is there going to be a mutiny?
AHAHAHA WHAT. THERE REALLY IS A SHOP CALLED KANE RECORDS. And it's in Stroud, which is just down the road from me, SO I AM LOLLING.
BECAUSE I AM EASILY AMUSED.
Which, hey, I can actually talk about my Big Bang That Never Was! And like, SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD! It was incredibly silly and I loved it a lot, but some things just are not meant to be. Next year I shall learn from my mistakes and actually, dare I say it, plan the thing. (I already have a few ideas kicking around for next year, and I think I have ~*improved as a writer*~ even since spring, so ROCK ON.)
KANE RECORDS
(The Big Bang That Never Was)
*
“A record store?” Sandy repeats slowly. She runs her tongue along her teeth, like she’s testing out the taste of the words. Marvin Gaye drifts through from the living room, louder in the silence- “I’m telling you, man,” Chad had insisted last night, “Marvin’s where it’s at.”
Jared grins across the table at her. The night has been a bit of a disaster, all told- with Chad somehow managing to tread on the candles Jared had bought to add a bit of romance to the atmosphere, and the whole fancy meal going up in flames, and then having to feed his girl mediocre takeout in a smoky kitchen; but nothing can take the edge off his excitement. “That’s right,” he says happily. “I’ve been waiting to tell you all weekend, but I was saving it ‘specially for tonight.”
He pauses, breathes and grins a little wider, but as Sandy just stares across at him, brow furrowed, he adds, “I start on Monday. Kane Records, you know the one. It’s, uh, only part-time for now, but Chris- that’s the manager- he says he’ll add on more hours if I do a good job. It’s gonna be great. I’ll be great, Sandy, I swear. I start on Monday.”
“You already said that,” Sandy points out. She pokes half-heartedly at her greasy noodles one last time, before lowering her fork and dabbing her mouth with a tissue. Jared has to bite down on his lip to keep from filling the silence; he knows she hates it when he gabbles.
“Jared, baby...” she shakes her head, still frowning. He’s done something wrong, he realises, but he doesn’t quite know what yet.
“Sorry,” he begins, but she reaches across the table and grabs his hand, pulls up a smile.
“Oh no, baby, it’s great that you’ve got a job. I’m so proud of you. Just...” He glances up as she trails off, and she’s looking back down at her crappy takeout again. “When we’d talked about this, I’d hoped that you’d- I don’t know. Go for something a bit more long term.”
[stuffomg]
-
Kane Records is the kind of place you only go into if you know it’s there. The sign over the door is cream on dusty blue, all peeling and giving fuck-all away about the store’s insides, and the windows are kind of dusty too; almost every square inch that can be covered in band posters has been: some bands Jared’s heard of, most he’s not. He figures it’s a start. It had been Chad’s idea that Jared work here, almost inadvertently. “Man,” he had said, “if all else fails, Kane’ll take ya,” and he’d laughed like ‘har har, yeah right’. It had taken a whole load of persuading for the bastard to elaborate, to explain that he knew a guy who had once dated a girl who shopped there, or something something, or blah blah.
Sometimes, Jared suspects that Chad possibly knows everyone in the whole damn city, and most of the people out of it as well. It comes from being a silver-spooned, rich douchebag, the kind who can comfortably afford to keep his best friend in his swanky-ass apartment after said best friend drops out of college two years ago. Sandy didn’t like that. Sandy doesn’t like a lot of things about Chad, up to and including his general existence, but it was Chad’s accidental help that got Jared this job; it’s gotta count for something.
It won’t count for anything if he doesn’t go inside- like, five minutes ago, preferably. Jared looks at Kane Records; Kane Records looks at him, all grim, grey stone. There should be a moat. There should be fucking crenellations. He’s pretty certain it wasn’t anywhere near this intimidating a week ago, when he’d first figured screw it and stepped inside and told Chris-that’s-the-manager he was looking for a job.
“Come on, you pussy,” Jared mutters in his private Chad-voice. He runs one last hand through his hair and straightens his lucky pink shirt, checking his appearance in the grimy window-glass reflection. Mostly he just looks tall. Tall and bug-eyed, and maybe everyone will just forget to look at his face, or maybe he could just go home and-
“Pussy,” he reminds himself, loud enough for one of the few passers-by to shoot him a startled look. Jared pictures Chad’s squinty-eyed disapproval, Sandy’s quiet disappointment if he screws this up, and he pushes the door open.
The bell jangles as he steps inside. It looks pretty much the same as it did on Tuesday- bigger than you’d expect from the outside, with aisles of alphabetised albums and big boxes of vinyl, new releases or presumably exciting rarities displayed on the walls; everything smells faintly of plastic and must. The only new addition to the store is the bald-headed guy sat behind the counter, flipping through a magazine.
“Um,” says Jared. “Hi.”
The guys glances up at him and nods a little. “Yo,” he says, and then he looks back down at his magazine, licks his thumb and turns a page. It looks like ‘Heat!’ or ‘Hello!’ or one of those equally punctuated variants, and the guy’s reading it with the intense kind of concentration usually reserved for religious fanatics and their holy books of choice.
“I’m starting here today,” Jared suggests after a pause.
That gets something a little bit closer to the desired effect. Bald Guy looks up sharply as his face splits into an evil grin; it’s a pretty- no, scratch that, it’s a really evil grin. “Are you, now?” he says, and he slams his magazine loudly down onto the counter as Jared thinks about maybe backing away. The smack of glossy pages meeting countertop sounds unnervingly like a death sentence. “Why didn’t you say?”
“Sorry,” says Jared. It’s not so much that he’s lost the threads of the conversation as it is that he never had them in the first place. Bald Guy advances on him, a tiger stalking its prey, with his head back and his eyes narrowed. No sudden movements, Jared reminds himself. Back away slowly, and no sudden movements.
“Turn around,” Bald Guy says eventually. Jared stares at him until he twirls a hand and repeats, loud and slow, “Around, new kid. Turn around.”
There isn’t really anything much you can say to that. Jared turns around, full circle. Bald Guy’s hand keeps right on twirling, so he does it again.
“Hm, okay. Now jump up and down.”
Jared’s knees are bent and ready for take-off, Bald Guy watching with the wide-eyed excitement of a kid just told that Christmas has come early, when the thought occurs to him. He clears his throat. “Uh. Why?”
“What?”
“Why am I meant to be jumping?”
“You need a reason? Is this going to be a mutiny?” Bald Guy looks, and sounds, appalled. He grabs up his rolled-up magazine again and points it at Jared’s head. This is not the way he’d imagined his first day would be here. This isn’t really the way he’d imagine his first day would be anywhere, being threatened with magazine-violence by a possibly deranged man with no hair. “When I say jump, new kid,” Bald Guy is proclaiming, “you ask how high.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” The words fall out of his mouth before he can stop them, no brain-to-mouth correspondence involved. Bald Guy freezes; the room goes somehow silent, despite the music playing overhead; Jared waits patiently for the ground to swallow him up. It’d probably be better than whatever Sandy will do to him when he loses his new job five minutes into it.
