fic: She's A Handsome Woman (Part Three)
Part Three
In the end, shooting the kissing scene turns out to be much, much easier than rehearsing the kissing scene. It's slated for the end of the day, and they're running behind on the shot list, Dabney nearly tearing his hair out whenever anyone flubs a line or oversteps his mark, so Jensen's a little worried about getting it right the first time. But in the end, things are so rushed that it's really just a matter of stepping onto his piece of yellow tape, saying his lines correctly, and locking lips with Jared for maybe eight seconds. Then Dabney yells “Cut!” and “Print!” and “Next!” and everyone rushes over to the First Class Lounge set for the next scene.
Life goes on. For Jensen, it goes on in drag. He keeps seeing Danneel; they go on a handful of quick, exhausted dates that end early and unsatisfying.
He comes into work one morning to find that his scenes have been switched around on the shooting schedule, and that the ones now pencilled in for the afternoon have “rewrite” scrawled next to them. Those were the ones involving Jared. Asking around exposes three different rumours, one of which is that Jared took off to Vegas overnight and married the girl from One Life To Live, so Jensen's not giving a lot of credit to any of them.
He's a little busier than usual in the morning due to Jared's absence, and barely gets a chance to breathe until around eleven thirty, when they stop to change a few gels and cover up the windows on the set to make it look like it's night time.
Jensen grabs a coffee and pulls out his phone, dialing Jared without looking. There's no answer, and he doesn't bother leaving a message, but Jared calls him back three minutes later.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jen.” Jared's quiet, almost whispering.
“So you are alive. There are some pretty amazing rumours going around on set about you.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Well, Keely seems to think you're ditching work so you can stand in line for Jonas Brothers tickets. But I think that's just what she wishes she was doing today. The other theories all involve either runaway marriages, leaving the country, or both. Did you know you were dating the girl from One Life To Live?”
“I am?”
“A lot of people seem to think so.”
“News to me,” Jared says. There's a low, droning noise in the background, like water running.
“Where are you?”
“I'm at home, washing puke and snot out of Charlie's onesies. Glamorous, I know.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Oh, Charlie's sick. Vanessa's got it, too. I sent her home early last night and told her not to come in today.”
Jensen finally places it, then, the quiet tension in Jared's voice. He's worried.
“Can I do anything?”
“Uh, you can tell Dabney I'm sorry, but I don't think I can make it out tonight?”
That's about the last thing Jensen wanted to do. He was thinking something more along the lines of making a drugstore run after work, or bringing Jared some dinner.
“Doesn't he know Charlie's sick?”
“Yeah,” Jared says, and Jensen can almost hear his eyes rolling in their sockets. “But he's not exactly the world's most, uh...”
“Reasonable person?” Jensen offers. “I've noticed.”
“I was gonna say understanding,” Jared says. “But yeah. And thanks.”
“Is there anything else? I think I can get away a few hours early. They're going to be doing tomorrow's cockpit shots with Morgan, that way they can keep the camera setup pretty much the same for tomorrow morning. Assuming you're here tomorrow.”
“I'll be there,” Jared says, but he sounds anything but sure. “But you probably shouldn't come, Jen. I'm already missing work. Don't want to get you in trouble, too.”
“Just tell me what you need,” Jensen says, because it's obvious now that Jared wants to accept Jennifer's help.
“All right.” Jared lets out a quiet sigh. “If you really want to help. Could you bring over a couple of bottles of Pedialyte? And I'm actually running pretty low on Tylenol. It has to be the infant kind that comes with the little dropper, okay? And if they have the dye-free cherry flavour, get that, but otherwise just get grape.”
“Got it. I'll see you soon, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Jenny.”
Jensen can't tell if it's relief or exhaustion, making Jared's voice break the way it does. The guy's never called Jennifer 'Jenny' before. No one has. He kinda likes it. He definitely likes the idea of playing hero (or, well, heroine) for Jared today. But first he has to go blow off Dabney by proxy, which ought to be a whole lot of fun.
