The Solid Body of a Dream 3/6
J2 RPS AU
NC-17
Part 3 of 6
Master post
Art
Hayley the uncoordinated English girl literally runs smack into Alona at CBGB's, causing both of them to spill their drinks on each other. Hayley apologizes profusely, of course, and when Jensen appears with a wad of napkins so they can clean themselves up, she tells him she's glad she saw him because she's going home in a few days and should spend the intervening time with her dad. But if Jensen gives her his address, maybe she can send him some records.
"You have to send them to Danneel," he says. "We're afraid to get mail at the apartment. People keep stealing it."
"So give me Danneel's address," Hayley says brightly.
Jensen writes Danneel and Felicia's address on a napkin for her, and she kisses him on the cheek, kisses Alona on the cheek, and vanishes. Ten minutes later she's back with a fresh beer, which she hands to Alona with another apology before vanishing again.
"She's so weird," Alona says. "Cute, though. I hope she sends you some records. I wanna know what they're listening to in England that we can't get here."
Jensen couldn't agree more. The best way of discovering obscure bands he's going to like - besides seeing them live - is always getting a non-local friend to send him some music.
They find Rachel standing against the wall with Rob and Rich. She says sure, Alona can come home with her, and Chris can impose on Steve, so that Jared and Jensen can have the apartment to themselves. Chris doesn't even protest. He had a very productive talk with Kim, who used to write for Punk magazine and now has a recording studio in her loft, so he's in too good of a mood to care about sleeping on Steve's couch. Chad mounts a weak protest, but Jared and Jensen stay at the bar until almost three, and by that time both Chad and Jared's cousin have gotten embroiled in a discussion with Gabe and one of the guys in his band, and have decided to move their conversation somewhere a little more quiet.
Jared wants to put on a record once they get back to the apartment, and doesn't object when Jensen drops Horses on the turntable. They angle the speakers towards the bedrooom and leave the door open. No one else is coming back tonight, and if they want to, they can have sex all over the apartment.
Jensen wants to stick to the bedroom, though, because he's a little drunk and a lot tired and won't want to move after they're done.
"Lie back and think of England," Jared says, laughing, and Jensen can't help but laugh too. "Were we really that bad?"
"No, you were fine. You're not ready for Radio City" - and here Jared laughs again, because punks playing Radio City? With the Rockettes as backup dancers? How ridiculous - "but you weren't bad."
"Really?"
"Really. Would I lie to you?"
"Probably." But Jared grins and tugs at Jensen's t-shirt and sprawls on top of him and kisses him, and that's the end of that conversation.
In the last couple of months Jared has learned that he likes to top, and Jensen is more than happy to lie back and let him. This time is much less awkward than the first time, which involved Jared jamming his knee in uncomfortable places and Jensen accidentally hitting him in the face and Jared losing his balance and landing flat on Jensen's stomach, but as Jensen has said more than once, practice makes perfect.
It's still not perfect, but it's better than it was, and in any case neither of them is going to complain. Jensen likes sex with Jared, with all its awkwardness and hurry and learning curve, and he knows Jared likes sex with him, and after a week and a half they'll have to content themselves with... what? Dirty phone calls? X-rated mail? A lot of fantasies to take the place of actual physical contact, anyway.
"What are you thinking?" Jared asks, having found a good rhythm and gotten into it.
"Nothing," Jensen answers. "Just how much better this is than the first time."
"I know what I'm doing now." Jared's lips twitch into a smile.
"Is that what you think?" Jensen grins, teasing, and Jared laughs.
"That's what your dick thinks."
And that's not a lie.
"That's what my dick thinks," Jared continues, hips pushing a little deeper and a little faster. Jensen swallows a moan, grabs Jared's ass to encourage him. He can hear Patti Smith through the open door. It's the last song on that side of the record. He's not going to get up to flip it, but he wishes the album was longer.
"Record's almost done," Jared murmurs, voice breathless. "We'll have to finish in, in silence."
As if on cue, the downstairs neighbors start yelling at each other. The words are muffled by the floorboards and Jensen's mattress, but the angry tone is clear. At least they'll be too busy arguing to hear Jared and Jensen.
Jared huffs a laugh at the noise, drops a kiss on Jensen's lips, and thrusts deeper, harder, clearly getting close and wanting to come.
"I'm gonna," he pants, "I'm - fuck, Jensen, you're so, you're - "
"Come on," Jensen says, his words harsh in his own ears. He reaches between them to pull on his cock, close himself and still not sure if he wants Jared to come first or if they can climax together.
Jared solves the problem by losing his rhythm, jerkily fucking Jensen to a combined chorus of grunts and moans and a bitten-off cry as he comes.
"Oh fuck," he pants. "Fuck me."
"That's my line," Jensen manages to say. Jared laughs, or tries to, then pushes himself up until he's sitting between Jensen's splayed thighs, his cock still buried in Jensen's body, his long skinny fingers wrapping around Jensen's cock and starting to stroke. Jensen watches the intent look on Jared's flushed face until he feels his back arching, his body trembling, and his climax shooting down his spine.
"Fuck," Jared repeats. Jensen chuckles because of course, what else was that? "You're so hot. You're - can a guy be pretty?"
"Sure, why not? You think I'm pretty?" Jensen grins.
"Yeah. I think you're pretty. And hot. Pretty hot."
Jared pulls out, flops down onto the mattress, and rolls half on top of Jensen. "I love you so much," he murmurs against Jensen's lips. "I really, really do. I don't wanna go home."
Jensen finds himself saying "You don't have a choice" without even thinking about it, and wants to smack himself. He doesn't want to have that conversation now. They have a week and a half to enjoy each other's company, and he doesn't want to think about the upcoming end of summer either.
Although the end of summer also means the beginning of his senior year, which means his senior thesis project, and he's genuinely excited about that. He'll talk to his advisor about it once school starts up again.
"I know," Jared sighs. He shifts enough to put his head on Jensen's shoulder. Jensen drapes an arm around him. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"You wanna listen to the other side of Horses?"
"No. I want you to talk to me."
"About what?"
"I don't know. School. What you're gonna do your senior year. Tell me about bands I've never heard of. Tell me about, I dunno, tell me about art. The Metropolitan Museum. The, uh, are there other museums? Or galleries. Artists. Designers. Whatever. Patti Smith."
Jensen doesn't have to see his face to know that Jared's grinning. Jensen's love for Patti Smith and her poetry and her music and her band is no secret. Jared has never tried to stop him when he went off on a tangent, and Jensen never felt as if Jared didn't want to learn about her or listen to her abums or try to see her live.
"Let me turn off the record player first," he says, moving his arm and gently lifting Jared's head so he can slide off the mattress. He pulls on his boxer shorts while he's up, then switches off the turntable, puts the album in its sleeve, and climbs back into bed. Jared has put on his underwear in the meantime. It's hot in the room, even with the window up all the way and the door open to catch any cross breeze, but Jared rolls into Jensen's side, throws an arm across his chest, rests his head on Jensen's shoulder, and says "I just want to hear your voice when I fall asleep. Is that cheesy? That sounds really cheesy."
Jensen ruffles his hair, tries to think of what to say. He's not that awake himself, but if Jared wants him to talk, he'll talk.
"Did I tell you about the first time I took Danneel to see the Patti Smith Group?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"It was the beginning of my second year, her first. She didn't know who Patti was. They were playing Max's Kansas City...."
* * *
"Don't wanna go," Jared murmurs, his words drunkenly sliding together. He's back in the city for the last time before he goes home. His cousin is out with his own friends, probably making excuses for the adults who care, so it's just Jared and Chad and - Jensen counts bottles - more beer than is advisable. But it's the last time he'll see Jared for a year, and Jared is having a hard time with it.
Gory Alice played their last summer show at CBGB's, much to Jared's delight, and now Alona and Rachel are squashed around a table with Jared and Jensen and Chris and Danneel. Chad has vanished, probably so he can put the moves on the cute bartender, who is good at ignoring him. Kim has joined them, much to Jensen's surprise, and she and Alona have been talking albums for the past half hour, with occasional interruptions from Chris. Jared has been sucking down beer like a man who just crawled out of a desert.
