fic: Your kind's my kind (J2 AU - PG-13)
title: Your kind's my kind
pairing: J2
word count: 4800
rating: PG-13, if that
notes: Those of you on my friends list might recognize this, as I flock-posted an original fiction version of it back in June (Sloane and Chavez, anyone?), which can be found here if you happen to be on my flist. Originally inspired by a drabblememe request by winterweathered. Also features the first (I think) use of last names throughout the third-person narrative in a J2 fic. Only explanation I got for that is that I've spent way too much time in the MLB RPS world of late. Title from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, of course.
summary: On the eve of college graduation, two best friends struggle with the label on their relationship and that hazy thing called the future.
The dogs are restless and Padalecki is washing dishes. One of them whines, high and plaintive and it might just be him, enough to make him give up on lemon Dawn and go to let them out the back door. He dries his hands on the towel slung over his shoulder before he grabs the knob.
He steps out onto the doormat on the back porch and spots Ackles, his roommate, looking shifty on the top step with a cigarette clenched in one hand.
"The undercover smoker look, man, really?" he asks. "Classy."
The dogs brush past his legs to race each other to that completely arbitrary spot halfway between the bottom of the porch steps and the back fence that both of them seem to have agreed is the primo place in the whole yard to take a shit. Sadie, sliding inexorably into hip dysplasia and possibly dementia in her old age, knocks heavily into Ackles as she leaps off the porch at a dead tilt, seven steps in a single bound. "My girl's all grace, ain't she?" Ackles always says, proud papa bravado. The other dog, more likely to answer to calls of "Fartface, no!" than "Harley!" (part mastiff and part draft horse, as big as their kitchen table and at least twice as dumb) makes it across the yard in a single bound.
Ackles's shoulders go all tense and defensive. "Fuck off," he says, not turning around. He exhales, toxic white plume against the dark yard, and hunches down even more. "You know what, man? I got, what, less'n a month left to my college career. Not to mention, you know, this. I'm stressed."
"Yeah? You're gonna be even more stressed when all the secondhand smoke gives me cancer and you have to juggle bein' a big fancy movie star with coming and visiting my skinny bald ass in the hospital," Padalecki teases. He pulls the back door shut behind him and goes to stand next to Ackles, one hand on the railing.
"Aw, it's sweet how you think I'mma have time for that. I'm going to be incredibly famous and important, Jared. Like, some George Clooney shit up in here. But don't worry, I'll send you those cards with the big-eyed cartoon animals on 'em. 'Get well soon, motherfucker, sorry I gave you cancer!'"
Padalecki reaches down and tugs sharply on his ear. "Bitch, you're not gonna leave my bedside and you know it."
Ackles grunts and flicks his ash, and Padalecki stops for a moment to watch the little papery bits of ash flutter away. Fartface barks once and squats in his usual spot. Sadie is over by the little patch of trees, sniffing at a cluster of roots sticking out of the ground, the same spot that kid from Padalecki's microbiology class last semester nearly broke his face tripping over during a drunken Frisbee game. Maybe the neighbor's cat has been over-everything smells vaguely like cat piss.
Ackles looks up at him and flexes a grin, all pointy teeth and stubble catching the porch light like cat eyes. "It'll be hard to visit you when I'm off filming in Prague," he says.
"Prague?" Padalecki asks, dubious. He squeezes the railing and worries a place where the paint is chipped, Sedona Red peeling away to reveal weathered gray wood below.
"Or, you know… like, Uruguay," Ackles says, nodding. He takes another long drag, holds it deep like it's weed, then exhales through his nose. For once he doesn't sneeze. "I'm just saying, is all. I hear it's nice there. Uruguay, I mean. But probably Prague, too." He pauses and shakes his head. "But seriously, dude. This pretty face I got? I'm a goddamn posterboy. They're gonna want to put me in all the pictures, and as long's filming's on a different continent from you and your cancer, I'm good."
"You're my favorite person in the world, too, Jensen," Padalecki says dryly.
"Hey, some days you're just less awesome than others. Not my fault. Keep up, will you?" Ackles replies, raising and dropping one shoulder. He stubs out his cigarette butt in the planter on the second step down, scowling at the geranium already inhabiting the pot. Ackles hates most plant life, but he's got beef with geraniums in particular, says it's something about the smell. Padalecki mostly planted them to discourage the whole using-the-planters-as-ashtrays thing. Worked like a charm, apparently.
Ackles grins and adds, "I mean, it's nothing personal."
Fartface takes about ten steps to the right and flops over over in the grass with all four feet straight up in the air like he thinks one of the humans is actually going to come out there and give him a belly rub. Sadie trots over to him and looks down into his face, barks once, and tears off in the opposite direction.
Padalecki sits down on the top step, too, splaying his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his elbows. His right ankle clocks against Ackles's left. They're both barefoot and wearing ratty old shorts, normal Sunday night outfits, and the knock of bone-on-bone kind of hurts. Ackles leaves his foot there, so Padalecki does too.
"Seriously though," Padalecki says, frowning. "There's a conversation that you and me need to have that we're… not."
Ackles makes a strangled sound. "I like-oh, hell, what are those little flowers with the purple stems and the white flower-parts? Begonias?" he says loudly. He's got his chin on his fist and his elbow resting in the hollow right above his kneecap, watching Sadie as she abandons around the overgrown flowerbeds to bark at a squirrel on the fence. Fartface rolls to one side and pants, gigantic tongue lolling and trailing shimmery strands of drool from his jowls. "We should've planted begonias. No more of this geranium shit. You remember how my mom always had geraniums everywhere? She used to make me plant 'em, and my hands would smell like ass for days."
Padalecki frowns at him, but it's not like he didn't see this coming. They've been best friends since their Little League teams got into a benches-clearing brawl, Ackles beaning the next batter in the head after giving up a homerun that cracked a car windshield halfway across the parking lot in straightaway center. Padalecki, eyes watering and head ringing, threw his batting helmet at him and charged the mound, knocked out two of Ackles's teeth and got a pair of black eyes for his trouble. They were both banned from the league for the rest of the summer, which they spent together because their parents thought it would be some kind of learning experience. So long story short, Padalecki is a pretty good authority on the guy, and for all that he wants to be an actor with the emoting and the expressing, Ackles is pretty goddamn emotionally retarded.
