The Academy of Absent Fathers - Jensen/Misha, NC-17 - Chapter Eight - 1/2
Title: The Academy of Absent Fathers - Chapter Eight - 1/2
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Authors: qthelights & kriari
Rating: NC-17
Warnings & Notes: See Chapter One for full warnings, disclaimers and notes. WIP.
Summary: As one of the premiere boarding schools on the east coast, Ellis Academy plays host to the preeminent financiers, businessmen, and politicians of tomorrow. The very dirt stinks of privilege and as a long-time foster child, Misha Collins has no idea how he ended up here. To make matters worse, he's stuck rooming with the equivalent of Ellis royalty. Jensen Ackles is a lifer - captain of the lacrosse team, do-gooder and textbook overachiever. And they hate each other. Mostly. But as they move from hate to something more, secrets from their unknown yet inextricably linked pasts threaten to destroy everything they've built. And the worst part? They have no idea what's coming...
Previous chapters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Jensen
The quiet is what’s always gotten to him in the past, that inevitable vacuum left behind by the mass exodus of winter break. This year’s different. Even after the last bus bumps down the long, white drive for Charleston International, Jensen’s days skip along much as they have for the last three months.
The first Wednesday blurs by, half lost to sleep and the other half to rambling around the old barn on the southwest corner of the property. He and Jared found it completely by accident the summer they were ten, and Jensen privately deems it a miracle the thing’s still standing, given the condition it was in back then. Jensen and Misha stumble back to the dorm after dark, their jeans crusted with mud and briars. Both of their coats tell the tale of their day, littered from collar to hem with dried leaves and old, grey straw. Misha’s cheeks are windburn-pink to match his swollen lips, and when Jensen teases him about his newly cherubic complexion, Misha does his very best to prove otherwise.
After, they sleep like the dead.
Or Jensen does.
When he wakes Thursday morning, he’s freezing. The furl of blankets wrapped around him doesn’t stand a chance against the chill of December, even in South Carolina. Thirty feels good on the lacrosse field at an open sprint. Not so much lying in bed. What he doesn’t understand is why the window’s yawning wide, propped open by an inconvenient towel in the track. Misha’s nowhere to be seen, bed rumpled and sheets askew, but when Jensen squints across the room in the murky darkness, his Ellis-issued bedding is missing.
It can only mean one thing.
Jensen pulls on a pair of socks before he risks the journey to the window and the balcony beyond. Misha can be forgetful, especially in the early hours. Based on that knowledge, Jensen grabs a second pair before he shimmies out the window with every last blanket he owns. Predictably, he finds Misha swaddled in a spill of covers with his back pressed to the wall beneath the window. In spite of the steaming mug of tea cupped between his hands, Misha’s teeth chatter violently.
After the day they had yesterday, Jensen expects some sort of response when he settles in beside Misha. It doesn’t come, and Jensen refuses to pry. He wants to. More than anything. He settles for dropping the balled-up pair of socks between Misha’s bare feet and sitting with him in companionable silence.
He has time enough to discover the shape of Misha’s damage. If anything, this life has taught him the value of patience.
After an hour or so, Misha crawls back through the window without a word, socks untouched, cold tea abandoned at Jensen’s hip, and he’s forced to exercise exactly that - patience. Jensen desperately wants to push, would push if he thought he could get away with it. The slam of their door confirms his suspicions. Instead, he collects his dad’s Lions mug, hauling it in along with the mound of blankets and Misha’s socks, closing and latching the window behind him.
This has happened before, will most likely happen again, and Jensen knows to give Misha a minute to get himself settled into a shower before he slips out to begin his own morning routine. It’s easier to respect buffers when the rest of the guys are here. Since it’s just the two of them on the wing right now, he has to work harder to accommodate Misha’s occasional need for personal space.
It’s hard to be here alone now, though. The room’s too quiet and cold without another person rustling around. Not that Jensen’s the type to cling; has never had the luxury, in fact. He forges his own path, makes his own luck. Partly it’s because he’s had to. Mostly it’s because, very early on, he learned to want it for himself.
That life can get lonely, empty.
And it’s not like he doesn’t have friends. He does. Dudes from the lacrosse team he talks shop with, fellow members of the student council, floormates, classmates. Then there’s Chris and, to a lesser, more annoying extent, Dave. Silly as it sounds, in Misha he feels like he finally has someone who likes him. Despite their recent misunderstandings, Jensen trusts Misha to always have his back and to listen when he needs to talk. That Misha might not feel the same bothers him.
Misha’s had ample time to skulk around and warm the water at this point, which makes belaboring, well, pointless. So Jensen drops the impressive knot of blankets on Misha’s bed and plucks his towel from its hook.
Just as he slips on his shower shoes and goes for the knob, the phone rings.
It, like everything else, sounds deafening in the stillness of an empty dorm, and he grabs it before checking the caller ID.
“Ackles.”
“Now, I know I’m paying for better manners than that.” The voice that drifts down the line is familiar, and Jensen’s heart sinks.
“Dad.”
There’s an awkward pause on the other end of the line, the clacking of a keyboard and the buzz of a cell. Jensen feels nine inches tall, but he refuses to offer an easy out, to fill the silence left by his father’s inattention.
“How’s school?” he asks, obviously distracted. “Still killing everyone at trig?”
“Winter break started Friday so, no, I guess not. Fall finals aren’t until the end of January.”
Dad huffs a harsh breath into the receiver and if Jensen didn’t know better, he’d guess Mr. High-Powered Executive was embarrassed.
“I meant in general, Jensen. Are your grades good?”
“Same as always.” Jensen sighs, frustrated but with no idea what to do about it. “Speaking of the break, do you think I could bring someone with me? There’s more than enough room and I don’t think he knows how to ski.”
“Jensen.”
“Could be fun to teach someone, y’know? Run him down the bunnies and watch him wipe out?”
“Son, I don’t…”
“Or we could just go terrorize the town, harass the Nelsons next door when you have one of your conference calls.”
“Jensen.”
Jensen snaps “What,” he says - says - and doesn’t ask, because there’s never been a question of how this is going to go down.
“I hate to do this, kiddo, but…”
Jensen’s tired of excuses. More than that, he’s tired of empty promises. Fuck if he doesn’t need to call Chris and go get shitfaced. Maybe a little liquid lubrication will do both of them some good, considering the mood Misha’s been in this morning.
“If you really hated it, you wouldn’t do it,” he grits out. His jaw aches with the effort.
“You know I don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you do, Dad. Unfortunately, you always seem to make the wrong one.”
The voice drifting down the line changes, finally focused but softer, wounded. “I’m still your father,” it says.
“Since when?”
“Since always, Jensen. It’s just that your father happens to be tied up in Bangalore until at least the thirtieth.”
Which, whatever, at least he picked up the phone. Most of time, Dad’s assistant Darla makes this call.
“Anything else?”
It’s his father’s turn to sigh, and Jensen waits, using the time to button himself back up.
“I touch down at CHS on New Year’s Eve. I’ll see you then, son.” Then there’s a click and he’s gone.