“Mike!”
They both jump at the war cry, the tension breaking. Bald Guy hastily drops his magazine and backs up behind the relative safety of the counter, as Jared spins around in time to see Chris-that’s-the-manager storming out of the door at the back of the store.
“Mike,” he snarls as he advances, “do we need to have that talk again? Do you want to wear the ‘I don’t work here’ t-shirt? Again?”
“Aw, come on, man. You know that thing gives me a rash,” Bald Guy- Mike- says with a sheepish grin. He’s the picture of innocence. Chris glares him as though he’s really wishing looks could kill, and Mike blows him a sloppy kiss.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Jared says thoughtfully into the silence.
“Welcome to my world,” Chris sighs. He tears himself away from the deathglare match, leaving Mike cackling in the background, and rounds the counter to slap Jared on the back. It sucks the last remnants of tension from the room, like a big, manly vacuum cleaner. “That asshole is Mike. Despite his delusions, he doesn’t work here-” with a pointed glare in Mike’s direction. Jared grins; Mike cackles some more. “He just likes to pretend he does. Fulfilling his twisted fantasies or whatever, we try not to delve too deep.”
“Don’t hate on me ‘cause I’m beautiful, Chris. That’s shallow and wrong.”
“Come on, Jared,” Chris continues, smoothly ignoring the interruption. “I’ll give you the grand tour. Mikey, hold the fort like a normal, sane person for the next five minutes and maybe I won’t kill you later.”
Jared follows him obediently to the back of the store, feeling the elderly floorboards creak beneath his weight with every step. He has to bite his lip to keep from laughing, perhaps a little hysterically, as he hears Mike mutter, “Oh Chrissy, I love the sweet talk,” from behind them. Then Chris kicks the door open with one booted foot, ‘Staff Only’ painted on the front in the same cream and blue as the sign outside, and Jared follows him through.
-
Things get a little saner after that. For a while, at least. Kane Records isn’t exactly the White House, for all it’s with a certain amount of pride that Chris shows him around. A store is a store is a store, and once you’ve seen one, you’ve kind of seen them all. Jared nods in all the right places, trudging dutifully along behind as he learns that the toilets, Chris’ office and the somewhat optimistically named ‘staff lounge’ are upstairs; downstairs is the fire escape, the stock room, and, “This is Tom.”
Chris points at Tom helpfully. Jared waves, and Tom takes another bite of his sandwich. He looks like he’d be about as tall as Jared if he got up from the box he’s sitting on, which is nice. He also looks like he finds Jared about as interesting as the shelves behind them, which isn’t.
“If a customer’s after something and you can’t find it,” Chris says, as Tom eyes them with boredom, “chances are Tommy here’ll know where it is. When you’re in the stock room, you’ll be taking orders from him, but today I’m just gonna be sticking you out front with the cash register, okay?” He glances at his watch, not waiting for an answer. “Jenny’ll be here in a minute, he’ll tell you what wants doing.”
Jared gets another slap on the back, then Chris ruffles Tom’s hair and disappears back upstairs- to do paperwork, or survey his mighty kingdom, or whatever- leaving the two of them to stare doubtfully at each other.
Tom chews and swallows. “Don’t touch my stuff,” he says, shooting Jared a knowing look. It’s the hypnotically blue equivalent of ‘I’m on to you, asshole’, with an extra helping of clearly-insane-oh-God, and Jared backs out of the door without a word-
-and smacks hard into the weight of another body. He shrieks, because Jesus Christ if he wasn’t tense enough already, and the body curses loudly from behind him. Jared spins around, clutching at the doorframe to keep himself upright, and finds himself face to face with- with-
It’s America’s next top model, his brain helpfully supplies.
“Hi,” he says quickly, voice way too loud as he speaks over his own brain. “I’m Jared. I work here now. I think I’m having a heart attack.” He rubs a palm across his chest, wincing at the feel of his clammy t-shirt- of all of the socially unacceptable times to be a sweater, this could well be number one- and offers a hand to the- Greek God, something is insisting in the back of his mind, holy shit it’s Adonis- the other guy. The guy just stares down at Jared’s hand, and then back up at Jared, as through he’s expecting Jared to barrel into him again, or maybe to just cut out the middle man and kick him in the shins.
“I won’t touch your stuff,” Jared offers, hopelessly. He can hear Mike laughing like there’s no tomorrow from behind the counter, but he keeps his eyes on the other guy’s face, something inside of him pleading please be sane, please be sane.
The guy clears his throat, scratching bluntly at the back of his neck, and says, “Jensen. Can I...?” He trails off and motions with one hand. It takes Jared a moment- one really fucking awkward moment- for it to dawn on him that he’s still standing in the doorway, blocking it from the rest of the world. The rest of the world currently being this guy. Jensen.
“Oh, Christ, sorry,” he groans. He steps sideways, because Jensen’s right in front of him and no money in the world could make him go back to Tom, and he presses himself up against the edge of the doorframe. Jensen fills the gap in the air pretty much the second Jared moves, squeezing past him and through the door within a matter of extremely awkward, elbow-brushing seconds. With great, great care, as Jensen’s back disappears hastily up the stairs, Jared turns and smacks his forehead against the wall.
“This is,” he announces into the plaster, “the worst day of my life.”
It takes a minute for Mike to stop laughing, but then there’s the scrape of chair-legs against the floor and the sound of approaching footsteps, and then a warm hand claps him on the shoulder. “Could’ve been worse,” Mike reflects. “You could’ve hurled on his shoes.”
-
“He wouldn’t even look at me after that,” Jared sighs. He wedges the phone under his chin and tugs open the fridge door; there’s half a cheesecake in there somewhere, he knows, unless Chad’s already eaten it. “He actually averted his gaze. Stared at the walls and shit. Who does that?” Sandy makes a sympathetic noise in his ear as he shuffles through the takeout carton jungle. “And sometimes, Sandy, sometimes he’d make Mike pass messages on to me. Hey, Jared, Jensen says this, oh by the way, Jared, Jensen says that. Guy doesn’t even work there.”
“Poor baby,” Sandy murmurs.
“I was so fucking embarrassed.” He flips the lid off of a tupperware container of- something; it’s probably Chad’s- and gives it a sniff. “’M gonna have flashbacks, Sand’. Gonne wake up in a cold sweat twenty years from now, having visions of his staring face.”
Sandy’s breath rustles soothingly down the phone line, the auditory equivalent of a great, big hug to Jared’s soul, as she says, “Now you’re just being silly.”