They're still not done creating fake evening on set, and Dabney's not around barking orders, so Jensen peeks into the guy's office, finds him eating marshmallows directly out of one of his desk drawers. It reminds him of something Tina Fey would be doing on 30 Rock.
“Jenny, right?” Dabney says, and Jensen's tempted to correct him, say he prefers Jen or Jennifer, because as much as he liked the nickname coming from Jared, he sort of hates it coming from this guy. He just nods, though. It's not worth it.
“I just talked to Jared, and he asked me to let you know he's not going to be able to make it tonight. He's really sorry.”
Ugh, Jensen's not sure why he's apologizing on Jared's behalf, or why it feels like he's the one who's atoning for something.
“Yeah, he's always really sorry,” Dabney says uncharitably.
Message delivered, Jensen figures. He gets the hell out of there before he says something he'll regret, and goes back to work.
It turns out that Jennifer actually only has one more scene to shoot (Samantha sitting behind the desk in her office, counselling Keely's character about her relationship with Captain Seville) before he's free for the day. It's sooner than he thought, so he makes an extra stop at a deli down the street from the drugstore.
Jared's face when he sees the pastrami sandwich (complete with giant pickle) makes Jensen laugh out loud. The guy looks like he's about to cry, he's so grateful.
“How is she?” Jensen asks, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.
Jared frowns. “Did you see The Exorcist?”
He backs into the kitchen, letting Jensen inside before dropping into a chair and attacking the sandwich. He's wearing an ancient pair of sweatpants that probably used to be blue, although they've greyed with age and started sagging at the ass and knees. His UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs t-shirt isn't faring much better, and it's got a couple of stains on it that still look kind of wet, which makes Jensen want to gag a little.
Jared looks... well, he looks like an exhausted housewife. Jensen can't tell if he should be ashamed of that thought.
“I finally got her to sleep about a half hour ago. She was up all night, just throwing up on everything. I'm gonna be doing laundry for a week straight.”
He attempts a smile, but it sort of crash-lands onto his face, a little skewed. It makes Jensen want to wrap his arms around Jared and squeeze. He settles for touching the guy's shoulder.
“Thanks, Jen,” Jared says, dropping a toothpick on the table. It's all that remains of the pastrami sandwich. “You're a really good friend.”
Jared smiles up at him; it makes a sort of warm, peaceful feeling bloom in Jensen's belly.
The next day, Jared's back at work, but he's tired and distracted. It goes a long way towards explaining the blowup between him and Dabney during hour three of Jared's cockpit scenes.
It's a tight space, and Jared's been cooped up in it by himself for most of that time, staring into space just left of a huge lens and talking into a radio headset. And Jared screws up. Not horribly, or anything, nothing any of the rest of them hasn't done a time or two, but he mixes up his call number, which makes Dabney growl, and then about half an hour later, he screws up a bit of jargon about flaps and drag, and Dabney just roars.
He starts laying into Jared about his lack of commitment to the show, practically throws a tantrum right then and there, and it's pretty obvious (to Jensen, anyway) that this has very little to do with work. When Jared tries to climb out of the plane set to take the fight somewhere a bit more private, Dabney completely flips, starts calling him an entitled diva, as well as every combination of the words “cock”, “fuck” and “mother”. Jensen's not even involved, and he sort of wants to melt into the floor out of embarrassment.
Anyway, Jared eventually steers the conversation into Dabney's office, where the two of them spend a good forty-five minutes while every single other person on set just mills around awkwardly. By the end of it, they both emerge, faces blank but tense, and the day continues as planned, going into overtime when they can't make up the two hours they lost. No one says a thing about it.
Afterwards, Jensen opens the door of his dressing room to find Jared waiting outside.
“Hey, Jen. Got a minute?”
He lets Jared in, even though Keely's hanging out in her bra and panties, as usual. It's a little like staring at the sun - Jensen generally gets along fine unless he looks directly at her. Jared doesn't seem to have that problem, though, because he actually compliments her on her underwear. He doesn't actually say whatever it is he came to say until she's dressed and out the door, though. Then he climbs up onto the back of the couch, elbows on his knees, and says, “So Dabney and I are over.”