Finally, Padalecki sits up and jabs him hard in the side, right under his ribcage where it's soft and curved. Ackles twitches and looks away, jaw tight. He pulls in on himself, drawing his leg back up. He cracks all ten knuckles of his hands, pop-pop-pop, then his neck in both directions, more of a click-click.
"Yeah, J, I know," he says softly, scrubbing a hand through his short hair. "But I. I'm gonna need some more time, okay?"
Padalecki bumps his shoulder against Ackles's and nods. They sit there for a long time, watching the dogs. Eventually, Fartface stops rolling around in his patch of weedy grass and finds a squeaky toy, drops it on the pavement at the bottom of the porch steps, long lolling tongue and an expectant look at the humans. Sadie keeps barking at squirrels.
Two mornings later, Ackles is up first. It's pretty much the first time that's happened ever. He's already sitting on the kitchen table in Pacman boxers and a stretched out black wifebeater when Padalecki stumbles in, feet dangling in saggy gray socks, stuffing his face with dry Frosted Mini Wheats straight from the box.
"D'you wash your hands first?" Padalecki asks, making a face at him as he passes.
"Nope," says Ackles, grinning wide and bright. He pops another Mini Wheat into his mouth.
"Great, so now the whole box is infected with your ball sweat," Padalecki says.
"Dude, you don't even like Frosted Mini Wheats," Ackles replies, gesturing with the box like that proves his point, and then he adjusts himself in his shorts and belches. Padalecki rolls his eyes.
"So?" Padalecki says tiredly, raking a hand through his hair and yawning. He doesn't feel like he should have to explain. Then again, Ackles is kind of a disgusting human being most of the time. He'll eat just about anything for a dare or bet or laziness, he pops zits and doesn't clean the shit off the mirror afterwards, and he would rather buy new clothes than do the mountain of fetid laundry he's hoarding in his closet. Padalecki has a theory that if he wasn't so preoccupied with his looks, he would probably shower once a month, tops.
The coffee machine is still blurting out that industrial-strength sludge Ackles pretends has something in common with coffee, which means Padalecki is going to have to wait to brew his own. This has never happened before, since Ackles is never the first one up in the morning. Padalecki opens the fridge and examines his other caffeine options. It's way too early for Red Bull, since he can't go halfsies on vodka to make it worth drinking, so he grabs one of the cans of Starbucks Doubleshot from the vegetable drawer.
Ackles keeps on crunching, thoroughly unconcerned.
Padalecki finishes off the can and crumples it with a good strong slam against the edge of the counter, the place right by the fridge where the laminate is all fucked up from years of college kids popping the caps off their beer bottles right there. He tosses the empty into the box next to the trash where they sort the aluminum. He stops and stares for a second, wondering when he turned into the guy who sorts recyclables. It seems so domestic. He glances at Ackles, but he's reading the back of the cereal box and ignoring Padalecki completely.
"So," says Padalecki.
Ackles looks up and raises one eyebrow. "So," he says.
Padalecki crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the counter. "Can we talk about it now, maybe?" he asks.
Ackles winces and looks back down at the box. He presses his fingers against his mouth for a second, looks about to say something, then he shakes his head. "Two down is 'niacin,'" he says. "What the fuck? Since when do little kids give a shit what niacin is?"
"It's vitamin B3," Padalecki replies without thinking, then he's suddenly angry. He feels like a cat somebody just spritzed with water thinking it would be funny, his hackles up and teeth bared for a fight. He slaps his palm down on the counter hard and straightens up to his full height, which is several inches above Ackles's perfectly respectable six-naught. "Would you quit dodging the subject?"
"What's niacin do?" Ackles asks. Padalecki vaguely remembers a flashcard study session slash drinking game they played a few years back, Ackles trying to help him learn all the vitamins for a nutrition class. They took a drink every time he got an answer wrong, which did not help him learn at all, and sent him to class the next day with a hell of a hangover and no idea which horrible condition was caused by a lack of vitamin B3.
"The subject, dickhead," he says. "You just dodged again."
Ackles flushes a dull red, highlighter-bright against his pale skin, then busies himself with folding the bag down and closing the box. He hops off the table, skidding a few inches forward in his socks, and puts the Frosted Mini Wheats back in line with the rest of the cereal. The shelf is organized in alphabetical order by manufacturer, and it wasn't Padalecki who set that up.
The coffee maker stops gurgling, and Ackles makes a big production out of pouring himself a big cup. He dumps in his requisite two and a half sugars (because, y'know, three is just way too sweet) and stirs, and Padalecki watches all of this and grows steadily angrier and angrier.
Ackles doesn't say a word.
Eventually, Padalecki just gives up and goes back upstairs. He doesn't have class until noon, anyway. He closes the bedroom door behind him.
Two AM Friday night, Ackles comes home so drunk he can barely stand. He passes out on the floor behind the couch for a while, completely insensate. Padalecki kicks him a few times and when he doesn't respond, rolls him onto his side so he doesn't drown in his own vomit, then goes back to his rousing game of Rock Band. He owns the drums, Phil Rudd-awesome on "Let There Be Rock" cranked up to expert.
Sometime around four, after Padalecki has traded video games for the Fight Club "I am Jack's whatever" drinking game and is pleasantly buzzed on vodka and orange juice, Ackles wakes up and sort of shambles zombie-like to the bathroom. Vaguely concerned that he might trip and brain himself on something, Padalecki follows.
He stands in the doorway with his arms crossed and watches Ackles straddle the toilet and pretty much projectile-vomit into the bathtub. Then Jensen oozes to the floor, clinging to the toilet bowl and coughing, pulling up the hem of his t-shirt to wipe his face. He has rarely looked more pathetic.
"And what did we learn from this?" Padalecki asks.
"Don't patronize me," Ackles snaps back. "Just get me water. Something died in my mouth and I think it was my spleen."
Padalecki snorts, but he fills a Dixie cup in the sink and hands it down. "I imagine that's your liver protesting, actually."