Jensen settles the phone back in its cradle, gently. For a second he simply breathes, focusing on the movement of his lungs, the tightness in his ribs. This is fine. Better. They’ll be on familiar turf and he won’t have to worry about Misha turning down the trip out of guilt or indifference or simple disinterest.
Their door slams again in his wake, the bang of it incredibly satisfying as it echoes down empty halls.
It’ll be fine.
***
Misha
He’s the first to admit that life at Ellis has not been as bad as he thought it would be. Okay, that’s bullshit. He’d be the absolute last to say any such thing, but that doesn’t change the fact that he suspects it’s true.
He enjoys the classes, as much as that makes him a bit of a loser. He’s always been an avid reader, escaping as quickly as he can into other people’s lives, other people’s turmoil. This is different though. Here he has to read and then do shit with the knowledge he gleans. It’s harder than he thought and yet satisfyingly pleasurable when he comes up with the goods.
He’s safe. No one is going to come into his room at night, drunk and angry. No one is about to kick him out for being ‘too much’ for foster parents sliding down the other side of fifty.
He has a constant supply of food. Not the best food. Nothing like Gray’s Papaya or the chow mien Large Eddie ladles out down on 72nd. Granted, it’s probably far more nutritious. But it’s plentiful, and Misha is thankful for it. He still keeps a stash of pilfered edibles in the back of his second desk drawer. And there’re some individually wrapped graham crackers hidden under his mattress. But their fate doesn’t constrict his heart and crush his lungs the way it once would have without constant checking.
Old habits die hard.
Really though, a lot of the not-sucking has to do with Jensen.
Misha had half-expected Jensen to bolt as soon as the come dried on their skin, crackled and beginning to itch. He hadn’t expected Jensen to gaze at him with wide eyes, almost scary in their intensity. Nor had he expected Jensen to then fall asleep.
But there you go.
It’s new, and Misha doesn’t want to spook him. He’s had his fair share of hook-ups in back alleys, darkened corners of parties with kids he didn’t even know. Jensen is different. And so Misha goes slow. Which works right up until Jensen pushes him into a pile of leaves in the old barn, and slowly but surely, owns every inch of him. He goes along with it.
He knows Jensen is meant to go somewhere with his dad for the holidays. Whistler or Aspen or some other pretentious place with pristine snow and big-bosomed ski bunnies. He expects Jensen will invite him along, but knows he’ll decline when he does. Not because he doesn’t want to - he does - but tagging along on someone else’s family time is weird. Thanksgiving was awkward enough, with Jared staring at him with murderous intent, and Jensen’s eyes flicking back and forth between them as if at a tennis match, waiting for Misha to fuck up and embarrass him, or Jared to go mental and launch himself across the table.
Actually intruding on time with someone’s father - and Misha knows Jensen has little of it - that would be too much. Misha’s own father might be a loser, in and out of jail and generally fucking up all over the place, but Jensen’s father is some high-rolling businessman. The likes of Misha and his grubby background have no business being chummy with that, pretending to like the foie gras and caviar.
So Jensen will up and leave him, and he’ll be stuck at Ellis while Jensen lives the high life. He’s been trying not to think about it, pretending it isn’t an eventuality until it is. And for the most part, that’s going pretty damn well. Sucking on Jensen’s tongue or biting teeth-marks into his hips turn out to be pretty distracting distractions. As is watching the way Jensen battles his own inner phobias and inexperience to wrap his fingers around Misha’s dick, eyes dark and wanting despite the abortive hesitation. Jensen may have never done it before, but fuck if he doesn’t know how to bring Misha off in under two.
It’s pretty easy to pretend, after all, that Misha’s been doing it all his life. And it nearly works, too, right up until the mail slips under their door early Thursday morning, and Misha finds himself with an envelope from the Petersons. Inside is a note, carefully written in Mr P’s just-so handwriting on embossed stationery. Telling Misha how proud they are, not that they’d even know, and how he needs to buckle down for the next semester. It’s formulaic and impersonal and it comes with a twenty, so that’s not even a blink of an eye. What upsets everything is the other envelope tucked in with it, another letter from his parents, once again asking the Petersons for money.
Misha knows better than to let it get to him, but as they’d fallen asleep last night, in separate beds, kiss-blushed and sated, Jensen had started talking about the fun they’d have with his dad. The combination of the two, the proof of his own parents’ life of worthlessness and the knowledge that Jensen’s dad provides for his son, not only in necessity but excess, gets the best of him. By the time Jensen finds him out on the balcony, his fingers and toes have gone numb and he can’t feel his face.
He’s grateful that Jensen leaves him be, doesn’t force him to talk or bare any more of his soul than he’s capable of. That Jensen doesn’t follow him to the shower right away speaks volumes to how far they’ve managed to get into each other’s skin and lives and, if not until recently, each other’s pants.
Misha turns the water up as hot as he can, until it’s near scalding, turning his skin pink from the shoulders down, and stands there for at least ten minutes as the feeling returns to his fingers and toes. He can’t be fucked washing, the soap sitting untouched in its dish and his shampoo and conditioner abandoned on the floor.
Jensen bursts in sometime later, a gust of cold air swirling into the room with him. Misha ignores him, though he can feel something is off. Can hear it in the way Jensen shoves his locker door open with a clang to get at his toiletries. Misha wants to question, but he can’t. The quagmire of murkiness he’s in won’t let him up to care about anyone else with any amount of effectiveness.
What he doesn’t expect, given the communal nature of the bathroom, is Jensen sliding up against him under the spray of his shower, and Misha starts in surprise, rounds to query Jensen and ends up with a mouth against his own, a tongue pushing aggressively in to claim. Misha doesn’t bother trying to question again, he just goes with it, lets Jensen’s mouth ravage his, the hot spray bouncing off them and into their eyes, Jensen’s hands sliding over his naked skin. They’ve never been this naked with each other, but Jensen doesn’t seem spooked; quite the contrary. His hand is wrapped around Misha’s erection before Misha is even fully cognizant of having one, and Jensen jacks him off hard and rough, Misha’s desperately quiet mewls echoing off the bathroom tiles.
As Misha’s come swirls down the drain and he goes limp in Jensen’s arms, his face tucked into the burning wet crook of Jensen’s neck, Jensen mutters that his dad isn’t coming, as it turns out. Better things to do. The barely contained bitterness makes Misha tighten his arms around Jensen’s waist.
Disappointment, he understands. Maybe Jensen’s father isn’t as wonderful as Misha’s isn’t.
He feels so guilty at the flutter of joy that winds its way up his throat at the knowledge Jensen won’t be leaving him, he slides to his knees and takes the hot length of Jensen’s cock in his mouth. He tries to pull the anger out with a ferocity that surprises even him.
The way Jensen’s fingers curl painfully tight into Misha’s shoulders tell him all he needs to know about betrayal and hope.
* * *
Jensen
By late afternoon the conversation with his father has faded down to white noise. Experience has always taught him to choose apathy and, if offered, silent endurance, but something has changed, opened him up to both good and bad, and the excuses hurt more than ever. So the ache persists, even if it is manageable. He has Misha to thank for the respite, his deft hands and his cunning mouth, the care he’d shown in taking Jensen out of himself. Without it, this could have been a repeat of almost every other time Dad has ditched him - a long night spent getting blind, stinking drunk and a longer day nursing the hangover after.