"Gotta piss," he says now, pushing against Jensen's arm. "Lemme out."
"You need help?" Jensen asks, only half kidding, as he watches Jared push his chair back and wobble upright.
"No, 'm good."
"You're gonna need help carrying him home," Chris says, after Jared has staggered off.
"I know." Jensen finishes his beer and extracts a cigarette from the pack lying on the table. They're Rachel's, of course, and there are only two left. He knows he needs to be buying his own, but if his friends are willing to let him bum theirs, why wouldn't he take advantage? He taps the cigarette on the table, lights it, and turns his head to blow a stream of smoke into the close air of the bar.
It's hot and humid inside, just as it's hot and humid outside, and he's not exactly looking forward to going back to the apartment. He's spent some quality time over the summer at various movie theaters, mostly for the air conditioning. Alona hauled a fan out from Brighton Beach, where her family lives, but it doesn't do much against an oppressive city summer, in an apartment that wasn't designed with any care for its inhabitants. And he and Jared can't sit on the stoop and make out.
"It's gonna take two of us to keep him upright," Chris continues. Jensen blinks at him, confused.
"What?"
"When your boy passes out." Chris nods in the direction of the bathroom. "Unless you think you can throw him over your shoulder and get him home that way."
"He'll be fine. The bathroom stink will wake him right up."
Chris just shrugs.
"Now I need to get out," Kim says across the table. Danneel obligingly pulls her chair in so Kim can get around her. "Come see me... not tomorrow, but the next day," she says to Alona and Rachel. "Bring Adrianne over around one."
"Bring me where?" Adrianne asks, suddenly appearing over Danneel's shoulder.
"Kim's gonna record our album," Alona says.
"I thought you went home," Jensen tells her.
"I got waylaid," Adrianne says. "Cute boys wanna buy me drinks and tell me how hot I am." She grins.
"So you saw Chad."
"Thankfully, no. Is that an empty seat?" She points to Kim's chair and when no one says anything, squeezes behind Danneel to sit in it.
"Day after tomorrow," Kim tells her. "Come by at one. We'll talk."
"Roger wilco." She gives Kim a thumbs-up. Kim blows kisses all around and leaves.
"Y'all want something?" Danneel asks the table. "Since I'm up."
Rachel just wants a Coke and Chris needs a fresh beer. Danneel tells Jensen she'll keep an eye on Jared if she sees him.
It's another twenty minutes before Jared reappears, flushed and sweaty from the beer and the crowd but at least still conscious.
"Maybe we should go," Jensen murmurs in his ear.
"Don't wanna," Jared protests.
"Back to the apartment."
"I saw Rob an', um, um, shit, Dick the Dick." His words are slower when he's drunk, his drawl stronger. Jensen finds it sexy despite himself.
"Who?"
"Speight," Chris says. Alona snickers into her glass. Adrianne giggles.
"'Dick the Dick'?"
"That's what I called him." Chris shrugs, unconcerned.
"You're not wrong," Rachel adds.
Jensen likes him, but Jensen's also not in a band with him. Jensen's also pretty sure that he and Rachel have some kind of history.
"Him," Jared says. "Bought me a beer." He holds up a bottle.
"I think you've had enough," Jensen tells him, reaching for it. Jared manages to angle away from him long enough to tip it up to his lips and drain it.
"I'm never going home," he says with finality. "Gonna stay here and, and wipe tables."
"They can't pay you enough to get them clean," Rachel says, picking at a sticker advertising a band Jensen's never heard of.
"Hold your brushes while you paint," Jared goes on, not paying attention.
"Sit around and be cute," Adrianne adds.
"Yeah. Be cute." He slowly bats his eyelashes at her and she laughs.
"You could probably get work as an artist's model," Danneel says.
"Don't encourage him," Jensen tells her, suddenly tired. He loves his friends but he wants to take Jared and go home. He wants to be alone with his boyfriend.
His boyfriend who's going to pass out right at the table in ten minutes. Jensen can see him start to droop.
"Come on," he says. "Let's go back to my place."
"Not yet." Jared shakes his head.
"You don't want to be alone with your boyfriend?" Danneel asks.
Jensen watches the idea swim into Jared's brain and make itself at home.
"Okay," he says. "Yeah." He pulls himself upright.
"You sure you don't need help?" Chris asks.
"No, we're good," Jensen tells him. He takes Jared's arm. "Come on. Home where the heart is."
By the time they get back to the apartment, Jared is stumbling and Jensen is just praying he stays conscious long enough to climb the steps, and that he doesn't puke on the floor. Jensen has a dim memory of a party where he himself very nearly horked in the bathtub, and was saved from that indignity by Danneel steering him into the bathroom at the last minute.
Jared doesn't puke, but he does almost pass out trying to pee.
"Don't wanna go home," he mumbles into Jensen's neck, once they're sprawled half-naked on the mattress. "Wanna stay with you."
"I know," Jensen says. "I wish you could stay too. You'll come back."
"Next summer. Winter. Maybe." He lifts his head. His eyes are half-closed, his face flushed. "I wanna - can we -" He kisses Jensen's mouth. It's a terrible kiss, sloppy and wet and unfocused, the kiss of a horny boy who's had way too much to drink, but Jensen kisses back anyway. Jared's completely incapable of getting it up, and Jensen knows because he's been in that position before, but neither of them care.
And then Jared passes out, his face pressed into Jensen's neck and his breath hot and damp on Jensen's skin, and Jensen strokes his back and lets himself fall asleep too.
It's not the last night together that he would have planned, but he'll take it.
* * *
September comes with an influx of money from Jensen's parents, an entire day spent hauling stuff and organizing his studio space at school, and a calendar grid drawn on the wall of the apartment with a Magic Marker, days blank so he and Chris and Alona can plan three months at a time. He pins pieces of paper to the wall to mark off assignments due, meetings with professors and his advisor, birthdays, band practice, gigs, and even a tour, when Chris' band gets a ten-day trip around the northeast.
Danneel is impressed. She adds little notes of her own: "Tell Danneel she looks good", "Be nice to Chris", "Cook your own food", "Do laundry", "Tell Alona she's cute".
"Thanks, Mom," Jensen says dryly.
"It's only because I love you," she says, grinning. "Should I add 'Call your boyfriend' too?"
"You don't have to. He keeps calling me."
They're always short conversations, fifteen minutes at most, usually in the mornings when Jared knows Jensen will still be home. Jensen has already gotten four letters, one even written on the plane Jared took back to Texas.
Even those little talks are enough to put Jensen in a good mood for the rest of the day. Not that he really needs them - he's a senior now, finishing out his degree, planning his senior thesis project, looking forward to the rest of his life. He feels like he's just tying up loose ends before he can graduate and be free, before Jared can graduate and move in with him. It's very exciting.
His social life isn't even suffering. There are still bands to hear and friends to see and places to go and late-night conversations to have and parties to attend. He's bad with money but he knows he won't starve, if for no other reason than Chris works at a diner and brings him and Alona leftovers. He's not getting a lot of sleep, but he can sleep when he's old.
He misses Jared, and he knows Jared misses him, but they talk on the phone and write to each other. Jared sends Jensen a badly-recorded tape of him learning how to play the guitar, saying, "I don't want to be the Krays' bass player forever". Jensen sends Jared little sketches of the Pits at CBGB's and his studio space at school, of Danneel and Gory Alice, of Chris, and even the two of them, little X-rated sketches drawn from memory and fantasy.
They're very sketchy, these drawings, but clear enough - Jared on his knees, sucking Jensen off. Jensen repaying the favor. Jensen fucking Jared from behind. Jared on his back. Jensen on his back. The two of them on the couch, in the bathtub, leaning against the bedroom wall. More than once Jensen needs to take himself in hand when he's done, because the mental images he's conjuring up for Jared make him hard as well.
