Summer of '69: j2 for Hot Fun in the Summertime Comment Fic Meme: PART ONE
(Oops this ended up being a lot longer than I meant for it to be. Oh well. I had way too much fun writing it.)
Prompt by obstinatrix: Summer of '69 J2, peace signs on their faces and flowers in their hair, acoustic guitars strapped to their backs, travelling across country on a break from college in VW microbuses, the works. They meet at Woodstock by accident and fall in love.
NC-17, 7250 words, Jensen / Jared
That was Led Zeppelin with “Your Time is Gonna Come.” What do you think about that, Suze, another hyped up band out of England, or are they the next big thing?
Today is the last day of Jensen’s first week of junior year at college, and also happens to be the first day of the Woodstock festival in New York which Jensen is not attending.
Jensen glances up from the road and catches his and Danneel’s reflections in the rearview.
His hair is perfectly combed and gelled in place, his pale blue button-up without a single wrinkle. He looks respectable, driving his parents’ Chevy Biscayne to a respectable school to become the most respectable of professions: a doctor.
Danneel’s doing her lipstick with a compact, tracing perfect lines of burgundy and mashing her lips together to spread it around.
Danneel Harris is his sanity at college. He, Sandy, and Danneel are neighbors, though Danneel went to public school while Sandy and Jensen had gone to the private Catholic high school. Danneel was the one who knew about parties in the city, who knew how to get into clubs in Philadelphia and had connections at all the best bars.
Without Danneel, life as a commuter that still lived at home with his parents would be even more tragic. He’d have Sandy, he supposes, but Sandy’s just so… safe.
It takes one red light for Jensen to make up his mind.
“We’re not going to class,” Jensen says firmly.
“Wha?” Sandy McCoy sits up in the passenger seat, her braids framing her heart-shaped face and wide brown eyes. She looks so genuinely shocked at the words Jensen almost feels bad for her.
Well I just don’t know, John. The album’s making a splash, that’s for sure-
“I said we’re not going.”
Jensen jerks the steering wheel towards the exit, changing lanes and cutting off a yellow Chevelle in the process.
He waves to the driver and takes the ramp.
“Jensen! What on earth-”
“We’re going to Woodstock.”
Danneel freezes with the compact still in her palm. She peers at Jensen in the rearview mirror from the backseat, considering him. Jensen meets her gaze steadily. She nods, a slow smirk spreading across her face.
“You’re not-we’re not-?” Sandy fumbles.
“Yes, we are. I’m through with this shit. I’m just done. I don’t care; I don’t even want to be a doctor.”
“Jensen, are you feeling okay?”
Jensen presses his foot down on the gas, kicking his station wagon into gear.
“It’s only three hours away, we can make it if we shag ass.”
“Well, you’d better drop me off first because my parents will kill me-”
“Alright,” Jensen says, changing lanes again abruptly. The wagon makes a screech of protest as he whips it around to stop at the curb. “Get out now, then.”
“Are you serious?”
“There’s a bus stop right here. It’ll take you all the way to Spruce Street.”
Sandy gathers her bag and steps out on the sidewalk, muttering.
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Someone in this town’s gotta be,” Jensen shrugs. “I’ll see you when I get back, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Sandy sighs. “What am I supposed to tell your parents?”
“I don’t know, make something up. Tell them Danny and I wanted to hit the beaches in Delaware one last time-something.”
Sandy actually wrings her hands.
“I dunno, Jensen-”
“Bye, Sandy,” Danneel waves with her fingers and Jensen takes that as the cue to hit the road.
“Bye!” Jensen calls, putting the wagon into gear again and shooting away from the curb, leaving Sandy a forlorn figure under the Plexiglas bus stop.
“Her face,” Danneel giggles, putting one long leg forward and then another to climb into the passenger seat. “We can’t miss class!”
Jensen grins. “Cut her a break. She’s had perfect attendance since the sixth grade.”
“So this is it? We’re really doing this?”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “You think I’d miss Hendrix and The Who and Jefferson Airplane to sit in a stuffy classroom?”
Danneel keeps staring at him.
“What?” He asks, defensive.
“You’ve changed,” Danneel says with her head cocked to the side. “But I like it.”
*
Jensen drums his fingers on the steering wheel, glancing apprehensively at the long, glittering snake of cars in front of them.
“How long can we be stuck here, though? I mean, really,” Danneel sticks her head out the window to look.
“Dunno. Could be hours. It’s not moving at all,” Jensen says.
There are so many Volkswagens in front of them he feels more self-conscious of his station wagon than ever. They haven’t moved for a long time and people are starting to pile out of their cars to socialize, lighting cigarettes and laughing.
The boys are tall and lean with long hair that tumbles down their shoulders. The girls are tanned, stomachs exposed with shirts that tie off. A lot of the boys are wearing drainpipe jeans or bellbottoms, neither of which Jensen owns. He glances down at his pressed beige slacks and button-down shirt and again feels like the biggest square on planet earth.
Danneel’s looking at the hippies with undisguised wonder and Jensen has a feeling he’s probably wearing the exact same expression. Where did they all come from? Hippies would never fly in Springfield, where Hendrix was considered “too loud” at best, “devil music” at worst.