It’s easier to forget when there’s someone there to distract you, he guesses.
Jensen has no memory of deciding to roam campus, and yet they are, aimless beyond the pure need to escape the confines of the dormitory and the oppressive cloud left behind by the early hours of their day. The cold front that threatened this morning has settled in to stay, driving the temperature well below freezing, and so they’d sought shelter quickly, flying past the soaring pillars of the main building at a run to get out of the cold and wind.
Misha’s shoulder bumps against his as they skulk down the darkened halls, bony through two layers of sweatshirt. The coat he’s dragging behind him was never meant to ward off this kind of cold, and Jensen frowns at it, this proof of the Petersons’ indifference in the face of their other extravagances, and wishes he’d insisted Misha took his spare for good. But Misha smiles and whispers, “Beautiful,” his voice filled with wonder and fingertips pressed to frosted glass, and Jensen gets distracted.
When Jensen looks, it isn’t the frost fractal that has him mesmerized, or the tiny glittering rainbows caught in the water. For a split second, the word hangs between them, fragile and unexplained, Misha’s eyes gone glassy and grey in the shadow of the shapeless old oak outside, and Jensen thinks, maybe. Then Misha smirks, every inch the devious pain in the ass he’s always been, and flicks his wet fingers at Jensen’s face.
“Thanks,” Jensen mutters. “But I already had a shower today.”
The smirk stretches, goes toothy and broad, and Jensen feels the heat rise in his cheeks at the memory when Misha says, “I know,” and, “I was there,” like either of them needs to be reminded. Jensen certainly doesn’t.
Because as long as he doesn’t look too closely, his world still makes perfect sense. He plays lacrosse. He goes to bed and gets up in time for class. He raises hell at the local watering hole. He bums cigarettes from Ms. Dinwiddie. He shaves and showers and eats cafeteria food.
But he also knows what Misha tastes like after he’s been shooting Darjeeling tea all morning. What the soft space cradled between the crescents of Misha’s hips feels like beneath his stupid, shaking hands. He knows the shape of Misha’s hands, the spread of them against his thighs, the unexpected strength in them when he bears down.
He may not know them well, but Jensen has always been a quick study.
Perhaps he’s been looking closer than he thought, and that “perfect sense” he’s so desperate to hang onto is only an illusion he employs to comfort himself when he feels out of his depth. He does, all the time, but it has never had anything to do with Misha being a guy. Or it had, but only for scant seconds, long enough for him to taste his father’s disapproval and write it off as unimportant.
At least he has an idea of what feels good when he touches Misha, and it doesn’t matter to him if the person on the receiving end of his inexpert fumbling has a dick or tits, as long as they need him at least half as much as he needs them. If he hesitates, it’s not for lack of desire or in the interests of overcoming some deeply ingrained phobia, but for fear of fucking up, of not being able to give enough to earn the right to keep him.
And he wants to keep Misha, wants it so bad his throat closes up around Misha’s name when he says it sometimes, but he also knows Misha well enough at this point to appreciate the wisdom of keeping that fact to himself. Jensen scrambles for an alternative topic of conversation. If he doesn’t find one, he’ll say something he shouldn’t.
A familiar voice saves him the trouble.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” it says, and Jensen turns, smile tugging itself into place before he’s even laid eyes on Sam. “You boys looking for trouble? Or do you just miss going to class so much you had to visit?”
Misha snorts.
“Stir crazy,” Jensen answers. “And there’s only so long I can stand to stare at his ugly mug without a change of scenery.”
“I, on the other hand,” Misha says, syrupy sweet, and Jensen can feel the heat of him - close but not too close - at his back. “Can’t bear to look away.”
Thankfully, Misha exercises what little discretion he’s learned and pinches Jensen’s cheek instead of his ass. Small favors.
Sam laughs, a soft punch of air. “Well, seems to me you both just volunteered to help sort out the mess in the library. I’ve got six hundred new volumes to index and shelve before Christmas break ends.”
Jensen asks without asking, a raised brow Misha must read right because he shrugs like he doesn’t care one way or the other.
“There’s pizza in it for you,” Sam adds, tone light, though the darkening hall renders her expression almost entirely unreadable. “I’ll even spring for Nonni’s.”
In the end, Misha makes the decision, slipping past Jensen to offer Sam his arm and a “Shall we?” that almost makes up for the fact that he flips the end of his scarf in her face when he tosses it over his shoulder.
“Be careful with that thing, Dumbo. You’ll put someone’s eye out.”
“Blame that one,” Misha says, nudging at Sam’s side with an elbow. “It’s his scarf.”
Misha casts a lingering glance back over his shoulder, and Jensen follows without question.
***
Three hours later, Jensen’s beyond questions. Sam left them to their own devices long ago. Having fed and watered them as promised, she retreated to the depths of the stacks to break open crates and key the new arrivals into the system, barcode them with the appropriate ID. On the table behind him, the mountain of books continues to grow and they haven’t even started on the non-fiction yet. Much as he craved a change of pace, what Jensen really wants to do right now is haul Misha to bed and craft a happy end to this clusterfuck of a day.
Unfortunately, Misha’s engrossed. Were it a simple matter of shelving the books Sam tagged and stacked, they would have been able to keep up easily. Where Misha’s concerned, nothing’s ever quite that simple. He handles each book like a lover, checking the condition of the dust jacket and spine. He flips the pages and chuckles at the ridiculous portraits of the authors on the back flap, carries on a running commentary about the relative quality of each one he touches, whether he’s read it or not. Sometimes he even skims the body of the text. When multiplied out, it means minutes with each volume instead of seconds and, at this rate, they’ll still be shelving when they’re eighty.
Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose and rolls his shoulders. In the past half hour, he’s put away thirty books to Misha’s two.
“Maybe we should just come back tomorrow,” he says, knees buckling until he’s slouched against the curve of bookcase at his back, his ass planted firmly against one of the hundred vintage rugs that litter the grounds. This one seems to be an artistic rendering of a peach tree. “Sure as shit ain’t gonna finish tonight.”
Misha graces him with a smile, a tiny twitch at the corner of his lips, without ever looking up.
“She doesn’t expect us to finish, Jensen,” he says to the book in his lap. “She wanted the company. More than that, she wanted to feed us. I think she worries.”
Jensen tracks the path of Sam’s boots from one end of the library to the other. He doesn’t recognize the song she’s humming under her breath, but she’s clearly in her element and seems completely unconcerned by their lack of progress.
“Wish someone had clued me in,” Jensen grouses, picking at the threads dangling from the fraying hem of his jeans. “I’ve been busting my hump while you expand your literary horizons.”
“If I’d told you, I wouldn’t have had opportunity to admire your assets as you climbed the ladder.”
Jensen checks for Sam on instinct, and Misha sighs.
“Relax,” he says. “She’s halfway across the room. And it’s not like she’d give a damn, if she wasn’t.” The ridge riding Jensen’s spine feels unforgiving, suddenly, and if none of this matters, he really wants to get back to the room. Misha shoves a thumb between pages and eases the book he’s been poring over closed around it. “Like it or not, Jen, not everyone in the world is as hung up about this stuff as you are.”