Danneel catches him at it one day when she drops by his studio space to say hi and ask his advice about something she's working on. He's sitting at the desk trying to finish a little drawing of him and Jared in bed when she appears over his shoulder and says hello, startling him into scraping a line straight across the sketch.
"Bitch," he mutters, but she just laughs.
"What are you working on?" she asks. "That doesn't look like a class assignment."
"It's for Jared."
"Is it." She grabs the sketch and steps away to examine it. "This is from memory, right? You're not using actual models to reenact your sex life, are you?" She glances around his space, no doubt looking for any wooden models Jensen might have posed in compromising situations.
"You know someone who wants to volunteer? Give me that." He reaches for the sketch, but Danneel dances away from his hand.
"This is terrible. I can't tell who either of these boys is. Besides, there's a big line straight through it. Is that some kind of commentary on love and modern art?"
"The heat death of the universe. Give it back."
She hands it over. "You really are stuck on him, aren't you." It's not a question, but Jensen wouldn't have to answer even if it was. "What happens when he graduates?"
"He moves to New York." Jensen crumples up the drawing and throws it at the trash can. "What did you think? Do you want something, or did you come up here just to pester me?"
"I need some advice. I'm in the middle of a painting and it's just not working and I can't tell what's wrong and I need someone to look at it whose opinion I trust. Today that's you."
"I hope it's a design question. I know how you feel about my sense of color." Jensen grins despite himself.
"What sense of color?" Danneel grins back. "If you can tear yourself away from your dirty pictures I'll show you what I've done so far."
So he follows her back to her own studio space to look at her work and express an opinion and offer advice. He's flattered she asked, because Danneel is not short on talented, opinionated classmates, and his interests lie more in design and layout than painting. He's spent a couple of years doing flyers and the occasional album cover for Gory Alice, Chris and Steve's various bands, and even the Pits, and likes to think he's learned as much from that as he has from his more formal classes.
But painting? Fine art? It's not as silly as Danneel asking his opinion on clothes, but it's not where his skills are. But maybe that's one of the reasons she wants his advice.
Among the clutter on the desk in her studio space is a folded-together mock-up that looks like the next issue of her zine Doom Pastry. It's a fairly new thing for her, this zine, but she's put out three issues already and people seem to like it. Jared took some copies with him when he went home in August, and Danneel has already asked Jensen to mail one or two to England, if Hayley ever comes through and sends him some records. Jensen quite surprisingly got a letter from London a week ago, the blue airmail envelope containing a Union Jack patch and a note written on flimsy paper apologizing because albums are expensive to ship in such a way that they don't break in transit, but she had an idea and was working on something.
There was no return address on the envelope, other than "The Center of the Universe, Great Britain", so Jensen is waiting for something else to arrive with a clue as to where he might send a response.
He seems to have acquired an English penpal. It's unexpected, but fun so far. He sewed the patch onto his jean jacket.
Now he flips through Danneel's mocked-up zine. The ones he's most familiar with are music and poetry zines, although there's a weird little science fiction one out of San Antonio that Jared has mentioned in his letters. Doom Pastry is all about comic books and feminism and DIY fashion. The mock-up in his hands is full of penciled comments and pasted-in drawings, with "Contributors!" scrawled across the front in bright green marker.
"You wanna contribute something?" Danneel asks him, noticing his interest.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Draw me a picture of your cute little boyfriend in a cape, beating back the suburban forces of convention. This issue isn't X-rated, though, so you'll have to keep the sexy bits to a minimum."
"Who else is in it?"
"Me, obviously. Felicia. Her terrible girlfriend. I think they're breaking up, by the way."
"Good."
"I don't know about that. I don't think it's really what Felicia wants. Rachel wrote me a thing about being a girl in a band. You could illustrate that. You'll be the only boy in it. Oh, you know what? Maybe I'll do a harem issue. I'll get some guys to contribute and it will be me and my harem of little art school boys. You can do something for that." She grins brightly. When Jensen doesn't respond, she continues "You don't want to be in my harem? You and Chris and Gabe and Steve and Jared?"
"You don't even like Gabe. Besides, he's not an art school boy. Neither are Chris and Steve."
"I'll recruit some, never fear."
Jensen never does contribute anything to that particular issue, but when it comes out he sends Jared a copy anyway, with a little ink drawing of Jared as a musical superhero, wearing a cape and carrying a guitar. Alona gets her hands on the picture before he can send it, and her begging and pleading leads to a whole series of drawings, all of Jensen's singer and musician friends with microphones and instruments and superhero outfits of decreasingly traditional design. He even draws Kim, her arms full of albums and magazines, a typewriter on her head, and Danneel and Felicia wielding paintbrushes and, in Danneel's case, a needle and thread.
He's not sure how the one of Danneel makes its way to Professor Ferris, his senior thesis advisor, and he's not sure why she likes it, except that she does. It's already the beginning of November and he should have made more progress on his senior project than he has, but it's been more difficult than he thought it would be to come up with a project he likes enough to build a show around.
"I don't think a series of unconventional superheroes is the right idea," Professor Ferris says, "or the best demonstration of your skills and vision, but this is a good design. As a print it's a little too Lichtenstein, and silkscreen variations are too Warhol." That was one of Jensen's earlier ideas, because there's something about silkscreening that he really enjoys. "But have you considered unconventional redesigns of conventional things?"
"Not really," he admits. "My roommate keeps telling me I should turn all my band flyers into real art. But they're flyers. They work for what they are, but they're not art."
"What makes you say that? Why can't practical things be artistically designed? Why can't art be put to practical use?" She looks at him consideringly. "Why are you here, Jensen?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you apply to Cooper Union? Why did you come to New York?"
Patti Smith, he thinks.
"Think about it," Professor Ferris goes on. "Come back in a week and we'll talk about why you're here and what you're doing for your senior thesis. You need to be working on it."
Three days later he has his answer. Gory Alice is playing CBGB's to celebrate the release of their first professionally-produced record, forty-three minutes of vinyl called Twenty Flags in a Row, the cover art for which Jensen received actual money, and he has told everyone he knows. The band is in top form and even Adrianne's parents are here, among the girls' friends and fans and the random people who show up to hear unfamiliar bands they think they might like.
It's after Gory Alice has gotten offtage, after Jensen has congratulated them and been introduced to Adrianne's baffled parents and Alona's proud brother, after Alona has bought him a beer to thank him for being a good roommate and supportive friend, after people have squashed around the table Steve commandeered, after Jensen and Chris have dropped some coins in the jukebox and called up David Bowie - standing there listening to "Rebel Rebel", happily screaming the chorus at his best friend, suddenly he knows. He came to New York for the music. And yes, for the chance to make art with like-minded people, but his immediate unspoken response to Professor Ferris' question was the right one.
He's here because of Patti Smith, and everything her music and her poetry represented to the sheltered, suburban seventeen-year-old he was, the teenager who knew there was more to the world than Dallas, and who knew there was more to him. The teenager who wasn't sure where he belonged, other than somewhere else.
That teenager found his niche in New York, once glittering and beautiful but now dirty and unloved and broke as hell, but home to the smoky, dingy, hole-in-the wall club that still shines like a beacon at the end of each day.
That will be his senior thesis. That will be the project he spends the rest of his academic year working on - the power of music, the power of CBGB's, and the shelter it offers the weird and the outcast and the uncertain.
Among the stacks of books in his apartment is a volume of Patti's poetry that includes a poem that Alona loved so much, she copied it onto the wall next to her bed, line after line of bright blue marker and round, girly handwriting. Patti wrote the poem for Edie Sedgwick, a California socialite and Warhol superstar from the 60s who's been dead for eight years, but who was an object of admiration for the teenage Patti, pulled from New Jersey by the excitement of the city. As silly as it might sound to other people, Jensen's senior project will be the same thing, silkscreen on canvas rather than words on paper, but his own tribute to the forces that brought him here.
