Take 512: Act Two
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Act Two
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!"
William Shakespeare Hamlet
The days build up to the blur Jared remembers after that.
Justin and Mike set up a makeshift metalwork base outside the smaller stage. Jared comes to school in the morning to the sight of either of them soldering or carving. Justin nods at Jared, and Mike invariably drags him over to crow about the gobos he's making. As far as Jared can tell, the entire set is based around his initial sketch of the crow and luminous background. He wonders what Jensen thinks about that, whether he's the one who suggested it in the first place.
Steve's still as twitchy as he always is between shows; he fiddles with his guitar sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the stage as Mike yells obscenities from stage left, where he's fixing the perpetually broken PAR can. Steve's another of the stagehands waiting on Misha's adaptation
"On a scale from one to ten, how much would you miss Collins if he was mysteriously strangled to death by a guitar string in his sleep?" He says, falling into step with Jared as he heads for the storage.
Jared snorts. "Point naught one."
"See, that's what I thought." he says conversationally. "Or maybe I should set fire to his and Jensen's apartment. That too poetic?"
"I'm sure the coroner won't mind." Jared observes, grinning when Steve laughs. Then, because he has no self-control to speak of, he asks, "Jensen's living with Misha?"
"Oh yeah." he grimaces. "They've got it all figured out. I think Jen's trying to make an honest man of Misha with predictable results." he watches as Jared unlocks the storage room -it's more of a closet, really- and wrinkles his nose against the mothballs. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"What do you mean?" Jared barely gets the last word out before he sneezes three times in violent succession. His eyes water.
Steve grins. "Bless ya, kid." He moves Jared aside and pulls out a rack of dusty costumes. "This what you're looking for?"
What Jared's looking for are the costumes from 2008, when they had Mardi Gras themed A Midsummer Night's Dream. He has a color scheme in mind for Tom's outfit and he remembers the netting from Genevieve's costume as Mustard Seed matching perfectly.
He skims over the clothes, some in protective plastic wrapping, most not. There are some materials he'd forgotten entirely, some shades with potential. He grins happily at Steve and gives him the thumbs up. No way is he going near that closet again anyway. "Thanks, man."
Steve smiles back, looking pleased with himself. He really is a good guy, Jared thinks suddenly. Maybe the only one in their crew of mad geniuses and addicts. Nervous energy when he doesn't have his guitar notwithstanding, he’s definitely the least fucked-up of them all.
"What were you saying?" Jared asks, feeling indulgent.
Steve looks blank for a second. Then he brightens. "Oh, right. I was exulting over how Jensen's all grown up now. All geared up for his degree, job lined up, clean as
a whistle. Knew he had it in him."
Jared's chest suddenly goes painfully, unbearably tight, phantom iron bands squeezing his ribs. His grip on the rack of clothes gradually grows until his knuckles are white. "Jensen's clean?"
Steve nods emphatically. "And then some. Guess he really had some kind of wake-up call. Remember how he used to be?"
Jared closes his eyes. Tastes blood and copper, sees the inhuman green of Jensen's eyes. Jensen spinning in circles with his arms spread wide, laughing. Jensen saying in a broken whisper against Jared's neck, this is so fucked up. I, I don't even know who I am anymore.
Jared inhales, feels the delicate strain of hope shatter with a musical tinkle. For as long as he can remember, Jensen has needed him with a desperation unique to addicts, so Jared has felt being so in love with him isn't wrong because Jensen needs him too. Now Jensen's back to normal, human again. The thought makes Jared's heart claw at its constraints, makes his knees weak.
"Yeah." He tells Steve. "I remember."
Steve darts a quick glance at him. Jared can feel his concern prick the side of his face, and makes his lips curve. “It’s great, man. Really is.”
Jared turns towards the theatre, and Steve stops in his tracks. “Don’t you have class?”
Jared shakes his head, his hand steady on the rack of clothes he’s wheeling in front of him. He pauses, one foot already in the green room. “Nah. Free track.”