One long, sinuous slide and Misha unfolds, resettling next to him close enough that they’re touching hip to shoulder.
“I’m not hung up about anything,” Jensen snaps, the long day honing his tone more sharply than he’d intended. “Unlike you, I’d rather not get kicked out.”
Misha avoids his gaze, drawing nonsense shapes on the cover of his book with those ridiculous fingers of his. “So you’re telling me this isn’t the big, gay freak-out I’ve been anticipating? That you’re not at DEFCON 1 from sitting this close to me where other people can actually see?”
“Dude, no.” Misha’s pattern pauses then picks up at a more manic pace. It’s making Jensen dizzy, so he stills the furious figure eights with his own hand, leaves it as reassurance. “Not gonna claim this is easy for me, but I’m not ashamed. Freaked out? Maybe a little. I just… like I said, I don’t want to get tossed out. There are rules about this for a reason. At the very least, they’d split us up if they caught us. Call our parents.”
“Parents.”
Jensen thinks the sound Misha makes is supposed to be a laugh. To be honest, Jensen doesn’t know what to make of it. He gets that Misha’s family situation is fucked up. There’d be no reason for him to lie about it if it wasn’t. Misha pets the book in his lap twice, then takes a deep breath.
“I never really had a home,” he says, tone lifeless and so brittle that Jensen wants to reach out, pull him closer, kiss the laughter back into him and damn the consequences. If he wasn’t so afraid of the reaction he’d get, he would. Instead, he offers what he can - silence and patience.
“I remember them, though. Enough of them. They loved each other. And me, I think. Just not enough to be anything beyond what they are.”
Jensen curses, and out of sympathy tries to stop him. “Misha, you don’t…”
But Misha presses on as if he didn’t hear, like he’s relating the details of someone else’s life instead of the truth of his own, which is pretty fucking ironic. “I was eight when they went to prison. White-collar stuff. I hopped around between family members for a couple of years but…” He pauses, laughs mirthlessly, and scrubs a rough hand across his face. “But I was born into a fucking clan of black sheep. Drugs, alcohol, arson, petty larceny. None of them were fit to keep me, not by DCS standards. So into the system I went.
“I never made trouble; I’d already learned how to take care of myself, after all. Of course that meant I took care of the others too. All it earned me was a quicker ticket to the next home when times got tough because no one ever doubted I’d land on my feet. I saw them a handful of times through the years. They’d show up on the playground or find me at a convenience store. But they never tried to get me back. Not once.”
When Misha finally looks up, his eyes are bright, his jaw tight with a whole host of emotions Jensen can’t fully identify. Defiance, definitely. And pain. Maybe that’s why he deals with it the way he does - deflection instead of anger. For some reason, Jensen suspects an angry Misha is a force to be reckoned with. “So, you see, I don’t give a shit what my parents think of me.”
“Jesus, Misha. I’m so sorry.”
Misha fidgets and goes back to studying the book in his lap. “Don’t need your pity.”
“Sympathy is not the same as pity, man.”
“Close enough.”
“Just the fact that you think that…” he says, and Misha makes a face. “Whatever. Fair is fair.”
“No such thing.”
Jensen doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a close thing. He sympathizes, sure, but he’s never condoned the drama queen approach to dealing with shit. For one thing, Misha’s not the only kid who’s ever been fucked over by his parents. Not by a long shot. Jensen gets it, maybe better than anyone else ever will, but damn. There’s a reason he doesn’t talk about this. No matter how much distance he puts between himself and what he remembers of that time, it still hurts. He curls up as best he can - chin to knees and arms banded tight around his shins - then sets himself to the dubious task of meeting truth with truth. He owes Misha that much.
“Mom died when I was five. Her family’s old money with their fingers in a hundred different pies - securities, politics, manufacturing, but mostly energy. Oil. Dad took a job with them straight out of college.”
He can feel Misha’s eyes on him again, but doesn’t want to risk getting derailed. Instead, he thumbs the dirt from the toe of his shoe and presses on.
“They had the perfect life. To this day, I don’t know for sure what really happened. Only that the energy arm of the business collapsed in spectacular fashion. Then, a month later, Mom was gone. A handful of prescription sleeping pills with a thousand-dollar champagne chaser will do that. According to everyone else, it was an affair. Dad never would say one way or the other. I quit asking a couple years ago.
“After the funeral, Dad basically disappeared. Last time I saw any of Mom’s people was the day we laid her to rest at the family plot. I spent most of that year with Dad’s sister and her husband.
“He enrolled me at Ellis as soon as he could. Nobody wanted me here. I may have been young, but I’ve never been dumb. Dean Morgan was actually a student here that first year. He kind of saved me. When he took me under his wing, things quieted down some. Even then, he had clout.
“Anyway, it’s not that I care what my father thinks of me,” Jensen says on a sigh. “He could disown me and I wouldn’t give a shit.” That’s not the complete truth, because he does care. He just wishes he didn’t. “I want to make something of myself, though, and Ellis offers me the tools I need to do that. Is that so bad?”
Misha doesn’t answer, but Jensen wasn’t really asking. They will probably always have a difference of opinion when it comes to the value of conventional education. Jensen’s not in the mood to argue. What he wants to do is go to bed. Beside him, there’s a rustle of fabric as Misha pushes himself to standing, and for the first time, Jensen realizes Misha’s wearing his jeans, that he put the creases behind the knees, not Misha. His throat closes again, the lump in it stifling anything he might want to say, and his vision blurs before he blinks it away.
When he finally does speak, Misha’s voice startles him, and Jensen couldn’t say how long he’s sat there staring at the rug and the way the table legs put divots in it.
“We’re going,” Misha calls out, and for a second Jensen thinks he means that he and Sam are going somewhere and Jensen will be left to find his own way home. He doesn’t mind. He knows this campus like the back of his hand and even in the dark he’ll make it.
But then Sam answers from the depths of the stacks, a distracted, “Take care, boys. Make sure you bundle up on the way back,” and Misha wedges his hands between elbow and knee to help him up.
Jensen blinks at Misha, the emptiness filling up like some unknown levee finally broke open. There’s still a twinkle of mischief caught in the corner of Misha’s eye, but the smile he smiles is small and sad and a little too real.
“You should read this,” Misha says, and Jensen grabs the book Misha shoves at him, if only to keep it from falling. “I think it’ll help.”
“Dangerous Angels?”
He must look about as skeptical as he feels, because Misha shakes his head.
“You never know until you give it a chance,” Misha says, shrugging into his coat and re-wrapping his scarf. “It could change your life.”
Jensen scoffs. “It’s got a chick on the cover. With crazy hair and wings. Don’t think it’s my kind of thing.”
He’ll never be sure if the coat that hits his chest was actually intended for his head. Regardless, he has to juggle the book into the crook of his arm to keep from dropping it.
“I thought you might have learned by now not to judge a book by its cover.”
Which, yes, he should have. For Misha, he’ll at least try. Jensen zips himself into his parka, grateful to have it even though he shouldn’t need it, and tucks the book away carefully for transport.
The laughter is back in Misha’s eyes when Jensen looks at him, his cheeks red with the heat of the library, his face more open than Jensen’s ever seen it.