"I'll call the show 'Shaking Glittering Bones'," he tells Danneel, drunk and excited and full of ideas and so desperately, painfully in love with his world that he can't articulate it. He doesn't always get this kind of kick from his work, this euphoria, but this time it's not just art that has him all wound up, but bands and guitars and his friends on stage and his records on Chris' turntable. It's CBGB's and record stores and band flyers printed on neon copy paper and the thrill of being in the middle of a sweating, jumping crowd that knows every single song.
"That's a terrible title," Danneel says, and after a little contemplation he has to agree with her. "Think of something else."
Professor Ferris says the same thing, when he meets with her to explain the project. His idea sounds alternately unsophisticated and pretentious and maddeningly unfocused when he's sitting in her office. What's his point of view? What is he trying to say? But she offers suggestions and encouragement, and it will allow him to make prints and design album covers and create his own homage to the music he loves and the people he admires.
As if a psychic message of need somehow crossed the ocean, a box arrives at Danneel and Felicia's apartment addressed to Jensen. When he comes to get it, the girls make him open it in front of them, revealing a couple of albums, some 45s, a pile of cassettes, and a handful of pins from London. There's a note from Hayley explaining that this is the music she's into and she hopes Jensen likes it, he doesn't have to trawl through the import bins so much anymore, and she's coming back to the States to spend the summer with her dad and she wants to see him.
There's also a photo of her in a leopard-print jacket and thick black eyeliner, her arm around a guy in a spiked dog collar with his short dark hair sticking out in all directions. She's grinning, he's glowering. On the back is "Me and Dom at the Roxy! He's pretending to be hard."
"Cute," Danneel comments, looking over Jensen's shoulder. "You should send her something."
"How much does it cost to mail records overseas?" he asks.
"Probably a lot," Felicia says. She pulls out some of the 45s. "I haven't heard of half of these. What's X-Ray Spex?"
"'Oh Bondage Up Yours'." Felicia raises an eyebrow at him. "She didn't have to send that one. I already have it." He saw the band at CBGB's last year and was inspired enough to shell out a lot for their album, as an overpriced import because it hasn't been released in the US yet.
It's a good thing Chris sometimes brings leftovers home from the diner where he works, because otherwise Jensen would starve, having spent all his money on records.
He hasn't been spending a lot of time at home lately - he has classes to attend and his thesis project to plan out and other work to produce and bands to see and people to hang out with - but the hours that he's home and awake are now soundtracked to this new British bounty. He collects some things to mail back, but balks when the skeptical clerk at the post office tells him how much the package will cost and how long it will take to get to London.
And then it occurs to him that his parents are flying him home for Thanksgiving, and maybe he can impose on his dad for assistance.
His dad is not interested, but his uncle slips him some bucks, and when Jensen gets back to New York he wraps the cassettes and 45s in band flyers as if they're Christmas presents, adds some zines at Danneel's request, packs everything in styrofoam peanuts, and spends his uncle's money and then some to ship a box of music back to London.
Chris says it's excessive. Alona thinks it's sweet. Danneel and Adrianne joke about telling Jared. Jensen just puts another album on the stereo and ignores them.
* * *
New Year's Eve is a wild blowout - they're celebrating the calendar flipping to a whole new decade, after all - so wild that Jensen doesn't remember half of it the next day. He wakes up on the shaggy area rug on the floor of Rachel's apartment, Adrianne lying half on top of him, so hungover he thinks he might still be drunk. He has a vague memory of trying to call Jared's house at midnight, even though it was still 1979 in Texas, and getting Jared's little sister instead. He doesn't remember what he said to her, and he wonders dimly if Jared ever tried to call him back. He hopes not.
It takes him the entire day to recover, and that night he calls Jared to wish him a happy new year and to apologize to his sister for whatever he might have said on the phone.
"She thought it was funny," Jared says. "I went to my friend's house and just stayed over. I thought about you at midnight."
"I thought about you too," Jensen says. "Obviously."
"Good thing my parents weren't home. I would've loved to hear you explain to them why you were trying to call me at midnight."
"Don't they know you have a boyfriend in New York?"
"Sort of."
"Sort of?"
"They know I have friends in New York."
"You didn't tell them about me?" Jensen asks incredulously. He's sure they've had this conversation before, and he's sure it involved Jared explaining that his parents know all about Jensen. "Jared? What do they think? Don't they know you're gay?"
"Sort of." Now Jared sounds embarrassed. "You told me you didn't tell your parents until you were in art school. Why do I need to tell them now? It's not like I wanted to bring you home for Christmas or something."
"Who do they think you're calling all the time?"
"I told you! They know I have friends! I said I have to call you in the morning because I know that's when you'll be home. They know you're in college. Do we have to talk about this now?"
Jensen sighs. Jared could have perfectly legitimate reasons for not telling his parents, and Jensen doesn't want to start the new year by having an argument. "Sorry," he says. "Did I tell you Hayley got the albums I sent her? She sent me a postcard that just said 'Thank you' in big capital letters, with all these heart stickers. Adrianne thinks she has a thing for me."
"Well, yeah," Jared says. "Of course she does. I mean, have you looked at yourself?"
"She's not gonna be interested in me from London. I'm pretty sure she's got a boyfriend, anyway. I sent her Twenty Flags in a Row, but I don't know what she thinks yet."
"I thought it was great. You told them I said that, right?"
"Yeah. They're trying to get a tour now, maybe opening up for the Pits or someone. Oh, I also sent Hayley that tape your cousin made of one of your shows, because you guys don't have an album out."
"Oh, god," Jared groans. "I've gotten so much better. I talked to Corey and when I get up there in June they're gonna look for another bass player so I can be the guitarist."
"What about the current guitarist?"
"Corey thinks he wants to leave anyway. Hey, wait here, I got an idea."
Jensen rolls his shoulders and listens to dead air. He doesn't feel like like warmed-over death anymore. Alona and Chris have gone out to give him some privacy for his phone call, and he's seriously considering going to bed after he gets off the phone. He's pretty sure he had an idea for his thesis project at some point last night, but he wishes he could remember what it was. He guesses it was the kind of idea you get after having had way too much to drink, so it's just as well he can't remember. He doesn't want to have to justify something to Professor Ferris with "Well, it was New Year's Eve and I was hammered...."
"Okay, I'm back," Jared says. "Listen."
Jensen can dimly hear him say "Shit, hang on" as if Jared is standing a few feet from the phone, and then there's the tentative sound of guitar tuning - thanks to Chris, Jensen knows the sound of a guitar being tuned by someone who isn't sure he's doing it right - and then what sounds suspiciously like a Krays song.
Jared sings along with his guitar, but softly enough, and far enough away from the phone receiver, that Jensen can barely hear him. But the guitar playing is pretty good. He must have been practicing a lot. After that song is another one, played with more confidence, and then something that sounds like Gory Alice, and finally, to Jensen's surprise, Patti Smith's "Because the Night", her most commercial single off his favorite album of hers.
Halfway through, Jensen realizes he's singing along.
Have I doubt when I'm alone
Love is a ring, the telephone
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed until the morning comes
They finish the song together and then there's silence for a minute. Jensen feels romanced, and he's a little surprised to realize that he misses Jared more now than he has at any time in the past four months. As much as he thinks about Jared, and as much as he looks forward to their phone calls and Jared's letters, and as much as he enjoys making little X-rated sketches to send back, and as excited as he is for Jared to eventually move up here, he hasn't really missed Jared as deeply or as constantly as he could have.
But Jensen misses him now, and wishes they were both in New York.
"How was that?" Jared asks into the silence. "Was it... was I okay?"
"Yeah, you were okay. You were great."
"I really... I wanna get better. What?" he yells, sounding as if he's yelling at someone on his end. "I gotta go," he tells Jensen. "I really miss you. What if I quit school and went to New York now?"
"Don't do that."
"I could see you a lot sooner."
"I know, but - "
"I'm coming!" Jared yells again. "Shit. I really need to go. Happy New Year. I love you. I'll talk to you soon. Bye." And he hangs up.