“Cold sweat, Sandy. You’ll see.”
Out in the hall, the front door slams, followed closely by the sound of Chad’s voice. “J-dog, I got beer. Put your pants on, or I will end you. You’re my bro’, but there are some things a guy just doesn’t wanna see twice in a lifetime.”
“My pants are on,” Jared yells back over his shoulder. “Have you eaten my cheesecake, you fucker? Uh, not you, Sandy. Just Chad.”
“Jared-” she begins, but then Chad bursts into the kitchen, his voice as cheerfully and obnoxiously loud as it ever is.
“Man, I did not touch your cheesecake,” he exclaims. “What the fuck do you take me for? You think I’m a cheesecake thief, Jare? You think I got it in me to steal your cheesecake? ‘Cause, dude, that cuts me deep. Can’t believe you’d think that of me, your best buddy, after all these fuckin’ years of loyalty and love. Get the hell outta my way, asshole,” he adds, yanking Jared back from the fridge by the hem of his t-shirt. “Beer needs chillin’. Here.” He smacks a still-cool bottle, slicked with condensation, against Jared’s chest and finishes off his monologue with a bright, bright grin.
Jared grins back down at him, catching the beer with one hand and wrangling the phone back under his chin with the other. “Thanks, man.”
“What?” says Sandy. “Jared, did you just listen to a word I said?”
“Um.” Chad’s there in his peripheral vision, making explicit hand actions and mouthing something exaggeratedly. Jared rolls his eyes, retreating out of the kitchen with his warming bottle of beer. “Sorry, Sandy. Chad was sharing the doctor’s report on his latest venereal disease. It was pretty graphic.”
He kicks the door shut behind him, cutting off Chad’s, “Go have your phone sex, asshole,” halfway through.
-
It’s not that Jared’s never worked, you understand. Back in San Antonio, he delivered enough papers to account for a large portion of the Amazon rainforest, until his bike finally gave up the ghost, and he bagged groceries at the local store right through until he left for college. So it’s not that he’s never worked. It’s just that, after he’d dropped out of college and figured that moving in with his rich asshole of a best friend was an awesome idea, the whole earning-your-living, become-a-working-man trope never really seemed quite relevant. He’s tried, sure, at his mom and dad’s hopeful suggestion, and now he’s doing it for Sandy; but if there’s one thing he’s learnt over the last couple of years (aside from to never, ever let Chad use his toothbrush again. Ever) it’s that Jared and work environments get on like a house on fire. That is to say: things get pretty messy, and then it all ends in tears.
He’d been in a bit of a slump from the incident at the pet store, spending most days eating cake in his underwear and having the gut-wrenching kind of not-quite-arguments with his girl, when Chad had accidentally planted the Kane Records seed in the allotment of his mind. That same weekend, Sandy issued her almost-ultimatum (“I didn’t think the age difference was doing to be a problem, baby. It’s not a big one, but you’re not even trying to grow up-”) and Jared figured ‘screw it’.
It had taken him something like an hour to actually find the place, the next day, and another fifteen minutes for him to stop lingering on the street corner like an unusually sweaty rentboy and go inside. It wasn’t that it looked intimidating- cream on blue pretty much overrode any chances of that- so much as knowledgeable, like every stereotypical independent record store you see in the movies; and while, sure, Jared loved music, it was more of a ‘dancing in his bedroom to Michael Jackson’ style of love than a knowledgeable one.
But on the other hand, he was a twenty-one year old loser on the verge of being dumped by his incredible girlfriend if he didn’t do something about his life. So Jared had thrown caution to the wind and gone inside.
Chris just looked him up and down for moment, after Jared had burst- well, more like stumbled in and announced that he was after a job. He leaned back in the rickety chair he was sat in, eyebrows raised, his feet already up on the counter and his hands folded behind his head.
“Music trivia,” he said, clicking his fingers. He pointed expectantly at Jared’s head and added, “Go.”
It was a test, Jared realised over the helpless buzz of ‘oh shit’ in his brain, a way of judging who was worthy of taking up Kane Records’ mantle. Anything unsatisfactory, and he’d probably just be kicked out on his ass. It needed to be something good. He mentally ran through his entire CD collection- and Chad’s too, although the guy didn’t really have much taste beyond that which could be summed up with ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie’. The Beatles were too obvious, Michael Jackson too much of a dirty old man, Elvis Presley was too dead-
Chris cleared his throat, glancing down at his watch. Jared was going to be kicked out on his ass, he was going to be laughed out and have to go home and tell Chad even Kane Records won’t have him.
“Elvis Presley,” he blurted out. “He’s, uh. He’s dead.”
And Chris just looked at him, watch still hovering by his face and his mouth hanging slightly open, soundless. Jared closed his eyes in defeat. Elvis. Was dead. At least Chad would get a kick out of it.
“Okay, if you wanna give me a copy of your CV, I’ll get back to you by the end of the week,” came Chris’ voice through the haze of despair.
It took a moment, the words rolling around in his head, for Jared to decide it wasn’t some kind of crazyass hallucination and open his eyes. Chris waved up at him, his face completely blank in that way of people fighting back the laughter.
“But.” There had to be some kind of mistake. “You did hear me, right? When I said- that thing I said. The Elvis thing?”
“It was a moment of enlightenment for us all, kid. C’mon.” He clicked his fingers again, making Jared jump, and held out his hand expectantly. “Gimme.”
Obeying was the easiest course of action. Jared tugged a copy of his CV out of his bag, smoothing out the creases with his palm before he laid it reverently down on the countertop. He wasn’t sure he could actually say anything past the massive ball of confusion clogging up his throat, so he just waved a hand, fingers waggling like a little girl, and staggered out of the store.
It took five minutes of dazed walking before he slumped back against the nearest available wall and flipped open his cell phone. “Chad, man, you won’t believe what I just said.”
-
Jensen still won’t look at him the next day. Sandy had said, in her usual soothing, practical way, “Just be as nice to him as you can be, baby. Then, if he still doesn’t like you, you’ll know it’s his fault, not yours,” and he tries to keep it in mind as he stomps up the stairs and away from Jensen’s pointed studying of the floors and walls and everything that is not Jared, but it’s hard. He’s a people person, and he always has been; his momma likes to say he came out of her womb laughing, he was that glad to see everyone, and while Jared tries not to contemplate his own birth too closely, he’s always liked to think it’s a pretty accurate assessment of his character. He likes people and normally people just like him right back. It sounds stupid, he knows, but it’s true. He’s never had to work to make someone like him before. When faced with awkward silences and one syllable replies and a guy who can’t even stand to look at him, he just doesn’t know what to do.
“Turn that frown upside down, new kid,” calls out Mike, jolting Jared from his reverie. He glances up in surprise to find the guy sat on the top step with a lightsaber cradled between his thighs.
