holding a gun aimed at nothing, RPS, J2 AU, 1/2, [PG-13], (Beach Verse)
Title: holding a gun aimed at nothing
AO3
Author: sandymg
Beta: borgmama1of5
Summary: Jensen makes a startling discovery. (Part of the Beach!Verse)
Wordcount: ~13K - one-shot
Genre: RPS, J2 AU
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is fiction. No harm intended. No profit made.
A/N: Story title inspired from the poem In an Abandoned Temple by Suchoon Mo
A/N2: Verse can be read chronologically or in the order written starting with past indifferent seagulls. This story follows we dance round in a ring and suppose
holding a gun aimed at nothing
part 1
As sand whips up, Jensen blinks the sting out of his eyes. The March wind licks his face and sprinkles grains across the sketchpad on his lap. The charcoal has blackened his fingers and he knows he must have smoky smudges across his face from accidently rubbing it.
The brief gust of air passes, and the only real sound is the ocean, soft waves that shimmer in the cloud-speckled sun streaks.
To many this would be lonely, desolate, unwelcoming - but for Jensen the repetitive lapping sound settles in the space between his bones like a salve. It was always quiet in his mother’s home growing up. Loud voices were not acceptable. His mother didn’t say ‘inside voice’ to him, simply raised her eyebrow and settled her lips and Jensen knew he’d been too noisy.
Once when Donna was in an unusually quixotic mood, she’d told a very young Jensen that when it was silent you could hear the ocean no matter where you were. Jensen has never stopped listening for the waves since then.
Danni, she didn’t understand silence in the same way. She’d humor Jensen with it the way one might dangle catnip to a cat, leaving in a flurry to see friends, and sing-songing enjoy the peace with a smile. When they’d first started living together, Danni teased and challenged - sometimes still does - Your mom’s not here, Jense. You don’t have to follow her rules any longer. Make a little noise!
It’s frustrating to explain for the hundredth time that it is who Jensen is, it’s not about his mother.
Jared understood. Sure, he poked fun at Jensen for many things, but he respected Jensen’s need for space, for solitude, for the quiet that let Jensen breathe and just … be. Jared told Jensen that they were wired differently - Jensen introverted, Jared an extrovert - but that one wasn’t any better than the other. It merely meant they recharged differently.
Shutting his eyes, Jensen remembers the strength of the Southern California sun. How warm it felt caressing his skin, leaving specks of new freckles behind. They’ve long faded, those small marks from his day visiting Jared. Gold, like the color of Jared’s skin. Jensen reopens his eyes and studies the Atlantic. Even with the sun dipping in and out of clouds, its waves are threaded with silver. It reminds him of his mother’s eyes which are a bright blue upon first glance, but up close they are ringed in silver, mercurial and ever-changing. Like the ocean he loves … as lovely and inaccessible. Who could ever know the true reason behind a churning wave?
The beach is not empty. A few folks are running with their dogs along the shore. The boardwalk behind him has some pedestrians as well. Shops are mostly still shut up but restaurants and coffee shops are open and welcoming. Jensen, however, is alone on his beach, surrounded by tall sea grass as he sits upon a favorite rock. It’s secluded and sheltered and familiar. And solitary.
He’s let go of everyone.
Convinced himself of the purity of his actions because sometimes a hard decision is still the best one. Even Dot went with Danni to her parent’s home.
You don’t want her?
No. Why would I?
Danni had looked at him inscrutably. Her last words to him had been, Ask her.
Frankly, he is sick of that comment. He’s done nothing but replay it since Danni first mentioned it.
Ask her if making the decision for the three of you turned out like she wished. And ask if it was fair to you?
Eyes returning to his drawing he’s not surprised to find a familiar shadowy figure lurking on the side of the landscape. Jared had thought that figure represented himself. Jensen had never corrected him. Why not let his boyfriend have that small fantasy?
The three of you.