Onward!
NC-17
Part 3 of 6
Master post
Art
Hayley the uncoordinated English girl literally runs smack into Alona at CBGB's, causing both of them to spill their drinks on each other. Hayley apologizes profusely, of course, and when Jensen appears with a wad of napkins so they can clean themselves up, she tells him she's glad she saw him because she's going home in a few days and should spend the intervening time with her dad. But if Jensen gives her his address, maybe she can send him some records.
"You have to send them to Danneel," he says. "We're afraid to get mail at the apartment. People keep stealing it."
"So give me Danneel's address," Hayley says brightly.
Jensen writes Danneel and Felicia's address on a napkin for her, and she kisses him on the cheek, kisses Alona on the cheek, and vanishes. Ten minutes later she's back with a fresh beer, which she hands to Alona with another apology before vanishing again.
"She's so weird," Alona says. "Cute, though. I hope she sends you some records. I wanna know what they're listening to in England that we can't get here."
Jensen couldn't agree more. The best way of discovering obscure bands he's going to like - besides seeing them live - is always getting a non-local friend to send him some music.
They find Rachel standing against the wall with Rob and Rich. She says sure, Alona can come home with her, and Chris can impose on Steve, so that Jared and Jensen can have the apartment to themselves. Chris doesn't even protest. He had a very productive talk with Kim, who used to write for Punk magazine and now has a recording studio in her loft, so he's in too good of a mood to care about sleeping on Steve's couch. Chad mounts a weak protest, but Jared and Jensen stay at the bar until almost three, and by that time both Chad and Jared's cousin have gotten embroiled in a discussion with Gabe and one of the guys in his band, and have decided to move their conversation somewhere a little more quiet.
Jared wants to put on a record once they get back to the apartment, and doesn't object when Jensen drops Horses on the turntable. They angle the speakers towards the bedrooom and leave the door open. No one else is coming back tonight, and if they want to, they can have sex all over the apartment.
Jensen wants to stick to the bedroom, though, because he's a little drunk and a lot tired and won't want to move after they're done.
"Lie back and think of England," Jared says, laughing, and Jensen can't help but laugh too. "Were we really that bad?"
"No, you were fine. You're not ready for Radio City" - and here Jared laughs again, because punks playing Radio City? With the Rockettes as backup dancers? How ridiculous - "but you weren't bad."
"Really?"
"Really. Would I lie to you?"
"Probably." But Jared grins and tugs at Jensen's t-shirt and sprawls on top of him and kisses him, and that's the end of that conversation.
In the last couple of months Jared has learned that he likes to top, and Jensen is more than happy to lie back and let him. This time is much less awkward than the first time, which involved Jared jamming his knee in uncomfortable places and Jensen accidentally hitting him in the face and Jared losing his balance and landing flat on Jensen's stomach, but as Jensen has said more than once, practice makes perfect.
It's still not perfect, but it's better than it was, and in any case neither of them is going to complain. Jensen likes sex with Jared, with all its awkwardness and hurry and learning curve, and he knows Jared likes sex with him, and after a week and a half they'll have to content themselves with... what? Dirty phone calls? X-rated mail? A lot of fantasies to take the place of actual physical contact, anyway.
"What are you thinking?" Jared asks, having found a good rhythm and gotten into it.
"Nothing," Jensen answers. "Just how much better this is than the first time."
"I know what I'm doing now." Jared's lips twitch into a smile.
"Is that what you think?" Jensen grins, teasing, and Jared laughs.
"That's what your dick thinks."
And that's not a lie.
"That's what my dick thinks," Jared continues, hips pushing a little deeper and a little faster. Jensen swallows a moan, grabs Jared's ass to encourage him. He can hear Patti Smith through the open door. It's the last song on that side of the record. He's not going to get up to flip it, but he wishes the album was longer.
"Record's almost done," Jared murmurs, voice breathless. "We'll have to finish in, in silence."
As if on cue, the downstairs neighbors start yelling at each other. The words are muffled by the floorboards and Jensen's mattress, but the angry tone is clear. At least they'll be too busy arguing to hear Jared and Jensen.
Jared huffs a laugh at the noise, drops a kiss on Jensen's lips, and thrusts deeper, harder, clearly getting close and wanting to come.
"I'm gonna," he pants, "I'm - fuck, Jensen, you're so, you're - "
"Come on," Jensen says, his words harsh in his own ears. He reaches between them to pull on his cock, close himself and still not sure if he wants Jared to come first or if they can climax together.
Jared solves the problem by losing his rhythm, jerkily fucking Jensen to a combined chorus of grunts and moans and a bitten-off cry as he comes.
"Oh fuck," he pants. "Fuck me."
"That's my line," Jensen manages to say. Jared laughs, or tries to, then pushes himself up until he's sitting between Jensen's splayed thighs, his cock still buried in Jensen's body, his long skinny fingers wrapping around Jensen's cock and starting to stroke. Jensen watches the intent look on Jared's flushed face until he feels his back arching, his body trembling, and his climax shooting down his spine.
"Fuck," Jared repeats. Jensen chuckles because of course, what else was that? "You're so hot. You're - can a guy be pretty?"
"Sure, why not? You think I'm pretty?" Jensen grins.
"Yeah. I think you're pretty. And hot. Pretty hot."
Jared pulls out, flops down onto the mattress, and rolls half on top of Jensen. "I love you so much," he murmurs against Jensen's lips. "I really, really do. I don't wanna go home."
Jensen finds himself saying "You don't have a choice" without even thinking about it, and wants to smack himself. He doesn't want to have that conversation now. They have a week and a half to enjoy each other's company, and he doesn't want to think about the upcoming end of summer either.
Although the end of summer also means the beginning of his senior year, which means his senior thesis project, and he's genuinely excited about that. He'll talk to his advisor about it once school starts up again.
"I know," Jared sighs. He shifts enough to put his head on Jensen's shoulder. Jensen drapes an arm around him. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"You wanna listen to the other side of Horses?"
"No. I want you to talk to me."
"About what?"
"I don't know. School. What you're gonna do your senior year. Tell me about bands I've never heard of. Tell me about, I dunno, tell me about art. The Metropolitan Museum. The, uh, are there other museums? Or galleries. Artists. Designers. Whatever. Patti Smith."
Jensen doesn't have to see his face to know that Jared's grinning. Jensen's love for Patti Smith and her poetry and her music and her band is no secret. Jared has never tried to stop him when he went off on a tangent, and Jensen never felt as if Jared didn't want to learn about her or listen to her abums or try to see her live.
"Let me turn off the record player first," he says, moving his arm and gently lifting Jared's head so he can slide off the mattress. He pulls on his boxer shorts while he's up, then switches off the turntable, puts the album in its sleeve, and climbs back into bed. Jared has put on his underwear in the meantime. It's hot in the room, even with the window up all the way and the door open to catch any cross breeze, but Jared rolls into Jensen's side, throws an arm across his chest, rests his head on Jensen's shoulder, and says "I just want to hear your voice when I fall asleep. Is that cheesy? That sounds really cheesy."
Jensen ruffles his hair, tries to think of what to say. He's not that awake himself, but if Jared wants him to talk, he'll talk.
"Did I tell you about the first time I took Danneel to see the Patti Smith Group?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"It was the beginning of my second year, her first. She didn't know who Patti was. They were playing Max's Kansas City...."
* * *
"Don't wanna go," Jared murmurs, his words drunkenly sliding together. He's back in the city for the last time before he goes home. His cousin is out with his own friends, probably making excuses for the adults who care, so it's just Jared and Chad and - Jensen counts bottles - more beer than is advisable. But it's the last time he'll see Jared for a year, and Jared is having a hard time with it.
Gory Alice played their last summer show at CBGB's, much to Jared's delight, and now Alona and Rachel are squashed around a table with Jared and Jensen and Chris and Danneel. Chad has vanished, probably so he can put the moves on the cute bartender, who is good at ignoring him. Kim has joined them, much to Jensen's surprise, and she and Alona have been talking albums for the past half hour, with occasional interruptions from Chris. Jared has been sucking down beer like a man who just crawled out of a desert.