“Nice lightsaber.”
“Her name’s Rita. She’ll be accompanying me on today’s tour,” Mikes says cheerfully. He presses a button and the glowing, blue plastic of the lightsaber obligingly collapses into its hilt. “Treat her with the utmost respect. Now, come, padawan, pull up a step.”
Jared climbs up the remainder of the stairs and flops down next to Mike at the top. Mike pats him on the head. “Why does Jensen hate me, man?”
“It’s ‘cause you’re tall. Guy’s got a crippling fear of tall guys. It’s pretty tragic, really. Tommy only gets away with it ‘cause he spends so much time sitting down.”
“Seriously?”
He grins as Jared gapes across at him. “Nah, not really. Actually, the big ones are something of a kink of his. Poor guy can’t even look at you without becoming hideously aroused.”
“You’re actually insane, aren’t you,” Jared reflects.
Mike laughs right in his ear at that, slinging an arm around Jared’s shoulders and tugging him into a stranglehold of an embrace. “Maybe I’m lying, maybe I’m not. Sounds like a job for Sherlock Holmes.” One last semi-affectionate squeeze before he releases Jared and bounces back down the stairs.
“You’re Sherlock Holmes,” Jared mutters after his retreating back, massaging the life back into his throat. He grabs up his bag again and makes his way to the staff lounge, journey uninterrupted save a brief pause to assure Tom that none of his stuff has been touched. By the time he’s made it back down to the store, Jensen’s standing in the middle of the floor with a stack of CDs up to his chin, face frozen in an expression of abject confusion.
“I think Mike just hit me with a lightsaber,” he says.
“It’s called Rita. You gotta respect it.”
“Really.” He glances across at Jared with a helpless quirk of a smile, shaking his head. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“Good plan.” Jared grins, wide and bright, because Jensen’s looking at him and they’re sharing a joke and it feels like a jolt of victorious electricity applied directly to his spine. Be as nice as you can be, Sandy had said, so he holds his hands out for the stack of CDs, adding, “C’mon, man, I’ll put those out. You need to recuperate from your violent attack.”
It takes a moment of careful manoeuvring to get the CDs from one pair of hands to the other, with Jared having to bend down and Jensen having to stretch up and everyone’s fingers getting tangled up together; but once it’s done, the stack cradled safely against Jared’s chest, Jensen’s lips quirk even harder, graduating into a fully-fledged smile, albeit a small one.
“Thanks,” he says, looking up to meet Jared’s earnest gaze. “Jared.”
Jared nudges him with his shoulder, carefully. “No problem, man.”
Things get a bit easier after that. Or a bit less awkward anyway, which is a start. Jared meanders up and down the aisles, slotting albums into their rightful places and humming tunelessly to himself over the music that’s playing on the store’s system, something upbeat and a little bit country. He can feel Jensen all the while, even when he can’t see him: on the store’s computer system or checking over paperwork or talking softly to the customers when they appear or just leaning back in the chair with a cup of coffee. Whenever Jared looks at him, he’s looking away.
The hours pass by easily like this, alphabetising more absorbing than Jared had ever suspected it could be, and the silence becomes a comfortable one- a silence he doesn’t feel the burning need to fill, for once- somewhere into the Ms. He doesn’t even register the entrance bell the next time it jangles.
“J-dog.” Chad slaps him on the back, sending the top of his pile of CDs wobbling precariously. “How’s my man doing? Served any hot chicks yet?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jared slams a hand down on the top CD, steadying them, and turns to stare at his friend. Jensen’s watching them from the counter, pen poised over what might be important paperwork or might just be a crossword. “The hell’d you learn to walk so quietly, man?”
“Magician never reveals his secrets, dickweed,” Chad says. He smacks Jared again, squeezes his shoulder briefly, and looks around at the store with an eyebrow raised. His gaze lingers on Jensen. “Smells kinda funky in here, doesn’t it?” He pauses, glances across at Jensen again. Jensen stares flatly back at him. “So, that the asshole or the psychopath?”
[stuffomg]
-
It’s a relief, at the end of the day, to find the staff lounge empty. The room is tiny; you could probably fit everyone in it, just about, but they’d have trouble breathing, and Jared isn’t sure he’d want to be so close to Tom anyway. He gathers up his bag and jacket in the silence, and then slumps down on one of the seconds-from-collapse chairs by the table, thinking about whether or not to torture Chad horribly before he kills him. The door opens on the edge of his vision, with a ridiculous horror-movie extravaganza of a creak, and he looks up to find Jensen leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets.
“Hey, man.” Jared doesn’t really feel like grinning- his feet are sore, his colleagues are still pretty insane, and his best friend apparently hates him or something- but he’s always figured that if there’s nothing better you can say, you damn well smile.
“Hey.” Jensen knocks a boot against the door, sending it swinging. “So, uh. Am I the asshole or the psychopath, then?”
“I’m gonna kill Chad,” Jared groans. “Twice.” He slumps forward over the tabletop, face in his arms, and contemplates torture chambers and maybe putting Nair in Chad’s shampoo. Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen pulls out the other wobbly chair and sits down next to him.
Eventually, “You’re the asshole,” Jared mutters against his forearms. “But that was before Mike hit you with his lightsaber and you smiled a bit and got- you know. Nicer.”
“It’s cool, man.” When Jared looks up, Jensen’s smiling awkwardly at him, leant back in his chair. He shrugs, waves a hand. “It’s cool. I know I’m not- I’m not exactly much of a people person. Not so great at the whole... interpersonal communication thing.”
“Not calling it interpersonal communication would be a start.”
Jensen smiles- really smiles, with lips and teeth and his eyes crinkling at the edges. It’s like a sudden flash of light filling up the room, gone as quickly as it came. “Point,” he says. “Maybe we could, I dunno. If you want to. We could hang out sometime. You school me in being a people person, I give you fashion tips, that kind of thing.”
“The hell’s wrong with my fashion?”
“Lucky pink shirt ringing any bells here?”
At that, Jared peels himself away from the table and swats at Jensen’s head. “My fashion is impeccable, asshole. I work that shirt like no other.”
“Right, that’ll be it.” Jensen’s elbow digs in to his ribs. It’s awesome, a breakthrough in their interpersonal communication, or whatever. Jared grins, feeling the joy of another personal victory bubbling up inside of him, and grabs hold of Jensen’s wrist before his elbow can jab him again, tugs it away. Jensen’s skin is hot- like really hot, and his fingers curl to brush against the back of Jared’s hand. Callused, superheated.
“It’d be cool,” Jared blurts out. “Hanging out, I mean. I’d like to. You could teach me how to keep Tom from killing me in my sleep.”
“You, uh,” Jensen says. He trails off, licks at his lips, brushes a thumb across his mouth, looking down at the table as Jared watches. “Great, man. That’s great.” Another pause. “But you’re gonna have to let go of my hand first.”
