miscellanea
THIS IS A REALLY ANNOYING POST.
Annoying thing the first, photos of snow:
ONE DAY I SWEAR I WILL REPROGRAM THE DATE ON MY CAMERA. (One day before that day, I will work out how to program the date on my camera.)
Annoying thing the second, way back in the spring of '09 I started writing a ridiculous J2 AU, got over 6500 words into it and then got blocked. Now I have completely moved on from the CWRPS fandom I know for sure that said fic is NEVER EVER EVER going to be finished. Which means I have this rather lengthy chunk of silliness languishing on my hard drive and bugger that for a lark.
SO HERE IS AN UNFINISHED CHUNK OF THE LAST BIT OF J2 YOU SHALL EVER SEE FROM ME. Untitled, PG-13 I guess, in summary Jensen is an incredibly uptight workaholic secretary who cares not for... people in general, until he passes by his Probably Made-Up Unnamed City's Speaker's Corner and develops a crush on a rather tall chap with floppy hair. Predictability ensues.
What happens is Jensen’s car breaks down.
This is a pretty regular occurrence, because Jensen’s car is older than he is, and unlike George Clooney it has not aged well. If anything, Jensen’s car is the Elvis Presley of the motoring world. Sure, maybe it could deliver an erotic hip-thrust or two, back in the day, but then it got old and flabby and ended up dead in a really embarrassing position. Jensen’s spent the last eight years cruising around town in Elvis Presley’s metaphorical bloated corpse.
This is a theory he mostly keeps to himself, after 07’s Christmas party, during which he’d had one glass of wine too many and the conversation had somehow gotten around to automobiles. Afterwards, Danneel Harris had stared at him in silence for approximately 20 seconds before turning around and striking up a loud conversation with Jeff instead. Later that same evening, Jensen threw up on what turned out to be Mr. Kripke’s grandmother.
He sticks to mineral water at social functions now.
Anyway-
What happens is, Jensen’s car breaks down and then he drops his briefcase in a puddle and misses the bus. Maybe some people would take that as a sign to go back inside and smoke some marijuana, or whatever it is people get up to when they’re being unproductive, but Jensen is not one of those people.
Jensen’s a business-client interface manager, and at last calculation he’s approximately 1.5 years away from getting a promotion. He’s dedicated.
So, he walks.
In theory, he’s always known the park was there. Jensen memorised the layout of his neighbourhood when he first moved into town, in case he ever got asked for directions or needed to outrun some angry muggers. Or calm muggers.
Any kind of muggers, really.
Jensen isn’t exactly the out-doorsy type, and the public transport has been adequate so long as he holds a tissue over his nose and mouth and practices those breathing exercises Sophia taught him, so whilst he’s always known of the technical existence of the park, this is the first time he’s actually set foot in it.
There are trees, et cetera. Bushes, floral arrangements, old couples walking dogs. If Jensen continues directly North, and then takes the North-West exit, he’ll only be a five minute walk away from Kripke & Singer. More importantly, he’ll arrive at the office only two minutes late.
Then Jensen rounds a bend in the path and finds himself in the middle of a rather large, aimlessly milling crowd. It comes as something of a surprise. Traffic had never factored into his equation.
“Excuse me,” Jensen says. “Hi, excuse me, I need to get through here.”
He tip-toes through the gaps between by-standers, briefcase clutched tightly to his chest. Maybe it’s a festival. Maybe it’s some kind of protest rally. There are some people talking, scattered around the edges and often looking a little in need a shower, but everyone else is just listening, or cheering, or heckling. Maybe this is where the unproductive people go when they’re done smoking their marijuana.
Hopefully there are no-airborne viruses.
As Jensen reaches the edge of the inexplicable crowd, a tall guy with floppy, brown hair claps his hands together. He’s stood on what looks like an overturned box, towering over his small audience, and grinning so widely it’s visible even on the edges of Jensen’s peripheral vision.
“All right,” the guy says, loudly. He’s tall enough to be intimidating, Jensen can see it, but his voice is too warm to be anything but welcoming. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before...”
Jensen keeps his head down until the path is empty again.
The bus ride home is slightly delayed thanks to traffic (but not so delayed that it affects the average journey time) and Jensen gets back to his apartment to find that Chris has already let himself in. After the fire department incident- wherein 1, Jensen was a) more conscientious about locking his windows than Chris had anticipated, and b) at work; 2, Chris climbed up to Jensen’s third-floor apartment window without a contingency plan re how to get back down again; and 3, it all ended up in the local newspaper- it just seemed easier to give Chris a spare key.
Jensen isn’t quite sure how he ended up with Chris for a best friend, but he often wonders if it happened whilst Jensen wasn’t actually conscious; or maybe during the ’07 Christmas Party, which he figures amounts to the same thing.
Chris wears cowboy hats indoors. There’s no point fighting against a force like that.
“Jenny,” Chris says, and he waves his bottle of beer in a surprisingly eloquent substitute for ‘hello.’
“My car has broken down,” says Jensen, flopping down onto his second-hand sofa. He grabs himself a beer too, because for all he knows- and can quote in detail- the health hazards related to alcohol, sometimes there are days when the benefits outweigh the risks.
“Well, no fuckin’ shit.” Chris compulsively flicks the rim of his cowboy hat as he talks, as if he’s secretly hoping some Southern Belles will walk by in need of a good, hard greeting. “I’ve been telling you for years now, that car has gotta go. I know you got some weird, Elvis psychic bond going on with it, but I’m tellin’ you, man. There are younger, prettier cars out there for you to pretend are dead rock stars. Hey,” he adds, brightening visibly and flicking his hat so hard he has to grab it with the other hand and tug it down again, “how about Marilyn Monroe this time, huh? Boop-boop-a-doop, am I right?”
“Some Like It Hot had an impressively homoerotic subcurrent for a movie of its era,” Jensen says. “Interesting choice of reference.”
“Hey man, if that’s your weird, socially deficient way of makin’ a gay joke, you’re the one who knew which movie it came from.”
“It’s a classic comedy and has appeared on several ‘greatest movie ever’ lists,” Jensen points out. “And,” he adds, as an afterthought, “I am gay.”
“You’re the worst gay guy ever,” Chris mutters. It’s a fair point. Jensen hooks up every so often, because he’s a warm-blooded human being with perfectly functional appendages thank you very much, and he knows the places to go to meet people who find ties sexually arousing; but he just doesn’t have the time for anything beyond that. He’s a professional.
“So look,” Chris says. He flicks his hat again, grabs another beer off the coffee table Jensen purchased specially for Chris to put his feet on. “I can take a look at your car if you wanna, see if I can put it right, but I dunno how much good I’ll do. You know me, Jenny. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“You’re a musician, not a mechanic.”
“It’s the same thing,” Chris says, opening his beer bottle with the edge of his ring. Jensen really, really wonders how he ended up with a friend like this. “But I’m telling you man, you’re wasting your time with this. Just get a new car. It can be Alien Abduction Elvis, or somethin’.”
“Maybe,” Jensen says. He pauses, rolling the taste of the word around in his mouth. “Maybe.” It feels weirdly like what he imagines betraying a lover must feel like, or maybe like cheating on an exam. It’s not a good feeling. “Maybe I don’t need a new car. Or any car. The public transport here is more than adequate, as long as you-”
“Yeah, yeah, tissue over mouth. Got it.”
If Chris ever catches an airborne virus from a bus, Jensen will have the last laugh. As it is, he shrugs and sips his beer. It does a little to get the betray-y flavour out of his mouth.
“I walked to work today,” he says.
“Hey, well done,” says Chris, reaching over to clap Jensen on the back.
“No, I mean - I walked to work today, though the park. There was a-” He pauses, mentally searching for an accurate description. “A rally of some kind? Large numbers of people in one place, listening to other people speak on a variety of topics.”
Chris snorts and flicks his hat. “Y’know, I’m really not kiddin’ when I say you gotta get out more. That was Speaker’s Corner, man. I know it’s not really a corner,” he adds, before Jensen can even get the words out. “That’s just what it’s called. Thursday and Friday mornings, all day Saturday. People go there to talk, other people go there to listen.”
“Why?”
“Hell, I dunno.” Chris throws his bottle cap at Jensen. It’s ineffective. “For the sheer fuckin’ thrill of it.”
Jensen has never previously considered talking and/or listening as something the general populace might find thrilling. But then again, he’d be the first to admit he doesn’t know a great deal about what the general public does like to do, except that it involves drugs and occasionally YouTube.