Ackles finishes off the cup and crushes it on the side of the toilet tank, letting it fall to the floor with a soft pop. "I make terrible life choices, Jared," he groans.
"At least you're honest with yourself," Padalecki agrees, but he sits down against the opposite wall, long legs tangling with Ackles's.
They sit there quietly for a few minutes, Ackles leaning his sweaty forehead against the cool edge of the toilet seat and Padalecki tapping the riff from "Don't Fear the Reaper" against the bathtub. He thinks he should probably run the water.
"Okay, so. Just because we don't talk about it doesn't. I mean, it doesn't change shit, right?" Ackles says suddenly, sitting up straight and peeling off his damp, puke-stained t-shirt and winging it out into the hallway.
Padalecki makes a face. "Mmm, repression," he says.
Ackles reaches over and flicks him on the kneecap. "I'm just saying," he says.
Padalecki presses his thumbs into his eyesockets and wonders why Ackles has decided that now is just the perfect time to have this conversation, air choking with vomit-smell like the end of the world.
"Come on, dude," Ackles continues, looking up at the ceiling and scowling. "We both know where we stand. I don't see why we need to be chicks about it and sit around talking about it all the goddamn time."
"You're either missing the point or just purposely ignoring it, and I don't know which is worse," says Padalecki, teeth gritted and bared. "So basically it's down to: are you stupid or are you just an asshole?"
Ackles jerks back like he's been kicked, so fast he cracks his head on the side of the cabinet he's slumped against. "Padalecki," he says, blinking. "Dude. What?"
Padalecki chucks and gnaws off a corner of his thumbnail. "This is classic Jensen Ackles," he says.
"I. I don't want to fight with you," says Ackles, looking bewildered.
"Of course not," Padalecki snorts. "You never want to talk, don't want to fight. You fuckin' girl, running scared all the time."
Ackles hauls himself to his feet and stares down at him, mouth open in disbelief. He's not so pretty from this angle, Padalecki thinks meanly. His skin's all greenish and pale, smudged with sleep-bruises under his eyes, and there's a smear of something yellow across his chin.
"So, um. I'm going to go, then," he says shakily. "I'll sleep downstairs-just. Good night."
Padalecki, realizing that he's screwdriver-drunker than he thought, slumps back and shrugs one shoulder, not making eye contact. This is not how this conversation is supposed to go. Ackles exhales loudly through his nose and nods once, then slams his fist against the door on his way out of the bathroom, hard enough to dent the plaster behind the doorknob.
Go figure, Padalecki thinks. This is pretty much the best exit Ackles has ever made.
The next night, Genevieve, a girl Padalecki met in invertebrate lab sophomore year, comes over without knocking or calling first. Gen is even more impervious to normal conventions than Ackles is, and normally Padalecki would try to discourage such behavior, but he and Ely have had standing plans to get trashed in some crappy bar downtown every weekend since she got her fake ID.
"Please don't think you're coming out with me looking like that," says Gen, balking at the miserable expression Padalecki's been wearing all week. "It's bad enough I look like an anatomically-correct Fisher-Price toy next to you, Gigantor, but I'm not pub crawling with Debbie Downer. So not part of my job descrip." She always clips syllables off the ends of words, too impatient to get to the point.
"I don't want to have fun," Padalecki says. He rests his head on the back of the couch and stares at the ceiling. There's a crack running from the wall to the ceiling fan that he never noticed before. He hopes that doesn't mean the bedroom is going to wind up in the living room one of these days. Sadie wanders into the living room and hops up onto the couch next to him, resting her chin on his thigh and looking up at him adoringly. He scratches behind her ears.
"Well, mission accomplish, Prez Bush. Congrats," she replies, but she perches on the edge of the coffee table in front of him and nudges his knee with her fist. Her entire hand is barely big enough to cover his kneecap. "Come on, dancing releases endorphins. I've never seen anybody more in need of some endorphs in my life than you are right this sec."
He lifts his head and sighs. "I thought you didn't want to be seen with my long face," he says, a little accusingly.
She rolls her eyes and pokes him in the shin. "Don't you sit there punching holes in my logic, bucko. Get up. We're going out. You're going to have fun. And by 'fun,'" she says, air quotes and all, "I mostly mean 'quit dwelling on how much Jensen Ackles sucks balls' because I firmly believe in baby steps. Don't think you're quite up to painting the town red yet, emo kid."
He looks at the clock on the DVR, hopeful, but it's still way too early to consider going to bed. He's still in college, for fuck's sake. There's a picture of him and Ackles and their parents from graduation on top the TV, Padalecki grinning between Ackles's tiny blonde mother and his own father. Mr. Ackles has his arm slung around his son's shoulders, and Padalecki's mom has her hand on her husband's arm.
Next to him, Sadie huffs and scratches her side, tags jingling. "Yeah?" he says to Gen. "Your shoes are ugly."
She grins, wide and bright enough to light a whole city. She hops off the coffee table, bounces once or twice on her heels, and grabs his hand. "That's the spirit! I mean, okay, it's not a yes, but I'll take passive-aggress bitchface over woe-is-me any day," she says cheerfully, tugging his arm enough that he groans and lurches to his feet. Several of his joints crack and he feels like an old man all of a sudden. "Now come on, greaseball, let's go get your ass in the show, 'kay? 'Cause I look at you right now and all I can think is, 'Did I stumble into a Fall Out Boy vid? Should I break out the delousing powder?'"
They don't talk much over the next week or so, but eventually they lapse back into the same old shit they've always done, because neither of them is willing to give up on twelve years of friendship. They get drunk on a Wednesday and steal a bunch of gnomes from yards all over town, lining their purloined lawn ornaments up along the back fence. Ackles is the kind of guy who writes the addresses of the rightful owners on the bottom of each in Sharpie, though, which Padalecki sort of thinks defeats the purpose of petty theft. Ackles still sucks at Rock Band but he's bone-crushingly awesome at strategy games, and the two guys at USC who they play Call of Duty with on Live want to dedicate temples in his honor.
"Like, goats should be sacrificed in your name, dude," one of them says very seriously.