"Gotta piss," he says now, pushing against Jensen's arm. "Lemme out."
"You need help?" Jensen asks, only half kidding, as he watches Jared push his chair back and wobble upright.
"No, 'm good."
"You're gonna need help carrying him home," Chris says, after Jared has staggered off.
"I know." Jensen finishes his beer and extracts a cigarette from the pack lying on the table. They're Rachel's, of course, and there are only two left. He knows he needs to be buying his own, but if his friends are willing to let him bum theirs, why wouldn't he take advantage? He taps the cigarette on the table, lights it, and turns his head to blow a stream of smoke into the close air of the bar.
It's hot and humid inside, just as it's hot and humid outside, and he's not exactly looking forward to going back to the apartment. He's spent some quality time over the summer at various movie theaters, mostly for the air conditioning. Alona hauled a fan out from Brighton Beach, where her family lives, but it doesn't do much against an oppressive city summer, in an apartment that wasn't designed with any care for its inhabitants. And he and Jared can't sit on the stoop and make out.
"It's gonna take two of us to keep him upright," Chris continues. Jensen blinks at him, confused.
"What?"
"When your boy passes out." Chris nods in the direction of the bathroom. "Unless you think you can throw him over your shoulder and get him home that way."
"He'll be fine. The bathroom stink will wake him right up."
Chris just shrugs.
"Now I need to get out," Kim says across the table. Danneel obligingly pulls her chair in so Kim can get around her. "Come see me... not tomorrow, but the next day," she says to Alona and Rachel. "Bring Adrianne over around one."
"Bring me where?" Adrianne asks, suddenly appearing over Danneel's shoulder.
"Kim's gonna record our album," Alona says.
"I thought you went home," Jensen tells her.
"I got waylaid," Adrianne says. "Cute boys wanna buy me drinks and tell me how hot I am." She grins.
"So you saw Chad."
"Thankfully, no. Is that an empty seat?" She points to Kim's chair and when no one says anything, squeezes behind Danneel to sit in it.
"Day after tomorrow," Kim tells her. "Come by at one. We'll talk."
"Roger wilco." She gives Kim a thumbs-up. Kim blows kisses all around and leaves.
"Y'all want something?" Danneel asks the table. "Since I'm up."
Rachel just wants a Coke and Chris needs a fresh beer. Danneel tells Jensen she'll keep an eye on Jared if she sees him.
It's another twenty minutes before Jared reappears, flushed and sweaty from the beer and the crowd but at least still conscious.
"Maybe we should go," Jensen murmurs in his ear.
"Don't wanna," Jared protests.
"Back to the apartment."
"I saw Rob an', um, um, shit, Dick the Dick." His words are slower when he's drunk, his drawl stronger. Jensen finds it sexy despite himself.
"Who?"
"Speight," Chris says. Alona snickers into her glass. Adrianne giggles.
"'Dick the Dick'?"
"That's what I called him." Chris shrugs, unconcerned.
"You're not wrong," Rachel adds.
Jensen likes him, but Jensen's also not in a band with him. Jensen's also pretty sure that he and Rachel have some kind of history.
"Him," Jared says. "Bought me a beer." He holds up a bottle.
"I think you've had enough," Jensen tells him, reaching for it. Jared manages to angle away from him long enough to tip it up to his lips and drain it.
"I'm never going home," he says with finality. "Gonna stay here and, and wipe tables."
"They can't pay you enough to get them clean," Rachel says, picking at a sticker advertising a band Jensen's never heard of.
"Hold your brushes while you paint," Jared goes on, not paying attention.
"Sit around and be cute," Adrianne adds.
"Yeah. Be cute." He slowly bats his eyelashes at her and she laughs.
"You could probably get work as an artist's model," Danneel says.
"Don't encourage him," Jensen tells her, suddenly tired. He loves his friends but he wants to take Jared and go home. He wants to be alone with his boyfriend.
His boyfriend who's going to pass out right at the table in ten minutes. Jensen can see him start to droop.
"Come on," he says. "Let's go back to my place."
"Not yet." Jared shakes his head.
"You don't want to be alone with your boyfriend?" Danneel asks.
Jensen watches the idea swim into Jared's brain and make itself at home.
"Okay," he says. "Yeah." He pulls himself upright.
"You sure you don't need help?" Chris asks.
"No, we're good," Jensen tells him. He takes Jared's arm. "Come on. Home where the heart is."
By the time they get back to the apartment, Jared is stumbling and Jensen is just praying he stays conscious long enough to climb the steps, and that he doesn't puke on the floor. Jensen has a dim memory of a party where he himself very nearly horked in the bathtub, and was saved from that indignity by Danneel steering him into the bathroom at the last minute.
Jared doesn't puke, but he does almost pass out trying to pee.
"Don't wanna go home," he mumbles into Jensen's neck, once they're sprawled half-naked on the mattress. "Wanna stay with you."
"I know," Jensen says. "I wish you could stay too. You'll come back."
"Next summer. Winter. Maybe." He lifts his head. His eyes are half-closed, his face flushed. "I wanna - can we -" He kisses Jensen's mouth. It's a terrible kiss, sloppy and wet and unfocused, the kiss of a horny boy who's had way too much to drink, but Jensen kisses back anyway. Jared's completely incapable of getting it up, and Jensen knows because he's been in that position before, but neither of them care.
And then Jared passes out, his face pressed into Jensen's neck and his breath hot and damp on Jensen's skin, and Jensen strokes his back and lets himself fall asleep too.
It's not the last night together that he would have planned, but he'll take it.
* * *
September comes with an influx of money from Jensen's parents, an entire day spent hauling stuff and organizing his studio space at school, and a calendar grid drawn on the wall of the apartment with a Magic Marker, days blank so he and Chris and Alona can plan three months at a time. He pins pieces of paper to the wall to mark off assignments due, meetings with professors and his advisor, birthdays, band practice, gigs, and even a tour, when Chris' band gets a ten-day trip around the northeast.
Danneel is impressed. She adds little notes of her own: "Tell Danneel she looks good", "Be nice to Chris", "Cook your own food", "Do laundry", "Tell Alona she's cute".
"Thanks, Mom," Jensen says dryly.
"It's only because I love you," she says, grinning. "Should I add 'Call your boyfriend' too?"
"You don't have to. He keeps calling me."
They're always short conversations, fifteen minutes at most, usually in the mornings when Jared knows Jensen will still be home. Jensen has already gotten four letters, one even written on the plane Jared took back to Texas.
Even those little talks are enough to put Jensen in a good mood for the rest of the day. Not that he really needs them - he's a senior now, finishing out his degree, planning his senior thesis project, looking forward to the rest of his life. He feels like he's just tying up loose ends before he can graduate and be free, before Jared can graduate and move in with him. It's very exciting.
His social life isn't even suffering. There are still bands to hear and friends to see and places to go and late-night conversations to have and parties to attend. He's bad with money but he knows he won't starve, if for no other reason than Chris works at a diner and brings him and Alona leftovers. He's not getting a lot of sleep, but he can sleep when he's old.
He misses Jared, and he knows Jared misses him, but they talk on the phone and write to each other. Jared sends Jensen a badly-recorded tape of him learning how to play the guitar, saying, "I don't want to be the Krays' bass player forever". Jensen sends Jared little sketches of the Pits at CBGB's and his studio space at school, of Danneel and Gory Alice, of Chris, and even the two of them, little X-rated sketches drawn from memory and fantasy.
They're very sketchy, these drawings, but clear enough - Jared on his knees, sucking Jensen off. Jensen repaying the favor. Jensen fucking Jared from behind. Jared on his back. Jensen on his back. The two of them on the couch, in the bathtub, leaning against the bedroom wall. More than once Jensen needs to take himself in hand when he's done, because the mental images he's conjuring up for Jared make him hard as well.