Jensen misses his bus again next Friday. It really isn’t deliberate.
Nevertheless, he’s prepared for it this time, when the otherwise innocuous path rounds that bend and emerges from the selection of flora into a makeshift public forum. Nobody pays Jensen the slightest iota of attention as he navigates his way through the crowd, just taking it all in.
Of course, Jensen is a dedicated professional who cares deeply about his current employment, but the people here are a lot more observationally interesting than the people with whom he usually deals. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of standard participant. They range from every end of the social spectrum, and slot into every demographic Jensen can think of, although there does seem to be an unfortunate predisposition to unruly beards on the speakers’ parts.
It makes the tall guy at the end of the row seem all the more noticeable, the one with the friendly voice and the face that isn’t exactly classically handsome but is still more than satisfying, aesthetically. There are a vast range of topics being discussed, or argued over, or fervently rhapsodised on, and Jensen can’t help but wonder which one the tall guy has chosen.
He slows down, just a little.
“So my sister had her baby last weekend,” the tall guy is saying. He looks deliriously, painfully happy about it, but maybe wide, wide smiles are just his default expression. “That was pretty crazy, ya know? He was kinda early. I mean, not crazy early. Not- I dunno, not dangerous early, but early enough that all I could think was what if it had been? Or, y’know, what else could go wrong? There are something like a million things that can go wrong during labour, right? And after it, too. And then if you and the baby make it through all that there’s just a lifetime of worry to look forward to.”
Jensen’s pretty sure this isn’t the way a Speaker’s Corner usually goes. He’s pretty sure, in a way he rarely is when it comes to the outside world, that the rest of the audience are thinking the same thing; but there’s something about the tall guy’s slightly-too-fast voice and waving hands that makes you want to stick around for the punchline.
“I mean, I was practically hyperventilating by then, just wondering how the hell my sister was gonna cope with all this terror. I’m just the goofy uncle, what’s she gotta be feeling, right? A nurse actually made me sit down and fetched me a glass of water, which I don’t think my family are ever gonna let me live down, by the way. And then…”
The tall guy pauses, animated hands drifting down to his sides. He’s just scanning the crowd, Jensen knows - searching out that audience connection like all good public speakers do, even the informally rambling ones - but it’s startling when their eyes meet, all the same.
The tall guy grins at him and holds onto his gaze as he picks up the thread of his monologue again. “Then my big brother smacks me upside the head and drags me into her room, and Meggie, that’s my sister, she’s holding onto this tiny little human being and - I dunno if any of you have ever seen a mama bear when it’s protecting its cubs, but that’s what she looked like. Not even a little bit scared. Completely ready to kick some baby-snatching ass.”
At that, he looks away again, moving on to pin someone else down with his gaze. Public speaking techniques, that’s all. Jensen shakes himself out of whatever mass hypnosis just took place, turns his back on the Speaker’s Corner and realises, with a sudden jolt of clarity, that’s he’s five minutes late to work.
Maybe Chris is right that Jensen needs to get out more. Public forums are fascinating from a sociological point of view, and Jensen didn’t even know one existed just ten minutes from his front door. It’s a valid argument for more outdoor interaction.
Of course, Chris says a lot of things, and he writes songs about losing his girls and trucks and dogs when Jensen knows for a fact Chris has never had a truck or dog to lose, and women aren’t property anyway, so he isn’t the most reliable source of advice.
On the other hand, even unreliable sources can be accurate sometimes. Chris is kind of like Jensen’s walking, talking, try-as-he-might uneditable Wikipedia.
“Hey. Hey, Chris,” Jensen begins, slurring a little because it’s a Friday night and Chris has been training Jensen in ‘real Friday nights’ since he met him. As far as Jensen can tell, real Friday nights involve beer, an abundance of country songs about material loss, and not a whole lot else, but Chris insists this is because Jensen is still just a beginner.
Arguing with Chris is inherently futile.
“You’re my Wikipedia,” Jensen tells him.
“What,” says Chris.
”You,” Jensen says. “Wikipedia.”
“The hell’s that make you?” Chris flicks his hat a little too hard and knocks it off his head. Somehow, he doesn’t notice. “Those people who have theological debates with each other over youtube?”
“No.” Jensen pauses. “Maybe. What I mean is, what I mean is. Sometimes you’re right.”
“Yeah? You gettin’ a new car?” Chris looks positively delighted at this prospect.
Jensen chuckles, shaking his head. Then he has to stop and lean back against the couch, eyes closed, until the room stops rocking. Oh Chris, he thinks.
“Oh Chris,” he says. “Chris, Chris, Chris. What I’m getting is out more.”
“I’m cutting you off,” says Chris.
“Thank you,” says Jensen.
The next morning, Jensen wakes up with a hangover and with Chris passed out on his couch. Once he’s showered and shaved and knotted his tie, Jensen puts out a glass of water and some Advil on Chris’ special foot-table.
After a moment’s consideration, he puts Chris’ hat in the microwave.
Another moment, another consideration, and Jensen takes off his tie. He carefully hangs it back up in the correct space on his tie rack, though. There’s no reason to go completely wild.
“So lately I’ve been thinking about Plato,” the tall guy says.
It’s a bright, sunny, nearing-warm kind of day, and for all Jensen is aware that Saturdays tend to equal more pedestrian traffic, it’s still busier here than he expected. He guesses the extra numbers come from people who were working on Thursdays and Fridays, although he’d never really considered that professionals might be interested in this kind of thing.
Other than himself, anyway.
Jensen doesn’t count. He’s just here to observe.
“No, okay, I know what you’re thinking,” the tall guy says, waving a placating hand as his audience groans playfully. “You’re thinking that you’re not here to talk about freakin’ Plato, right? You wanna hear how Meggie’s baby boy is doing, or find out if m’buddy Chad ever got back at the guy with the bongos, right? So Imma make you a deal. Y’all give me a word for a limerick and if I can’t do it, I’ll tell you about bongo guy’s comeuppance. If I can, we’ll talk about Plato a little. Then,” he adds, with a grin, “y’all can try and guess my nephew’s name. Okay? Okay.”
The crowd cheers, and he beams at that, rubbing his hands together like he’s an overenthusiastic high school coach. “So, who’s gonna pick me a word?”
People start calling out suggestions, thick and fast. The tall guy even laughs at a couple, but he doesn’t seem to have chosen one yet. Jensen is just hovering on the edges, observing, too far away to really catch what everyone says.
“Hey, how about you? America’s next top model?”
It takes a few long, oblivious seconds before Jensen realises the tall guy is talking to, staring right at, him.
“Onomatopoeia,” Jensen says, blankly.
It’s just an automatic response, with very little in the way of brain-to-mouth connection - someone has asked him for a word, so Jensen has given them one - but the audience laughs and cheers, and a few even applaud, like he’s done something funny.
There’s nothing funny about imitative harmony.
But on the other hand, the tall guy laughs, too. “Man,” he says. “You’re just tryin’ to show me up, aintcha?”
“Maybe,” Jensen says. He isn’t sure. He didn’t mean to, and now he’s beginning to wonder if he should apologise. However, before he can even decide on the appropriate etiquette, the tall guy starts talking. Or rather, he starts rhyming.
“This thing we call onomatopoeia!” he exclaims. “This thing we call onomatopoeia is, when you start thinking, quite queer. Noises as words! And who’s ever heard a magician go poof - disappear?”
Everyone starts cheering and applauding as the tall guy, grinning like he’s just ran a marathon, punches his fists in the air. Jensen briefly considers telling him the first line didn’t really scan properly, but then decides against it. He isn’t wearing a tie today. He can skip some preciseness.
Chris will probably have woken up once Jensen gets back home, anyway. There will be an abundance of mistakes to correct after that.
The tall guy’s thoughts on Plato quickly devolved into a [rumination] on whether the Matrix sequels lived up to the first movie, which lead into a full-scale debate on Keanu Reeves’ acting ability. Jensen is mostly neutral when it comes to Keanu Reeves, and also the entirety of Hollywood, but even he can’t deny that the tall guy’s impassioned speech in Keanu’s favour was quite moving.
He can’t deny that he’s kind of beginning to enjoy himself, when the tall guy claps his hands together and steps down off of his overturned box.
“That’s all from me for today, guys,” he says. “Same time next week, yeah?”
It seems like a rather abrupt ending. Jensen has to check his watch, and then check his spare watch, to be sure that time has actually passed. The tall guy has talked for over [two] hours, he realises, and the crowd around them has thinned out whilst Jensen wasn’t looking.