"And it's way less crazy than Scientology," adds the other. "No aliens in the Church of Jensen."
That night, Padalecki tries to bring up the elephant again, but Ackles is having none of it.
"Go to sleep," he says. "Early class tomorrow."
Padalecki snorts. "You're going to sleep now?" he says. "Mr. Oh-god-there's-come-on-my-skin-I'm-going-to-die-if-I-don't-disinfect-right-now."
"I just came so hard I lost ten years off the end of my life," Ackles says. "I don't care if there's jizz running down to my knees. And fuck you. Indulge your desperate snuggle tendencies and be quiet."
"You're such a romantic," Padalecki says dryly.
"I'll buy you flowers," Ackles offers. "Now I'm sleeping. Stop talking."
Padalecki has Frosted Mini Wheats one morning the last week of classes, alone in the house because Ackles has rehearsal all hours of the day. He doesn't enjoy it much, but it's the only cereal left in the house. He does the crossword puzzle on the back of the box in Sharpie. Two down is still niacin.
He leaves a note on the fridge: Niacin deficiency causes pellagra.
The next day, there's a reply: awesome-- wtf is pellagra?
Padalecki finishes his last final on Tuesday, which means he has the rest of the week to laze around and gloat to his friends who still have exams. Ackles starts carrying around one of those one-pound bags of rubber bands to shoot at him any time the two of them are in the same room when Ackles is studying and Padalecki is being smug. They play CoD with the guys from USC, who are graduating too, and they go out to bars with Gen and Ackles's creepy theater friends, and Padalecki finally gets a confirmation letter from his grad school of choice.
And then, before Padalecki even has time to blink, it's the night before Commencement and their house is packed with pretty much everyone either one of them has met in four years. Ackles is a theater major, which basically has a built-in minor in alcoholism and questionable life choices, and Padalecki was on the baseball team for three years. They know a lot of people.
Padalecki is standing with Yet-Ming, a Chinese stoner kid he had human anatomy with fall semester, talking about the Rangers and watching Gen let one of Padalecki's old teammates carry her around on his shoulders, when Ackles wanders over, red Solo cup in hand. She's wearing a coconut bra. "Is that my hat?" asks Ackles, pointing.
"I think so. I let her put her shit in the bedroom when she got here, and you know she's a klepto sometimes," says Padalecki.
"Great," says Ackles, frowning as Gen tips the fedora at everyone who passes.
"The hat looks better on her anyway," says Padalecki. "It mostly just makes you look like a giant douche." Ackles went through a phase freshman year where he thought he was Humphrey Bogart, which, if Padalecki thinks about it, was probably where the smoking thing came from.
"You should do stand-up like the real comedians," Ackles deadpans. He takes a drink and shakes his head. "Hey, so anyway. Can I maybe borrow you for a second?"
"I guess," says Padalecki, glancing at Yet, who gives him a thumbs-up.
"I'm dry anyway," says Yet, waving his own cup sadly. "If I don't see you again, have a good life, Jared. You are a grade-A, high-class awesome dude." Padalecki grins and knocks knuckles with him.
He follows Ackles through the kitchen and out onto the back porch, both of them collecting hugs and backslaps and "great party, man!" from everyone they pass. The porch is quiet once the backdoor is closed. The dogs are both lying out near the line of gnomes, panting with exertion, watching a group of guys play Frisbee in the dying light.
Ackles walks over to the far end of the porch, where the gardening tools are stacked. Padalecki leans against a post and waits, watching as Ackles twitches and fiddles with the handles of shovels. Smells like the neighbor's cat has been around again.
"Would you quit dicking around?" he says finally, exasperated, after two song changes inside.
"I really want a cig-no, okay. Get to the point, Jensen, you piece of shit," he mutters to himself. Jensen takes a deep breath. "You should come to LA with me," he says, but he doesn't turn around.
Padalecki blinks. "Excuse me?"
Ackles keeps fucking around with the tools, shoulders so tense his shirt is straining with effort. The shirt looks new. "I mean, I know you got school in the fall," he says, "but what are you doing this summer?"
"Probably working in the taco shop again," says Padalecki. Honestly, he hasn't thought about it. He doesn't remember how to make plans that don't involve Ackles, and Jensen hasn't been willing to even think about the future, let alone hash out maybes. Padalecki scratches the back of his neck and toes the mat at the top of the steps.
"Fuck that," says Ackles. "You're coming to California with me." He lets a rake handle fall back against the house with a thunk and turns around.
"Yeah, okay," Padalecki says derisively, rolling his eyes.
Ackles, though, gets mad. He slams the heel of his hand against the siding loud enough that the guys playing Frisbee stop and look over at them, and Fartface startles. Padalecki raises a hand in apology.
"Look, man, I know this whole thing is just fucked," says Ackles. "But you and me, we're best friends. Best friends first, and no matter what horrible shit is going down, even if I can't even look at you or you at me, I'm always going to want to be closer to you than farther." He scrubs his hand through his hair, which is finally getting long enough to curl up in the May humidity, and he gives Padalecki a hopeful, crooked smile. He looks so much like his twelve-year-old self that Padalecki's chest aches.
Padalecki lets out a surprised bark of laughter. "What?"
Ackles breaks eye contact and thumps his hand against the siding again, softer this time. "You called it, dude. I'm so fucking scared right now I can't even think right." He pops his knuckles, the tell that keeps him from being any kind of poker player, and looks over at the dogs. Padalecki looks over, too. Ten-year-old Sadie is sacked out cold, curled around a gnome with a red hat and a fishing pole, but Fartface is watching the Frisbee fly back and forth with the polite interest of a well-trained dog.
"So… pellagra's characterized by the four D's," says Padalecki after a long pause. He swallows. "Diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia and death."
Ackles raises one eyebrow. "So your skin goes bad, you go crazy, and then you shit yourself to death, all because you didn't eat enough niacin? Jesus." Then he takes a few steps closer, narrowing the gap between them to about five feet. "And look at you there, subject-dodger."
Padalecki smiles slightly. "Seems like the thing to do," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Come to California with me," Ackles repeats.