“Oh,” Jensen says, unsure how Jared expects Jennifer to react. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be,” Jared says. “It's been a long time coming.”
“He's not going to have them write you into a coma again, is he?”
Jensen doesn't put it past the guy, honestly. The thought makes Jared smile, though.
“Hey, I do a mean lie-there-and-breathe.”
Jensen considers the couch, but ends up swivelling a chair over instead, perching on it with his legs neatly crossed. He's getting better and better at it - or maybe it's the twelve pounds he's managed to lose since becoming a part-time woman. He blames the stress.
“Anyway, Dabney and I had all these stupid plans for the long weekend,” Jared says, and Jensen bites his tongue to avoid saying he's sorry again. “But now that that's a wash, I think I'm gonna take Charlie upstate to visit her godfather. I was wondering, uh. I don't know if you had any plans or anything, but maybe you want to come with?”
Before he can even think about details like sleeping arrangements or long-term personal hygiene, Jensen finds himself saying, “That would be nice.”
It's probably coming from the same deep down crazy part of him that put a wig on in the first place and tried out for this part.
“Cool,” Jared says, grinning. “I think you and Chad will really hit it off.”
“Chad?” Jensen says, suddenly wary. There's a glint in Jared's eye that Jensen's seen before - usually right before someone opens a coffee can on camera and a giant foam snake pops out of it and ruins the shot.
“I'm just gonna let him know you're coming, okay?”
Jared pulls out his phone and exits with a quick, perky wave, leaving Jensen alone to deal with his own stupidity.
“You bought pajamas.”
Jensen doesn't answer, just flips Jennifer's hair out of his face and keeps cramming clothes into his suitcase. Somehow, Jennifer's amassed enough clothing that not all of it fits in one suitcase, and that's freaking Jensen right out.
“You bought pajamas,” Misha says again.
“I don't know what the sleeping arrangements at Chad's are gonna be like.”
“I don't know why you're going up there in the first place. You're just accelerating your nervous breakdown, you know. I wasn't going to tell you, but...” Misha pulls a face. “It's getting kinda weird, dude.”
Jensen raises an eyebrow.
“You think I don't know that?”
Misha shrugs, looking honestly baffled. “I don't know, I was wondering, I mean...”
“Because I am fully aware of how weird it is. I've made charts. Do you know - I have to change six times a day in the same room as a beautiful, bouncy 21 year-old girl with an unhealthy aversion to shirts. And... nothing, man. I haven't even thought about it.”
“You're sick.”
“I know,” Jensen says, frowning into the mirror. His eyebrow definition's going fuzzy again. He stops packing in favour of a quick tweeze.
“Fascinating to watch, though.”
Jensen looks up into the mirror to find Misha peering at him like he's the class gerbil brought home for the weekend. He puts down the tweezers and zips up his bag. Then he hoists it over his shoulder and pats Misha on the back on his way out the door.
“Well, show's over. Don't burn the place down.”
This Chad guy's got money. That's the first thing Jensen thinks when he sees the house from the outside. The second thing he thinks, when they step through the front door, is that Chad obviously hasn't spent any of his money, besides buying a house to put his junk in. Most of the furniture here is mismatched and worn, except for the giant plasma screen TV, currently showing some sort of insect-themed nature documentary.
Jensen's so awed by its hugeness that when Jared says, “Jen, this is Chad,” and tries to steer his attention towards a squinty blond guy in a coral pink shirt, Jennifer's first words to the guy are, “That's a really big TV.”
Chad laughs. “Don't be scared. Ants are really only about this big,” he says, holding his thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart, “But you know what they say about the camera adding ten pounds.”
“She does know,” Jared says, flinging his coat in Chad's general direction before bending down to unzip Charlie's. “She's an actress.”
“Right, I knew you looked familiar,” Chad says. He gestures at Jensen to take his coat off, and Jensen obliges, slinging it over Chad's waiting arm. “Have I seen you on Grey's Anatomy or something?”