Steve doesn’t look like he believes him. To his credit, neither does Jared.
Jared’s fiddling around with some ideas for foundation for Hamlet, some eye shadow that won’t clash too sharply with the hazel of Tom’s eyes. Tom is the one who, in all honesty, everyone knows is going to end up with the lead, bogus auditions and Manners’ lectures on how everyone has a fair chance aside. He’s just stumbled on to a shade between peacock blue and pure green when he reaches for his bowl of candy and comes up empty.
Confused, he looks down from the tray he’s mixing makeup on to the coffee table. Someone’s moved the bowl away, just out of reach.
He looks up, annoyed, to find Jensen smiling tentatively at him from a way off. His heart -goddamn his heart- clenches at the sight and he suppresses a groan.
“Didn’t your momma teach you about excess?” he asks, looking at Jared through his eyelashes.
Jared looks away from Jensen’s eyes and Jensen’s freckles and Jensen’s mouth. Truth be told, Jen’s got a point: he can feel the onset of the candy-induced stomach ache. He’s never been much good at moderation, just eats them by the handful as he works and counts on Jen to hold him back.
He forcibly reminds himself of last year, when no one bothered refilling the candy. Jared blames that, among everything else, for the detonation of that particular clusterfuck.
“Didn’t yours teach you about stabbing friends in the back?” He asks, his words edged with shards of glass and crystals.
Jensen makes a small noise of surprise, almost of pain, his face open and eyes wide and green green green. He blinks once, stammers, “Guess then I’ll, uh,” and flees.
Jared smiles in joyless triumph.
Sandy’s waiting by the time he gets out of the green room, just after school lets out. She’s got her books held against her chest and a small smile. Jared offers her a smile in return, screwing up his eyes against the sunlight.
“Allergies kicking up again?” She asks sympathetically, gesturing at the Kleenex he’s holding loosely in his hand. He grins.
“Like clockwork.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s what the plastic coverings are for, you know.”
“I know.”
He hefts his bag up his shoulder and looks at her warily. She doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, which has always been the best part about her.
They walk together. She hums a little, and Jared feels the sick knot in his stomach loosen a little. Sandy’s never before judged him, even when he was a beaten up wreck barely managing to stand straight, hands shaking and fingers bleeding, the memory of Jensen like weights attached to his legs dragging him down down down.
Sandy faced off his cruelest side and won. There aren’t many people Jared knows who can claim anything close to that.
She doesn’t bring it up, seems perfectly content to ask about how the play’s coming on, content with the brief replies Jared gives her. A part of him thinks she wouldn’t understand the insane exhilaration of prepping for a major show, the way he can only think in colors and materials, texture and the play of light anyway. Sandy represents a different world; one of proud parents and friends, of college and a job and a picket fence, the future written out for him in black and white. For a long time, it’s helped keep him sane.
He hates thinking that all it takes for him to tumble back is a flyer and a tech meeting, but there it is. He’s no good at lying to himself; knows that no matter how much he loves Sandy, all she is to him is a temporary refuge, somewhere he can slow down and just breathe.
When they near her house, she slows down slightly to smile up at him. “Jensen’s back, huh?”
Jared’s spine stiffens, but her expression is as mild as ever. “Uh-huh.”
“Good. Chad was awful."
It’s the most she’s ever said on the subject of last year, the disaster of Macbeth. Sandy’s one of the few people who saw it coming, but she’s never rubbed it in his face, never said I told you so.
Jared nods.
Her smile grows wistful. “Try and get back in one piece, okay? And behave. It’s not Jensen’s fault he wanted a life.”
He says nothing as she leans up to kiss his cheek. She leaves him standing on the pavement, going up the front steps.
Jared watches as she goes inside, looking back just once to wave at him. Then he keeps walking, all the way back home.