THAT'S ALL, FOLKS.
BECAUSE I AM EASILY AMUSED.
Which, hey, I can actually talk about my Big Bang That Never Was! And like, SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD! It was incredibly silly and I loved it a lot, but some things just are not meant to be. Next year I shall learn from my mistakes and actually, dare I say it, plan the thing. (I already have a few ideas kicking around for next year, and I think I have ~*improved as a writer*~ even since spring, so ROCK ON.)
KANE RECORDS
(The Big Bang That Never Was)
*
“A record store?” Sandy repeats slowly. She runs her tongue along her teeth, like she’s testing out the taste of the words. Marvin Gaye drifts through from the living room, louder in the silence- “I’m telling you, man,” Chad had insisted last night, “Marvin’s where it’s at.”
Jared grins across the table at her. The night has been a bit of a disaster, all told- with Chad somehow managing to tread on the candles Jared had bought to add a bit of romance to the atmosphere, and the whole fancy meal going up in flames, and then having to feed his girl mediocre takeout in a smoky kitchen; but nothing can take the edge off his excitement. “That’s right,” he says happily. “I’ve been waiting to tell you all weekend, but I was saving it ‘specially for tonight.”
He pauses, breathes and grins a little wider, but as Sandy just stares across at him, brow furrowed, he adds, “I start on Monday. Kane Records, you know the one. It’s, uh, only part-time for now, but Chris- that’s the manager- he says he’ll add on more hours if I do a good job. It’s gonna be great. I’ll be great, Sandy, I swear. I start on Monday.”
“You already said that,” Sandy points out. She pokes half-heartedly at her greasy noodles one last time, before lowering her fork and dabbing her mouth with a tissue. Jared has to bite down on his lip to keep from filling the silence; he knows she hates it when he gabbles.
“Jared, baby...” she shakes her head, still frowning. He’s done something wrong, he realises, but he doesn’t quite know what yet.
“Sorry,” he begins, but she reaches across the table and grabs his hand, pulls up a smile.
“Oh no, baby, it’s great that you’ve got a job. I’m so proud of you. Just...” He glances up as she trails off, and she’s looking back down at her crappy takeout again. “When we’d talked about this, I’d hoped that you’d- I don’t know. Go for something a bit more long term.”
[stuffomg]
-
Kane Records is the kind of place you only go into if you know it’s there. The sign over the door is cream on dusty blue, all peeling and giving fuck-all away about the store’s insides, and the windows are kind of dusty too; almost every square inch that can be covered in band posters has been: some bands Jared’s heard of, most he’s not. He figures it’s a start. It had been Chad’s idea that Jared work here, almost inadvertently. “Man,” he had said, “if all else fails, Kane’ll take ya,” and he’d laughed like ‘har har, yeah right’. It had taken a whole load of persuading for the bastard to elaborate, to explain that he knew a guy who had once dated a girl who shopped there, or something something, or blah blah.
Sometimes, Jared suspects that Chad possibly knows everyone in the whole damn city, and most of the people out of it as well. It comes from being a silver-spooned, rich douchebag, the kind who can comfortably afford to keep his best friend in his swanky-ass apartment after said best friend drops out of college two years ago. Sandy didn’t like that. Sandy doesn’t like a lot of things about Chad, up to and including his general existence, but it was Chad’s accidental help that got Jared this job; it’s gotta count for something.
It won’t count for anything if he doesn’t go inside- like, five minutes ago, preferably. Jared looks at Kane Records; Kane Records looks at him, all grim, grey stone. There should be a moat. There should be fucking crenellations. He’s pretty certain it wasn’t anywhere near this intimidating a week ago, when he’d first figured screw it and stepped inside and told Chris-that’s-the-manager he was looking for a job.
“Come on, you pussy,” Jared mutters in his private Chad-voice. He runs one last hand through his hair and straightens his lucky pink shirt, checking his appearance in the grimy window-glass reflection. Mostly he just looks tall. Tall and bug-eyed, and maybe everyone will just forget to look at his face, or maybe he could just go home and-
“Pussy,” he reminds himself, loud enough for one of the few passers-by to shoot him a startled look. Jared pictures Chad’s squinty-eyed disapproval, Sandy’s quiet disappointment if he screws this up, and he pushes the door open.
The bell jangles as he steps inside. It looks pretty much the same as it did on Tuesday- bigger than you’d expect from the outside, with aisles of alphabetised albums and big boxes of vinyl, new releases or presumably exciting rarities displayed on the walls; everything smells faintly of plastic and must. The only new addition to the store is the bald-headed guy sat behind the counter, flipping through a magazine.
“Um,” says Jared. “Hi.”
The guys glances up at him and nods a little. “Yo,” he says, and then he looks back down at his magazine, licks his thumb and turns a page. It looks like ‘Heat!’ or ‘Hello!’ or one of those equally punctuated variants, and the guy’s reading it with the intense kind of concentration usually reserved for religious fanatics and their holy books of choice.
“I’m starting here today,” Jared suggests after a pause.
That gets something a little bit closer to the desired effect. Bald Guy looks up sharply as his face splits into an evil grin; it’s a pretty- no, scratch that, it’s a really evil grin. “Are you, now?” he says, and he slams his magazine loudly down onto the counter as Jared thinks about maybe backing away. The smack of glossy pages meeting countertop sounds unnervingly like a death sentence. “Why didn’t you say?”
“Sorry,” says Jared. It’s not so much that he’s lost the threads of the conversation as it is that he never had them in the first place. Bald Guy advances on him, a tiger stalking its prey, with his head back and his eyes narrowed. No sudden movements, Jared reminds himself. Back away slowly, and no sudden movements.
“Turn around,” Bald Guy says eventually. Jared stares at him until he twirls a hand and repeats, loud and slow, “Around, new kid. Turn around.”
There isn’t really anything much you can say to that. Jared turns around, full circle. Bald Guy’s hand keeps right on twirling, so he does it again.
“Hm, okay. Now jump up and down.”
Jared’s knees are bent and ready for take-off, Bald Guy watching with the wide-eyed excitement of a kid just told that Christmas has come early, when the thought occurs to him. He clears his throat. “Uh. Why?”
“What?”
“Why am I meant to be jumping?”
“You need a reason? Is this going to be a mutiny?” Bald Guy looks, and sounds, appalled. He grabs up his rolled-up magazine again and points it at Jared’s head. This is not the way he’d imagined his first day would be here. This isn’t really the way he’d imagine his first day would be anywhere, being threatened with magazine-violence by a possibly deranged man with no hair. “When I say jump, new kid,” Bald Guy is proclaiming, “you ask how high.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” The words fall out of his mouth before he can stop them, no brain-to-mouth correspondence involved. Bald Guy freezes; the room goes somehow silent, despite the music playing overhead; Jared waits patiently for the ground to swallow him up. It’d probably be better than whatever Sandy will do to him when he loses his new job five minutes into it.