Danneel catches him at it one day when she drops by his studio space to say hi and ask his advice about something she's working on. He's sitting at the desk trying to finish a little drawing of him and Jared in bed when she appears over his shoulder and says hello, startling him into scraping a line straight across the sketch.
"Bitch," he mutters, but she just laughs.
"What are you working on?" she asks. "That doesn't look like a class assignment."
"It's for Jared."
"Is it." She grabs the sketch and steps away to examine it. "This is from memory, right? You're not using actual models to reenact your sex life, are you?" She glances around his space, no doubt looking for any wooden models Jensen might have posed in compromising situations.
"You know someone who wants to volunteer? Give me that." He reaches for the sketch, but Danneel dances away from his hand.
"This is terrible. I can't tell who either of these boys is. Besides, there's a big line straight through it. Is that some kind of commentary on love and modern art?"
"The heat death of the universe. Give it back."
She hands it over. "You really are stuck on him, aren't you." It's not a question, but Jensen wouldn't have to answer even if it was. "What happens when he graduates?"
"He moves to New York." Jensen crumples up the drawing and throws it at the trash can. "What did you think? Do you want something, or did you come up here just to pester me?"
"I need some advice. I'm in the middle of a painting and it's just not working and I can't tell what's wrong and I need someone to look at it whose opinion I trust. Today that's you."
"I hope it's a design question. I know how you feel about my sense of color." Jensen grins despite himself.
"What sense of color?" Danneel grins back. "If you can tear yourself away from your dirty pictures I'll show you what I've done so far."
So he follows her back to her own studio space to look at her work and express an opinion and offer advice. He's flattered she asked, because Danneel is not short on talented, opinionated classmates, and his interests lie more in design and layout than painting. He's spent a couple of years doing flyers and the occasional album cover for Gory Alice, Chris and Steve's various bands, and even the Pits, and likes to think he's learned as much from that as he has from his more formal classes.
But painting? Fine art? It's not as silly as Danneel asking his opinion on clothes, but it's not where his skills are. But maybe that's one of the reasons she wants his advice.
Among the clutter on the desk in her studio space is a folded-together mock-up that looks like the next issue of her zine Doom Pastry. It's a fairly new thing for her, this zine, but she's put out three issues already and people seem to like it. Jared took some copies with him when he went home in August, and Danneel has already asked Jensen to mail one or two to England, if Hayley ever comes through and sends him some records. Jensen quite surprisingly got a letter from London a week ago, the blue airmail envelope containing a Union Jack patch and a note written on flimsy paper apologizing because albums are expensive to ship in such a way that they don't break in transit, but she had an idea and was working on something.
There was no return address on the envelope, other than "The Center of the Universe, Great Britain", so Jensen is waiting for something else to arrive with a clue as to where he might send a response.
He seems to have acquired an English penpal. It's unexpected, but fun so far. He sewed the patch onto his jean jacket.
Now he flips through Danneel's mocked-up zine. The ones he's most familiar with are music and poetry zines, although there's a weird little science fiction one out of San Antonio that Jared has mentioned in his letters. Doom Pastry is all about comic books and feminism and DIY fashion. The mock-up in his hands is full of penciled comments and pasted-in drawings, with "Contributors!" scrawled across the front in bright green marker.
"You wanna contribute something?" Danneel asks him, noticing his interest.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Draw me a picture of your cute little boyfriend in a cape, beating back the suburban forces of convention. This issue isn't X-rated, though, so you'll have to keep the sexy bits to a minimum."
"Who else is in it?"
"Me, obviously. Felicia. Her terrible girlfriend. I think they're breaking up, by the way."
"Good."
"I don't know about that. I don't think it's really what Felicia wants. Rachel wrote me a thing about being a girl in a band. You could illustrate that. You'll be the only boy in it. Oh, you know what? Maybe I'll do a harem issue. I'll get some guys to contribute and it will be me and my harem of little art school boys. You can do something for that." She grins brightly. When Jensen doesn't respond, she continues "You don't want to be in my harem? You and Chris and Gabe and Steve and Jared?"
"You don't even like Gabe. Besides, he's not an art school boy. Neither are Chris and Steve."
"I'll recruit some, never fear."
Jensen never does contribute anything to that particular issue, but when it comes out he sends Jared a copy anyway, with a little ink drawing of Jared as a musical superhero, wearing a cape and carrying a guitar. Alona gets her hands on the picture before he can send it, and her begging and pleading leads to a whole series of drawings, all of Jensen's singer and musician friends with microphones and instruments and superhero outfits of decreasingly traditional design. He even draws Kim, her arms full of albums and magazines, a typewriter on her head, and Danneel and Felicia wielding paintbrushes and, in Danneel's case, a needle and thread.
He's not sure how the one of Danneel makes its way to Professor Ferris, his senior thesis advisor, and he's not sure why she likes it, except that she does. It's already the beginning of November and he should have made more progress on his senior project than he has, but it's been more difficult than he thought it would be to come up with a project he likes enough to build a show around.
"I don't think a series of unconventional superheroes is the right idea," Professor Ferris says, "or the best demonstration of your skills and vision, but this is a good design. As a print it's a little too Lichtenstein, and silkscreen variations are too Warhol." That was one of Jensen's earlier ideas, because there's something about silkscreening that he really enjoys. "But have you considered unconventional redesigns of conventional things?"
"Not really," he admits. "My roommate keeps telling me I should turn all my band flyers into real art. But they're flyers. They work for what they are, but they're not art."
"What makes you say that? Why can't practical things be artistically designed? Why can't art be put to practical use?" She looks at him consideringly. "Why are you here, Jensen?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you apply to Cooper Union? Why did you come to New York?"
Patti Smith, he thinks.
"Think about it," Professor Ferris goes on. "Come back in a week and we'll talk about why you're here and what you're doing for your senior thesis. You need to be working on it."
Three days later he has his answer. Gory Alice is playing CBGB's to celebrate the release of their first professionally-produced record, forty-three minutes of vinyl called Twenty Flags in a Row, the cover art for which Jensen received actual money, and he has told everyone he knows. The band is in top form and even Adrianne's parents are here, among the girls' friends and fans and the random people who show up to hear unfamiliar bands they think they might like.
It's after Gory Alice has gotten offtage, after Jensen has congratulated them and been introduced to Adrianne's baffled parents and Alona's proud brother, after Alona has bought him a beer to thank him for being a good roommate and supportive friend, after people have squashed around the table Steve commandeered, after Jensen and Chris have dropped some coins in the jukebox and called up David Bowie - standing there listening to "Rebel Rebel", happily screaming the chorus at his best friend, suddenly he knows. He came to New York for the music. And yes, for the chance to make art with like-minded people, but his immediate unspoken response to Professor Ferris' question was the right one.
He's here because of Patti Smith, and everything her music and her poetry represented to the sheltered, suburban seventeen-year-old he was, the teenager who knew there was more to the world than Dallas, and who knew there was more to him. The teenager who wasn't sure where he belonged, other than somewhere else.
That teenager found his niche in New York, once glittering and beautiful but now dirty and unloved and broke as hell, but home to the smoky, dingy, hole-in-the wall club that still shines like a beacon at the end of each day.
That will be his senior thesis. That will be the project he spends the rest of his academic year working on - the power of music, the power of CBGB's, and the shelter it offers the weird and the outcast and the uncertain.
Among the stacks of books in his apartment is a volume of Patti's poetry that includes a poem that Alona loved so much, she copied it onto the wall next to her bed, line after line of bright blue marker and round, girly handwriting. Patti wrote the poem for Edie Sedgwick, a California socialite and Warhol superstar from the 60s who's been dead for eight years, but who was an object of admiration for the teenage Patti, pulled from New Jersey by the excitement of the city. As silly as it might sound to other people, Jensen's senior project will be the same thing, silkscreen on canvas rather than words on paper, but his own tribute to the forces that brought him here.
