blows out truth, RPF, gen, 1/1, PG (Beach Verse)

[sandymg]

Title: blows out truth
AO3
Author: sandymg
Beta borgmama1of5
Summary: Jensen has trouble with goodbyes. (part of the beach!verse)
Wordcount: 3,200 - one-shot
Genre: RPF, Gen, (pre-J2 AU in terms of the verse)
Characters: Jensen, Danneel
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 (past emotional child abuse)
Disclaimer: This is fiction. No harm intended. No profit made.
A/N: Story title from the poem Truth and Untruth by Suchoon Mo
A/N2: Verse can be read chronologically or in the order written starting with past indifferent seagulls. This is the first story chronologically and all are linked that way.



blow out truth

Jensen blows hot and cold when his friends are in town.

Chris and Steve had been touring, playing concerts from Seattle to New York, but have been home for the past month. They are performing a farewell gig at a local bar a few blocks off the boardwalk. Jensen typically doesn’t see them for months, and while he keeps in touch with an occasional email or text message, the truth is, when they are gone, Jensen doesn’t think of them much.

When they return it takes weeks warming up to them all over again. Only to have them disappear again.

Jensen doesn’t have many friends. Never has. There’s Chris and Steve, both of whom befriended him during his two years at Brookdale Community College. And, of course, there’s Danneel. His best friend. His platonic, far better half. His roommate. And presently, the bane of his existence.

“I’m just trying to have a good time, Danni. ‘M not drunk.”

She arches one eyebrow and tugs again at his glass. “The fact that you can’t get that sentence out proves-“

“I. Am. Not. Drunk.” Jensen enunciates each word with German-engineered precision.

Danni is not amused. Nonetheless, she stops trying to take Jensen’s glass away. Jensen hears her exasperated breaths. She’s so tired of his shit. Not for the first time he wonders why she’s put up with him as long as she has. What it was about a scrawny five-year-old with a wavering eye that could in any way capture the spirit of someone like Danni. It’s like he caught the sun in a jar.

In reality, it was a firefly.

“Grab it! Grab it! Grab it!”

“What?”

“You ninny. You let it get away. Move … “

Her hand swooped madly as she invaded his front yard. The blinking bug continued to evade her.

Jensen looked around. His mother had entered the house and the door had already shut behind her. Usually, she waited for him. But sometimes, if he dawdled, she’d let it lock and he’d have to knock. And wait.

Another woman’s voice startled Jensen.

“Danni, where did you run off to? I told you not to do that.“

The woman turned a bright smile at Jensen.

“Hi sweetie. Do you live here?”

Jensen nodded.

“Fireflies!” Danni exclaimed. The elusive insects glowed all around her and she grasped at them frantically but whenever she opened her small fist it was empty.

Jensen followed one with his eyes, never losing focus. He struck quickly, cupping his palms together with an almost slap.

“Got it!” he shouted.

“Jensen!”

Oh crap. His mother.

“Mommy, I … this girl was …”

His mother stepped back out and onto the sidewalk. She and the girl’s mother introduced themselves and his mother’s smile was twinkly and as unpredictable as the firefly in Jensen’s cupped hand.

“What have we here?” his mother asked.

“I caught a firefly.” Jensen looked down. “For … Danni.”

Both of the mothers gave an ‘isn’t that adorable’ smile.

“What good is it?” Danni whined. “As soon as you let go, it’ll fly away. I wanted it forever.” Her lips pouted.

His mother looked at the stained jeans-wearing girl, eyes assessing, then back at the other woman.” You live down the street, right?”

Danni’s mother said yes.

Jensen’s mother looked down at him. “Go inside and get one of my mason jars from under the sink.” Jensen ran toward the open door without question. It was only when he was in the kitchen that he realized he had no way of getting the jar without unclasping his hands and then the bug would fly away.

He pondered the situation but could not see a solution. He would simply have to catch another one for Danni. He parted his fingers and the firefly sat for the briefest moment on his palm, its body fantastically blinking. Then it darted up and Jensen realized what he’d done. “You have to go outside!” he ordered, and yanked the back door open, waving madly. Thankfully, the insect was intelligent enough to fly to freedom. Glass jar in hand he returned outside.