Jensen can count on one hand what he knows about his father. His name is Adam. That always struck Jensen as perversely appropriate - the first man, cast out of Eden for knowing a woman who knew too much. That makes his mother Eve, sly and clever, willing to rebel against anyone that aimed to slight her.
As a teenager, he’d admired his mother’s rebelliousness, raising a child alone in a town that reinforced conformity. Donna’s own parents had been religious and rigid. While his grandmother had shown a greater degree of leniency toward Jensen than to her daughter - at least as it related to sweets and playtime - she was of the same narrow-minded stock.
He knows his father is about Jensen’s height and build. That he was handsome. Pretty face, his mother has said on various occasions, always implying that one can get away with a lot if one had one of those.
Brown hair and brown eyes. A sturdy, settled-upon color. Not the peaty green that are Jensen’s own. And the most important thing that Jensen knows about his father - the man wasn’t confused. He made a decision to pursue his own dreams, his own life, and leave Donna and yet-to-be-born Jensen behind.
Just as Donna made her own choice to stay in this town, near this beach, to give Jensen a home here, close to her parents, despite their censure. It’s possible Jensen would have been an artist no matter where he was raised. Except. He’s not sure he believes that. Not when everything he paints drips the salty blues, grays and frothy white of his ocean.
Unbidden thoughts of the California coast come to mind. Sparkling blue water, almost turquoise in intensity. Whitecaps like the foam of his mother’s bubble baths. He’d felt like laughing as he’d sat with Jared, surrounded by people traipsing in a swath of sunshine despite it being the middle of winter. Only it wasn’t exactly a funny kind of laugh. How to tell his golden boyfriend that he found it absurd?
Well, hardly a problem now that Jared is no longer his boyfriend.
Jensen thinks Jared surprised himself when he ultimately did accept the Dean’s offer and enrolled in the Santa Barbara graduate program. Jared didn’t believe Jensen would truly let him leave. But Jensen knows that the ability to be contrary is part of his DNA.
Maybe he’s still touched by the instincts of that long-ago Eve.
Even Danni couldn’t convince Jay to stay when Jensen remained adamant that he did not want to stand in Jared’s way, and Jensen is aware of how hard she tried. Two weeks ago she’d come by to get the last of her stuff.
“You’re a fucking idiot.“
It was easy to be silent, to just let her rant.
“I told Jay that, too, you know. Told him to his face I thought you were both being idiots.”
“Did he agree?”
“You think this is funny?”
“No, I don’t. I think it’s necessary.”
“Why, Jense? There are so many other choices. You could compromise. Try long distance. You could move part-time - money isn’t a problem. You have advantages … Why take such a hard stance? Drive him the hell away like you don’t care?!”
“You have it wrong, Dan. One day you’ll see. Same with you. Best to have a clean break sometimes. Now you can concentrate on yourself. “
“It’s not the same with me. I told you that you had a point and I am going to see what kind of life I want for myself. But you love Jared and he loves you and the only reason you aren’t together is because you think you have to make this decision for him!”
She had it wrong. Jensen had made the decision for himself. Just like his mother had made a similar decision all those years ago.
Danni had stared hard at him when he didn’t reply. He hadn’t wanted to argue any longer, had just shook his head and made it clear it was pointless to continue. He hadn’t been able to face the fury in his friend’s eyes then, a maelstrom he chalked up to fear. It’s hard to start over.
And that’s when she’d said it one last time.
Ask her.
What was there to ask about? The story was history, locked in time and impenetrable. There was only so much Donna would ever say about the man she’d once loved and let go. Would someone hound him in the future with similar questions? Would the answer ever change?
Ask her.
A gull soars overhead, wings wide and tips angled as it curves gracefully, floating on the breeze. Jensen tips his head up and wonders at that ability to move through air, almost through time, with an effortless twitch. What if he could lift up right now and head west, fly inland and not stop until he reached the next shore?
Would Jared be pleased to see bird Jensen? Jensen imagines flying over that other beach. He looks down and sees the umbrellas, dozens of them in red and blue and green and yellow stripes. Tawny sand kissed by that eternal sunshine. Where would he find shade? So crowded it stiffens his imaginary feathers.