"I'll call the show 'Shaking Glittering Bones'," he tells Danneel, drunk and excited and full of ideas and so desperately, painfully in love with his world that he can't articulate it. He doesn't always get this kind of kick from his work, this euphoria, but this time it's not just art that has him all wound up, but bands and guitars and his friends on stage and his records on Chris' turntable. It's CBGB's and record stores and band flyers printed on neon copy paper and the thrill of being in the middle of a sweating, jumping crowd that knows every single song.
"That's a terrible title," Danneel says, and after a little contemplation he has to agree with her. "Think of something else."
Professor Ferris says the same thing, when he meets with her to explain the project. His idea sounds alternately unsophisticated and pretentious and maddeningly unfocused when he's sitting in her office. What's his point of view? What is he trying to say? But she offers suggestions and encouragement, and it will allow him to make prints and design album covers and create his own homage to the music he loves and the people he admires.
As if a psychic message of need somehow crossed the ocean, a box arrives at Danneel and Felicia's apartment addressed to Jensen. When he comes to get it, the girls make him open it in front of them, revealing a couple of albums, some 45s, a pile of cassettes, and a handful of pins from London. There's a note from Hayley explaining that this is the music she's into and she hopes Jensen likes it, he doesn't have to trawl through the import bins so much anymore, and she's coming back to the States to spend the summer with her dad and she wants to see him.
There's also a photo of her in a leopard-print jacket and thick black eyeliner, her arm around a guy in a spiked dog collar with his short dark hair sticking out in all directions. She's grinning, he's glowering. On the back is "Me and Dom at the Roxy! He's pretending to be hard."
"Cute," Danneel comments, looking over Jensen's shoulder. "You should send her something."
"How much does it cost to mail records overseas?" he asks.
"Probably a lot," Felicia says. She pulls out some of the 45s. "I haven't heard of half of these. What's X-Ray Spex?"
"'Oh Bondage Up Yours'." Felicia raises an eyebrow at him. "She didn't have to send that one. I already have it." He saw the band at CBGB's last year and was inspired enough to shell out a lot for their album, as an overpriced import because it hasn't been released in the US yet.
It's a good thing Chris sometimes brings leftovers home from the diner where he works, because otherwise Jensen would starve, having spent all his money on records.
He hasn't been spending a lot of time at home lately - he has classes to attend and his thesis project to plan out and other work to produce and bands to see and people to hang out with - but the hours that he's home and awake are now soundtracked to this new British bounty. He collects some things to mail back, but balks when the skeptical clerk at the post office tells him how much the package will cost and how long it will take to get to London.
And then it occurs to him that his parents are flying him home for Thanksgiving, and maybe he can impose on his dad for assistance.
His dad is not interested, but his uncle slips him some bucks, and when Jensen gets back to New York he wraps the cassettes and 45s in band flyers as if they're Christmas presents, adds some zines at Danneel's request, packs everything in styrofoam peanuts, and spends his uncle's money and then some to ship a box of music back to London.
Chris says it's excessive. Alona thinks it's sweet. Danneel and Adrianne joke about telling Jared. Jensen just puts another album on the stereo and ignores them.
* * *
New Year's Eve is a wild blowout - they're celebrating the calendar flipping to a whole new decade, after all - so wild that Jensen doesn't remember half of it the next day. He wakes up on the shaggy area rug on the floor of Rachel's apartment, Adrianne lying half on top of him, so hungover he thinks he might still be drunk. He has a vague memory of trying to call Jared's house at midnight, even though it was still 1979 in Texas, and getting Jared's little sister instead. He doesn't remember what he said to her, and he wonders dimly if Jared ever tried to call him back. He hopes not.
It takes him the entire day to recover, and that night he calls Jared to wish him a happy new year and to apologize to his sister for whatever he might have said on the phone.
"She thought it was funny," Jared says. "I went to my friend's house and just stayed over. I thought about you at midnight."
"I thought about you too," Jensen says. "Obviously."
"Good thing my parents weren't home. I would've loved to hear you explain to them why you were trying to call me at midnight."
"Don't they know you have a boyfriend in New York?"
"Sort of."
"Sort of?"
"They know I have friends in New York."
"You didn't tell them about me?" Jensen asks incredulously. He's sure they've had this conversation before, and he's sure it involved Jared explaining that his parents know all about Jensen. "Jared? What do they think? Don't they know you're gay?"
"Sort of." Now Jared sounds embarrassed. "You told me you didn't tell your parents until you were in art school. Why do I need to tell them now? It's not like I wanted to bring you home for Christmas or something."
"Who do they think you're calling all the time?"
"I told you! They know I have friends! I said I have to call you in the morning because I know that's when you'll be home. They know you're in college. Do we have to talk about this now?"
Jensen sighs. Jared could have perfectly legitimate reasons for not telling his parents, and Jensen doesn't want to start the new year by having an argument. "Sorry," he says. "Did I tell you Hayley got the albums I sent her? She sent me a postcard that just said 'Thank you' in big capital letters, with all these heart stickers. Adrianne thinks she has a thing for me."
"Well, yeah," Jared says. "Of course she does. I mean, have you looked at yourself?"
"She's not gonna be interested in me from London. I'm pretty sure she's got a boyfriend, anyway. I sent her Twenty Flags in a Row, but I don't know what she thinks yet."
"I thought it was great. You told them I said that, right?"
"Yeah. They're trying to get a tour now, maybe opening up for the Pits or someone. Oh, I also sent Hayley that tape your cousin made of one of your shows, because you guys don't have an album out."
"Oh, god," Jared groans. "I've gotten so much better. I talked to Corey and when I get up there in June they're gonna look for another bass player so I can be the guitarist."
"What about the current guitarist?"
"Corey thinks he wants to leave anyway. Hey, wait here, I got an idea."
Jensen rolls his shoulders and listens to dead air. He doesn't feel like like warmed-over death anymore. Alona and Chris have gone out to give him some privacy for his phone call, and he's seriously considering going to bed after he gets off the phone. He's pretty sure he had an idea for his thesis project at some point last night, but he wishes he could remember what it was. He guesses it was the kind of idea you get after having had way too much to drink, so it's just as well he can't remember. He doesn't want to have to justify something to Professor Ferris with "Well, it was New Year's Eve and I was hammered...."
"Okay, I'm back," Jared says. "Listen."
Jensen can dimly hear him say "Shit, hang on" as if Jared is standing a few feet from the phone, and then there's the tentative sound of guitar tuning - thanks to Chris, Jensen knows the sound of a guitar being tuned by someone who isn't sure he's doing it right - and then what sounds suspiciously like a Krays song.
Jared sings along with his guitar, but softly enough, and far enough away from the phone receiver, that Jensen can barely hear him. But the guitar playing is pretty good. He must have been practicing a lot. After that song is another one, played with more confidence, and then something that sounds like Gory Alice, and finally, to Jensen's surprise, Patti Smith's "Because the Night", her most commercial single off his favorite album of hers.
Halfway through, Jensen realizes he's singing along.
Have I doubt when I'm alone
Love is a ring, the telephone
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed until the morning comes
They finish the song together and then there's silence for a minute. Jensen feels romanced, and he's a little surprised to realize that he misses Jared more now than he has at any time in the past four months. As much as he thinks about Jared, and as much as he looks forward to their phone calls and Jared's letters, and as much as he enjoys making little X-rated sketches to send back, and as excited as he is for Jared to eventually move up here, he hasn't really missed Jared as deeply or as constantly as he could have.
But Jensen misses him now, and wishes they were both in New York.
"How was that?" Jared asks into the silence. "Was it... was I okay?"
"Yeah, you were okay. You were great."
"I really... I wanna get better. What?" he yells, sounding as if he's yelling at someone on his end. "I gotta go," he tells Jensen. "I really miss you. What if I quit school and went to New York now?"
"Don't do that."
"I could see you a lot sooner."
"I know, but - "
"I'm coming!" Jared yells again. "Shit. I really need to go. Happy New Year. I love you. I'll talk to you soon. Bye." And he hangs up.
Onward!