He’s going to have to come back next week. Just to observe a wider selection of speakers.
“Hey,” says a warm voice from behind him, shaking Jensen out of his time-check reverie. He turns around automatically and - Jensen is comfortably taller than average, and he knows it, but he still has to crane his neck to frown up at the tall guy.
The box the guy stands on when he’s talking adds a considerable number of inches to his height, yet somehow he seems even taller when he’s on the ground and up close. Obviously there is a mathematical explanation, or even just a matter of proximity and perspective, but Jensen can’t quite think of it right now.
The silence is stretching into awkward territory, but he can’t quite think anything right now.
“I have no opinion on Keanu Reeves,” he says, instead.
“Aw man, I didn’t convert you?” But the tall guy is grinning again, so he can’t be too disappointed. “I’ll have to try harder next time.”
“Hollywood is full of scandal and bad drivers,” Jensen says. “I try to keep out of it.”
“You’re a wise man,” the tall guy says, nodding seriously. And then he sticks his hand out and says, “And I’m Jared. Seen you around a couple times now, and I figured I should say hello and introduce myself and, ya know, hear your thoughts on Keanu Reeves. So, hi.”
“Hi,” Jensen says.
After a moment, he remembers to take the tall guy’s - Jared’s - hand. He’s aiming for something a bit business-casual-y, but then Jared brings his other hand into the mix, clasping Jensen’s own between the two and squeezing like they’re long lost brothers who have opted for hand-shaking over the more traditional hugging route.
Jared’s palms are slightly sweaty, but somehow not quite unpleasantly so.
“I’m Jensen,” Jensen eventually remembers to say, after at least a minute of looking up at Jared whilst Jared grins back down at him. “I’m a business-client interface manager.”
“Oh, like a receptionist?” Jared lets go of Jensen’s hand at last, but only to put one on Jensen’s shoulder instead. Jensen isn’t typically a touchy-feely person, and he definitely isn’t a receptionist, but before he can correct the mistake Jared is squeezing Jensen’s shoulder affectionately and talking again. “Meggie used to be a receptionist, and man she hated it. Never got paid as hard as she worked, and whenever anything went wrong for a client she was the one they took it out on, right? ‘Course, she didn’t look as neat as you - ‘cause no offence Jensen but I don’t think anyone looks as neat as you - which probably didn’t help.”
Jared stops talking, presumably to take a breath, and starts smiling again.
Jensen weighs his options.
“Yes,” he says. “Like a receptionist.”
Chris was still passed out on the couch when Jensen got home, and now he has presumably decided he’s not going to move from it for the rest of the day.
“Man,” he grumbles, from his mostly horizontal position. “You are smiling way too fuckin’ much for how much you drank last night.”
“I’m not smiling,” Jensen says, automatically.
“Right, my mistake, it’s just some other thing where your lips go up and it makes your face happy.” Chris snorts and throws one of yesterday’s many beer caps. He’s presumably aiming through the kitchen door and, by association, Jensen, but it doesn’t really work.
“And,” Chris adds, unperturbed, “bring me a beer.”
Alcohol does not cure hangovers, so Jensen brings Chris a glass of milk instead.
“Milk contains protein,” he says, holding the glass out. Chris stares suspiciously up at it, and then stares suspiciously up at Jensen.
“Seriously, man, you’re creeping me out,” he says. “Stop smiling.”
“Milk also contains calcium and vitamin C,” Jensen says. “And I’m not smiling.”
Thursday morning, Jensen is up before his alarm clock goes off.
The past week has been long, and tiring, and busy with preparation for a meeting with one of the company’s richest and most obnoxious clients. The meeting is today, and it’s up to Jensen to make sure it all runs as smoothly and with as little strangulation as humanly possible.
With most difficult clients, that would involve a lot of careful negotiation and placation, but Ms Ostroff has been trying to engage in sexual activity with Jensen ever since he started working for the firm. All he has to do is, as Mr. Kripke forlornly put it, look nice and smile a lot.
Jensen focuses on the nice bonus his bosses will give him by way of apology - and how good that 1.5 years away promotion will look on his résumé - as he eats a bowlful of muesli and picks out his favourite tie. It was a gift from his sister, in the same shade of dark green that she always gets him, insisting it brings out the colour of his, and he quotes, ‘stupidly massive eyes.’
He’s never been quite sure whether it’s a compliment or not.
Typically, Jensen would drive to work on big day like this, as buses are swimming in mysterious, suit-staining substances, but his car still isn’t running and he suspects that trying to make it run today would result in an equal degree of staining.
Taxi cabs are, of course, always an option, but on the other hand, it’s a beautiful day and Jensen’s running ahead of schedule.
So, he walks.
The day is somehow even more beautiful inside the park. Jensen thinks there may have been slight cloud coverage over his apartment, which would explain how it almost seems to be a little sunnier as he walks down the now familiar path. He even nods at a couple of the elderly dog-walkers, although from a safe distance lest one of the dogs chew on his neatly pressed suit pants.
This is the earliest Jensen’s ever been through the Speaker’s Corner, but it’s already underway, with a rather large crowd for a Thursday morning, and Jared is easy to spot. Jensen can’t imagine a situation in which Jared wouldn’t be easy to spot, except perhaps in a basketball line-up. And even then, you could just look out for the one with the floral print and the big smile.
Jensen’s got, at last estimation, four minutes to spare. It’s plenty of time for a little scientific observation.
Jared catches his eye as Jensen approaches and he beams, awkwardly waving a hand. Jensen thinks he’s aiming for subtle, but all he really manages to do is a) look like he’s battling a fly, and b) make at least 50% of the (slightly smaller than average, but still sizeable) audience turn around to stare at Jensen.
“Hi,” Jensen says. A few people greet him in return, and shuffle over to make room for him.
“You know,” Jared says, “I’m the only one in my family who isn’t in a relationship. I mean, a serious, capital R relationship - I don’t think my fifteen-year-old cousin’s boyfriend really counts, although I guess it’s a bit sad that she gets someone to hold hands with and I don’t, even if her guy is kinda pimply. But yeah, my big brother, Jeff, he’s been married for a while now, which is awesome, and now with Megan’s baby and all. She’s only twenty-two and we all figured she was gonna be the free spirit of the family, but then she met this guy and that was that. My mom’s kinda started nagging me about it. When am I gonna find a nice girl and settle down, right?”
He pauses, and Jensen has to take a sympathetic breath. Human beings need oxygen. It’s just a fact.
“Man,” Jared begins and then he trails off again, running a hand through his hair. He jumps down off of his usual up-turned box and paces back and forth in front of it, still a head and more taller than most of his audience.
Jensen is far from an expert in the etiquette here, but it seems like an unusual turn of events. He eases forwards through the on-lookers, until he’s close enough to front that he can see Jared’s frown as he stares up at the clouds.
“I dunno where I’m going with this,” Jared says, after a pause. He keeps moving, pacing back and forth, although he’s frowning at his audience now. Once or twice, he catches Jensen’s eye. “I figure y’all are kinda used to that, right? I guess I’m picky, that’s my problem. It’s kinda lame, but secretly I believe in true love, I really do. I believe in the one. Jeff and Meggie, they got their ones, I hope, but they weren’t waiting for them or looking for them or wondering what if their girlfriends weren’t right for them or anything like that. They just went for it, and if they ended up with the ones they’re made for it’s ‘cause they let themselves be, you know? Or, or something like that.”
Another pause.
“There was this dude,” he says. “M. Scott Peck, pretty cool guy, and he once said that we don’t have to love, we choose to love. I think that’s what my bro and sis did. They found the people who could be the, y’know, the ones and they chose to make them so. That’s pretty cool. I don’t know if I could ever do that. It’s easier to believe in destiny, ya know? If things go wrong, you can just shrug and say it wasn’t meant to be. I always figured it was safer that way, but now I’m starting to wonder if maybe the whole damn point of love is - is that it isn’t safe. You gotta take the risk. Make the leap.”
Jared takes a deep breath, staring down at his hands. Then he steps back up on to his box, with a sheepish grin back on his face. It’s a little bit relieving to see it there again.
“So I guess,” he says, “I guess where I’m going with this is,” and then he turns to look at Jensen and he says, “do you wanna go out with me sometime? Like, on a date? Maybe tonight?”
That was unexpected.
The audience starts cheering, which is considerably more expected, as Jensen is beginning to understand the performance aspect of this whole thing and moreover the participatory affect it has on its watchers, and also.
Also.
“Uh,” says Jensen. “I have to work.”