Jensen shakes his head, feeling suddenly shy.
“Chad, quit hounding her. You're making her uncomfortable.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Chad says. Then he stoops down to Charlie's level and says, “Hey, Charles! Guess what?”
“What?” she says, loud and excited and right in his face.
“Chicken butt.”
Charlie covers her mouth with both hands and shrieks with laughter, and Jared rolls his eyes.
“He teaches her this stuff and then I get to explain to Vanessa why my perfectly well-behaved daughter is suddenly acting like Ace Ventura.”
“Hey, that is a legitimate children's movie,” Chad says. “Parental guidance is only suggested. Anyway, I offered guidance.”
“Yeah, guidance on how to talk out of her butt.”
“Dude, all that did was prove how advanced she was for her age. She was speaking whole sentences out of that thing.”
Jared laughs then, and wraps Chad in a violent hug, nearly lifting him right off the ground. Jensen stands apart, feeling awkward, until he feels a little tug on his hand. When he looks down, Charlie's standing there with her big, clear blue eyes trained on his face. She pulls on his hand again.
“Come play,” she says, and she starts to lead Jensen down the hall. There's a short flight of steps to a split level, and Jensen considers carrying the kid, but she actually crawls her way up almost faster than he can walk. He blames the heels, still not quite used to them on uneven ground.
Charlie leads him into a room with a little bed and a little dresser, and a little lamp shaped like a fluffy sheep. There's and tiny table with tiny chairs and tiny cups and tiny plates with tiny plastic hot dogs and hamburgers in them. The walls are blue - light at the bottom, fading to near black across the ceiling - and speckled with little silver stars. It's pretty amazing.
“Is this your room?” he asks, sitting awkwardly on the sturdiest-looking chair he can find.
“Yah,” Charlie says. “Wanna have a party?”
It's the greatest number of words in a row she's managed in his presence so far. Jensen's impressed.
When Jared finds them a few minutes later, they're in the process of getting all of Charlie's stuffed animals dressed for the party. Jared smiles and leans easily against the doorframe, watching as Jensen, on his knees on the carpet, hikes a pair of tiny pink capri pants onto a plush raccoon.
Chad tells Jennifer over dinner that he's in advertising. Unfortunately for him, he does it within earshot of Jared, who immediately cackles and corrects him.
“He writes jingles.”
“Like the little tunes they play after the call letters on radio stations?” Jensen says.
Jared doesn't seem to care that he's currently receiving a death glare from Chad. He grins.
“No, more like the five dollar footlong song.”
“You wrote that?” Jensen says.
Chad nods and mumbles. His cheeks are suddenly flushed bright red, which makes Charlie giggle.
“I get that song stuck in my head all the time,” Jensen says. He means it as a compliment, but realizes soon after the words leave his lips that there was nothing particularly flattering about that sentence.
“Anyway,” Jared says, clearing away his empty plate. “Me and Charlie are gonna go watch some TV in the den or something.”
Jensen opens his mouth to protest, because as harmless as Chad appears to be, he's not really on board with this whole matchmaker setup... thing. He sort of figured this was going to happen when he accepted Jared's invitation, but he also figured Jared would be around all the time. That's pretty much why he accepted the invitation. He didn't count on a house the size of Rhode Island. There are probably twelve empty rooms between the den and dining room.
He and Chad clean off the table and load up the dishwasher, bickering mildly about proper cup and knife placement. Chad seems nervous. He accidentally overfills the soap tray and then somehow manages to fumble the paper towels in such a way that he knocks the box of soap crystals over onto the floor, spreading the mess in his effort to clean it.
“Are you okay?” Jensen says.
“Of course,” Chad says.
He gets up and quickly wipes his palms on the ass of his jeans. The smile he gives Jennifer is eerily familiar. It takes Jensen a minute to place it - jittery desperation, bravado: he's got the look of a guy who's really, really hoping to get laid tonight. Jensen knows that look. He's worn that look.