Where would he land?
“Why do you insist on making it impossible to love you?”
Is that all it takes to make someone stop loving you? Just tell them a truth they don’t want to hear?
“It’s your truth, Jensen, it’s not mine. Dammit. Can’t you even try to hear me?”
Jensen didn’t exactly stop listening then. But it was easier to return to his canvas and answer with pigments and textures and shadows.
The last time he saw Jared had been in Jensen’s studio.
“I can’t make you want to have a relationship with me. Danni is wrong about that. She’s also wrong about something else - you may have convinced yourself you’re doing this for me, but you’re not. You don’t want us … and just can’t face up to it.”
Hands flying over the canvas, Jensen hadn’t turned around. He welcomed the icy band gripping his chest as his heart felt small and lonely in the center of his ribcage.
“Maybe you’re right, Jay.”
He knew that Jared was still standing there, wouldn’t leave until Jensen turned around, wouldn’t believe it unless he saw it. Jensen put the brush down and wiped a hand over his face.
“Does your mom think this is a good idea?”
Odd question, given that Jared really didn’t like Donna. But then again Danni probably filled Jay’s head with some more nonsense about Donna being the evil behind everything.
“My mom believes in living one’s own life.”
“Danni … “
“What about her?”
“Nothing. Forget … forget what she said, Jensen. It won’t … it’ll only … Just. Never mind. Okay?”
Jared’s eyes were liquid but no tears spilled over.
Jensen permitted himself one last good look. Such a beautiful man, inside and out. He steadied himself. He was doing the right thing. All those future kids enriched by a teacher like Jared would make the world a better place. Some things were worth the pain. Love doesn’t mean holding someone captive. His mother had to be right about that.
“I will always love you, Jen.”
He couldn’t look anymore after that and his silent goodbye was a spin back to the soothing slate grays of his canvas.
The gull he’s been watching swoops a final time before heading back out to sea. So lucky to be so free. Yet the ocean holds the gull in its thrall in the same way she holds Jensen...
The water at the shore’s edge creeps forward and back, ebbs and flows like the circular thoughts trapping Jensen as effectively as if seaweed was wrapped around his torso.
“Ask her.”
“Forget what Danni said.”
Eve risked it all for that one bite of the apple. How did she know she needed to know everything? Jensen stares once more at the shadow man in his sketch before rising and sweeping the sand from the back of his jeans. Above him the clouds shift to reveal the seagull once more, swooping in circles in an intricate dance with the receding waves.
~~
It’s Sunday and that means dinner with his mom. They’ve had several Sunday meals since his break up with Jared.
Donna brings the partially carved roast chicken over on a slate blue platter. Even with just the two of them presentation matters. Roast vegetables, edged in black and practically caramelized, ring the dish. Jensen smells the mixture of chicken and potatoes and carrots and licks his lips in anticipation. His mother doesn’t cook as often as she used to, they more often than not eat out when they share their Sunday meal. But today she said she was in the mood and Jensen looks forward to digging in to home-cooked goodness.
He’s set the table meticulously so that she will not complain. Her gaze roams the place settings and then lands back on Jensen with a small grin.
It’s silent at first as they serve themselves and Jensen takes a sip of water to clean his palate as she’s trained him.
“So … Dana tells me that Danneel is still living with them,” Donna begins.
Jensen knows his mother’s opinion of Danni’s actions and really doesn’t want to discuss it. He thinks of what he could say to distract her from that train of thought.
“Mmm. These carrots are really good, did the farmer’s market reopen yet?”
Donna frowns. “It’s only March. Of course not, Jensen.”
He swallows the carrot and spears a bite of chicken with his fork. Jared had loved his mother’s roast vegetables, Jensen’s traitorous mind remembers. Exclaimed they were the best he ever had.
Unfortunately, Donna is not distracted from her topic. “I was hoping when you finally realized the disservice you were doing her and urged her to give up on you that she’d do more than just mope around her parents’ home. I must say … I do feel sorry for that young woman.”