The audience starts booing instead.
“Tomorrow?” says Jared.
Jensen has no idea what to say to that, but he’s reasonably certain that if he doesn’t say something the on-lookers will start rioting. Significantly more pressing a concern is Jared’s wide-eyed, earnest expression. It’s emotionally manipulative, which just isn’t fair.
“I’ll pay,” Jared adds, widening his eyes a fraction of an inch further.
Jensen has spent enough time in Chris’ company to know when he’s fighting a losing battle.
“Okay,” he says.
And the audience cheers, which is at this point highly predictable.
Jensen is not late for work, as he is a multi-tasker and therefore more than capable of adding Jared’s number to his cell whilst he simultaneously jogs to the office. Unfortunately, he is also a human, so he is not capable of keeping his suit from becoming rumpled or his hair sweat-dampened.
Both of which leads to the discovery that Ms. Ostroff apparently likes him that way. Jensen hasn’t decided whether that’s fortunate or unfortunate, although he is definitely leaning towards the latter.
“Oh Mr Ackles,” she breathes, as soon as Mr Kripke has left the room for the second time in fifty-four minutes- maybe to take an important phone call, maybe to hide in his office and giggle.
She leans in close to him, swinging one stocking-clad leg so it brushes alluringly against his ankle. “We mustn’t.”
“I agree,” says Jensen.
She just chuckles and lays a well-manicured hand on his arm, shifting forwards even further on her chair. She’s so close he can smell her perfume. Jensen is a professional whose sole responsibility today is to not run away from Ms. Ostroff, but on the other hand perfumes commonly contain several toxic chemicals. It’s a valid health risk.
Also, Ms. Ostroff has a grip on his tie.
“I’m very sorry,” Jensen says. “Important call. Five minutes.”
He flees before she can catch hold of him again, and then he hides in the fifth floor restroom, which is painted a very calming shade of blue. He’s 1.5 years away from a promotion and he will get a very nice bonus for today’s efforts. 1.5 years. Very nice bonus. It’s an extremely steadying thought and any second now Jensen will be prepared to return to the boardroom like the professional he is.
Any second now.
“Chris,” he hisses, the second Chris answers his cell. “Chris, I’m in the restroom.”
“The hell you doin’ in there?”
“Hiding.”
“Uh-huh,” says Chris. “Airborne viruses?”
“No,” Jensen says. “Maybe. Airborne viruses are always a potential risk, Chris, you know that. But also Dawn Ostroff is here. I think she was going to undress me.”
“Well,” Chris drawls. Jensen can hear, over the phone, the comforting thunk of Chris flicking his hat. “You are mighty pretty, Jenny. Can’t blame a gal for trying.”
“I can,” Jensen says. “I really can.”
“Yeah, okay, good point.” Chris hums thoughtfully. The tune is almost certainly about a lost guitar. “C’mon, Jenny. You can take her on. Lie back and think happy thoughts, huh?”
“I’m not going to lie back,” Jensen points out. “She’ll mount me.”
“Okay, okay, think happy thoughts about lying back? That guy with the tie-fetish?”
The guy with the tie-fetish is not so much a happy memory as a sexually gratifying one, but the principle is sound. And there are other, happier memories. Jensen clears his throat and runs his fingers through his hair. He figures Ms. Ostroff will just like it even more if it gets a bit messy.
“You can’t let yourself into my apartment tomorrow evening,” he says. “Actually, you can, because you have a spare key. It’s not that you will become physically incapable of unlocking the door tomorrow, it’s just that I won’t be there. Because I have a date.”
There’s a long pause.
“Shit, boy,” Chris says, eventually. “I was only joking about the guy with the tie-fetish.”
“I don’t have a date with the guy with the tie-fetish,” says Jensen.
“Huh,” Chris says. Then, “Lazy eye guy?”
“No,” Jensen says. “A new guy. With dimples.”
“Dimples, huh? You’ve hit the freakin’jackpot. Now go whore yourself out to cougars in the name of your career, stud. Oh and also,” he adds, “I’m letting myself into your apartment whether you’re there or not.”
“Please sanitise,” Jensen says, and Chris hangs up.
Mr. Kripke slapped him on the back on the way out and said, “Great job, Ackles. She’s never been so willing to compromise. Take the day off tomorrow, huh? You’ve earned it.”
It had sounded like a fantastic idea at the time, when all Jensen had really wanted to do was spend at least two hours showering the latent perfume chemicals away, but he achieved that particular objective yesterday and now it’s his day off. Jensen knows that if he spends ninety minutes showering today as well, it will just damage his hair.
He spends a few satisfying hours alphabetising his album collection, and then scrapping it all and rearranging them by release date instead. It requires a lot of googling the exact days and months of album releases, and once Jensen’s done he steps back with the warm, tingly feeling of some good organisation well done.
On the other hand, it’s still barely midday and his date with Jared isn’t for another eight hours. No matter how frequently Jensen double-checks the text message in his inbox, he cannot speed up time.
After a few long minutes staring down at his cell, Jensen considers calling Chris. Then he comes to his senses, and calls his sister.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she says, once she’s picked up.
Jensen blinks. Mackenzie became a mystery to him somewhere around her twelfth birthday, but this is even stranger than normal. “Not that your current wellbeing doesn’t make me very happy,” he says, “but, what?”
“I have a cold,” says Mack. “I figured Mom had let it slip and you were calling me up to make sure I hadn’t been licking fungi again, which by the way was one time when I was three and I still haven’t forgiven you for telling Ricky about it.”
“He was no good for you,” Jensen says.
“Well yeah, but so not the point.” Mack sighs. It’s very easy to picture her twirling the phone cord around her finger. “So if this isn’t about the fungi, what is it about?”
“I have a date tonight and I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s easy, Jen. I know you think the gay mafia wants to come take away your club card or something, but you’re not that bad at it. You just put your hand over his and tell him he looks great, maybe compliment his shoes or something gay like that. Then you can blow him in the restroom.”
“Thank you,” Jensen says. “Thank you for that. What I meant was, I’m bored.”
“Oh Jesus, don’t you have something to alphabetise?”
Jensen pauses, considering his options.
“Not anymore,” he admits.
“Sooo predictable,” Mack cackles. Once she’s stopped laughing manically down the phone at him, she heaves out another sigh and says, “Go choose what to wear. That always takes me a few hours.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you. Is it a good thing that green makes my eyes look stupidly massive?”
“Oh Jensen,” she says, gently. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
The brotherly/sisterly moment is somewhat ruined when she hangs up on him too.
“You look great,” is the first thing Jared says, once Jensen opens the door to him at four minutes past eight.
“Thank you,” Jensen says, and then, because Jared is still staring at him, he adds, “I like your shoes.”
He regrets it almost immediately, because he’s been gay for thirty-one years and should not be taking homosexual advice from his little sister, but Jared is still staring at him in a dazed kind of way.
There is a significant chance he is too dazed to have actually heard the shoe mistake.
Jensen chooses to take it as a compliment. It took him four hours to pick out what to wear, so unless Jared is actually having some kind of stroke - which is highly improbable - the most likely explanation is that Jared is simply enjoying looking at him and his clothing choices.
It’s been a while since Jensen really bothered with this dating thing, so he isn’t sure how to make Jared stop staring now and start taking him out to dinner.
“Elvis and Bob Dylan both released self-titled albums in 1973,” he says. “Approximately four months apart.”
Jared blinks.
“Interestingly,” Jensen continues, because apparently he has lost control of his mouth, “Elvis’ 1973 release included a Dylan cover.”
“Huh,” Jared says. “That’s pretty cool.”
“Yes,” says Jensen, and then, “I arranged my CDs in chronological order today.”
Jensen may well be lacking in recent dating experience and knowledge, but he knows enough to be reasonably certain that everything that’s come out of his mouth since he opened the door should have sent Jared running in the opposite direction. And yet Jared isn’t running in any direction. Now that he’s stopped staring at his shirt, he’s started smiling at Jensen instead, in a small, soft kind of way that makes Jensen feel a bit better about his organisational skill confessions.
“So, hey,” Jared says, laying a hand on Jensen’s arm. “We’re on a date. We should probably go and, ya know, be on it. I know this awesome little bistro. I’m kinda a regular there, so we’ll get good service. I mean, not that the service isn’t normally good. The service is great, but,” he trails off, just looking at Jensen.
“Okay,” says Jensen quickly, in case Jared is about to have another staring relapse.
It does the trick.
Jared keeps his hand on Jensen’s arm all the way to his car, which is also nice.