“You've got really beautiful eyes,” Chad says, then immediately sucks his lips into his mouth and nibbles on them, like he's trying to punish them for speaking without his consent.
Jensen fidgets and smoothes down his wig, feeling more like a kid wearing a Halloween costume than ever.
“Thanks,” he says, attempting a smile.
“You want to go for a walk?”
They get back late. The house is mostly dark from the outside, only a few soft lamps lighting the windows. He thinks one of them might be Charlie's room, but he's not sure.
They mostly spent the walk talking about Jared and Charlie. It makes sense, since that's the thing the two of them have most in common. It also seems to be the only subject Chad seems able to talk about without stuttering and/or blushing.
Back in the house, Jensen claims exhaustion and retires early to escape the awkwardness, to a room on the second floor with a queen bed and not much else. He doesn't see Jared around, but he doesn't go looking, either. He actually is pretty tired - keeping up a ridiculous charade 24/7 will do that to a person.
He changes into the striped silk pajamas he bought for just this occasion, and debates the hair situation with himself. Misha may have laughed at him, but he's got to think about these things - what if there's an emergency in the middle of the night and they're forced to evacuate? It wouldn't do to suddenly be a dude, especially not in the middle of an earthquake or something.
He finally settles on keeping the wig, despite the comfort factor, and just knotting a scarf around his head to keep it relatively neat. The other option is a shower cap, and Jensen thinks maybe the thought of anyone (okay, Jared) seeing him in a flowered shower cap is more humiliating than the thought of him discovering he has a penis.
So he keeps the wig on, even though it's itchy and it's going to be an absolute bitch to style tomorrow. It turns out to be a really good thing, too, because while he's lying there going over all the reasons why Misha's right to be questioning his sanity, a shadow appears in his half-closed doorway. A really tall shadow, with broad shoulders and shaggy hair.
“Jenny? You asleep?” Jared whispers.
Jensen seriously considers not responding, but in the end, it's Jared's use of the nickname that has him half-upright.
“Not yet.”
“Can I come in?”
He motions Jared inside, and Jared seems to take the gesture as an invitation to join Jennifer on the bed, curling up so his head is on the other pillow. He sighs deeply.
“Is something wrong?” Jensen says.
“Not really,” Jared says. “I guess I'm still just shell-shocked from Dabney, you know?”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, even though he doesn't - at all.
“I mean - he's a douchebag. I know he's a douchebag.”
“Good.”
Jared rolls onto his back, stretches out on top of the covers.
“I just don't know what I'm gonna do now, you know?”
And this Jensen does know, he thinks. Except, instead of a suddenly blank future to freak him out, he's got an ever-narrowing pack of lies and no idea where it's leading.
“It'll be okay,” he says. Mostly, he thinks, he's lying to himself.
“Did you have a good night?” Jared asks.
“With Chad?” Jensen whispers back, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible.
In the dim light, he thinks he sees Jared's face stretch into a smile.
“Okay, so - I might have talked to him about you a little.”
“A little?”
“Um,” Jared says, and Jensen watches his grin get wider.
“It's okay,” Jensen says slowly, choosing his words, trying to keep that grin there. “Just caught me off guard, that's all.”
“Chad's a really great guy,” Jared says. “He's been my best friend since... well, there were Ninja Turtles involved.”
Jensen yawns, curling his arm under his pillow.
“Is he always so... awkward?”
Jared makes an amused little breathy noise.
“I think you bring it out in him,” he says. “He's usually kind of, um, pushy? Around girls.”
“Pushy?” Jensen repeats.
“Okay, sleazy. Slutty, even.”
Jensen's actually pretty surprised. He would have been willing to bet a decent amount of money that Chad had never even touched a boob before.
“Anyway,” Jared continues. “I just thought maybe, since he's one of my favourite people, and you're one of my favourite people... you know. It was worth a shot.”
Jensen tries to let the remark pass, he really does, but it's late and his usual defenses are at least partway down.
“I'm one of your favourite people?”