Tom’s pacing, mumbling lines from Twelfth Night from a couple of years back and tripping over Justin’s power tools. Jared lets his voice wash over his mind, dimly recognizing bits and pieces. It had been a good speech, Tom standing stage right with his arms out flung, light pouring onto him just right.
He arches an eyebrow as Tom reaches a corner of the room and turns around dramatically, an expression of comical panic on his face as he tries and fails to remember his monologue. “Nervous?”
He grins sheepishly, flicking through the crumpled papers in his hand. “Kinda.”
“Ridiculous,” Mike drawls, and Jared is fascinated by how Tom freezes, his entire body going rigid. They’d been going smooth for such a long time, Jared figures that the tremors are about to begin.
“Shut up,” Tom mutters, gaze firmly on his script.
Mike laughs and Tom flinches like he’d been slapped. “What? Afraid Manners will finally go for talent and not a pretty face?”
“Quit it, Mike,” Steve barks from his corner, and Mike turns on him with bitter glee. Jared notes the sharp vindictive blue of Mike’s eyes, fever-bright, and feels obscurely sorry for Tom. Mike’s showing signs of a recent attempt to get clean; he’s usually mellower when he’s tweaked.
“You fucking cocksucker,” Mike hisses, and Jared’s almost all the way prepared for an epic fight when Tom crosses the room and fists a hand in Mike’s shirt.
Jared hears the clack of teeth as Tom forces Mike’s mouth on his, sees Mike’s fingers hold on to Tom’s bicep and squeeze, knows that there’ll be marks.
Times like these, when Mike’s out for blood, there’s just this one way to stop him. Jared respects Tom for sticking with Mike that last mile.
Jared looks away politely, though he knows that at this point, neither of them really gives a fuck who sees. This is how their dynamic works: Mike will be responsible and caring, almost sweet for months at a stretch, before succumbing to some phantom rage that gives a vicious sharp edge to every word he says. His knees start jittering and he gets a faraway look in his eyes, reflecting the neon lights above some unknown desert island, and he takes all that out on Tom. After that, it’s Tom’s job to make sure he stays afloat.
Steve gets up abruptly from his sofa, and Jared’s slightly surprised. That’s only until he sees Justin frozen in the doorway, eyes wide and locked on Tom and Mike.
Steve ushers him away with a hand on his arm and Justin lets himself be led away, look of utter bewilderment written clearly across his face.
Jared sinks back into his couch bonelessly, stares at the ceiling. In his mind, Chad says flatly, clusterfuck, Padalecki.
“The kid’s not taking it well,” Steve mutters to Jared as he seats himself at the back row of the house.
Jared hmm’s, his eyes not leaving the stage. Genevieve’s in the middle, hands clasped over her chest. Jared personally thinks she’s overdoing the innocent act, but that shit goes over with Manners real well.
In the desk at the centre, Misha leans forward to speak into his mic. “Thanks, hun. Now hit us with Lady Macbeth.”
Genevieve nods seriously, and her entire posture changes. Her shoulders straighten out and her chin tilts up, a glacial look in her eyes as she seems taller than she really is.
Jared thinks, bingo.
“Gertrude,” he mumbles under his breath. He grins happily. He’s going to have a ball dressing Gen, all aged royalty and upper crust.
Steve elbows him, and Jared turns, surprised. Steve has a pinched expression, his eyes wide and annoyed.
“Justin.” Steve says urgently. “He’s totally freaking out over Tom and Mike.”
Jared lets out a resigned huff of laughter, letting his head fall back. “Good thing Jensen and I aren’t around to turn up the gay even more, then.”
Steve’s eyes go wider till he looks almost extraterrestrial, and Jared grins up at him, tasting brass at the tip of his tongue.
“Jared, what-“
Jared brushes him off. “Where’s Justin now?”
Steve’s still kind of boggling at him, but he casts about eventually and replies. “Uh. He went home to, um, take a breather.”
“That’s good.” Jared says mock-positively. “Maybe he’ll come back with his assorted homophobic friends.”