THE END, SORRY.
Annoying thing the first, photos of snow:
ONE DAY I SWEAR I WILL REPROGRAM THE DATE ON MY CAMERA. (One day before that day, I will work out how to program the date on my camera.)
Annoying thing the second, way back in the spring of '09 I started writing a ridiculous J2 AU, got over 6500 words into it and then got blocked. Now I have completely moved on from the CWRPS fandom I know for sure that said fic is NEVER EVER EVER going to be finished. Which means I have this rather lengthy chunk of silliness languishing on my hard drive and bugger that for a lark.
SO HERE IS AN UNFINISHED CHUNK OF THE LAST BIT OF J2 YOU SHALL EVER SEE FROM ME. Untitled, PG-13 I guess, in summary Jensen is an incredibly uptight workaholic secretary who cares not for... people in general, until he passes by his Probably Made-Up Unnamed City's Speaker's Corner and develops a crush on a rather tall chap with floppy hair. Predictability ensues.
What happens is Jensen’s car breaks down.
This is a pretty regular occurrence, because Jensen’s car is older than he is, and unlike George Clooney it has not aged well. If anything, Jensen’s car is the Elvis Presley of the motoring world. Sure, maybe it could deliver an erotic hip-thrust or two, back in the day, but then it got old and flabby and ended up dead in a really embarrassing position. Jensen’s spent the last eight years cruising around town in Elvis Presley’s metaphorical bloated corpse.
This is a theory he mostly keeps to himself, after 07’s Christmas party, during which he’d had one glass of wine too many and the conversation had somehow gotten around to automobiles. Afterwards, Danneel Harris had stared at him in silence for approximately 20 seconds before turning around and striking up a loud conversation with Jeff instead. Later that same evening, Jensen threw up on what turned out to be Mr. Kripke’s grandmother.
He sticks to mineral water at social functions now.
Anyway-
What happens is, Jensen’s car breaks down and then he drops his briefcase in a puddle and misses the bus. Maybe some people would take that as a sign to go back inside and smoke some marijuana, or whatever it is people get up to when they’re being unproductive, but Jensen is not one of those people.
Jensen’s a business-client interface manager, and at last calculation he’s approximately 1.5 years away from getting a promotion. He’s dedicated.
So, he walks.
In theory, he’s always known the park was there. Jensen memorised the layout of his neighbourhood when he first moved into town, in case he ever got asked for directions or needed to outrun some angry muggers. Or calm muggers.
Any kind of muggers, really.
Jensen isn’t exactly the out-doorsy type, and the public transport has been adequate so long as he holds a tissue over his nose and mouth and practices those breathing exercises Sophia taught him, so whilst he’s always known of the technical existence of the park, this is the first time he’s actually set foot in it.
There are trees, et cetera. Bushes, floral arrangements, old couples walking dogs. If Jensen continues directly North, and then takes the North-West exit, he’ll only be a five minute walk away from Kripke & Singer. More importantly, he’ll arrive at the office only two minutes late.
Then Jensen rounds a bend in the path and finds himself in the middle of a rather large, aimlessly milling crowd. It comes as something of a surprise. Traffic had never factored into his equation.
“Excuse me,” Jensen says. “Hi, excuse me, I need to get through here.”
He tip-toes through the gaps between by-standers, briefcase clutched tightly to his chest. Maybe it’s a festival. Maybe it’s some kind of protest rally. There are some people talking, scattered around the edges and often looking a little in need a shower, but everyone else is just listening, or cheering, or heckling. Maybe this is where the unproductive people go when they’re done smoking their marijuana.
Hopefully there are no-airborne viruses.
As Jensen reaches the edge of the inexplicable crowd, a tall guy with floppy, brown hair claps his hands together. He’s stood on what looks like an overturned box, towering over his small audience, and grinning so widely it’s visible even on the edges of Jensen’s peripheral vision.
“All right,” the guy says, loudly. He’s tall enough to be intimidating, Jensen can see it, but his voice is too warm to be anything but welcoming. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before...”
Jensen keeps his head down until the path is empty again.
The bus ride home is slightly delayed thanks to traffic (but not so delayed that it affects the average journey time) and Jensen gets back to his apartment to find that Chris has already let himself in. After the fire department incident- wherein 1, Jensen was a) more conscientious about locking his windows than Chris had anticipated, and b) at work; 2, Chris climbed up to Jensen’s third-floor apartment window without a contingency plan re how to get back down again; and 3, it all ended up in the local newspaper- it just seemed easier to give Chris a spare key.
Jensen isn’t quite sure how he ended up with Chris for a best friend, but he often wonders if it happened whilst Jensen wasn’t actually conscious; or maybe during the ’07 Christmas Party, which he figures amounts to the same thing.
Chris wears cowboy hats indoors. There’s no point fighting against a force like that.
“Jenny,” Chris says, and he waves his bottle of beer in a surprisingly eloquent substitute for ‘hello.’
“My car has broken down,” says Jensen, flopping down onto his second-hand sofa. He grabs himself a beer too, because for all he knows- and can quote in detail- the health hazards related to alcohol, sometimes there are days when the benefits outweigh the risks.
“Well, no fuckin’ shit.” Chris compulsively flicks the rim of his cowboy hat as he talks, as if he’s secretly hoping some Southern Belles will walk by in need of a good, hard greeting. “I’ve been telling you for years now, that car has gotta go. I know you got some weird, Elvis psychic bond going on with it, but I’m tellin’ you, man. There are younger, prettier cars out there for you to pretend are dead rock stars. Hey,” he adds, brightening visibly and flicking his hat so hard he has to grab it with the other hand and tug it down again, “how about Marilyn Monroe this time, huh? Boop-boop-a-doop, am I right?”
“Some Like It Hot had an impressively homoerotic subcurrent for a movie of its era,” Jensen says. “Interesting choice of reference.”
“Hey man, if that’s your weird, socially deficient way of makin’ a gay joke, you’re the one who knew which movie it came from.”
“It’s a classic comedy and has appeared on several ‘greatest movie ever’ lists,” Jensen points out. “And,” he adds, as an afterthought, “I am gay.”
“You’re the worst gay guy ever,” Chris mutters. It’s a fair point. Jensen hooks up every so often, because he’s a warm-blooded human being with perfectly functional appendages thank you very much, and he knows the places to go to meet people who find ties sexually arousing; but he just doesn’t have the time for anything beyond that. He’s a professional.
“So look,” Chris says. He flicks his hat again, grabs another beer off the coffee table Jensen purchased specially for Chris to put his feet on. “I can take a look at your car if you wanna, see if I can put it right, but I dunno how much good I’ll do. You know me, Jenny. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“You’re a musician, not a mechanic.”
“It’s the same thing,” Chris says, opening his beer bottle with the edge of his ring. Jensen really, really wonders how he ended up with a friend like this. “But I’m telling you man, you’re wasting your time with this. Just get a new car. It can be Alien Abduction Elvis, or somethin’.”
“Maybe,” Jensen says. He pauses, rolling the taste of the word around in his mouth. “Maybe.” It feels weirdly like what he imagines betraying a lover must feel like, or maybe like cheating on an exam. It’s not a good feeling. “Maybe I don’t need a new car. Or any car. The public transport here is more than adequate, as long as you-”
“Yeah, yeah, tissue over mouth. Got it.”
If Chris ever catches an airborne virus from a bus, Jensen will have the last laugh. As it is, he shrugs and sips his beer. It does a little to get the betray-y flavour out of his mouth.
“I walked to work today,” he says.
“Hey, well done,” says Chris, reaching over to clap Jensen on the back.
“No, I mean - I walked to work today, though the park. There was a-” He pauses, mentally searching for an accurate description. “A rally of some kind? Large numbers of people in one place, listening to other people speak on a variety of topics.”
Chris snorts and flicks his hat. “Y’know, I’m really not kiddin’ when I say you gotta get out more. That was Speaker’s Corner, man. I know it’s not really a corner,” he adds, before Jensen can even get the words out. “That’s just what it’s called. Thursday and Friday mornings, all day Saturday. People go there to talk, other people go there to listen.”
“Why?”
“Hell, I dunno.” Chris throws his bottle cap at Jensen. It’s ineffective. “For the sheer fuckin’ thrill of it.”
Jensen has never previously considered talking and/or listening as something the general populace might find thrilling. But then again, he’d be the first to admit he doesn’t know a great deal about what the general public does like to do, except that it involves drugs and occasionally YouTube.
Jensen misses his bus again next Friday. It really isn’t deliberate.