Jared turns on his side to face him, then, and rests his arm on top of Jensen's between them. Jensen tries to push down the panic welling up inside him. He thinks it has to do with Jared's words, but the physical contact can't be helping, either.
“Absolutely,” Jared says easily.
“But you've only known me a couple of months.”
“So?” Jared takes a long, deep breath, like he's considering going to sleep right there. He's quiet for a long time, and when he speaks again, it's even quieter, shaped breaths more than whispers. “It's okay if you don't like him that way. I won't be upset, or anything.”
“Okay, good.”
“I just wanted you to meet him.”
“Okay.”
There's another long silence, but this time Jensen knows Jared isn't sleeping, because he can see his open eyes, glinting in the light from the hall. Jared's watching him. Well, really, they're watching each other.
“Don't take this the wrong way, okay?” Jared says, finally. His fingers are moving against Jensen's arm, fiddling with the shoulder seam of his pajamas.
“What?” Jensen says, not promising anything.
“Why couldn't you have been a guy?”
It's an exaggerated lament, spoken with humour, but Jensen can hear the real sentiment underneath. His breath catches in his throat.
“Just... wasn't meant to be, I guess,” he says. His female voice, so natural after weeks of use, sounds suddenly false to his ears. His heart is pounding in his chest so hard he thinks he might be able to hear it, a soft, rhythmic swish against the bedsheets.
“Yeah,” Jared says. His fingers still on Jensen's shoulder. Jennifer's shoulder.
“I'm really glad we're friends, though,” Jensen says meekly. He means it, though. He can practically feel his heart pulsing with how much he means it.
“Me too,” Jared says, and yawns, curling up even closer.
Jensen feels like crap. Somehow he feels like he's handed out two rejections in one night. He's sure it's not a world record by any means, but it still sucks.
Going back to waking up at 3:45 on the Monday of his last week is a shock to the system that Jensen doesn't appreciate, especially not when he's wandering alone through the apartment, waiting for his coffee to percolate, his mind replaying the highlights of Jennifer's long weekend upstate.
Mostly, they had fun. Slept in until noon almost every day, ate large quantities of junk food that is now most certainly clinging to his Jensen's hips and thighs. They took Charlie to a petting zoo at a nearby llama farm and Chad got spit on while she laughed in glee. It was the stuff of upbeat musical montages. And sure, there were a few epically awkward moments, but Jensen ended the long trip back to the city with a smile on his face.
So why does he now feel like he spent the weekend force-feeding himself rocks and small twigs?
The feeling starts out vague and uncomfortable, and doesn't dissipate when he gets to work. By mid-morning, when Jennifer gets called into Dabney's office, he's starting to think maybe it's just a physical thing. Maybe he's just getting a virus or something. But then Dabney says the words he didn't even know he'd been dreading: “How would you feel about a two-year contract, sweetheart?” And Jensen's stomach churns nervously.
Jensen thinks he handles the meeting well. He doesn't run screaming from the room, or anything. And it's not like he's considering saying yes. Not even for a second, although the salary they're offering is quite generous.
He can't stay. He's got money now, enough saved up from this gig to pitch in and produce Misha's play, if not off-Broadway, then certainly in a relatively decent playhouse elsewhere. He has to leave before anyone discovers his secret, because it's only a matter of time, really. He's known that from the start. He should have known it, anyway.
“Something wrong?”
Jensen looks up, holding the door to his dressing room half-open with his shoulder, and finds that he just blew right past Jared without noticing. No small feat, considering the guy's stature.
“Oh, nothing,” he says, but it must come out a little frantic.
“Contract talks?” Jared says. He's sort of half-wincing, already attempting sympathy without first knowing the emotional direction of the conversation.
Jensen nods, and doesn't let on.
“Had my agent over for mine this morning,” Jared says. “Kinda brutal, considering the whole Dabney situtation. Got two more years, though.”
Two more years of Jared. Two years of early morning talks over bad coffee in flimsy styrofoam cups, late-night phone calls debating the sexiness of Jon Stewart versus Anderson Cooper. Two years of everything in between. Two years of convoluted soap opera plotting, of evil twins and scheming corporate misers and unwanted pregnancies.