Padalecki nods, grinning. "Okay."
THE END.
pairing: J2
word count: 4800
rating: PG-13, if that
notes: Those of you on my friends list might recognize this, as I flock-posted an original fiction version of it back in June (Sloane and Chavez, anyone?), which can be found here if you happen to be on my flist. Originally inspired by a drabblememe request by winterweathered. Also features the first (I think) use of last names throughout the third-person narrative in a J2 fic. Only explanation I got for that is that I've spent way too much time in the MLB RPS world of late. Title from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, of course.
summary: On the eve of college graduation, two best friends struggle with the label on their relationship and that hazy thing called the future.
The dogs are restless and Padalecki is washing dishes. One of them whines, high and plaintive and it might just be him, enough to make him give up on lemon Dawn and go to let them out the back door. He dries his hands on the towel slung over his shoulder before he grabs the knob.
He steps out onto the doormat on the back porch and spots Ackles, his roommate, looking shifty on the top step with a cigarette clenched in one hand.
"The undercover smoker look, man, really?" he asks. "Classy."
The dogs brush past his legs to race each other to that completely arbitrary spot halfway between the bottom of the porch steps and the back fence that both of them seem to have agreed is the primo place in the whole yard to take a shit. Sadie, sliding inexorably into hip dysplasia and possibly dementia in her old age, knocks heavily into Ackles as she leaps off the porch at a dead tilt, seven steps in a single bound. "My girl's all grace, ain't she?" Ackles always says, proud papa bravado. The other dog, more likely to answer to calls of "Fartface, no!" than "Harley!" (part mastiff and part draft horse, as big as their kitchen table and at least twice as dumb) makes it across the yard in a single bound.
Ackles's shoulders go all tense and defensive. "Fuck off," he says, not turning around. He exhales, toxic white plume against the dark yard, and hunches down even more. "You know what, man? I got, what, less'n a month left to my college career. Not to mention, you know, this. I'm stressed."
"Yeah? You're gonna be even more stressed when all the secondhand smoke gives me cancer and you have to juggle bein' a big fancy movie star with coming and visiting my skinny bald ass in the hospital," Padalecki teases. He pulls the back door shut behind him and goes to stand next to Ackles, one hand on the railing.
"Aw, it's sweet how you think I'mma have time for that. I'm going to be incredibly famous and important, Jared. Like, some George Clooney shit up in here. But don't worry, I'll send you those cards with the big-eyed cartoon animals on 'em. 'Get well soon, motherfucker, sorry I gave you cancer!'"
Padalecki reaches down and tugs sharply on his ear. "Bitch, you're not gonna leave my bedside and you know it."
Ackles grunts and flicks his ash, and Padalecki stops for a moment to watch the little papery bits of ash flutter away. Fartface barks once and squats in his usual spot. Sadie is over by the little patch of trees, sniffing at a cluster of roots sticking out of the ground, the same spot that kid from Padalecki's microbiology class last semester nearly broke his face tripping over during a drunken Frisbee game. Maybe the neighbor's cat has been over-everything smells vaguely like cat piss.
Ackles looks up at him and flexes a grin, all pointy teeth and stubble catching the porch light like cat eyes. "It'll be hard to visit you when I'm off filming in Prague," he says.
"Prague?" Padalecki asks, dubious. He squeezes the railing and worries a place where the paint is chipped, Sedona Red peeling away to reveal weathered gray wood below.
"Or, you know… like, Uruguay," Ackles says, nodding. He takes another long drag, holds it deep like it's weed, then exhales through his nose. For once he doesn't sneeze. "I'm just saying, is all. I hear it's nice there. Uruguay, I mean. But probably Prague, too." He pauses and shakes his head. "But seriously, dude. This pretty face I got? I'm a goddamn posterboy. They're gonna want to put me in all the pictures, and as long's filming's on a different continent from you and your cancer, I'm good."
"You're my favorite person in the world, too, Jensen," Padalecki says dryly.
"Hey, some days you're just less awesome than others. Not my fault. Keep up, will you?" Ackles replies, raising and dropping one shoulder. He stubs out his cigarette butt in the planter on the second step down, scowling at the geranium already inhabiting the pot. Ackles hates most plant life, but he's got beef with geraniums in particular, says it's something about the smell. Padalecki mostly planted them to discourage the whole using-the-planters-as-ashtrays thing. Worked like a charm, apparently.
Ackles grins and adds, "I mean, it's nothing personal."
Fartface takes about ten steps to the right and flops over over in the grass with all four feet straight up in the air like he thinks one of the humans is actually going to come out there and give him a belly rub. Sadie trots over to him and looks down into his face, barks once, and tears off in the opposite direction.
Padalecki sits down on the top step, too, splaying his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his elbows. His right ankle clocks against Ackles's left. They're both barefoot and wearing ratty old shorts, normal Sunday night outfits, and the knock of bone-on-bone kind of hurts. Ackles leaves his foot there, so Padalecki does too.
"Seriously though," Padalecki says, frowning. "There's a conversation that you and me need to have that we're… not."
Ackles makes a strangled sound. "I like-oh, hell, what are those little flowers with the purple stems and the white flower-parts? Begonias?" he says loudly. He's got his chin on his fist and his elbow resting in the hollow right above his kneecap, watching Sadie as she abandons around the overgrown flowerbeds to bark at a squirrel on the fence. Fartface rolls to one side and pants, gigantic tongue lolling and trailing shimmery strands of drool from his jowls. "We should've planted begonias. No more of this geranium shit. You remember how my mom always had geraniums everywhere? She used to make me plant 'em, and my hands would smell like ass for days."
Padalecki frowns at him, but it's not like he didn't see this coming. They've been best friends since their Little League teams got into a benches-clearing brawl, Ackles beaning the next batter in the head after giving up a homerun that cracked a car windshield halfway across the parking lot in straightaway center. Padalecki, eyes watering and head ringing, threw his batting helmet at him and charged the mound, knocked out two of Ackles's teeth and got a pair of black eyes for his trouble. They were both banned from the league for the rest of the summer, which they spent together because their parents thought it would be some kind of learning experience. So long story short, Padalecki is a pretty good authority on the guy, and for all that he wants to be an actor with the emoting and the expressing, Ackles is pretty goddamn emotionally retarded.