Nevertheless, he’s prepared for it this time, when the otherwise innocuous path rounds that bend and emerges from the selection of flora into a makeshift public forum. Nobody pays Jensen the slightest iota of attention as he navigates his way through the crowd, just taking it all in.
Of course, Jensen is a dedicated professional who cares deeply about his current employment, but the people here are a lot more observationally interesting than the people with whom he usually deals. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of standard participant. They range from every end of the social spectrum, and slot into every demographic Jensen can think of, although there does seem to be an unfortunate predisposition to unruly beards on the speakers’ parts.
It makes the tall guy at the end of the row seem all the more noticeable, the one with the friendly voice and the face that isn’t exactly classically handsome but is still more than satisfying, aesthetically. There are a vast range of topics being discussed, or argued over, or fervently rhapsodised on, and Jensen can’t help but wonder which one the tall guy has chosen.
He slows down, just a little.
“So my sister had her baby last weekend,” the tall guy is saying. He looks deliriously, painfully happy about it, but maybe wide, wide smiles are just his default expression. “That was pretty crazy, ya know? He was kinda early. I mean, not crazy early. Not- I dunno, not dangerous early, but early enough that all I could think was what if it had been? Or, y’know, what else could go wrong? There are something like a million things that can go wrong during labour, right? And after it, too. And then if you and the baby make it through all that there’s just a lifetime of worry to look forward to.”
Jensen’s pretty sure this isn’t the way a Speaker’s Corner usually goes. He’s pretty sure, in a way he rarely is when it comes to the outside world, that the rest of the audience are thinking the same thing; but there’s something about the tall guy’s slightly-too-fast voice and waving hands that makes you want to stick around for the punchline.
“I mean, I was practically hyperventilating by then, just wondering how the hell my sister was gonna cope with all this terror. I’m just the goofy uncle, what’s she gotta be feeling, right? A nurse actually made me sit down and fetched me a glass of water, which I don’t think my family are ever gonna let me live down, by the way. And then…”
The tall guy pauses, animated hands drifting down to his sides. He’s just scanning the crowd, Jensen knows - searching out that audience connection like all good public speakers do, even the informally rambling ones - but it’s startling when their eyes meet, all the same.
The tall guy grins at him and holds onto his gaze as he picks up the thread of his monologue again. “Then my big brother smacks me upside the head and drags me into her room, and Meggie, that’s my sister, she’s holding onto this tiny little human being and - I dunno if any of you have ever seen a mama bear when it’s protecting its cubs, but that’s what she looked like. Not even a little bit scared. Completely ready to kick some baby-snatching ass.”
At that, he looks away again, moving on to pin someone else down with his gaze. Public speaking techniques, that’s all. Jensen shakes himself out of whatever mass hypnosis just took place, turns his back on the Speaker’s Corner and realises, with a sudden jolt of clarity, that’s he’s five minutes late to work.
Maybe Chris is right that Jensen needs to get out more. Public forums are fascinating from a sociological point of view, and Jensen didn’t even know one existed just ten minutes from his front door. It’s a valid argument for more outdoor interaction.
Of course, Chris says a lot of things, and he writes songs about losing his girls and trucks and dogs when Jensen knows for a fact Chris has never had a truck or dog to lose, and women aren’t property anyway, so he isn’t the most reliable source of advice.
On the other hand, even unreliable sources can be accurate sometimes. Chris is kind of like Jensen’s walking, talking, try-as-he-might uneditable Wikipedia.
“Hey. Hey, Chris,” Jensen begins, slurring a little because it’s a Friday night and Chris has been training Jensen in ‘real Friday nights’ since he met him. As far as Jensen can tell, real Friday nights involve beer, an abundance of country songs about material loss, and not a whole lot else, but Chris insists this is because Jensen is still just a beginner.
Arguing with Chris is inherently futile.
“You’re my Wikipedia,” Jensen tells him.
“What,” says Chris.
”You,” Jensen says. “Wikipedia.”
“The hell’s that make you?” Chris flicks his hat a little too hard and knocks it off his head. Somehow, he doesn’t notice. “Those people who have theological debates with each other over youtube?”
“No.” Jensen pauses. “Maybe. What I mean is, what I mean is. Sometimes you’re right.”
“Yeah? You gettin’ a new car?” Chris looks positively delighted at this prospect.
Jensen chuckles, shaking his head. Then he has to stop and lean back against the couch, eyes closed, until the room stops rocking. Oh Chris, he thinks.
“Oh Chris,” he says. “Chris, Chris, Chris. What I’m getting is out more.”
“I’m cutting you off,” says Chris.
“Thank you,” says Jensen.
The next morning, Jensen wakes up with a hangover and with Chris passed out on his couch. Once he’s showered and shaved and knotted his tie, Jensen puts out a glass of water and some Advil on Chris’ special foot-table.
After a moment’s consideration, he puts Chris’ hat in the microwave.
Another moment, another consideration, and Jensen takes off his tie. He carefully hangs it back up in the correct space on his tie rack, though. There’s no reason to go completely wild.
“So lately I’ve been thinking about Plato,” the tall guy says.
It’s a bright, sunny, nearing-warm kind of day, and for all Jensen is aware that Saturdays tend to equal more pedestrian traffic, it’s still busier here than he expected. He guesses the extra numbers come from people who were working on Thursdays and Fridays, although he’d never really considered that professionals might be interested in this kind of thing.
Other than himself, anyway.
Jensen doesn’t count. He’s just here to observe.
“No, okay, I know what you’re thinking,” the tall guy says, waving a placating hand as his audience groans playfully. “You’re thinking that you’re not here to talk about freakin’ Plato, right? You wanna hear how Meggie’s baby boy is doing, or find out if m’buddy Chad ever got back at the guy with the bongos, right? So Imma make you a deal. Y’all give me a word for a limerick and if I can’t do it, I’ll tell you about bongo guy’s comeuppance. If I can, we’ll talk about Plato a little. Then,” he adds, with a grin, “y’all can try and guess my nephew’s name. Okay? Okay.”
The crowd cheers, and he beams at that, rubbing his hands together like he’s an overenthusiastic high school coach. “So, who’s gonna pick me a word?”
People start calling out suggestions, thick and fast. The tall guy even laughs at a couple, but he doesn’t seem to have chosen one yet. Jensen is just hovering on the edges, observing, too far away to really catch what everyone says.
“Hey, how about you? America’s next top model?”
It takes a few long, oblivious seconds before Jensen realises the tall guy is talking to, staring right at, him.
“Onomatopoeia,” Jensen says, blankly.
It’s just an automatic response, with very little in the way of brain-to-mouth connection - someone has asked him for a word, so Jensen has given them one - but the audience laughs and cheers, and a few even applaud, like he’s done something funny.
There’s nothing funny about imitative harmony.
But on the other hand, the tall guy laughs, too. “Man,” he says. “You’re just tryin’ to show me up, aintcha?”
“Maybe,” Jensen says. He isn’t sure. He didn’t mean to, and now he’s beginning to wonder if he should apologise. However, before he can even decide on the appropriate etiquette, the tall guy starts talking. Or rather, he starts rhyming.
“This thing we call onomatopoeia!” he exclaims. “This thing we call onomatopoeia is, when you start thinking, quite queer. Noises as words! And who’s ever heard a magician go poof - disappear?”
Everyone starts cheering and applauding as the tall guy, grinning like he’s just ran a marathon, punches his fists in the air. Jensen briefly considers telling him the first line didn’t really scan properly, but then decides against it. He isn’t wearing a tie today. He can skip some preciseness.
Chris will probably have woken up once Jensen gets back home, anyway. There will be an abundance of mistakes to correct after that.
The tall guy’s thoughts on Plato quickly devolved into a [rumination] on whether the Matrix sequels lived up to the first movie, which lead into a full-scale debate on Keanu Reeves’ acting ability. Jensen is mostly neutral when it comes to Keanu Reeves, and also the entirety of Hollywood, but even he can’t deny that the tall guy’s impassioned speech in Keanu’s favour was quite moving.
He can’t deny that he’s kind of beginning to enjoy himself, when the tall guy claps his hands together and steps down off of his overturned box.
“That’s all from me for today, guys,” he says. “Same time next week, yeah?”
It seems like a rather abrupt ending. Jensen has to check his watch, and then check his spare watch, to be sure that time has actually passed. The tall guy has talked for over [two] hours, he realises, and the crowd around them has thinned out whilst Jensen wasn’t looking.
He’s going to have to come back next week. Just to observe a wider selection of speakers.