Steve makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat. “Despite your firm conviction, Justin’s an okay guy.” He runs a hand through his hair and Jared sees his fingers twitch. He inhales slowly and painstakingly. “He isn’t responsible for what happened last year, Jared. None of us are. Just because you associate him with how it used to be back then doesn’t mean you get to take it out on the guy.” He gestures, looking helpless. “I mean, I thought you weren’t like that, like Mike. You used to be able to see past all the bullshit, man.”
Jared closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he breathes, straightens. “Well, Justin should have realized by now that this is how we tick. We really can’t expect Mike and Tom to change just for the sake of his peace of mind.”
Steve snorts. “God forbid.”
“Let Jensen talk to him,” Jared says speculatively, trying to be aloof, to be the judge of character he used to be. “Smooth things over. Maybe take Katie with him.”
Steve grins, and he looks more like Jared remembers. “There’s the pseudo-deep Padalecki-Chan we all love.”
Onstage, a new kid with golden hair and big blue eyes recites a passage from Romeo and Juliet. Mike’s front light washing over her and picking out the hopefulness in her expression.
His eyes search out Jensen at his desk, who’s been making notes and drinking copious amounts of coffee all this time. Jensen’s gone completely still, and Jared knows he remembers how he once bet Jared to find someone who can actually pull off Juliet.
Misha's leaning against the back wall of the theatre, one foot propped up and cigarette dangling between his fingers in a classic gangster look. Jared raises his eyebrows.
Misha waves him over when he spots him. "Sasquatch," he says casually.
"Plagiarist," Jared says, just as casual, falling back, despite himself, on an inside joke. Fucking Manners and his nostalgia.
Misha smirks and waves a hand in acknowledgement. "And you know it." He takes a drag of his cigarette. "How bad is it in there?"
Jared considers. "Manners just pitched a fit about Mike fucking with the PARs during auditions. Specifically, Tom's audition."
Misha snorts indelicately. Trails of smoke from his cigarette hang in the air, fragile wisps that disintegrate like snowflakes. He looks faintly cold, despite the scruffy trademark trench coat. "Fucking Tom and Mike and their high school drama. I swear, they're like tweens in gay paradise one second and a rabid old married couple the next." He takes a contemplative drag. "As long as it doesn't fuck with the show, I guess it's just this side of tolerable."
Jared can't help it. His mouth quirks lopsidedly. "I'll pass on the message. I'm sure they'll be real grateful."
"Damn straight." Misha grins back, just as crooked. "Mikey especially. I'd pay like a million dollars to see his face if you actually said that."
"Your life's not worth a million dollars," Jared shoots back, unthinking.
Misha's eyebrows shoot right up, and he begins chuckling.
"What?" He’s not quite re-adapted to Misha's dark humor yet. He then spends an unnecessarily long time figuring out whether this is a good or bad thing, that the transition wasn't as relatively painless as he feared.
Misha shakes his head, his eyes very blue on Jared's. "Just thinking how easy this is." Misha winks, but it has no malice. Maybe actual camaraderie. "And therefore, how much of a pussy Jensen is in general."
Jared's fists clench, his teeth digging into his lower lip savagely. It happens so automatically, a knee-jerk reaction, almost, so that he's surprised when he looks down at his white knuckles.
Misha notices around the same time Jared tries to get his body to loosen. "You too, huh?" he shakes his head, so full of crap that Jared badly wants to punch him. The urge passes in about fifteen seconds, but it leaves behind an unpleasant coppery taste in his mouth. "I swear, you two are the original drama mamas, and Mikey and Tom are just trying to outdo you."
Jared stares. For one, he has no idea what Misha's talking about. For another, it sounds creepily like something Chad would say.
Misha grimaces like he's thinking the same thing. "Scratch that. What I'm saying is, you're pining for Jensen and Jensen's pining for you, why don't you just save Katie the inevitable romcom-inspired plot to get you two to back together and just, you know, get back together?"