Finally, Padalecki sits up and jabs him hard in the side, right under his ribcage where it's soft and curved. Ackles twitches and looks away, jaw tight. He pulls in on himself, drawing his leg back up. He cracks all ten knuckles of his hands, pop-pop-pop, then his neck in both directions, more of a click-click.
"Yeah, J, I know," he says softly, scrubbing a hand through his short hair. "But I. I'm gonna need some more time, okay?"
Padalecki bumps his shoulder against Ackles's and nods. They sit there for a long time, watching the dogs. Eventually, Fartface stops rolling around in his patch of weedy grass and finds a squeaky toy, drops it on the pavement at the bottom of the porch steps, long lolling tongue and an expectant look at the humans. Sadie keeps barking at squirrels.
Two mornings later, Ackles is up first. It's pretty much the first time that's happened ever. He's already sitting on the kitchen table in Pacman boxers and a stretched out black wifebeater when Padalecki stumbles in, feet dangling in saggy gray socks, stuffing his face with dry Frosted Mini Wheats straight from the box.
"D'you wash your hands first?" Padalecki asks, making a face at him as he passes.
"Nope," says Ackles, grinning wide and bright. He pops another Mini Wheat into his mouth.
"Great, so now the whole box is infected with your ball sweat," Padalecki says.
"Dude, you don't even like Frosted Mini Wheats," Ackles replies, gesturing with the box like that proves his point, and then he adjusts himself in his shorts and belches. Padalecki rolls his eyes.
"So?" Padalecki says tiredly, raking a hand through his hair and yawning. He doesn't feel like he should have to explain. Then again, Ackles is kind of a disgusting human being most of the time. He'll eat just about anything for a dare or bet or laziness, he pops zits and doesn't clean the shit off the mirror afterwards, and he would rather buy new clothes than do the mountain of fetid laundry he's hoarding in his closet. Padalecki has a theory that if he wasn't so preoccupied with his looks, he would probably shower once a month, tops.
The coffee machine is still blurting out that industrial-strength sludge Ackles pretends has something in common with coffee, which means Padalecki is going to have to wait to brew his own. This has never happened before, since Ackles is never the first one up in the morning. Padalecki opens the fridge and examines his other caffeine options. It's way too early for Red Bull, since he can't go halfsies on vodka to make it worth drinking, so he grabs one of the cans of Starbucks Doubleshot from the vegetable drawer.
Ackles keeps on crunching, thoroughly unconcerned.
Padalecki finishes off the can and crumples it with a good strong slam against the edge of the counter, the place right by the fridge where the laminate is all fucked up from years of college kids popping the caps off their beer bottles right there. He tosses the empty into the box next to the trash where they sort the aluminum. He stops and stares for a second, wondering when he turned into the guy who sorts recyclables. It seems so domestic. He glances at Ackles, but he's reading the back of the cereal box and ignoring Padalecki completely.
"So," says Padalecki.
Ackles looks up and raises one eyebrow. "So," he says.
Padalecki crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the counter. "Can we talk about it now, maybe?" he asks.
Ackles winces and looks back down at the box. He presses his fingers against his mouth for a second, looks about to say something, then he shakes his head. "Two down is 'niacin,'" he says. "What the fuck? Since when do little kids give a shit what niacin is?"
"It's vitamin B3," Padalecki replies without thinking, then he's suddenly angry. He feels like a cat somebody just spritzed with water thinking it would be funny, his hackles up and teeth bared for a fight. He slaps his palm down on the counter hard and straightens up to his full height, which is several inches above Ackles's perfectly respectable six-naught. "Would you quit dodging the subject?"
"What's niacin do?" Ackles asks. Padalecki vaguely remembers a flashcard study session slash drinking game they played a few years back, Ackles trying to help him learn all the vitamins for a nutrition class. They took a drink every time he got an answer wrong, which did not help him learn at all, and sent him to class the next day with a hell of a hangover and no idea which horrible condition was caused by a lack of vitamin B3.
"The subject, dickhead," he says. "You just dodged again."
Ackles flushes a dull red, highlighter-bright against his pale skin, then busies himself with folding the bag down and closing the box. He hops off the table, skidding a few inches forward in his socks, and puts the Frosted Mini Wheats back in line with the rest of the cereal. The shelf is organized in alphabetical order by manufacturer, and it wasn't Padalecki who set that up.
The coffee maker stops gurgling, and Ackles makes a big production out of pouring himself a big cup. He dumps in his requisite two and a half sugars (because, y'know, three is just way too sweet) and stirs, and Padalecki watches all of this and grows steadily angrier and angrier.
Ackles doesn't say a word.
Eventually, Padalecki just gives up and goes back upstairs. He doesn't have class until noon, anyway. He closes the bedroom door behind him.
Two AM Friday night, Ackles comes home so drunk he can barely stand. He passes out on the floor behind the couch for a while, completely insensate. Padalecki kicks him a few times and when he doesn't respond, rolls him onto his side so he doesn't drown in his own vomit, then goes back to his rousing game of Rock Band. He owns the drums, Phil Rudd-awesome on "Let There Be Rock" cranked up to expert.
Sometime around four, after Padalecki has traded video games for the Fight Club "I am Jack's whatever" drinking game and is pleasantly buzzed on vodka and orange juice, Ackles wakes up and sort of shambles zombie-like to the bathroom. Vaguely concerned that he might trip and brain himself on something, Padalecki follows.
He stands in the doorway with his arms crossed and watches Ackles straddle the toilet and pretty much projectile-vomit into the bathtub. Then Jensen oozes to the floor, clinging to the toilet bowl and coughing, pulling up the hem of his t-shirt to wipe his face. He has rarely looked more pathetic.
"And what did we learn from this?" Padalecki asks.
"Don't patronize me," Ackles snaps back. "Just get me water. Something died in my mouth and I think it was my spleen."
Padalecki snorts, but he fills a Dixie cup in the sink and hands it down. "I imagine that's your liver protesting, actually."
