitting next to them.
Jensen turns bright red.
“I’m pretty for real,” he says quietly, to the floor.
“You are nuts. You’re just nuts. This is, okay - what? Where are you sitting?”
“I have this seat - it’s in first class, we can just - ”
“I’ll move,” says the woman beside Jared. “I’ll take it. You want to sit here? I’ll trade up.”
“Wait, really?” Jensen asks.
He scoots awkwardly, and Jared moves out into the aisle, and the woman squeezes past them with an easy smile, nabbing Jensen’s ticket and thanking them both for the upgrade. Jared’s pressed into his side briefly, and when Jensen looks up, Jared’s eyes are soft, backlit by a persisting curiosity. Finally, he yanks Jensen’s bag away and stows it. They collapse into the tight quarters together.
Jensen’s focused on stilling his trembling fingers long enough to fasten his seatbelt when he hears Jared say quietly, “Hey.”
When Jensen looks up, question on his lips, Jared says, “I can’t believe you.”
Jensen gives a tentative quirk of a smile, and then Jared just kisses him, with a palm sliding into his hair. His thumb brushes over Jensen’s temple as their mouths move slowly, lips catching while Jared draws him in. Jensen tips his head and hums in agreement, fingers giving Jared’s knee a squeeze.
“Never in a million years would I have seen this coming from you, Ackles,” Jared says, grinning and searching his eyes. “I almost didn’t get on, you know.”
“I know. I saw you.”
“Creep.”
“Made me get on. I knew it for sure. Well, I was mostly sure. Close enough.”
“Bold, Jen. Bold. So what’s your big plan?”
“Well - this is about as far as I’ve got. Figure we can sleep plenty. Do some of that plannin’ we talked about. Misha said he’s got a guy or two for me to talk to, looking at auditions next month. And - I’ll meet your family if you get stubborn about it.”
“Yeah?” Jared grins, shoving at Jensen’s leg. “Damn, well all that sounds just fine to me.”
His gaze lingers on Jensen, long and bright, relieved, drawing some line of wonder across his lips. Jensen does what he can to return it, grips Jared’s hand tight as the plane backs up to head down the runway.
[end]
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