“Let’s go home,” he says, and turns on his heel without waiting for an answer.
***
Part 2
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Authors: qthelights & kriari
Rating: NC-17
Warnings & Notes: See Chapter One for full warnings, disclaimers and notes. WIP.
Summary: As one of the premiere boarding schools on the east coast, Ellis Academy plays host to the preeminent financiers, businessmen, and politicians of tomorrow. The very dirt stinks of privilege and as a long-time foster child, Misha Collins has no idea how he ended up here. To make matters worse, he's stuck rooming with the equivalent of Ellis royalty. Jensen Ackles is a lifer - captain of the lacrosse team, do-gooder and textbook overachiever. And they hate each other. Mostly. But as they move from hate to something more, secrets from their unknown yet inextricably linked pasts threaten to destroy everything they've built. And the worst part? They have no idea what's coming...
Previous chapters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Jensen
The quiet is what’s always gotten to him in the past, that inevitable vacuum left behind by the mass exodus of winter break. This year’s different. Even after the last bus bumps down the long, white drive for Charleston International, Jensen’s days skip along much as they have for the last three months.
The first Wednesday blurs by, half lost to sleep and the other half to rambling around the old barn on the southwest corner of the property. He and Jared found it completely by accident the summer they were ten, and Jensen privately deems it a miracle the thing’s still standing, given the condition it was in back then. Jensen and Misha stumble back to the dorm after dark, their jeans crusted with mud and briars. Both of their coats tell the tale of their day, littered from collar to hem with dried leaves and old, grey straw. Misha’s cheeks are windburn-pink to match his swollen lips, and when Jensen teases him about his newly cherubic complexion, Misha does his very best to prove otherwise.
After, they sleep like the dead.
Or Jensen does.
When he wakes Thursday morning, he’s freezing. The furl of blankets wrapped around him doesn’t stand a chance against the chill of December, even in South Carolina. Thirty feels good on the lacrosse field at an open sprint. Not so much lying in bed. What he doesn’t understand is why the window’s yawning wide, propped open by an inconvenient towel in the track. Misha’s nowhere to be seen, bed rumpled and sheets askew, but when Jensen squints across the room in the murky darkness, his Ellis-issued bedding is missing.
It can only mean one thing.
Jensen pulls on a pair of socks before he risks the journey to the window and the balcony beyond. Misha can be forgetful, especially in the early hours. Based on that knowledge, Jensen grabs a second pair before he shimmies out the window with every last blanket he owns. Predictably, he finds Misha swaddled in a spill of covers with his back pressed to the wall beneath the window. In spite of the steaming mug of tea cupped between his hands, Misha’s teeth chatter violently.
After the day they had yesterday, Jensen expects some sort of response when he settles in beside Misha. It doesn’t come, and Jensen refuses to pry. He wants to. More than anything. He settles for dropping the balled-up pair of socks between Misha’s bare feet and sitting with him in companionable silence.
He has time enough to discover the shape of Misha’s damage. If anything, this life has taught him the value of patience.
After an hour or so, Misha crawls back through the window without a word, socks untouched, cold tea abandoned at Jensen’s hip, and he’s forced to exercise exactly that - patience. Jensen desperately wants to push, would push if he thought he could get away with it. The slam of their door confirms his suspicions. Instead, he collects his dad’s Lions mug, hauling it in along with the mound of blankets and Misha’s socks, closing and latching the window behind him.
This has happened before, will most likely happen again, and Jensen knows to give Misha a minute to get himself settled into a shower before he slips out to begin his own morning routine. It’s easier to respect buffers when the rest of the guys are here. Since it’s just the two of them on the wing right now, he has to work harder to accommodate Misha’s occasional need for personal space.
It’s hard to be here alone now, though. The room’s too quiet and cold without another person rustling around. Not that Jensen’s the type to cling; has never had the luxury, in fact. He forges his own path, makes his own luck. Partly it’s because he’s had to. Mostly it’s because, very early on, he learned to want it for himself.
That life can get lonely, empty.
And it’s not like he doesn’t have friends. He does. Dudes from the lacrosse team he talks shop with, fellow members of the student council, floormates, classmates. Then there’s Chris and, to a lesser, more annoying extent, Dave. Silly as it sounds, in Misha he feels like he finally has someone who likes him. Despite their recent misunderstandings, Jensen trusts Misha to always have his back and to listen when he needs to talk. That Misha might not feel the same bothers him.
Misha’s had ample time to skulk around and warm the water at this point, which makes belaboring, well, pointless. So Jensen drops the impressive knot of blankets on Misha’s bed and plucks his towel from its hook.
Just as he slips on his shower shoes and goes for the knob, the phone rings.
It, like everything else, sounds deafening in the stillness of an empty dorm, and he grabs it before checking the caller ID.
“Ackles.”
“Now, I know I’m paying for better manners than that.” The voice that drifts down the line is familiar, and Jensen’s heart sinks.
“Dad.”
There’s an awkward pause on the other end of the line, the clacking of a keyboard and the buzz of a cell. Jensen feels nine inches tall, but he refuses to offer an easy out, to fill the silence left by his father’s inattention.
“How’s school?” he asks, obviously distracted. “Still killing everyone at trig?”
“Winter break started Friday so, no, I guess not. Fall finals aren’t until the end of January.”
Dad huffs a harsh breath into the receiver and if Jensen didn’t know better, he’d guess Mr. High-Powered Executive was embarrassed.
“I meant in general, Jensen. Are your grades good?”
“Same as always.” Jensen sighs, frustrated but with no idea what to do about it. “Speaking of the break, do you think I could bring someone with me? There’s more than enough room and I don’t think he knows how to ski.”
“Jensen.”
“Could be fun to teach someone, y’know? Run him down the bunnies and watch him wipe out?”
“Son, I don’t…”
“Or we could just go terrorize the town, harass the Nelsons next door when you have one of your conference calls.”
“Jensen.”
Jensen snaps “What,” he says - says - and doesn’t ask, because there’s never been a question of how this is going to go down.
“I hate to do this, kiddo, but…”
Jensen’s tired of excuses. More than that, he’s tired of empty promises. Fuck if he doesn’t need to call Chris and go get shitfaced. Maybe a little liquid lubrication will do both of them some good, considering the mood Misha’s been in this morning.
“If you really hated it, you wouldn’t do it,” he grits out. His jaw aches with the effort.
“You know I don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you do, Dad. Unfortunately, you always seem to make the wrong one.”
The voice drifting down the line changes, finally focused but softer, wounded. “I’m still your father,” it says.
“Since when?”
“Since always, Jensen. It’s just that your father happens to be tied up in Bangalore until at least the thirtieth.”
Which, whatever, at least he picked up the phone. Most of time, Dad’s assistant Darla makes this call.
“Anything else?”
It’s his father’s turn to sigh, and Jensen waits, using the time to button himself back up.
“I touch down at CHS on New Year’s Eve. I’ll see you then, son.” Then there’s a click and he’s gone.
Jensen settles the phone back in its cradle, gently. For a second he simply breathes, focusing on the movement of his lungs, the tightness in his ribs. This is fine. Better. They’ll be on familiar turf and he won’t have to worry about Misha turning down the trip out of guilt or indifference or simple disinterest.