“Mike!”
They both jump at the war cry, the tension breaking. Bald Guy hastily drops his magazine and backs up behind the relative safety of the counter, as Jared spins around in time to see Chris-that’s-the-manager storming out of the door at the back of the store.
“Mike,” he snarls as he advances, “do we need to have that talk again? Do you want to wear the ‘I don’t work here’ t-shirt? Again?”
“Aw, come on, man. You know that thing gives me a rash,” Bald Guy- Mike- says with a sheepish grin. He’s the picture of innocence. Chris glares him as though he’s really wishing looks could kill, and Mike blows him a sloppy kiss.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Jared says thoughtfully into the silence.
“Welcome to my world,” Chris sighs. He tears himself away from the deathglare match, leaving Mike cackling in the background, and rounds the counter to slap Jared on the back. It sucks the last remnants of tension from the room, like a big, manly vacuum cleaner. “That asshole is Mike. Despite his delusions, he doesn’t work here-” with a pointed glare in Mike’s direction. Jared grins; Mike cackles some more. “He just likes to pretend he does. Fulfilling his twisted fantasies or whatever, we try not to delve too deep.”
“Don’t hate on me ‘cause I’m beautiful, Chris. That’s shallow and wrong.”
“Come on, Jared,” Chris continues, smoothly ignoring the interruption. “I’ll give you the grand tour. Mikey, hold the fort like a normal, sane person for the next five minutes and maybe I won’t kill you later.”
Jared follows him obediently to the back of the store, feeling the elderly floorboards creak beneath his weight with every step. He has to bite his lip to keep from laughing, perhaps a little hysterically, as he hears Mike mutter, “Oh Chrissy, I love the sweet talk,” from behind them. Then Chris kicks the door open with one booted foot, ‘Staff Only’ painted on the front in the same cream and blue as the sign outside, and Jared follows him through.
-
Things get a little saner after that. For a while, at least. Kane Records isn’t exactly the White House, for all it’s with a certain amount of pride that Chris shows him around. A store is a store is a store, and once you’ve seen one, you’ve kind of seen them all. Jared nods in all the right places, trudging dutifully along behind as he learns that the toilets, Chris’ office and the somewhat optimistically named ‘staff lounge’ are upstairs; downstairs is the fire escape, the stock room, and, “This is Tom.”
Chris points at Tom helpfully. Jared waves, and Tom takes another bite of his sandwich. He looks like he’d be about as tall as Jared if he got up from the box he’s sitting on, which is nice. He also looks like he finds Jared about as interesting as the shelves behind them, which isn’t.
“If a customer’s after something and you can’t find it,” Chris says, as Tom eyes them with boredom, “chances are Tommy here’ll know where it is. When you’re in the stock room, you’ll be taking orders from him, but today I’m just gonna be sticking you out front with the cash register, okay?” He glances at his watch, not waiting for an answer. “Jenny’ll be here in a minute, he’ll tell you what wants doing.”
Jared gets another slap on the back, then Chris ruffles Tom’s hair and disappears back upstairs- to do paperwork, or survey his mighty kingdom, or whatever- leaving the two of them to stare doubtfully at each other.
Tom chews and swallows. “Don’t touch my stuff,” he says, shooting Jared a knowing look. It’s the hypnotically blue equivalent of ‘I’m on to you, asshole’, with an extra helping of clearly-insane-oh-God, and Jared backs out of the door without a word-
-and smacks hard into the weight of another body. He shrieks, because Jesus Christ if he wasn’t tense enough already, and the body curses loudly from behind him. Jared spins around, clutching at the doorframe to keep himself upright, and finds himself face to face with- with-
It’s America’s next top model, his brain helpfully supplies.
“Hi,” he says quickly, voice way too loud as he speaks over his own brain. “I’m Jared. I work here now. I think I’m having a heart attack.” He rubs a palm across his chest, wincing at the feel of his clammy t-shirt- of all of the socially unacceptable times to be a sweater, this could well be number one- and offers a hand to the- Greek God, something is insisting in the back of his mind, holy shit it’s Adonis- the other guy. The guy just stares down at Jared’s hand, and then back up at Jared, as through he’s expecting Jared to barrel into him again, or maybe to just cut out the middle man and kick him in the shins.
“I won’t touch your stuff,” Jared offers, hopelessly. He can hear Mike laughing like there’s no tomorrow from behind the counter, but he keeps his eyes on the other guy’s face, something inside of him pleading please be sane, please be sane.
The guy clears his throat, scratching bluntly at the back of his neck, and says, “Jensen. Can I...?” He trails off and motions with one hand. It takes Jared a moment- one really fucking awkward moment- for it to dawn on him that he’s still standing in the doorway, blocking it from the rest of the world. The rest of the world currently being this guy. Jensen.
“Oh, Christ, sorry,” he groans. He steps sideways, because Jensen’s right in front of him and no money in the world could make him go back to Tom, and he presses himself up against the edge of the doorframe. Jensen fills the gap in the air pretty much the second Jared moves, squeezing past him and through the door within a matter of extremely awkward, elbow-brushing seconds. With great, great care, as Jensen’s back disappears hastily up the stairs, Jared turns and smacks his forehead against the wall.
“This is,” he announces into the plaster, “the worst day of my life.”
It takes a minute for Mike to stop laughing, but then there’s the scrape of chair-legs against the floor and the sound of approaching footsteps, and then a warm hand claps him on the shoulder. “Could’ve been worse,” Mike reflects. “You could’ve hurled on his shoes.”
-
“He wouldn’t even look at me after that,” Jared sighs. He wedges the phone under his chin and tugs open the fridge door; there’s half a cheesecake in there somewhere, he knows, unless Chad’s already eaten it. “He actually averted his gaze. Stared at the walls and shit. Who does that?” Sandy makes a sympathetic noise in his ear as he shuffles through the takeout carton jungle. “And sometimes, Sandy, sometimes he’d make Mike pass messages on to me. Hey, Jared, Jensen says this, oh by the way, Jared, Jensen says that. Guy doesn’t even work there.”
“Poor baby,” Sandy murmurs.
“I was so fucking embarrassed.” He flips the lid off of a tupperware container of- something; it’s probably Chad’s- and gives it a sniff. “’M gonna have flashbacks, Sand’. Gonne wake up in a cold sweat twenty years from now, having visions of his staring face.”
Sandy’s breath rustles soothingly down the phone line, the auditory equivalent of a great, big hug to Jared’s soul, as she says, “Now you’re just being silly.”
“Cold sweat, Sandy. You’ll see.”