A flare of red-hot and, he has to admit, slightly irrational anger overcomes Jared. Misha had no fuckin' clue what the last year was like, how very very close to breaking in half Jared had come.
When Jared looks at him sharply, Misha's eyes are a clear blue, his mouth soft and almost apologetic. Jared realizes that, in his own supremely fucked-up way, Misha is trying to help.
"Thanks," he says, because that's what's expected of him, and his first instinctive reaction. He talks less and laughs rarely, but there are parts of him that are still recognizable from before last year. He holds onto those parts as talismans. He didn't survive intact but survive he did.
So he tells Misha, "I appreciate it, but chances are pretty slim."
Misha looks uncharacteristically uncertain, his cigarette a glowing stub dangerously near his long, artistic fingers. He doesn't appear to have noticed. "But you want to?"
Jared shrugs honestly. "I haven't the slightest clue, man." he nods at Misha's hand. "You're gonna burn yourself, by the way, pyro."
Misha looks at his hands and swears. He drops the stub, its end a pretty orange, and stamps it out on the pavement in a practiced movement.
As if that was the visual cue for his entrance, Justin appears at the doorway. "Mr. Manners wants to talk to you," he tells Misha.
Misha makes a face that makes him look like a retarded three-year-old. "Tell him to get in fucking line."
"Mr Padalecki, I see that you have chosen to grace us with your presence today. Tell us, to what do we owe the honor?"
Jared says nothing, just crashes on to his seat and slumps down as far as he can go. He opens his textbook to a page he hopes is at least in the same neighborhood as the right one, and looks up defiantly at Mr. Carver.
The Supernatural theatre troupe has an unspoken agreement concerning talking about the epic failure of Jensen and Jared’s epic failure of a relationship. To point: they don’t talk about the epic failure of Jensen and Jared’s epic failure of a relationship.
It works pretty well until the cast gets involved. With Genevieve in particular, unspoken agreements- and most spoken ones, truth be told- are pretty much a moot point.
“So now that Jensen’s back in town, you two hooking up again?” She whispers surreptitiously after Carver’s done talking, apropos of absolutely nothing.
Jared raises an eyebrow.
She waves a hand, dismissing said eyebrow. “True love, walked out, broke your heart into a million tiny pieces so that you can never love again, blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda.” For someone whose main talent in life is empathy, Genevieve’s a pretty fucking callous bitch. “Whatever. You’re way too awesome in general to be such a girl, Padalecki.”
Jared blinks, unsure. “Um…thanks?”
“No problem.” Another of those dismissive hand waves. Possibly, she’s getting into character as a skanky bitch who married her brother-in-law before her husband was cold in his grave. But it’s mostly just Gen. “So, are you? Hooking up with Jensen, I mean?”
“No, Gen,” he says wryly. “I’m not hooking up with Jensen. I kinda never want to see Jensen again.”
Genevieve shoots a bemused glance at their teacher, who is currently begging for silence in the classroom before she says, “Pity. You two were as hot as all fuck together.”
“I’m sorry,” Jared says sarcastically, and Gen grins.
“Ah, don’t worry about it too much. Make it up to me by making me a fucking kickass ball gown.” She looks smug.
Jared can’t help himself. “You’re really into your costumes, aren’t you?”
She looks incredulous. “Well yeah. You see, I have these things called eyes and a mirror and they help me see when I look fucking fantastic when I’m playing a hag or something. Your outfits make the extras playing trees and shit look sexy.”
“Miss Cortese, I wonder whether you would mind sharing your insight into the lesson with Mr. Padalecki after the period.” Carver says dryly, and Gen smiles. She drops one last wink at Jared, and turns to face the front of the class again. She’s grinning.
Jared begins his actual groundwork the day after the cast list goes up.