Their door slams again in his wake, the bang of it incredibly satisfying as it echoes down empty halls.
It’ll be fine.
***
Misha
He’s the first to admit that life at Ellis has not been as bad as he thought it would be. Okay, that’s bullshit. He’d be the absolute last to say any such thing, but that doesn’t change the fact that he suspects it’s true.
He enjoys the classes, as much as that makes him a bit of a loser. He’s always been an avid reader, escaping as quickly as he can into other people’s lives, other people’s turmoil. This is different though. Here he has to read and then do shit with the knowledge he gleans. It’s harder than he thought and yet satisfyingly pleasurable when he comes up with the goods.
He’s safe. No one is going to come into his room at night, drunk and angry. No one is about to kick him out for being ‘too much’ for foster parents sliding down the other side of fifty.
He has a constant supply of food. Not the best food. Nothing like Gray’s Papaya or the chow mien Large Eddie ladles out down on 72nd. Granted, it’s probably far more nutritious. But it’s plentiful, and Misha is thankful for it. He still keeps a stash of pilfered edibles in the back of his second desk drawer. And there’re some individually wrapped graham crackers hidden under his mattress. But their fate doesn’t constrict his heart and crush his lungs the way it once would have without constant checking.
Old habits die hard.
Really though, a lot of the not-sucking has to do with Jensen.
Misha had half-expected Jensen to bolt as soon as the come dried on their skin, crackled and beginning to itch. He hadn’t expected Jensen to gaze at him with wide eyes, almost scary in their intensity. Nor had he expected Jensen to then fall asleep.
But there you go.
It’s new, and Misha doesn’t want to spook him. He’s had his fair share of hook-ups in back alleys, darkened corners of parties with kids he didn’t even know. Jensen is different. And so Misha goes slow. Which works right up until Jensen pushes him into a pile of leaves in the old barn, and slowly but surely, owns every inch of him. He goes along with it.
He knows Jensen is meant to go somewhere with his dad for the holidays. Whistler or Aspen or some other pretentious place with pristine snow and big-bosomed ski bunnies. He expects Jensen will invite him along, but knows he’ll decline when he does. Not because he doesn’t want to - he does - but tagging along on someone else’s family time is weird. Thanksgiving was awkward enough, with Jared staring at him with murderous intent, and Jensen’s eyes flicking back and forth between them as if at a tennis match, waiting for Misha to fuck up and embarrass him, or Jared to go mental and launch himself across the table.
Actually intruding on time with someone’s father - and Misha knows Jensen has little of it - that would be too much. Misha’s own father might be a loser, in and out of jail and generally fucking up all over the place, but Jensen’s father is some high-rolling businessman. The likes of Misha and his grubby background have no business being chummy with that, pretending to like the foie gras and caviar.
So Jensen will up and leave him, and he’ll be stuck at Ellis while Jensen lives the high life. He’s been trying not to think about it, pretending it isn’t an eventuality until it is. And for the most part, that’s going pretty damn well. Sucking on Jensen’s tongue or biting teeth-marks into his hips turn out to be pretty distracting distractions. As is watching the way Jensen battles his own inner phobias and inexperience to wrap his fingers around Misha’s dick, eyes dark and wanting despite the abortive hesitation. Jensen may have never done it before, but fuck if he doesn’t know how to bring Misha off in under two.
It’s pretty easy to pretend, after all, that Misha’s been doing it all his life. And it nearly works, too, right up until the mail slips under their door early Thursday morning, and Misha finds himself with an envelope from the Petersons. Inside is a note, carefully written in Mr P’s just-so handwriting on embossed stationery. Telling Misha how proud they are, not that they’d even know, and how he needs to buckle down for the next semester. It’s formulaic and impersonal and it comes with a twenty, so that’s not even a blink of an eye. What upsets everything is the other envelope tucked in with it, another letter from his parents, once again asking the Petersons for money.
Misha knows better than to let it get to him, but as they’d fallen asleep last night, in separate beds, kiss-blushed and sated, Jensen had started talking about the fun they’d have with his dad. The combination of the two, the proof of his own parents’ life of worthlessness and the knowledge that Jensen’s dad provides for his son, not only in necessity but excess, gets the best of him. By the time Jensen finds him out on the balcony, his fingers and toes have gone numb and he can’t feel his face.
He’s grateful that Jensen leaves him be, doesn’t force him to talk or bare any more of his soul than he’s capable of. That Jensen doesn’t follow him to the shower right away speaks volumes to how far they’ve managed to get into each other’s skin and lives and, if not until recently, each other’s pants.
Misha turns the water up as hot as he can, until it’s near scalding, turning his skin pink from the shoulders down, and stands there for at least ten minutes as the feeling returns to his fingers and toes. He can’t be fucked washing, the soap sitting untouched in its dish and his shampoo and conditioner abandoned on the floor.
Jensen bursts in sometime later, a gust of cold air swirling into the room with him. Misha ignores him, though he can feel something is off. Can hear it in the way Jensen shoves his locker door open with a clang to get at his toiletries. Misha wants to question, but he can’t. The quagmire of murkiness he’s in won’t let him up to care about anyone else with any amount of effectiveness.
What he doesn’t expect, given the communal nature of the bathroom, is Jensen sliding up against him under the spray of his shower, and Misha starts in surprise, rounds to query Jensen and ends up with a mouth against his own, a tongue pushing aggressively in to claim. Misha doesn’t bother trying to question again, he just goes with it, lets Jensen’s mouth ravage his, the hot spray bouncing off them and into their eyes, Jensen’s hands sliding over his naked skin. They’ve never been this naked with each other, but Jensen doesn’t seem spooked; quite the contrary. His hand is wrapped around Misha’s erection before Misha is even fully cognizant of having one, and Jensen jacks him off hard and rough, Misha’s desperately quiet mewls echoing off the bathroom tiles.
As Misha’s come swirls down the drain and he goes limp in Jensen’s arms, his face tucked into the burning wet crook of Jensen’s neck, Jensen mutters that his dad isn’t coming, as it turns out. Better things to do. The barely contained bitterness makes Misha tighten his arms around Jensen’s waist.
Disappointment, he understands. Maybe Jensen’s father isn’t as wonderful as Misha’s isn’t.
He feels so guilty at the flutter of joy that winds its way up his throat at the knowledge Jensen won’t be leaving him, he slides to his knees and takes the hot length of Jensen’s cock in his mouth. He tries to pull the anger out with a ferocity that surprises even him.
The way Jensen’s fingers curl painfully tight into Misha’s shoulders tell him all he needs to know about betrayal and hope.
* * *
Jensen
By late afternoon the conversation with his father has faded down to white noise. Experience has always taught him to choose apathy and, if offered, silent endurance, but something has changed, opened him up to both good and bad, and the excuses hurt more than ever. So the ache persists, even if it is manageable. He has Misha to thank for the respite, his deft hands and his cunning mouth, the care he’d shown in taking Jensen out of himself. Without it, this could have been a repeat of almost every other time Dad has ditched him - a long night spent getting blind, stinking drunk and a longer day nursing the hangover after.
It’s easier to forget when there’s someone there to distract you, he guesses.