“Hey,” says a warm voice from behind him, shaking Jensen out of his time-check reverie. He turns around automatically and - Jensen is comfortably taller than average, and he knows it, but he still has to crane his neck to frown up at the tall guy.
The box the guy stands on when he’s talking adds a considerable number of inches to his height, yet somehow he seems even taller when he’s on the ground and up close. Obviously there is a mathematical explanation, or even just a matter of proximity and perspective, but Jensen can’t quite think of it right now.
The silence is stretching into awkward territory, but he can’t quite think anything right now.
“I have no opinion on Keanu Reeves,” he says, instead.
“Aw man, I didn’t convert you?” But the tall guy is grinning again, so he can’t be too disappointed. “I’ll have to try harder next time.”
“Hollywood is full of scandal and bad drivers,” Jensen says. “I try to keep out of it.”
“You’re a wise man,” the tall guy says, nodding seriously. And then he sticks his hand out and says, “And I’m Jared. Seen you around a couple times now, and I figured I should say hello and introduce myself and, ya know, hear your thoughts on Keanu Reeves. So, hi.”
“Hi,” Jensen says.
After a moment, he remembers to take the tall guy’s - Jared’s - hand. He’s aiming for something a bit business-casual-y, but then Jared brings his other hand into the mix, clasping Jensen’s own between the two and squeezing like they’re long lost brothers who have opted for hand-shaking over the more traditional hugging route.
Jared’s palms are slightly sweaty, but somehow not quite unpleasantly so.
“I’m Jensen,” Jensen eventually remembers to say, after at least a minute of looking up at Jared whilst Jared grins back down at him. “I’m a business-client interface manager.”
“Oh, like a receptionist?” Jared lets go of Jensen’s hand at last, but only to put one on Jensen’s shoulder instead. Jensen isn’t typically a touchy-feely person, and he definitely isn’t a receptionist, but before he can correct the mistake Jared is squeezing Jensen’s shoulder affectionately and talking again. “Meggie used to be a receptionist, and man she hated it. Never got paid as hard as she worked, and whenever anything went wrong for a client she was the one they took it out on, right? ‘Course, she didn’t look as neat as you - ‘cause no offence Jensen but I don’t think anyone looks as neat as you - which probably didn’t help.”
Jared stops talking, presumably to take a breath, and starts smiling again.
Jensen weighs his options.
“Yes,” he says. “Like a receptionist.”
Chris was still passed out on the couch when Jensen got home, and now he has presumably decided he’s not going to move from it for the rest of the day.
“Man,” he grumbles, from his mostly horizontal position. “You are smiling way too fuckin’ much for how much you drank last night.”
“I’m not smiling,” Jensen says, automatically.
“Right, my mistake, it’s just some other thing where your lips go up and it makes your face happy.” Chris snorts and throws one of yesterday’s many beer caps. He’s presumably aiming through the kitchen door and, by association, Jensen, but it doesn’t really work.
“And,” Chris adds, unperturbed, “bring me a beer.”
Alcohol does not cure hangovers, so Jensen brings Chris a glass of milk instead.
“Milk contains protein,” he says, holding the glass out. Chris stares suspiciously up at it, and then stares suspiciously up at Jensen.
“Seriously, man, you’re creeping me out,” he says. “Stop smiling.”
“Milk also contains calcium and vitamin C,” Jensen says. “And I’m not smiling.”
Thursday morning, Jensen is up before his alarm clock goes off.
The past week has been long, and tiring, and busy with preparation for a meeting with one of the company’s richest and most obnoxious clients. The meeting is today, and it’s up to Jensen to make sure it all runs as smoothly and with as little strangulation as humanly possible.
With most difficult clients, that would involve a lot of careful negotiation and placation, but Ms Ostroff has been trying to engage in sexual activity with Jensen ever since he started working for the firm. All he has to do is, as Mr. Kripke forlornly put it, look nice and smile a lot.
Jensen focuses on the nice bonus his bosses will give him by way of apology - and how good that 1.5 years away promotion will look on his résumé - as he eats a bowlful of muesli and picks out his favourite tie. It was a gift from his sister, in the same shade of dark green that she always gets him, insisting it brings out the colour of his, and he quotes, ‘stupidly massive eyes.’
He’s never been quite sure whether it’s a compliment or not.
Typically, Jensen would drive to work on big day like this, as buses are swimming in mysterious, suit-staining substances, but his car still isn’t running and he suspects that trying to make it run today would result in an equal degree of staining.
Taxi cabs are, of course, always an option, but on the other hand, it’s a beautiful day and Jensen’s running ahead of schedule.
So, he walks.
The day is somehow even more beautiful inside the park. Jensen thinks there may have been slight cloud coverage over his apartment, which would explain how it almost seems to be a little sunnier as he walks down the now familiar path. He even nods at a couple of the elderly dog-walkers, although from a safe distance lest one of the dogs chew on his neatly pressed suit pants.
This is the earliest Jensen’s ever been through the Speaker’s Corner, but it’s already underway, with a rather large crowd for a Thursday morning, and Jared is easy to spot. Jensen can’t imagine a situation in which Jared wouldn’t be easy to spot, except perhaps in a basketball line-up. And even then, you could just look out for the one with the floral print and the big smile.
Jensen’s got, at last estimation, four minutes to spare. It’s plenty of time for a little scientific observation.
Jared catches his eye as Jensen approaches and he beams, awkwardly waving a hand. Jensen thinks he’s aiming for subtle, but all he really manages to do is a) look like he’s battling a fly, and b) make at least 50% of the (slightly smaller than average, but still sizeable) audience turn around to stare at Jensen.
“Hi,” Jensen says. A few people greet him in return, and shuffle over to make room for him.
“You know,” Jared says, “I’m the only one in my family who isn’t in a relationship. I mean, a serious, capital R relationship - I don’t think my fifteen-year-old cousin’s boyfriend really counts, although I guess it’s a bit sad that she gets someone to hold hands with and I don’t, even if her guy is kinda pimply. But yeah, my big brother, Jeff, he’s been married for a while now, which is awesome, and now with Megan’s baby and all. She’s only twenty-two and we all figured she was gonna be the free spirit of the family, but then she met this guy and that was that. My mom’s kinda started nagging me about it. When am I gonna find a nice girl and settle down, right?”
He pauses, and Jensen has to take a sympathetic breath. Human beings need oxygen. It’s just a fact.
“Man,” Jared begins and then he trails off again, running a hand through his hair. He jumps down off of his usual up-turned box and paces back and forth in front of it, still a head and more taller than most of his audience.
Jensen is far from an expert in the etiquette here, but it seems like an unusual turn of events. He eases forwards through the on-lookers, until he’s close enough to front that he can see Jared’s frown as he stares up at the clouds.
“I dunno where I’m going with this,” Jared says, after a pause. He keeps moving, pacing back and forth, although he’s frowning at his audience now. Once or twice, he catches Jensen’s eye. “I figure y’all are kinda used to that, right? I guess I’m picky, that’s my problem. It’s kinda lame, but secretly I believe in true love, I really do. I believe in the one. Jeff and Meggie, they got their ones, I hope, but they weren’t waiting for them or looking for them or wondering what if their girlfriends weren’t right for them or anything like that. They just went for it, and if they ended up with the ones they’re made for it’s ‘cause they let themselves be, you know? Or, or something like that.”
Another pause.
“There was this dude,” he says. “M. Scott Peck, pretty cool guy, and he once said that we don’t have to love, we choose to love. I think that’s what my bro and sis did. They found the people who could be the, y’know, the ones and they chose to make them so. That’s pretty cool. I don’t know if I could ever do that. It’s easier to believe in destiny, ya know? If things go wrong, you can just shrug and say it wasn’t meant to be. I always figured it was safer that way, but now I’m starting to wonder if maybe the whole damn point of love is - is that it isn’t safe. You gotta take the risk. Make the leap.”
Jared takes a deep breath, staring down at his hands. Then he steps back up on to his box, with a sheepish grin back on his face. It’s a little bit relieving to see it there again.
“So I guess,” he says, “I guess where I’m going with this is,” and then he turns to look at Jensen and he says, “do you wanna go out with me sometime? Like, on a date? Maybe tonight?”
That was unexpected.
The audience starts cheering, which is considerably more expected, as Jensen is beginning to understand the performance aspect of this whole thing and moreover the participatory affect it has on its watchers, and also.
Also.
“Uh,” says Jensen. “I have to work.”
The audience starts booing instead.