There appears to be no avoiding this conversation. “Danni is doing fine. She’s just looking over her options, figuring out what she wants to do next.”
“Well, I supposed she does have the luxury of time given how she has no responsibilities to speak of. First living off you, and now her parents.”
Jensen immediately gets defensive. “She never ‘lived off me,’ Mom. She paid her own way when we were roommates. And her parents are happy to give her this time.”
For a moment he entertains the idea of what would have happened if his art hadn’t taken off, if nobody wanted what he was offering. But the answer comes immediately … be it working at a gas station, Starbucks, or a boardwalk concession stand. Jensen would have been on his own. Of course, it’s not like his mother had much to spare. During Jensen’s early years they lived with her parents, and she worked part-time at a local doctor’s office for years. Still works a few hours there every week still. The doctor is a good twenty years older than Donna and Jensen has suspected for years that something has been going on between them.
It’s just another one of those things they never speak about.
As if reading Jensen’s mind, Donna brings up the office. “A new patient came in the other day.” She smiles at Jensen conspiratorially, placing her fork down to lift her glass. “Very handsome. And very gay.”
His mother isn’t the matchmaker type so Jensen knows this is her effort at being a good mother and acknowledging his heartbreak. He supposes he should be touched.
“I’m not interested,” he says, but keeps his voice soft.
She laughs boldly, the laugh that always made him think that the world couldn’t ever really harm her. “Nonsense. You haven’t seen this boy. Hair as yellow as the sun and eyes like warm brown pebbles.” She giggles again. “If he weren’t obviously queer I’d take him myself.”
“Brown eyes,” he says, not quite a question. His fingers squeeze around the fork’s handle.
“Yes,” she replies with a soft look.
“Like my father,” Jensen says.
Donna looks up sharply, glass returning to the table with a soft thump. A little water spills out and Jensen follows the droplet as it beads on the tablecloth.
Composing herself, his mother narrows her eyes. “I’d say your father’s eyes were a deeper brown, more masculine.”
Jensen hears the barb and bites back the flare of anger. “We come in different stripes,” he settles on finally. “Is that why you thought that patient was gay? Was he not butch enough?”
Wiping her mouth carefully with her napkin, Donna pushes the plate away from herself. “I believe I’ve had enough. Shall I make coffee or tea?”
Danni’s words keep tumbling in his mind. “Was he not straight?”
“I already told you … and, no, it’s not because he was effeminate … although … it was rather obvious … but he was out, Jensen. Out and proud as you are.” She gives him a warning look as she moves toward the doorway. “I don’t appreciate being attacked like that at my own dining table.”
Jensen tosses his napkin on the table and pushes his chair back. He asks what’s been burning in his mind because he doesn’t know what Danni meant … but maybe … “No. I meant my father. Was he not straight?”
His mother turns back and stares at him as if he’s grown a second head. “Jensen, dear, have you been inhaling too much paint again? You know that one time you almost passed out.”
Standing, he lifts his plate and starts toward the kitchen but stops at her side. “Answer me. Did he leave because he was … like me. Or bisexual? Was that it?”
Donna blinks once and glances back at the array of plates on the table. He hears her sigh softly. “Let’s clean up.”
“Are you really not going to answer me?!”
“Keep up that tone and you will be asked to leave. Remember yourself, Jensen.”
He tastes the apology on his tongue but swallows it back. He can’t keep replaying Danni’s words any longer. It’s frankly driving him to distraction and it’s ridiculous because his mother is many things but a liar isn’t one of them. If anything, she relishes giving out truth.
Neither of them speaks while the meal is being cleaned up. The only sounds are the clink of the dishes and the ping of the glasses. Donna rinses everything carefully before putting it in the dishwasher. He’d asked why once and she claimed to not trust the machine to really get it clean.