Danni had finally managed to catch one of her own. Together, they wiggled it into the jar and carefully closed the lid. Jensen leapt around and caught three more. Danni’s eyes glowed in delight as the bugs danced around inside the jar.

Jensen couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such fun.

“Jensen?”

“Yes, Mommy?”

“What happened to the first one you caught?”

“I let it out the door.”

His mother’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed and Jensen’s tummy felt like the fireflies were tearing around inside him.

“You didn’t let the insect out inside the house, did you? You know how I feel about-“

“No. It went out the door. I’m positive.”

Jensen didn’t know what changed, but suddenly Danni’s mother was thanking his mom for the jar and saying she’d return it the next day.

“We should go now, Danni.”

“Let’s do it again tomorrow,” Danni begged in a loud squeal. “Please, Momma?”

“We’ll see,” both women said at once. At the coincidence they smiled awkwardly.

Danni’s mom’s eyes went from his mother back to Jensen, lingering a long moment before taking her daughter’s hand and heading down the block.

Jensen thought he saw her stop a moment when his mother started in again about his better not having let that dirty bug free in her clean kitchen. But in the end, the other woman kept walking.

Danneel squeezes his arm and lets him bring the drink back to his lips. “Please … don’t disappear, Jen. Be sure to say goodbye to Chris and Steve this time. Okay?”

“Sure,” Jensen lies. It’s not like it changes anything, whether or not Jensen sees them off. They go either way.

Chris is well into his second set and the crowd is hot. Dancing. Laughing. Touching. He feels the gaze of a dark-haired man spiral up, then down, his body. He keeps his own gaze dead steady, his torso straight as he leans gently back onto the bar, fingers holding the now empty glass at its rim. He turns fully to put the glass on the bar and signals for another, holding two fingers up at the last minute.

It won’t be long, he knows, before a body will be pressing up behind him. If the front view caught the guy’s interest … well, when Jensen turned around … the deal was closed. It isn’t hubris, exactly. Jensen just knows how he looks. His muscles are lithe and his jeans fit him perfectly. He’s taller than average  and as long as he keeps out of the sun his skin stays pale and not too mottled by his freckles. Thanks to Danni he’s learned to give his hair a naturally tousled look that makes men imagine what he’d look like just getting out of bed. She’s told him his lashes gave her lash envy and while that makes him laugh, he supposes there must be something to it.

Finding an interested man had ceased being an issue since Jensen turned seventeen and outgrew his gangliness.

The one behind him now has picked up the drink Jensen bought him and angles it slightly in a thanks. He’s about six feet, just a couple of inches shorter than Jensen and his dark hair waves around his face. He has startlingly blue eyes,  up close the man is older than Jensen first thought. Probably  in his forties while Jensen is barely pushing thirty. But that’s never mattered.

The man grips Jensen’s hip and Jensen flinches. First contact always does that to him. He can take them a little handsy but he has limits. Once, a dude manhandled him a little too roughly and Jensen decked him so hard he’d nearly been arrested.

Alcohol might have been involved that time, too.

Is most times.

The hand on Jensen’s hip stays still and Jensen’s chest muscles loosen. He takes another swallow of his drink.

“Band’s pretty good,” the guy says.

“Mmm.”

“Thought I saw you talking to the shorter one earlier. Friends of yours?”

Jensen doesn’t reply.

“Ray,” the guy says, eyebrows rising.

“Jensen,” Jensen answers.

“Looks like they’ll be wrapping up soon,” Ray observes. He’s looking at Jensen inquiringly.

Jensen shrugs and downs the last of his drink in one quick gulp, already wondering if this pickup would be a talker. He can’t abide those usually. And certainly not tonight. “Wanna get out of here?” Hey, it’s classic. And it works.

“My place is nearby,” Ray offers.

And that is that.

~~

It’s about three a.m. when Jensen gets home. He never spends the night. It’s more than a rule, it’s a religion.

He’s about to collapse, face down on his bed when Danni opens his bedroom door.

“Jensen.”

“D’ya mind? What if I wasn’t alone?”

She rolls her eyes. “I know the difference between your grunts by now.”

Jensen thinks that should totally creep him out, but he’s just too exhausted.