Ackles finishes off the cup and crushes it on the side of the toilet tank, letting it fall to the floor with a soft pop. "I make terrible life choices, Jared," he groans.
"At least you're honest with yourself," Padalecki agrees, but he sits down against the opposite wall, long legs tangling with Ackles's.
They sit there quietly for a few minutes, Ackles leaning his sweaty forehead against the cool edge of the toilet seat and Padalecki tapping the riff from "Don't Fear the Reaper" against the bathtub. He thinks he should probably run the water.
"Okay, so. Just because we don't talk about it doesn't. I mean, it doesn't change shit, right?" Ackles says suddenly, sitting up straight and peeling off his damp, puke-stained t-shirt and winging it out into the hallway.
Padalecki makes a face. "Mmm, repression," he says.
Ackles reaches over and flicks him on the kneecap. "I'm just saying," he says.
Padalecki presses his thumbs into his eyesockets and wonders why Ackles has decided that now is just the perfect time to have this conversation, air choking with vomit-smell like the end of the world.
"Come on, dude," Ackles continues, looking up at the ceiling and scowling. "We both know where we stand. I don't see why we need to be chicks about it and sit around talking about it all the goddamn time."
"You're either missing the point or just purposely ignoring it, and I don't know which is worse," says Padalecki, teeth gritted and bared. "So basically it's down to: are you stupid or are you just an asshole?"
Ackles jerks back like he's been kicked, so fast he cracks his head on the side of the cabinet he's slumped against. "Padalecki," he says, blinking. "Dude. What?"
Padalecki chucks and gnaws off a corner of his thumbnail. "This is classic Jensen Ackles," he says.
"I. I don't want to fight with you," says Ackles, looking bewildered.
"Of course not," Padalecki snorts. "You never want to talk, don't want to fight. You fuckin' girl, running scared all the time."
Ackles hauls himself to his feet and stares down at him, mouth open in disbelief. He's not so pretty from this angle, Padalecki thinks meanly. His skin's all greenish and pale, smudged with sleep-bruises under his eyes, and there's a smear of something yellow across his chin.
"So, um. I'm going to go, then," he says shakily. "I'll sleep downstairs-just. Good night."
Padalecki, realizing that he's screwdriver-drunker than he thought, slumps back and shrugs one shoulder, not making eye contact. This is not how this conversation is supposed to go. Ackles exhales loudly through his nose and nods once, then slams his fist against the door on his way out of the bathroom, hard enough to dent the plaster behind the doorknob.
Go figure, Padalecki thinks. This is pretty much the best exit Ackles has ever made.
The next night, Genevieve, a girl Padalecki met in invertebrate lab sophomore year, comes over without knocking or calling first. Gen is even more impervious to normal conventions than Ackles is, and normally Padalecki would try to discourage such behavior, but he and Ely have had standing plans to get trashed in some crappy bar downtown every weekend since she got her fake ID.
"Please don't think you're coming out with me looking like that," says Gen, balking at the miserable expression Padalecki's been wearing all week. "It's bad enough I look like an anatomically-correct Fisher-Price toy next to you, Gigantor, but I'm not pub crawling with Debbie Downer. So not part of my job descrip." She always clips syllables off the ends of words, too impatient to get to the point.
"I don't want to have fun," Padalecki says. He rests his head on the back of the couch and stares at the ceiling. There's a crack running from the wall to the ceiling fan that he never noticed before. He hopes that doesn't mean the bedroom is going to wind up in the living room one of these days. Sadie wanders into the living room and hops up onto the couch next to him, resting her chin on his thigh and looking up at him adoringly. He scratches behind her ears.
"Well, mission accomplish, Prez Bush. Congrats," she replies, but she perches on the edge of the coffee table in front of him and nudges his knee with her fist. Her entire hand is barely big enough to cover his kneecap. "Come on, dancing releases endorphins. I've never seen anybody more in need of some endorphs in my life than you are right this sec."
He lifts his head and sighs. "I thought you didn't want to be seen with my long face," he says, a little accusingly.
She rolls her eyes and pokes him in the shin. "Don't you sit there punching holes in my logic, bucko. Get up. We're going out. You're going to have fun. And by 'fun,'" she says, air quotes and all, "I mostly mean 'quit dwelling on how much Jensen Ackles sucks balls' because I firmly believe in baby steps. Don't think you're quite up to painting the town red yet, emo kid."
He looks at the clock on the DVR, hopeful, but it's still way too early to consider going to bed. He's still in college, for fuck's sake. There's a picture of him and Ackles and their parents from graduation on top the TV, Padalecki grinning between Ackles's tiny blonde mother and his own father. Mr. Ackles has his arm slung around his son's shoulders, and Padalecki's mom has her hand on her husband's arm.
Next to him, Sadie huffs and scratches her side, tags jingling. "Yeah?" he says to Gen. "Your shoes are ugly."
She grins, wide and bright enough to light a whole city. She hops off the coffee table, bounces once or twice on her heels, and grabs his hand. "That's the spirit! I mean, okay, it's not a yes, but I'll take passive-aggress bitchface over woe-is-me any day," she says cheerfully, tugging his arm enough that he groans and lurches to his feet. Several of his joints crack and he feels like an old man all of a sudden. "Now come on, greaseball, let's go get your ass in the show, 'kay? 'Cause I look at you right now and all I can think is, 'Did I stumble into a Fall Out Boy vid? Should I break out the delousing powder?'"
They don't talk much over the next week or so, but eventually they lapse back into the same old shit they've always done, because neither of them is willing to give up on twelve years of friendship. They get drunk on a Wednesday and steal a bunch of gnomes from yards all over town, lining their purloined lawn ornaments up along the back fence. Ackles is the kind of guy who writes the addresses of the rightful owners on the bottom of each in Sharpie, though, which Padalecki sort of thinks defeats the purpose of petty theft. Ackles still sucks at Rock Band but he's bone-crushingly awesome at strategy games, and the two guys at USC who they play Call of Duty with on Live want to dedicate temples in his honor.
"Like, goats should be sacrificed in your name, dude," one of them says very seriously.