“Tomorrow?” says Jared.
Jensen has no idea what to say to that, but he’s reasonably certain that if he doesn’t say something the on-lookers will start rioting. Significantly more pressing a concern is Jared’s wide-eyed, earnest expression. It’s emotionally manipulative, which just isn’t fair.
“I’ll pay,” Jared adds, widening his eyes a fraction of an inch further.
Jensen has spent enough time in Chris’ company to know when he’s fighting a losing battle.
“Okay,” he says.
And the audience cheers, which is at this point highly predictable.
Jensen is not late for work, as he is a multi-tasker and therefore more than capable of adding Jared’s number to his cell whilst he simultaneously jogs to the office. Unfortunately, he is also a human, so he is not capable of keeping his suit from becoming rumpled or his hair sweat-dampened.
Both of which leads to the discovery that Ms. Ostroff apparently likes him that way. Jensen hasn’t decided whether that’s fortunate or unfortunate, although he is definitely leaning towards the latter.
“Oh Mr Ackles,” she breathes, as soon as Mr Kripke has left the room for the second time in fifty-four minutes- maybe to take an important phone call, maybe to hide in his office and giggle.
She leans in close to him, swinging one stocking-clad leg so it brushes alluringly against his ankle. “We mustn’t.”
“I agree,” says Jensen.
She just chuckles and lays a well-manicured hand on his arm, shifting forwards even further on her chair. She’s so close he can smell her perfume. Jensen is a professional whose sole responsibility today is to not run away from Ms. Ostroff, but on the other hand perfumes commonly contain several toxic chemicals. It’s a valid health risk.
Also, Ms. Ostroff has a grip on his tie.
“I’m very sorry,” Jensen says. “Important call. Five minutes.”
He flees before she can catch hold of him again, and then he hides in the fifth floor restroom, which is painted a very calming shade of blue. He’s 1.5 years away from a promotion and he will get a very nice bonus for today’s efforts. 1.5 years. Very nice bonus. It’s an extremely steadying thought and any second now Jensen will be prepared to return to the boardroom like the professional he is.
Any second now.
“Chris,” he hisses, the second Chris answers his cell. “Chris, I’m in the restroom.”
“The hell you doin’ in there?”
“Hiding.”
“Uh-huh,” says Chris. “Airborne viruses?”
“No,” Jensen says. “Maybe. Airborne viruses are always a potential risk, Chris, you know that. But also Dawn Ostroff is here. I think she was going to undress me.”
“Well,” Chris drawls. Jensen can hear, over the phone, the comforting thunk of Chris flicking his hat. “You are mighty pretty, Jenny. Can’t blame a gal for trying.”
“I can,” Jensen says. “I really can.”
“Yeah, okay, good point.” Chris hums thoughtfully. The tune is almost certainly about a lost guitar. “C’mon, Jenny. You can take her on. Lie back and think happy thoughts, huh?”
“I’m not going to lie back,” Jensen points out. “She’ll mount me.”
“Okay, okay, think happy thoughts about lying back? That guy with the tie-fetish?”
The guy with the tie-fetish is not so much a happy memory as a sexually gratifying one, but the principle is sound. And there are other, happier memories. Jensen clears his throat and runs his fingers through his hair. He figures Ms. Ostroff will just like it even more if it gets a bit messy.
“You can’t let yourself into my apartment tomorrow evening,” he says. “Actually, you can, because you have a spare key. It’s not that you will become physically incapable of unlocking the door tomorrow, it’s just that I won’t be there. Because I have a date.”
There’s a long pause.
“Shit, boy,” Chris says, eventually. “I was only joking about the guy with the tie-fetish.”
“I don’t have a date with the guy with the tie-fetish,” says Jensen.
“Huh,” Chris says. Then, “Lazy eye guy?”
“No,” Jensen says. “A new guy. With dimples.”
“Dimples, huh? You’ve hit the freakin’jackpot. Now go whore yourself out to cougars in the name of your career, stud. Oh and also,” he adds, “I’m letting myself into your apartment whether you’re there or not.”
“Please sanitise,” Jensen says, and Chris hangs up.
Mr. Kripke slapped him on the back on the way out and said, “Great job, Ackles. She’s never been so willing to compromise. Take the day off tomorrow, huh? You’ve earned it.”
It had sounded like a fantastic idea at the time, when all Jensen had really wanted to do was spend at least two hours showering the latent perfume chemicals away, but he achieved that particular objective yesterday and now it’s his day off. Jensen knows that if he spends ninety minutes showering today as well, it will just damage his hair.
He spends a few satisfying hours alphabetising his album collection, and then scrapping it all and rearranging them by release date instead. It requires a lot of googling the exact days and months of album releases, and once Jensen’s done he steps back with the warm, tingly feeling of some good organisation well done.
On the other hand, it’s still barely midday and his date with Jared isn’t for another eight hours. No matter how frequently Jensen double-checks the text message in his inbox, he cannot speed up time.
After a few long minutes staring down at his cell, Jensen considers calling Chris. Then he comes to his senses, and calls his sister.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she says, once she’s picked up.
Jensen blinks. Mackenzie became a mystery to him somewhere around her twelfth birthday, but this is even stranger than normal. “Not that your current wellbeing doesn’t make me very happy,” he says, “but, what?”
“I have a cold,” says Mack. “I figured Mom had let it slip and you were calling me up to make sure I hadn’t been licking fungi again, which by the way was one time when I was three and I still haven’t forgiven you for telling Ricky about it.”
“He was no good for you,” Jensen says.
“Well yeah, but so not the point.” Mack sighs. It’s very easy to picture her twirling the phone cord around her finger. “So if this isn’t about the fungi, what is it about?”
“I have a date tonight and I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s easy, Jen. I know you think the gay mafia wants to come take away your club card or something, but you’re not that bad at it. You just put your hand over his and tell him he looks great, maybe compliment his shoes or something gay like that. Then you can blow him in the restroom.”
“Thank you,” Jensen says. “Thank you for that. What I meant was, I’m bored.”
“Oh Jesus, don’t you have something to alphabetise?”
Jensen pauses, considering his options.
“Not anymore,” he admits.
“Sooo predictable,” Mack cackles. Once she’s stopped laughing manically down the phone at him, she heaves out another sigh and says, “Go choose what to wear. That always takes me a few hours.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you. Is it a good thing that green makes my eyes look stupidly massive?”
“Oh Jensen,” she says, gently. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
The brotherly/sisterly moment is somewhat ruined when she hangs up on him too.
“You look great,” is the first thing Jared says, once Jensen opens the door to him at four minutes past eight.
“Thank you,” Jensen says, and then, because Jared is still staring at him, he adds, “I like your shoes.”
He regrets it almost immediately, because he’s been gay for thirty-one years and should not be taking homosexual advice from his little sister, but Jared is still staring at him in a dazed kind of way.
There is a significant chance he is too dazed to have actually heard the shoe mistake.
Jensen chooses to take it as a compliment. It took him four hours to pick out what to wear, so unless Jared is actually having some kind of stroke - which is highly improbable - the most likely explanation is that Jared is simply enjoying looking at him and his clothing choices.
It’s been a while since Jensen really bothered with this dating thing, so he isn’t sure how to make Jared stop staring now and start taking him out to dinner.
“Elvis and Bob Dylan both released self-titled albums in 1973,” he says. “Approximately four months apart.”
Jared blinks.
“Interestingly,” Jensen continues, because apparently he has lost control of his mouth, “Elvis’ 1973 release included a Dylan cover.”
“Huh,” Jared says. “That’s pretty cool.”
“Yes,” says Jensen, and then, “I arranged my CDs in chronological order today.”
Jensen may well be lacking in recent dating experience and knowledge, but he knows enough to be reasonably certain that everything that’s come out of his mouth since he opened the door should have sent Jared running in the opposite direction. And yet Jared isn’t running in any direction. Now that he’s stopped staring at his shirt, he’s started smiling at Jensen instead, in a small, soft kind of way that makes Jensen feel a bit better about his organisational skill confessions.
“So, hey,” Jared says, laying a hand on Jensen’s arm. “We’re on a date. We should probably go and, ya know, be on it. I know this awesome little bistro. I’m kinda a regular there, so we’ll get good service. I mean, not that the service isn’t normally good. The service is great, but,” he trails off, just looking at Jensen.
“Okay,” says Jensen quickly, in case Jared is about to have another staring relapse.
It does the trick.
Jared keeps his hand on Jensen’s arm all the way to his car, which is also nice.
THE END, SORRY.