After Jensen helps load the dishwasher he leans against the granite counter and watches as she methodically dries her hand on the clean dishcloth. “OK,” she says spinning around. A loose curl has escaped her headband and is spinning near her temple. Her hair’s darker than usual, a honey blond rather than the platinum color she normally favors. He imagines her thirty years ago, hair a warm caramel, eyes as pure as a summer sky. Did his father find himself captivated by her beauty?
Donna is eyeing him carefully. She speaks slowly. “No, Jensen. Your father isn’t gay.” Her brows furrow. “Clearly, he … appreciated women … or how in the world would you explain, well, you?”
“Bisexual, then?”
“Not as far as I know. Why would this even matter?” She’s turned her back on him again and is filling the tea kettle with water. “I think tea tonight. It’s too late for coffee.”
Jensen nods absently. Clearly whatever Danni was driving at, that wasn’t it. He pulls his mother’s blue mugs from the cabinet. They are similar to ones he has at home. They both like blue. Opening the cupboard he finds the tea and places two peppermint bags into the cups. He doesn’t have to ask what kind of tea she wants.
His mother is wiping invisible stains off the countertops, a move he’s seen hundreds of times before. It should feel safe, calming. But his stomach is jittering.
Decision for the three of you.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
He runs his hand over the back of his head. “I want to talk about something. Is that alright?”
Her hand brushes against his arm so fleetingly it might not have happened. “Is this about Jared? I know it was hard … but I am proud of you for doing the right thing.”
The kettle’s whistle breaks the awkward silence and Jensen stands motionless as she pours the steaming water into each cup. He carries the tray into the living room. Coasters are already set out on the coffee table. She settles in her favorite wingback chair and he takes the sofa. There’s a few moments of stirring sugar and blowing at the steam before sipping.
Unsure where to begin he starts with her last comment. “You said that letting Jared go, to free him to live his life was the right thing to do.”
His mother puts the cup down and crosses one leg over the other smoothly. She’s wearing black soft wool trousers and a cream silk blouse.
One always dresses for dinner.
The years have been nothing but kind to her, the artist in him can objectively see how beautiful she is. Yet … it wasn’t enough for his father, and he knows Danni and maybe even Jared would be able to think up many reasons why - but Jensen doesn’t. Never has.
“I believe that people should be free to make their own decisions. But sometimes they need a little push. You did right by that boy, Jensen.”
She bestows a closed-mouth smile before returning to her tea.
Jensen has heard those same words dozens of times. Before Jared left and afterward. He heard them about Danni as well. But suddenly … it’s like he’s hearing them for the first time and his heart skips. His hands start to tremble and he places his cup down before any tea can spill.
“Was it that way with my father?”
The surprise is betrayed by a flicker in her eyes before her countenance smooths over. “What do you mean?” Her eyes narrow as she stares at him. “Why all this sudden interest in your father? That was a long time ago, Jensen.”
His fingers close around the sofa cushion under his thighs, fingernails indenting the surface. “You said he wanted to pursue his dreams, and that you’d chosen to stay here … with me. You said, you made a choice.”
“Yes,” she replies nodding simultaneously. “Similar to yourself and Jared.”
Jensen’s heart is tight in his chest. It takes several tries to swallow as all the saliva in his mouth has dried up. “Jared accused me of making the decision for him. He said really, I wanted out of the relationship. Is that … did my father ever want to stay?”
The question lands and Jensen sees the tick in his mother’s cut jawline. Her eyes harden to a blue that borders on smoke in the incandescent light. “No. That much I can assure you. Adam made that very clear. Staying was not an option. This town was much too small for the likes of him.”
“But you could have … did he want you to go with him?”
Donna uncrosses her legs and takes another sip from her teacup. Jensen watches as the liquid, now much cooler, passes over the rim, past her lips. She shuts her eyes as she swallows. When the cup is returned to the coaster she rises. “I’m going to warm it up,” she says, and marches into the kitchen to return with the kettle.
A small dollop of hot water is poured into both their mugs.