Despite his dirty look she climbs up on his bed and pulls one of the pillows against the headboard to lean on, settling in with her knees bent. She’s wearing a Hello Kitty tank top and hot pink shorts. Objectively, he knows she’s mouth-wateringly gorgeous and if his dick swung that way … well, they certainly wouldn’t be living together. She’d know way better than get involved with his screwed-up self.

He rolls over onto his back and looks up at her. It’s clear she’s not going anywhere. Her hand moves as if to brush his forehead but then retreats. She works her lower lip between her teeth and swipes at the bangs grazing her eyes. He’s seen her like this countless times. Free of makeup, hair disheveled from a night of too much dancing, brown eyes almost black in the dim light.

“I’m tired, Dan.”

“You didn’t stay.”

“Got a better offer,” he shrugs, but it feels more like an odd twitch from his horizontal position.

She sighs. “Don’t. Jen, lie to yourself if you must. It’s what you’re best at. But just this once … don’t lie to me.”

God, he isn’t up for this, for Danni in his bed, when it’s late and the truth whispers too loudly in his mind.

When all she wants to talk about is saying goodbye.

“My momma talked your mom into a sleepover.”

“You’re kidding?”

Danni smiled gap-toothed in the sun, eyes wide. “Nope. Tonight. You have to go  home now. But she said you could come back after dinner. Momma asked.”

Jensen’s heart raced. He’d never had a sleepover. Danni had been trying to make this happen for over a year. Pretty much since the night they’d caught fireflies together in Jensen’s front yard.

Jensen’s mother had said it wasn’t appropriate to have a boy sleep over at a girl’s house.

He’d heard Danni’s mother, Dana, laugh it off.

“They’re six years old. Donna, let him.”

His mother had said maybe. But it had never been arranged and Jensen had written it off as a lost cause. It was very rare that his mother changed his mind. It just wasn’t her way. His stomach churned anxiously.

“I have to go home now?”

Danni nodded but her enthusiasm didn’t wane. She skipped to the door with him. Danni’s mother appeared.

“Is your mom coming to pick you up?”

“No.” Jensen twisted his foot around awkwardly. “She says I’m old enough now to walk a block by myself.”

Dana looked concerned. “I’ll walk you, honey.”

Jensen’s eyes locked on hers. “No. I mean, my mom said to walk home. She wouldn’t like it if you were troubled by having to walk me. Please.”

Danni looked back and forth between Jensen and her mother with a puzzled frown.

They compromised with Dana walking him half way and then watching until he was at his front door before she turned back.

Jensen hoped that his mother didn’t see that he hadn’t come the whole way on his own. Like a big boy.

‘It’s time you grew up, Jensen.’

She was cooking when he entered.

“Good. You’re home.”

“Hi, Mommy.”

“I want you to have dinner here. I don’t like the food they give you. All processed junk. At least this way I know you’re eating right. I bet you can have anything you want over there, eh?”

“No … we-“

“There’s reasons Dana looks like she does.”

Jensen winced. It wasn’t nice to make fun of someone for being chubby. His teacher had told them that.

They ate at the kitchen table. Salad. Grilled chicken breast. Peas. Jensen liked salad but wasn’t nuts about peas. Not that his mother ever heard a word about it.

He’d tried to turn down her food once. It was the only time he recalled really fighting her. To be fair, he’d been foolish, refusing what was a small request. But just once … he wanted to feel what ‘no’ felt like.

It felt like six hours in a dark kitchen rolling a lonely Brussels sprout around his plate like a ball in a pinball machine. It had been after midnight when he surrendered and forced down the nasty mouthful. She’d insisted he had to eat one. His back had ached from sitting on the hard kitchen chair for hours.

The peas at least were sweet and he’d become used to their texture. She’d sprinkled lemon on his chicken and let him add as much black pepper as he wanted and while it wasn’t anywhere near as good as the mac and cheese Danni was having for supper, he knew it was good for him.

Swallowing the last pea, he approached the subject of the sleepover cautiously.

“Danni said you said I could go back after dinner  and,” the words spilled out in a slurry, “spendthenight.”

Cool blue eyes settled on him. His back stiffened.” I cannot understand how her mother can think this is a good thing. I know you’re just children and it’s not that I think … I’m not an idiot. But … in my day, girls weren’t allowed to have boys spend the night. It’s all very odd. Why doesn’t that little girl have girlfriends like she should. I had a lot of friends. All girls.”