Jensen has no memory of deciding to roam campus, and yet they are, aimless beyond the pure need to escape the confines of the dormitory and the oppressive cloud left behind by the early hours of their day. The cold front that threatened this morning has settled in to stay, driving the temperature well below freezing, and so they’d sought shelter quickly, flying past the soaring pillars of the main building at a run to get out of the cold and wind.
Misha’s shoulder bumps against his as they skulk down the darkened halls, bony through two layers of sweatshirt. The coat he’s dragging behind him was never meant to ward off this kind of cold, and Jensen frowns at it, this proof of the Petersons’ indifference in the face of their other extravagances, and wishes he’d insisted Misha took his spare for good. But Misha smiles and whispers, “Beautiful,” his voice filled with wonder and fingertips pressed to frosted glass, and Jensen gets distracted.
When Jensen looks, it isn’t the frost fractal that has him mesmerized, or the tiny glittering rainbows caught in the water. For a split second, the word hangs between them, fragile and unexplained, Misha’s eyes gone glassy and grey in the shadow of the shapeless old oak outside, and Jensen thinks, maybe. Then Misha smirks, every inch the devious pain in the ass he’s always been, and flicks his wet fingers at Jensen’s face.
“Thanks,” Jensen mutters. “But I already had a shower today.”
The smirk stretches, goes toothy and broad, and Jensen feels the heat rise in his cheeks at the memory when Misha says, “I know,” and, “I was there,” like either of them needs to be reminded. Jensen certainly doesn’t.
Because as long as he doesn’t look too closely, his world still makes perfect sense. He plays lacrosse. He goes to bed and gets up in time for class. He raises hell at the local watering hole. He bums cigarettes from Ms. Dinwiddie. He shaves and showers and eats cafeteria food.
But he also knows what Misha tastes like after he’s been shooting Darjeeling tea all morning. What the soft space cradled between the crescents of Misha’s hips feels like beneath his stupid, shaking hands. He knows the shape of Misha’s hands, the spread of them against his thighs, the unexpected strength in them when he bears down.
He may not know them well, but Jensen has always been a quick study.
Perhaps he’s been looking closer than he thought, and that “perfect sense” he’s so desperate to hang onto is only an illusion he employs to comfort himself when he feels out of his depth. He does, all the time, but it has never had anything to do with Misha being a guy. Or it had, but only for scant seconds, long enough for him to taste his father’s disapproval and write it off as unimportant.
At least he has an idea of what feels good when he touches Misha, and it doesn’t matter to him if the person on the receiving end of his inexpert fumbling has a dick or tits, as long as they need him at least half as much as he needs them. If he hesitates, it’s not for lack of desire or in the interests of overcoming some deeply ingrained phobia, but for fear of fucking up, of not being able to give enough to earn the right to keep him.
And he wants to keep Misha, wants it so bad his throat closes up around Misha’s name when he says it sometimes, but he also knows Misha well enough at this point to appreciate the wisdom of keeping that fact to himself. Jensen scrambles for an alternative topic of conversation. If he doesn’t find one, he’ll say something he shouldn’t.
A familiar voice saves him the trouble.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” it says, and Jensen turns, smile tugging itself into place before he’s even laid eyes on Sam. “You boys looking for trouble? Or do you just miss going to class so much you had to visit?”
Misha snorts.
“Stir crazy,” Jensen answers. “And there’s only so long I can stand to stare at his ugly mug without a change of scenery.”
“I, on the other hand,” Misha says, syrupy sweet, and Jensen can feel the heat of him - close but not too close - at his back. “Can’t bear to look away.”
Thankfully, Misha exercises what little discretion he’s learned and pinches Jensen’s cheek instead of his ass. Small favors.
Sam laughs, a soft punch of air. “Well, seems to me you both just volunteered to help sort out the mess in the library. I’ve got six hundred new volumes to index and shelve before Christmas break ends.”
Jensen asks without asking, a raised brow Misha must read right because he shrugs like he doesn’t care one way or the other.
“There’s pizza in it for you,” Sam adds, tone light, though the darkening hall renders her expression almost entirely unreadable. “I’ll even spring for Nonni’s.”
In the end, Misha makes the decision, slipping past Jensen to offer Sam his arm and a “Shall we?” that almost makes up for the fact that he flips the end of his scarf in her face when he tosses it over his shoulder.
“Be careful with that thing, Dumbo. You’ll put someone’s eye out.”
“Blame that one,” Misha says, nudging at Sam’s side with an elbow. “It’s his scarf.”
Misha casts a lingering glance back over his shoulder, and Jensen follows without question.
***
Three hours later, Jensen’s beyond questions. Sam left them to their own devices long ago. Having fed and watered them as promised, she retreated to the depths of the stacks to break open crates and key the new arrivals into the system, barcode them with the appropriate ID. On the table behind him, the mountain of books continues to grow and they haven’t even started on the non-fiction yet. Much as he craved a change of pace, what Jensen really wants to do right now is haul Misha to bed and craft a happy end to this clusterfuck of a day.
Unfortunately, Misha’s engrossed. Were it a simple matter of shelving the books Sam tagged and stacked, they would have been able to keep up easily. Where Misha’s concerned, nothing’s ever quite that simple. He handles each book like a lover, checking the condition of the dust jacket and spine. He flips the pages and chuckles at the ridiculous portraits of the authors on the back flap, carries on a running commentary about the relative quality of each one he touches, whether he’s read it or not. Sometimes he even skims the body of the text. When multiplied out, it means minutes with each volume instead of seconds and, at this rate, they’ll still be shelving when they’re eighty.
Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose and rolls his shoulders. In the past half hour, he’s put away thirty books to Misha’s two.
“Maybe we should just come back tomorrow,” he says, knees buckling until he’s slouched against the curve of bookcase at his back, his ass planted firmly against one of the hundred vintage rugs that litter the grounds. This one seems to be an artistic rendering of a peach tree. “Sure as shit ain’t gonna finish tonight.”
Misha graces him with a smile, a tiny twitch at the corner of his lips, without ever looking up.
“She doesn’t expect us to finish, Jensen,” he says to the book in his lap. “She wanted the company. More than that, she wanted to feed us. I think she worries.”
Jensen tracks the path of Sam’s boots from one end of the library to the other. He doesn’t recognize the song she’s humming under her breath, but she’s clearly in her element and seems completely unconcerned by their lack of progress.
“Wish someone had clued me in,” Jensen grouses, picking at the threads dangling from the fraying hem of his jeans. “I’ve been busting my hump while you expand your literary horizons.”
“If I’d told you, I wouldn’t have had opportunity to admire your assets as you climbed the ladder.”
Jensen checks for Sam on instinct, and Misha sighs.
“Relax,” he says. “She’s halfway across the room. And it’s not like she’d give a damn, if she wasn’t.” The ridge riding Jensen’s spine feels unforgiving, suddenly, and if none of this matters, he really wants to get back to the room. Misha shoves a thumb between pages and eases the book he’s been poring over closed around it. “Like it or not, Jen, not everyone in the world is as hung up about this stuff as you are.”
One long, sinuous slide and Misha unfolds, resettling next to him close enough that they’re touching hip to shoulder.