More and more people are pulling off the road, parking their cars and getting out to start the long walk to the festival grounds.
“What do you think? Should we walk?”
“Wait,” Danneel says, pulling her lipstick out of her cosmetics bag. She bites her lip and considers Jensen’s face.
“Riiiight here,” she murmurs, drawing on him with the same red lipstick she’s wearing.
“What’re you-?”
“Perfect.” She beams and sits back to admire her work.
Jensen glances in the rearview mirror. Danneel’s drawn a peace sign on his left cheek.
“How does my hair look?” She asks, arranging it over her shoulders so that it falls in auburn waves.
“Great,” Jensen says.
“Here.” Danneel reaches forward and gets a hand in his hair, messing it up. Jensen has to physically restrain himself from fixing it and putting it back into its usual tidy order.
Danneel gets out of the car, stretching her arms towards the cloudy sky.
“Looks like it’s gonna rain,” Jensen says. “What if we can’t get back to the car tonight?”
Danneel shrugs. “You worry too much. Just take whatever you need now.”
Jensen considers his messenger bag in the backseat, crammed with biology textbooks and new, unused notebooks.
“I have a tarp in the back, should we bring that?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever you want. Let’s just go,” Danneel says, her eyes fixed on the crowd of people moving towards the sounds of music.
“Soon as I park the car,” Jensen says. “Start walking, I’ll catch you up.”
Danneel waves and starts walking slow, and within seconds she’s picked up by a group of shirtless, shoeless boys and their girlfriends.
Jensen watches her back as he pulls off the road, towards a few other cars that didn’t have the patience to wait out the traffic either.
The wagon shudders to a halt in the mud and grass and Jensen digs through the backseat for the tarp, gets out, and locks the doors.
He considers the light blue wagon. It’s looking sad and suburban parked next to a cherry red ’67 Beetle and a ’60 Impala, and he feels a fleeting fondness for the thing. It got him all the way here, after all.
Jensen pats the warm hood of the station wagon and starts to walk towards the herds of people back on the side of the road.
*
By the time he and Danneel make it to the farm-turned-festival, Richie Havens is getting ready to close his set, playing a cover of Strawberry Fields Forever that blends into Hey Jude. The crowd goes wild and the press of bodies is almost too much for Jensen to take, even as far back in the crowd as they are.
He can’t believe his eyes-the ground is a veritable sea of people and color and the stage seems miles away. He has to duck and weave every thirty seconds or so to avoid knocking into someone and watch where he’s stepping on top of it all. Lots of people are sprawled out in the grass, smoking what he assumes must be pot out of homemade foil pipes. Danneel trails in his wake, grinning broadly and lighting a cigarette.
“Let’s get close!” She says, grabbing his hand.
“Easier said than done,” Jensen mumbles. “Excuse me,” he says as he knocks shoulders with a young black kid dancing in time to the music. The kid waves him off and keeps dancing, singing along to Havens’ song.
“Seriously, Jen, come on.”
Jensen gives up trying to lead and follows Danneel instead, who proves to be a pretty savvy navigator of the crowd.
They end up with a decent view of the stage by the time Sweetwater starts and Jensen claps Danneel on the back.
“Damn, well done. I can actually see.”
“I know, I’m amazing.”
Jensen laughs and Danneel squeezes his hand.
Now that they finally have a spot, Jensen starts letting himself believe it’s all real. The smell of smoke and farm grass and dust mixes up in Jensen’s nose and he’s here, he’s in New York with Danneel and he’s skipping class and he’s free.
He’s going to see Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. He’s going to stay up all night with hippies and smoke cigarettes and sing along until he loses his voice. He’s going to sleep in his parents’ car and get up tomorrow and the next day and do the same damn thing ‘til he passes out.
He squeezes Danneel’s hand back and they sway in time to Sweetwater’s What’s Wrong.
And that’s when he sees him.
Jensen doesn’t notice boys in that way. But then he’s also never seen a boy like the one in front of him.
He’s wearing only jeans and cowboy boots, all lanky long legs and flared denim low on his hips. He’s practically a god. His hair is long and feathered, a shade of chestnut brown with lighter streaks where the sun has touched it. His skin’s a tough-looking clay red-brown that makes Jensen think of a warm riverbank. His tanned stomach is flat and toned and his broad shoulders taper down to a tiny waist. His belt buckle is big and bronze with a star in the middle that reads “TEXAS.”
He’s divine, dancing with a cute petite girl in an oversized white blouse that’s tied at the front. She has twin blonde braids and big green eyes with long lashes. The boy twirls her around and she giggles, slipping in the mud for a moment before he catches her in his arms.
“Jesus, check him out,” Danneel mutters to Jensen.
“What about him?” Jensen swallows.
Jensen can’t take his eyes off the boy’s hair, his hips, the way he dances like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
He’d never look twice at a square like Jensen, especially when Jensen’s still practically dressed for Sunday dinner with his parents.
Except he is looking at Jensen. Right at him.
“Hey! Hey you!”
Jensen checks behind him to make sure the beautiful tan boy isn’t talking to someone behind him.