Two years. Charlie would be nearly four.
“That's what they offered me,” Jensen finally says when he realizes it's his turn to talk. “But I don't know if I should sign.”
Two years of non-stop, exhausting lies.
“Why not?”
Two more years of kissing Jared without it meaning anything.
“I just need to think,” Jensen says.
He tries to send out reassuring vibes as he shuts the door in Jared's face, but the thought of two years of Jennifer babysitting Charlie while Jared goes out on dates with a string of stunning, available men is making him a little nauseous.
It's only a few days later that he gets what he decides is the first clear sign that the universe wants him to stop lying. It comes to him from Jared's pocket in the form of a folded-over piece of construction paper.
“Charlie insisted that I give this to you,” he says, looking embarrassed.
Jensen unfolds it and immediately sees why. It's a picture of, well, mostly a bunch of coloured swirls of crayon wax, because Charlie's not really into recognizable shapes yet, but it's obvious that she got a bit of help from her dad, because Jensen can make out the approximate shape of a stick-figure llama and what appears to be a spinally deformed stick-figure Jennifer, complete with a triangle for a skirt, long eyelashes and curved lines of black hair flipping off the sides of her round stick figure head. There's also a tiny baby Charlie, crowned with what's either a coil of curly hair or a baby bonnet.
“I asked her where I was and she just pointed at the llama and laughed,” Jared says, sheepish.
“She's got your sense of humour,” Jensen says.
“I'm not that mean!” Jared says, full of mock outrage. “Am I?”
“You can be a little mean,” Jensen says with a smirk, just because he knows it'll bother Jared.
Later, though, when he gets home and tears the wig and the heels and the goddamn pantyhose off, he finds the picture in his stuff and stands it, half-folded, on the table next to his hand mirror.
“That kid barely even hates you anymore,” Misha says. Jensen wonders if Misha can see the picture from across the room, or if he's just going by the fact that it's a brightly coloured square of purple construction paper. “It's kind of amazing.”
“What are you talking about? She never hated me.”
“Okay, she was mildly terrified, then,” Misha says. “You might have all these show biz morons fooled, but that little girl saw right through you the minute she saw you. She knew there was something... not quite right about you.”
“She was just crying for her dad. All kids do that.”
“Nah,” Misha says. “She was freaked.”
“Bullshit.”
Jensen takes the drawing down, though, and shoves it in the drawer where he keeps his gym clothes. It screeches when he shuts it. He hasn't opened that drawer in a long time.
“At least take your pinafore off before you start cussin',” Misha says.
Sitting on his bed, Jensen flips him off.
It bothers him, though, and he doesn't like that it bothers him. Because it means that somewhere deep inside, he thinks Misha might be right. Not about Charlie knowing his secret, because Jensen's not too sure about that one, but about her growing attached to Jennifer.
It's just not possible, because Jennifer's nothing. A fictional character. She certainly can't be much of an influence on anyone's life if she doesn't exist, can she?
Fuck, he needs to get out of these people's lives, and fast.
Jensen steps up from the subway exit and pauses, his last sharp footfall echoing down the stairway. Some vagrant is hanging out in their doorway again. Some blond, slouchy vagrant wearing a Hollister hoodie and three hundred dollar Nikes.
“Chad?”
The guy looks up, and yeah, it's Chad. He smiles at the sight of Jensen, ducks his head, almost like he's bowing.
“M'lady.”
“What are you doing here?” Jensen says, Jennifer's voice pitched higher than usual, tight with nerves.
“Just happened to be in the neighbourhood,” Chad says, almost like it's a line he rehearsed.
“At three-thirty in the afternoon on a Tuesday?”
“Well, yeah,” Chad says. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and scuffs the toes of his expensive sneakers on the dirty paving stones. Maybe it's that they're standing adjacent to the same brick wall, so it's like a grid when he looks at Chad, but Jensen suddenly realizes just how much taller he is than the guy. He'd probably still be taller than him, even without the heels. Jesus, Jennifer's a fucking giant and no one's ever told her.