“I’m not hung up about anything,” Jensen snaps, the long day honing his tone more sharply than he’d intended. “Unlike you, I’d rather not get kicked out.”
Misha avoids his gaze, drawing nonsense shapes on the cover of his book with those ridiculous fingers of his. “So you’re telling me this isn’t the big, gay freak-out I’ve been anticipating? That you’re not at DEFCON 1 from sitting this close to me where other people can actually see?”
“Dude, no.” Misha’s pattern pauses then picks up at a more manic pace. It’s making Jensen dizzy, so he stills the furious figure eights with his own hand, leaves it as reassurance. “Not gonna claim this is easy for me, but I’m not ashamed. Freaked out? Maybe a little. I just… like I said, I don’t want to get tossed out. There are rules about this for a reason. At the very least, they’d split us up if they caught us. Call our parents.”
“Parents.”
Jensen thinks the sound Misha makes is supposed to be a laugh. To be honest, Jensen doesn’t know what to make of it. He gets that Misha’s family situation is fucked up. There’d be no reason for him to lie about it if it wasn’t. Misha pets the book in his lap twice, then takes a deep breath.
“I never really had a home,” he says, tone lifeless and so brittle that Jensen wants to reach out, pull him closer, kiss the laughter back into him and damn the consequences. If he wasn’t so afraid of the reaction he’d get, he would. Instead, he offers what he can - silence and patience.
“I remember them, though. Enough of them. They loved each other. And me, I think. Just not enough to be anything beyond what they are.”
Jensen curses, and out of sympathy tries to stop him. “Misha, you don’t…”
But Misha presses on as if he didn’t hear, like he’s relating the details of someone else’s life instead of the truth of his own, which is pretty fucking ironic. “I was eight when they went to prison. White-collar stuff. I hopped around between family members for a couple of years but…” He pauses, laughs mirthlessly, and scrubs a rough hand across his face. “But I was born into a fucking clan of black sheep. Drugs, alcohol, arson, petty larceny. None of them were fit to keep me, not by DCS standards. So into the system I went.
“I never made trouble; I’d already learned how to take care of myself, after all. Of course that meant I took care of the others too. All it earned me was a quicker ticket to the next home when times got tough because no one ever doubted I’d land on my feet. I saw them a handful of times through the years. They’d show up on the playground or find me at a convenience store. But they never tried to get me back. Not once.”
When Misha finally looks up, his eyes are bright, his jaw tight with a whole host of emotions Jensen can’t fully identify. Defiance, definitely. And pain. Maybe that’s why he deals with it the way he does - deflection instead of anger. For some reason, Jensen suspects an angry Misha is a force to be reckoned with. “So, you see, I don’t give a shit what my parents think of me.”
“Jesus, Misha. I’m so sorry.”
Misha fidgets and goes back to studying the book in his lap. “Don’t need your pity.”
“Sympathy is not the same as pity, man.”
“Close enough.”
“Just the fact that you think that…” he says, and Misha makes a face. “Whatever. Fair is fair.”
“No such thing.”
Jensen doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a close thing. He sympathizes, sure, but he’s never condoned the drama queen approach to dealing with shit. For one thing, Misha’s not the only kid who’s ever been fucked over by his parents. Not by a long shot. Jensen gets it, maybe better than anyone else ever will, but damn. There’s a reason he doesn’t talk about this. No matter how much distance he puts between himself and what he remembers of that time, it still hurts. He curls up as best he can - chin to knees and arms banded tight around his shins - then sets himself to the dubious task of meeting truth with truth. He owes Misha that much.
“Mom died when I was five. Her family’s old money with their fingers in a hundred different pies - securities, politics, manufacturing, but mostly energy. Oil. Dad took a job with them straight out of college.”
He can feel Misha’s eyes on him again, but doesn’t want to risk getting derailed. Instead, he thumbs the dirt from the toe of his shoe and presses on.
“They had the perfect life. To this day, I don’t know for sure what really happened. Only that the energy arm of the business collapsed in spectacular fashion. Then, a month later, Mom was gone. A handful of prescription sleeping pills with a thousand-dollar champagne chaser will do that. According to everyone else, it was an affair. Dad never would say one way or the other. I quit asking a couple years ago.
“After the funeral, Dad basically disappeared. Last time I saw any of Mom’s people was the day we laid her to rest at the family plot. I spent most of that year with Dad’s sister and her husband.
“He enrolled me at Ellis as soon as he could. Nobody wanted me here. I may have been young, but I’ve never been dumb. Dean Morgan was actually a student here that first year. He kind of saved me. When he took me under his wing, things quieted down some. Even then, he had clout.
“Anyway, it’s not that I care what my father thinks of me,” Jensen says on a sigh. “He could disown me and I wouldn’t give a shit.” That’s not the complete truth, because he does care. He just wishes he didn’t. “I want to make something of myself, though, and Ellis offers me the tools I need to do that. Is that so bad?”
Misha doesn’t answer, but Jensen wasn’t really asking. They will probably always have a difference of opinion when it comes to the value of conventional education. Jensen’s not in the mood to argue. What he wants to do is go to bed. Beside him, there’s a rustle of fabric as Misha pushes himself to standing, and for the first time, Jensen realizes Misha’s wearing his jeans, that he put the creases behind the knees, not Misha. His throat closes again, the lump in it stifling anything he might want to say, and his vision blurs before he blinks it away.
When he finally does speak, Misha’s voice startles him, and Jensen couldn’t say how long he’s sat there staring at the rug and the way the table legs put divots in it.
“We’re going,” Misha calls out, and for a second Jensen thinks he means that he and Sam are going somewhere and Jensen will be left to find his own way home. He doesn’t mind. He knows this campus like the back of his hand and even in the dark he’ll make it.
But then Sam answers from the depths of the stacks, a distracted, “Take care, boys. Make sure you bundle up on the way back,” and Misha wedges his hands between elbow and knee to help him up.
Jensen blinks at Misha, the emptiness filling up like some unknown levee finally broke open. There’s still a twinkle of mischief caught in the corner of Misha’s eye, but the smile he smiles is small and sad and a little too real.
“You should read this,” Misha says, and Jensen grabs the book Misha shoves at him, if only to keep it from falling. “I think it’ll help.”
“Dangerous Angels?”
He must look about as skeptical as he feels, because Misha shakes his head.
“You never know until you give it a chance,” Misha says, shrugging into his coat and re-wrapping his scarf. “It could change your life.”
Jensen scoffs. “It’s got a chick on the cover. With crazy hair and wings. Don’t think it’s my kind of thing.”
He’ll never be sure if the coat that hits his chest was actually intended for his head. Regardless, he has to juggle the book into the crook of his arm to keep from dropping it.
“I thought you might have learned by now not to judge a book by its cover.”
Which, yes, he should have. For Misha, he’ll at least try. Jensen zips himself into his parka, grateful to have it even though he shouldn’t need it, and tucks the book away carefully for transport.
The laughter is back in Misha’s eyes when Jensen looks at him, his cheeks red with the heat of the library, his face more open than Jensen’s ever seen it.
“Let’s go home,” he says, and turns on his heel without waiting for an answer.
***
Part 2