“M-me?”
“Yeah, you,” the boy smiles and points at the peace sign on Jensen’s cheek. “I dig it. Very avant garde with the accountant getup.”
“Thanks,” Jensen blushes. “Danneel did it.”
Danneel grins at Jared. “You want one?”
“Hell yeah I want one,” the boy laughs and grins back. “C’mere sweetheart.”
Jensen should’ve figured Danneel would catch the guy’s eye. She’s only totally gorgeous and being fearless doesn’t hurt her chances.
Who had he been kidding to think, even for a second, that the boy was actually interested in him? Besides, it’s not like the feeling would be mutual. Jensen’s not one of those New York club boys that are always on the news. He likes girls. Not that he’s ever gone steady with one, but he’s been on dates and the right girl will come along soon enough. Everyone meets someone in college. Hell, Jensen’s parents met when they were in college.
“So what’s your story? What’s your name, where you from?” The boy asks Jensen while Danneel draws on his cheek, her tongue poking out of her mouth as she concentrates on getting it just right.
“I’m Jensen. Jensen Ackles. This is Danneel Harris. We’re from Springfield, Pennsylvania.”
“Jensen?”
“Yeah,” Jensen mutters. “I know, it’s weird.”
“No, no. I dig it. Like, really. It’s different.”
Jensen smiles hesitantly. “Really?”
“Really really,” The other boy grins again. “I’m Jared Padalecki, this here’s Kate Cassidy, and some of my other vagrant friends are wandering around somewhere-”
Just then, a boy with stringy blonde hair and a guitar strapped to his back materializes, his small eyes narrowed. He, too, is shirtless, though he’s a lot paler than Jared.
“Padalecki, if I find out you snaked the bud again while I was gone-”
“Brother, I haven’t touched it,” Jared says, his hands in the air. “Cross my heart, hope Nixon dies.”
“Who’s he?” The blonde boy asks, taking notice of Jensen. “And is he gonna offer to do my taxes?”
“This charming man is Chad Murray,” Jared says to Jensen. “Jensen, Chad. Chad, Jensen.”
“Jensen?” Chad repeats.
Jensen extends his hand to Chad. The other boy considers him and then shakes.
“Well howdy, Jensen. I’m Chad. Now where the hell’s my weed?”
“Did you check to see if Soph had it?”
“Ah, good point,” Chad nods. And, at that moment, Chad notices Danneel. “Well excuse me. Are you with the taxman?”
“I’m with Jensen, yeah,” Danneel nods coolly, putting the finishing touches on Jared’s peace sign.
“How ‘bout giving me one of those?” Chad asks, leering.
“Where do you want it?” Danneel asks in a mock sweet voice.
“Oh, I think you kn-”
“Sorry, sugar, I don’t think it’s big enough,” Danneel cuts Chad off and smiles.
Jared whistles and Kate bursts into giggles. Chad turns red and walks away, still mumbling about his weed.
“That was something,” Kate says, putting an arm around Danneel. “I like her, she can stay.”
Jensen smiles, his heart sinking. He’s never going to be able to keep up with these people, not the way Danneel can.
But Jared turns to him again, ignoring Kate and Danneel for the time being. Something that feels suspiciously like hope bubbles in Jensen’s gut.
“Sorry about that. Chad lacks basic social skills at the best of times, let alone when he’s stoned. Where were we?”
“You were telling me about yourself,” Jensen says.
“Oh, yeah. Well, I’m Jared Padalecki. I’m nineteen, I’m Polish, I’m from Texas...”Jared cups a hand around a Marlboro and lights it. “So why are you here, Jensen Ackles from Springfield, Pennsylvania?”
Jensen hesitates and thinks of all the “cool” answers he could give. But he doesn’t live the life these kids do, doesn’t know anything about being a hippie or following bands around the country or living out of a VW van. Plus, he gets the feeling Jared’s the kind of guy who knows when someone’s faking.
“Honestly, I’m here because I really, really love Jimi Hendrix and I don’t want to be a fucking doctor.”
Jared smiles wide and Jensen realizes he actually has dimples on top of everything else. He might be sick with the unfairness of it all.
“That, my good man, is the right answer.”
“What about you?” Jensen asks, relieved.
“For free love, CCR, and the Dead,” Jared says, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
“Free love?” Jensen repeats.
Jared nods and takes another drag on his smoke.
“Y’know, away from all that suburban bullshit about marriage and two point five kids. It’s not for me.”
“So what is?”
Jared considers him, his lips quirked at one corner. “Jensen, has anyone ever told you you have the most beautiful green eyes?”
“No, nobody’s ever told me that,” Jensen mutters, feeling his ears turn red and his stomach tying itself in knots.
Jensen’s overwhelmed with the smells of tobacco and soap as Jared leans in close and kisses right underneath each of Jensen’s supposedly beautiful eyes.
“Consider yourself enlightened, then.”
Jensen’s pretty sure he’s blushing, and if that isn’t the lamest, most virginal thing he could do in the situation he only makes it worse by clearing his throat and putting his hands in his pockets.
So does this mean Jared’s…?
(Continued here )