She sits again, posture rigid and ignores the now warm tea. Her eyes lock with his. “This is all very strange. Why would you care about that now? It’s ancient history. Haven’t I dedicated myself to you? Haven’t my actions spoken for themselves? I don’t regret the decision I made, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Just a year ago that answer would have soothed Jensen down to his soul. Years of telling others his mother did, indeed, love him … and here she is practically saying it to him.
And ask her if it was it fair to you?
“Did he ask you to go with him?” Jensen knows his voice is arch and bitterness is creeping out. Maybe it’s unfair, maybe it’s just Danni’s cryptic question that he just can’t get out of his mind.
“I never said he didn’t, Jensen. He held out that second motorcycle helmet and told me the world was open to us.” She stops, composure shaken and Jensen looks at her as if he’s never truly seen her before. “Like I said, I felt … my place was to stay here and be a mother to you.”
Jensen’s face heats with guilt and he stands to pace the room absently. “So, it really was always my fault.”
Donna tracks his movements from her perch. “What are you talking about? Jensen, what’s come over you?”
“You could have been with a man you loved, but he couldn’t stay here. Just like Jared. Except … the decision you made was different. You didn’t choose to stay because you wanted to stay near your parents, stay in this town because you loved it. It was only because of me. Jay is right … I choose my art, my town, my beach. But you were pregnant. It feels like you didn’t really have a choice at all.”
He hadn’t seen her stand so it was a surprise when she was suddenly gripping his shoulder. “Jensen … don’t second guess the past. I don’t regret it. Adam could have chosen me. He didn’t. It is what it is.”
The pressure on his shoulder is suddenly lifted and Jensen feels the coolness in its wake. Danni’s question and his mother’s words are all spinning like someone threw them in a dryer’s tumble cycle.
Adam could have chosen me.
I made a decision. Simple as that.
He’s heard his mother say that all his life.
The words sound like they are coming from a foreign part of himself. “You mean, Adam could have chosen us. Right?”
She’d been about to sit and their eyes meet when he asks that, hers facing up at him and in that one moment before she can blink … the truth is there.
Ask her if making the decision for the three of you turned out like she wished. And ask if it was fair to you?
“Oh my god,” he gasps.
Silently, she slips back into the seat and doesn’t meet his eyes.
“My father didn’t … doesn’t know I exist, does he? He never knew.”
Donna’s gaze has hardened again. She crosses her legs at the ankles as she sits very straight in her chair. “Don’t loom over me like that. Sit like a person.”
It’s not a denial. Jensen feels sick.
“How … how could you lie to me all my life?”
“I never lied to you. Your father made his own decision and I respected it and made my own. I’d think you’d be more grateful. It was you I chose in the end.”
“But he never had a choice. Not a real one.”
“Yes, he did. If I wasn’t enough then he didn’t deserve-“
“What, Mom … he didn’t deserve to know he had a son?!”
It hurts to a staggering degree. So many years feeling unwanted, second best. Someone’s pathetic consolation prize.
Within minutes anger replaces the hurt. And then it compounds because, what the hell, Danni knew? All these fucking years she knew and never said anything?
“I can’t … I can’t even look at you right now.”
“Jensen. Be reasonable. What good is a man that felt forced to stay in a place he hated just to be a father? Think about that. I really did have your best interests at heart. I … “ Her voice cracks and Jensen cannot remember the last time that happened. She swipes angrily at her eyes. “I tried to be a good mother. Not like my own, all self-righteous. I didn’t force my parents’ religion down your throat like they did to me. I let you make your own decisions about faith. About life. It’s a good thing my parents died before you came out. Do you know what they would have said, would have called you?”
“Did it never cross your mind that my father might have wanted to know me?”
Donna looks down, face flushed from her outburst. Jensen watches her compose herself, like a curtain falling over a stage. But he’s hardly seeing her any longer. He sees Jared begging to be heard.
“Why can’t you believe I want us above all else? This decision … let it be ours … not just yours.”
He holds onto the back of the sofa as his legs weaken. “I did the same thing. I can’t even … “ He turns cold eyes in her direction. “I really am your son, Mom. You can be proud.”
part 2