“How did you find where I live?”
“I, um. Got Jared to find out where the production office sends your scripts?”
“Why?” As soon as the question leaves his lips, Jensen knows it's a mistake. He doesn't want to know why, he just wants Chad gone as soon as possible, hopefully with little to no cleanup necessary.
Chad breathes deep, looks him right in the eye.
“Because I've never felt like this before. You're not like any other girl I've ever met, Jenny.”
The only thing Jensen can think to say is that he hears that from people an awful lot lately. But he's pretty sure that would hurt Chad's feelings, so he says nothing. Somehow Chad takes his silence as a cue to grab both his hands and squeeze them.
“I know you're not really sure about me yet,” Chad says. “Jared's probably told you some things, too. Bad things. Probably things about hookers and Cheetos.”
Jensen stifles his curiosity about that last bit and shrugs. It's half a ploy to free his hands, and half an answer.
“But I wanted to come here and tell you that that's not me anymore. Not... not since I met you. And not for the week since.”
It's hard to tell if Chad's looking Jensen in the eye anymore or not. The guy is just so squinty already, and the midday sunshine in his face isn't helping.
“Okay,” Jensen says, going for serious and accepting. “Was there anything else?”
Chad nods, looking panicked, like he's suddenly discovered his lips have been glued together. So Jensen stops trying to pull away and just waits. Eventually, Chad starts breathing normally again, and then he reaches into the pocket of his hoodie and pulls out a small black cube.
“I know it's really early to do this and you probably don't even like me much, and I don't even know your last name, but we can deal with all that stuff later. Right now... all I really want is for you to marry me, Jen.”
The box creaks open, revealing a band of tasteful white gold adorned with three glittering diamonds. It might actually be the most terrifying thing Jensen's ever seen. He wouldn't be surprised if his eyes popped right out of the sockets like that woman on Letterman.
“No,” he hears himself saying, over and over. “No, I can't. No, nuh-uh.”
“Jen, please -”
“I'm so sorry, Chad. I'm really sorry, but I can't marry you. God.”
“Is it the ring? I can get a different one.”
Jensen wants to laugh at that. Actually, the ring is pretty nice. Definitely out of his own price range. Some part of him, a tiny part that is and has always been Jennifer, totally wants that ring.
“No, it's just... Chad, I can't.”
Chad, apparently no worse for wear, presses the closed box into Jensen's palm.
“Just think about it for now, okay?”
Then the guy kisses him wetly on the lips before leaving. It's a little like getting kissed by a little kid, all spit and pucker. It makes Jensen think of Charlie.
When Jensen lets himself into the apartment, Misha immediately crowds him into the corner by the door and fakes him out, stealing the ring.
“Oh, my God.”
“I know,” Jensen says, not bothering to try getting it back and instead crossing the room to fall headfirst onto his bed.
“No, I mean,” Misha says, and pauses, his mouth working silently, like he's doing the math, trying to figure out which part of this equation is the most fucked up. “I mean, there's going too far, and then there's conning pea-brained morons into sham marriages! Guess which one this is, Jensen!”
“He's not a moron,” Jensen says. “And I said no.”
“Yeah, about eighty times,” Misha says. He returns to the window where he must have been watching the exchange and glances back out. “And yet, you still took the ring.”
“I had no choice,” Jensen whines.
He stays there, face buried in his comforter, for a long time. After a while, Misha starts prodding him with something fuzzy. Jensen grunts and refuses to roll over, and Misha prods him more, and finally uses the scratchy, fuzzy thing to punch Jensen right in the ribs.
“Ow! Fuck! What?”
He sits up and comes face to face with Lamb Chop.
“Oh, so I'm sick, but this is normal?” he says to Misha, but Misha just grins and uses Lamb Chop to poke him in the shoulder.
“Just tell the truth,” Lamb Chop says.
“Easy for you to say,” Jensen says. He scratches the puppet's head.
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