Out in the hall, the front door slams, followed closely by the sound of Chad’s voice. “J-dog, I got beer. Put your pants on, or I will end you. You’re my bro’, but there are some things a guy just doesn’t wanna see twice in a lifetime.”
“My pants are on,” Jared yells back over his shoulder. “Have you eaten my cheesecake, you fucker? Uh, not you, Sandy. Just Chad.”
“Jared-” she begins, but then Chad bursts into the kitchen, his voice as cheerfully and obnoxiously loud as it ever is.
“Man, I did not touch your cheesecake,” he exclaims. “What the fuck do you take me for? You think I’m a cheesecake thief, Jare? You think I got it in me to steal your cheesecake? ‘Cause, dude, that cuts me deep. Can’t believe you’d think that of me, your best buddy, after all these fuckin’ years of loyalty and love. Get the hell outta my way, asshole,” he adds, yanking Jared back from the fridge by the hem of his t-shirt. “Beer needs chillin’. Here.” He smacks a still-cool bottle, slicked with condensation, against Jared’s chest and finishes off his monologue with a bright, bright grin.
Jared grins back down at him, catching the beer with one hand and wrangling the phone back under his chin with the other. “Thanks, man.”
“What?” says Sandy. “Jared, did you just listen to a word I said?”
“Um.” Chad’s there in his peripheral vision, making explicit hand actions and mouthing something exaggeratedly. Jared rolls his eyes, retreating out of the kitchen with his warming bottle of beer. “Sorry, Sandy. Chad was sharing the doctor’s report on his latest venereal disease. It was pretty graphic.”
He kicks the door shut behind him, cutting off Chad’s, “Go have your phone sex, asshole,” halfway through.
-
It’s not that Jared’s never worked, you understand. Back in San Antonio, he delivered enough papers to account for a large portion of the Amazon rainforest, until his bike finally gave up the ghost, and he bagged groceries at the local store right through until he left for college. So it’s not that he’s never worked. It’s just that, after he’d dropped out of college and figured that moving in with his rich asshole of a best friend was an awesome idea, the whole earning-your-living, become-a-working-man trope never really seemed quite relevant. He’s tried, sure, at his mom and dad’s hopeful suggestion, and now he’s doing it for Sandy; but if there’s one thing he’s learnt over the last couple of years (aside from to never, ever let Chad use his toothbrush again. Ever) it’s that Jared and work environments get on like a house on fire. That is to say: things get pretty messy, and then it all ends in tears.
He’d been in a bit of a slump from the incident at the pet store, spending most days eating cake in his underwear and having the gut-wrenching kind of not-quite-arguments with his girl, when Chad had accidentally planted the Kane Records seed in the allotment of his mind. That same weekend, Sandy issued her almost-ultimatum (“I didn’t think the age difference was doing to be a problem, baby. It’s not a big one, but you’re not even trying to grow up-”) and Jared figured ‘screw it’.
It had taken him something like an hour to actually find the place, the next day, and another fifteen minutes for him to stop lingering on the street corner like an unusually sweaty rentboy and go inside. It wasn’t that it looked intimidating- cream on blue pretty much overrode any chances of that- so much as knowledgeable, like every stereotypical independent record store you see in the movies; and while, sure, Jared loved music, it was more of a ‘dancing in his bedroom to Michael Jackson’ style of love than a knowledgeable one.
But on the other hand, he was a twenty-one year old loser on the verge of being dumped by his incredible girlfriend if he didn’t do something about his life. So Jared had thrown caution to the wind and gone inside.
Chris just looked him up and down for moment, after Jared had burst- well, more like stumbled in and announced that he was after a job. He leaned back in the rickety chair he was sat in, eyebrows raised, his feet already up on the counter and his hands folded behind his head.
“Music trivia,” he said, clicking his fingers. He pointed expectantly at Jared’s head and added, “Go.”
It was a test, Jared realised over the helpless buzz of ‘oh shit’ in his brain, a way of judging who was worthy of taking up Kane Records’ mantle. Anything unsatisfactory, and he’d probably just be kicked out on his ass. It needed to be something good. He mentally ran through his entire CD collection- and Chad’s too, although the guy didn’t really have much taste beyond that which could be summed up with ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie’. The Beatles were too obvious, Michael Jackson too much of a dirty old man, Elvis Presley was too dead-
Chris cleared his throat, glancing down at his watch. Jared was going to be kicked out on his ass, he was going to be laughed out and have to go home and tell Chad even Kane Records won’t have him.
“Elvis Presley,” he blurted out. “He’s, uh. He’s dead.”
And Chris just looked at him, watch still hovering by his face and his mouth hanging slightly open, soundless. Jared closed his eyes in defeat. Elvis. Was dead. At least Chad would get a kick out of it.
“Okay, if you wanna give me a copy of your CV, I’ll get back to you by the end of the week,” came Chris’ voice through the haze of despair.
It took a moment, the words rolling around in his head, for Jared to decide it wasn’t some kind of crazyass hallucination and open his eyes. Chris waved up at him, his face completely blank in that way of people fighting back the laughter.
“But.” There had to be some kind of mistake. “You did hear me, right? When I said- that thing I said. The Elvis thing?”
“It was a moment of enlightenment for us all, kid. C’mon.” He clicked his fingers again, making Jared jump, and held out his hand expectantly. “Gimme.”
Obeying was the easiest course of action. Jared tugged a copy of his CV out of his bag, smoothing out the creases with his palm before he laid it reverently down on the countertop. He wasn’t sure he could actually say anything past the massive ball of confusion clogging up his throat, so he just waved a hand, fingers waggling like a little girl, and staggered out of the store.
It took five minutes of dazed walking before he slumped back against the nearest available wall and flipped open his cell phone. “Chad, man, you won’t believe what I just said.”
-
Jensen still won’t look at him the next day. Sandy had said, in her usual soothing, practical way, “Just be as nice to him as you can be, baby. Then, if he still doesn’t like you, you’ll know it’s his fault, not yours,” and he tries to keep it in mind as he stomps up the stairs and away from Jensen’s pointed studying of the floors and walls and everything that is not Jared, but it’s hard. He’s a people person, and he always has been; his momma likes to say he came out of her womb laughing, he was that glad to see everyone, and while Jared tries not to contemplate his own birth too closely, he’s always liked to think it’s a pretty accurate assessment of his character. He likes people and normally people just like him right back. It sounds stupid, he knows, but it’s true. He’s never had to work to make someone like him before. When faced with awkward silences and one syllable replies and a guy who can’t even stand to look at him, he just doesn’t know what to do.
“Turn that frown upside down, new kid,” calls out Mike, jolting Jared from his reverie. He glances up in surprise to find the guy sat on the top step with a lightsaber cradled between his thighs.
“Nice lightsaber.”