“Until Daddy?”

She turned to him as if he’d literally just grown a second head in front of her. ”What?”

“I just … I meant … you had girl friends until you met my daddy.”

He blinked hard and tensed because she was staring at him a little too long. But then. She laughed. Deep and hearty and the worry fled his body with a whoosh. It was always okay when she laughed like that.

“Go, pack your pajamas and your tooth brush and clean clothes for tomorrow.”

In his room, he folded his favorite Spider Man pajamas into his extra school bag. He grabbed his coloring supplies and then tucked in his stuffed bunny. Danni had asked what the bunny’s name was and he’d told her it didn’t have one. She’d asked why and he’d said that sometimes things with names left. It was better this way.

Downstairs he put the bag by the door and returned to find his mom wiping down an already spotless countertop.

“I thought you’d gone.”

“I wanted to say good-bye.”

She stared at him. “No junk food. You say no, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Mommy. No junk food.”

That earned him a nod. She turned back to the counter and he swung one foot gently, careful not to scuff the linoleum floor.

“What?” his mother asked without turning around.

“I just … when do you want me back tomorrow?”

She didn’t answer immediately and Jensen’s stomach began to swirl again. What if she didn’t want him back at all? He stood frozen, staring at the backs of her knees.

She stepped over to the sink to rinse the dishrag. “When they feel like getting rid of you, I suppose.”

He shuddered and stared up to see her looking at him with a teasing smile.

Then her smile widened and her eyes warmed as they gazed at him and the knot in his belly began to relax. “Call me and I’ll come fetch you when you want to come home. Does that work?”

He beamed up at her with relief. “Yes, Mommy.”

Shifting up, he props himself up against the headboard and draws his knees to his chest just as Danni had. “What am I lying about?”

“You took off with that old guy so you wouldn’t have to say goodbye to Chris and Steve.”

Jensen snorts. “He wasn’t an ‘old guy’.” He gives her a sexy sneer. “Quite athletic, in fact.”

“Shut up,” she barks back at him.

He’s about to reply ‘make me’ but sees how sad her eyes look. “You miss them, when they leave.”

“Of course. After you, they’re my closest friends.” She leans in a little closer and her shoulder brushes his. “Why won’t you say goodbye to them? I know it makes them feel horrible when you just skip off.”

“It doesn’t make it any better.”

“You mean, saying goodbye?”

He nods.

She tips her head sideways and kisses his cheek. “It’s not supposed to, ninny. Hello. Goodbye. They’re like timestamps. They mark the moment.”

He thinks about that. Despite how tired and wrecked he is, his mind clears just long enough to recognize something about her words. They sound like truth.

Her head settles against his shoulder and he can tell from the soft huffs that Danni is starting to doze. He tilts his head to lean against hers and breathes deeply.

“Hey Danni?”

“Mmm?”

“What’cha do with those fireflies?”

It’s quiet a long moment and Jensen thinks he’s not going to get an answer, but then Danni’s sleepy voice breaks the stillness. “Momma said to let them go.”

“Oh. Were you sad about that?”

Her head dips lower and is leaning on his chest now. He won’t let her fall asleep here. It’s not something he does. But  this moment, he’s allowing the closeness.

“Nah. Momma said they were really fairies and that their job was done.”

She sounds so much like the little girl of his memories that he can’t help the smile as he asks, “And what job was that?”

“To bring me a new friend.”

Jensen’s mom hadn’t allowed any more firefly catching that summer. Claimed all insects carried disease and she forbid it.

He’d  allowed himself one final catch as the summer wound down and the sparks in the air receded. He’d jumped and caught the light while his mom was busy inside. It had glowed in his cupped hands in little golden bursts. When she’d called his name he’d quickly let it go, no time for a goodbye. If that had been a fairy, it hadn’t done much for him.

“There’s still time,” Danni murmurs and Jensen shudders, unaware he’d spoken some of that aloud.

Jensen slinks down into the bed, drawing Danni with him. He should tell her to go to her own room. He hates sharing his bed. But tonight. It feels like one goodbye too many.

He lets her stay.

fin

Continues chronologically in the thunderstorm came

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Truth And Untruth
by Suchoon Mo

the guru has
the front end
the rear end

the front end
speaks untruth

the rear end
blows out truth