"And it's way less crazy than Scientology," adds the other. "No aliens in the Church of Jensen."
That night, Padalecki tries to bring up the elephant again, but Ackles is having none of it.
"Go to sleep," he says. "Early class tomorrow."
Padalecki snorts. "You're going to sleep now?" he says. "Mr. Oh-god-there's-come-on-my-skin-I'm-going-to-die-if-I-don't-disinfect-right-now."
"I just came so hard I lost ten years off the end of my life," Ackles says. "I don't care if there's jizz running down to my knees. And fuck you. Indulge your desperate snuggle tendencies and be quiet."
"You're such a romantic," Padalecki says dryly.
"I'll buy you flowers," Ackles offers. "Now I'm sleeping. Stop talking."
Padalecki has Frosted Mini Wheats one morning the last week of classes, alone in the house because Ackles has rehearsal all hours of the day. He doesn't enjoy it much, but it's the only cereal left in the house. He does the crossword puzzle on the back of the box in Sharpie. Two down is still niacin.
He leaves a note on the fridge: Niacin deficiency causes pellagra.
The next day, there's a reply: awesome-- wtf is pellagra?
Padalecki finishes his last final on Tuesday, which means he has the rest of the week to laze around and gloat to his friends who still have exams. Ackles starts carrying around one of those one-pound bags of rubber bands to shoot at him any time the two of them are in the same room when Ackles is studying and Padalecki is being smug. They play CoD with the guys from USC, who are graduating too, and they go out to bars with Gen and Ackles's creepy theater friends, and Padalecki finally gets a confirmation letter from his grad school of choice.
And then, before Padalecki even has time to blink, it's the night before Commencement and their house is packed with pretty much everyone either one of them has met in four years. Ackles is a theater major, which basically has a built-in minor in alcoholism and questionable life choices, and Padalecki was on the baseball team for three years. They know a lot of people.
Padalecki is standing with Yet-Ming, a Chinese stoner kid he had human anatomy with fall semester, talking about the Rangers and watching Gen let one of Padalecki's old teammates carry her around on his shoulders, when Ackles wanders over, red Solo cup in hand. She's wearing a coconut bra. "Is that my hat?" asks Ackles, pointing.
"I think so. I let her put her shit in the bedroom when she got here, and you know she's a klepto sometimes," says Padalecki.
"Great," says Ackles, frowning as Gen tips the fedora at everyone who passes.
"The hat looks better on her anyway," says Padalecki. "It mostly just makes you look like a giant douche." Ackles went through a phase freshman year where he thought he was Humphrey Bogart, which, if Padalecki thinks about it, was probably where the smoking thing came from.
"You should do stand-up like the real comedians," Ackles deadpans. He takes a drink and shakes his head. "Hey, so anyway. Can I maybe borrow you for a second?"
"I guess," says Padalecki, glancing at Yet, who gives him a thumbs-up.
"I'm dry anyway," says Yet, waving his own cup sadly. "If I don't see you again, have a good life, Jared. You are a grade-A, high-class awesome dude." Padalecki grins and knocks knuckles with him.
He follows Ackles through the kitchen and out onto the back porch, both of them collecting hugs and backslaps and "great party, man!" from everyone they pass. The porch is quiet once the backdoor is closed. The dogs are both lying out near the line of gnomes, panting with exertion, watching a group of guys play Frisbee in the dying light.
Ackles walks over to the far end of the porch, where the gardening tools are stacked. Padalecki leans against a post and waits, watching as Ackles twitches and fiddles with the handles of shovels. Smells like the neighbor's cat has been around again.
"Would you quit dicking around?" he says finally, exasperated, after two song changes inside.
"I really want a cig-no, okay. Get to the point, Jensen, you piece of shit," he mutters to himself. Jensen takes a deep breath. "You should come to LA with me," he says, but he doesn't turn around.
Padalecki blinks. "Excuse me?"
Ackles keeps fucking around with the tools, shoulders so tense his shirt is straining with effort. The shirt looks new. "I mean, I know you got school in the fall," he says, "but what are you doing this summer?"
"Probably working in the taco shop again," says Padalecki. Honestly, he hasn't thought about it. He doesn't remember how to make plans that don't involve Ackles, and Jensen hasn't been willing to even think about the future, let alone hash out maybes. Padalecki scratches the back of his neck and toes the mat at the top of the steps.
"Fuck that," says Ackles. "You're coming to California with me." He lets a rake handle fall back against the house with a thunk and turns around.
"Yeah, okay," Padalecki says derisively, rolling his eyes.
Ackles, though, gets mad. He slams the heel of his hand against the siding loud enough that the guys playing Frisbee stop and look over at them, and Fartface startles. Padalecki raises a hand in apology.
"Look, man, I know this whole thing is just fucked," says Ackles. "But you and me, we're best friends. Best friends first, and no matter what horrible shit is going down, even if I can't even look at you or you at me, I'm always going to want to be closer to you than farther." He scrubs his hand through his hair, which is finally getting long enough to curl up in the May humidity, and he gives Padalecki a hopeful, crooked smile. He looks so much like his twelve-year-old self that Padalecki's chest aches.
Padalecki lets out a surprised bark of laughter. "What?"
Ackles breaks eye contact and thumps his hand against the siding again, softer this time. "You called it, dude. I'm so fucking scared right now I can't even think right." He pops his knuckles, the tell that keeps him from being any kind of poker player, and looks over at the dogs. Padalecki looks over, too. Ten-year-old Sadie is sacked out cold, curled around a gnome with a red hat and a fishing pole, but Fartface is watching the Frisbee fly back and forth with the polite interest of a well-trained dog.
"So… pellagra's characterized by the four D's," says Padalecki after a long pause. He swallows. "Diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia and death."
Ackles raises one eyebrow. "So your skin goes bad, you go crazy, and then you shit yourself to death, all because you didn't eat enough niacin? Jesus." Then he takes a few steps closer, narrowing the gap between them to about five feet. "And look at you there, subject-dodger."
Padalecki smiles slightly. "Seems like the thing to do," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Come to California with me," Ackles repeats.
Padalecki nods, grinning. "Okay."
THE END.