“Her name’s Rita. She’ll be accompanying me on today’s tour,” Mikes says cheerfully. He presses a button and the glowing, blue plastic of the lightsaber obligingly collapses into its hilt. “Treat her with the utmost respect. Now, come, padawan, pull up a step.”
Jared climbs up the remainder of the stairs and flops down next to Mike at the top. Mike pats him on the head. “Why does Jensen hate me, man?”
“It’s ‘cause you’re tall. Guy’s got a crippling fear of tall guys. It’s pretty tragic, really. Tommy only gets away with it ‘cause he spends so much time sitting down.”
“Seriously?”
He grins as Jared gapes across at him. “Nah, not really. Actually, the big ones are something of a kink of his. Poor guy can’t even look at you without becoming hideously aroused.”
“You’re actually insane, aren’t you,” Jared reflects.
Mike laughs right in his ear at that, slinging an arm around Jared’s shoulders and tugging him into a stranglehold of an embrace. “Maybe I’m lying, maybe I’m not. Sounds like a job for Sherlock Holmes.” One last semi-affectionate squeeze before he releases Jared and bounces back down the stairs.
“You’re Sherlock Holmes,” Jared mutters after his retreating back, massaging the life back into his throat. He grabs up his bag again and makes his way to the staff lounge, journey uninterrupted save a brief pause to assure Tom that none of his stuff has been touched. By the time he’s made it back down to the store, Jensen’s standing in the middle of the floor with a stack of CDs up to his chin, face frozen in an expression of abject confusion.
“I think Mike just hit me with a lightsaber,” he says.
“It’s called Rita. You gotta respect it.”
“Really.” He glances across at Jared with a helpless quirk of a smile, shaking his head. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“Good plan.” Jared grins, wide and bright, because Jensen’s looking at him and they’re sharing a joke and it feels like a jolt of victorious electricity applied directly to his spine. Be as nice as you can be, Sandy had said, so he holds his hands out for the stack of CDs, adding, “C’mon, man, I’ll put those out. You need to recuperate from your violent attack.”
It takes a moment of careful manoeuvring to get the CDs from one pair of hands to the other, with Jared having to bend down and Jensen having to stretch up and everyone’s fingers getting tangled up together; but once it’s done, the stack cradled safely against Jared’s chest, Jensen’s lips quirk even harder, graduating into a fully-fledged smile, albeit a small one.
“Thanks,” he says, looking up to meet Jared’s earnest gaze. “Jared.”
Jared nudges him with his shoulder, carefully. “No problem, man.”
Things get a bit easier after that. Or a bit less awkward anyway, which is a start. Jared meanders up and down the aisles, slotting albums into their rightful places and humming tunelessly to himself over the music that’s playing on the store’s system, something upbeat and a little bit country. He can feel Jensen all the while, even when he can’t see him: on the store’s computer system or checking over paperwork or talking softly to the customers when they appear or just leaning back in the chair with a cup of coffee. Whenever Jared looks at him, he’s looking away.
The hours pass by easily like this, alphabetising more absorbing than Jared had ever suspected it could be, and the silence becomes a comfortable one- a silence he doesn’t feel the burning need to fill, for once- somewhere into the Ms. He doesn’t even register the entrance bell the next time it jangles.
“J-dog.” Chad slaps him on the back, sending the top of his pile of CDs wobbling precariously. “How’s my man doing? Served any hot chicks yet?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jared slams a hand down on the top CD, steadying them, and turns to stare at his friend. Jensen’s watching them from the counter, pen poised over what might be important paperwork or might just be a crossword. “The hell’d you learn to walk so quietly, man?”
“Magician never reveals his secrets, dickweed,” Chad says. He smacks Jared again, squeezes his shoulder briefly, and looks around at the store with an eyebrow raised. His gaze lingers on Jensen. “Smells kinda funky in here, doesn’t it?” He pauses, glances across at Jensen again. Jensen stares flatly back at him. “So, that the asshole or the psychopath?”
[stuffomg]
-
It’s a relief, at the end of the day, to find the staff lounge empty. The room is tiny; you could probably fit everyone in it, just about, but they’d have trouble breathing, and Jared isn’t sure he’d want to be so close to Tom anyway. He gathers up his bag and jacket in the silence, and then slumps down on one of the seconds-from-collapse chairs by the table, thinking about whether or not to torture Chad horribly before he kills him. The door opens on the edge of his vision, with a ridiculous horror-movie extravaganza of a creak, and he looks up to find Jensen leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets.
“Hey, man.” Jared doesn’t really feel like grinning- his feet are sore, his colleagues are still pretty insane, and his best friend apparently hates him or something- but he’s always figured that if there’s nothing better you can say, you damn well smile.
“Hey.” Jensen knocks a boot against the door, sending it swinging. “So, uh. Am I the asshole or the psychopath, then?”
“I’m gonna kill Chad,” Jared groans. “Twice.” He slumps forward over the tabletop, face in his arms, and contemplates torture chambers and maybe putting Nair in Chad’s shampoo. Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen pulls out the other wobbly chair and sits down next to him.
Eventually, “You’re the asshole,” Jared mutters against his forearms. “But that was before Mike hit you with his lightsaber and you smiled a bit and got- you know. Nicer.”
“It’s cool, man.” When Jared looks up, Jensen’s smiling awkwardly at him, leant back in his chair. He shrugs, waves a hand. “It’s cool. I know I’m not- I’m not exactly much of a people person. Not so great at the whole... interpersonal communication thing.”
“Not calling it interpersonal communication would be a start.”
Jensen smiles- really smiles, with lips and teeth and his eyes crinkling at the edges. It’s like a sudden flash of light filling up the room, gone as quickly as it came. “Point,” he says. “Maybe we could, I dunno. If you want to. We could hang out sometime. You school me in being a people person, I give you fashion tips, that kind of thing.”
“The hell’s wrong with my fashion?”
“Lucky pink shirt ringing any bells here?”
At that, Jared peels himself away from the table and swats at Jensen’s head. “My fashion is impeccable, asshole. I work that shirt like no other.”
“Right, that’ll be it.” Jensen’s elbow digs in to his ribs. It’s awesome, a breakthrough in their interpersonal communication, or whatever. Jared grins, feeling the joy of another personal victory bubbling up inside of him, and grabs hold of Jensen’s wrist before his elbow can jab him again, tugs it away. Jensen’s skin is hot- like really hot, and his fingers curl to brush against the back of Jared’s hand. Callused, superheated.
“It’d be cool,” Jared blurts out. “Hanging out, I mean. I’d like to. You could teach me how to keep Tom from killing me in my sleep.”
“You, uh,” Jensen says. He trails off, licks at his lips, brushes a thumb across his mouth, looking down at the table as Jared watches. “Great, man. That’s great.” Another pause. “But you’re gonna have to let go of my hand first.”
THAT'S ALL, FOLKS.