Tom’s playing Hamlet, much to the surprise of approximately no one. His auditions are always more to determine exactly which main character he would play; when the title role’s a guy, Jared wonders why anyone even bothers.
Genevieve’s playing Gertrude. She bitches about it to him in their shared English class while the teacher patiently tries to recapture their attention. It’s not like Gen was going for Ophelia; she’s just heard some rumors about his costumes being epic this year and wants a flashier version. Jared assures her that she’ll be the flashiest of them all and she seems appeased.
The new girl Jared saw earlier-a sophomore named Alona- is predictably cast as Ophelia. Manners introduces her to the crew with a perfunctory, “Newbie. Plays the girl. Padalecki, get your giant self over here and take some measurements.” She’d blushed but looked him straight in the eye when she shook his hand. She later confesses that she’s never been in a major theatre production before, so doesn’t really know what she’s doing. Jared grins and tells her, “None of us really do.” She laughs.
Milo, another regular, has been cast as Horatio for reasons Jared can’t even begin to fathom. Milo’s a sweet guy with messy hair falling over his face and a slightly panicked expression, but that’s probably the direct effect of being unused to Misha. Jared can work with that. He’s got some ideas tentatively floating around his head for Horatio, and when the time comes he’ll get them down on paper, no sooner.
He’s hunting around in his old sketch book - his biology notebook, by rights, but no one seems to care anymore that he’s drawing more than he’s actually paying attention- for old drafts when Misha comes up to him and snaps his fingers obnoxiously in Jared’s face.
“Yo, sasquatch.” Misha looks strung out, dark circles under his eyes. “Your script’s done. Come pick it up sometime.”
Misha unfailingly makes two special copies for Jensen and Jared’s personal use each year, with meticulous notes written diagonally in the margin. Jared got into a screaming bitch fight with him over costumes for Romeo and Juliet four years back, when he was still a rookie, and Misha relented on that one. Ever since, he makes sure to have a running commentary going all through Jared’s planning phase so that he has a say. It’s classic douchebag Misha.
“Cool, “Jared says, then ventures, “You okay, man? Don’t look so good.”
Misha slowly rubs a hand over his face, making his skin elongate in an ugly grimace. “Yeah. Think I’m coming down with something. Knowing my luck, it’s probably hepatitis or something.” He brightens. “Hey, you’re coming for the party, right?”
Jared gives him a questioning look.
“The We All Die Young and Gorgeous Party!” Misha sings in a nasally falsetto, and Jared groans. “Tech week’s coming, bitch.”
With that promising statement, Misha flounces away.
Jared falls asleep over his workstation with no warning whatseoever and a sequin digging into his cheek. It's close to six, and rehearsals are just getting warmed up.
He groggily looks around for what woke him before spotting Jensen standing a way off, eyes wide and guilty, looking at him.
Jared raises his eyebrows and Jensen flushes a little.
"Brought you coffee," he says, gesturing somewhere to the left of Jared. Jared catches sight of a cup before Jensen snatches it up quickly. "But you shouldn't be anywhere near caffeine, you look exhausted already." he flushes even deeper. "I mean, if you want to, you could just leave."
Jared looks at him, biting his lower lip a little. Jensen looks like he's terrified and trying his damndest not to show it. It's kinda amazing, because Jensen used to be that guy, the bright-eyed genius who waited for no one.
Jared's got Sandy's quiet order, behave, running through his mind like an open field when he says, "Okay."
Jensen's eyes widen a little, but he looks at him steadily enough. "Want me to drop you home?"
Jared gives him a skeptical look.
"Yeah, guess not." Jensen rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "If you're crashing, you should at least move over to the couch."
Jared nods, and makes his dusty throat work, his parched lips say it: "Thanks, man."
Sadness clouds Jensen's eyes like a storm over a perfect sea before he shutters them, smiles a little ruefully and passes on to the theatre.
Jared gets a flash then, Jensen at seventeen, his eyes blown wide and lips kiss-bruised and red, looking utterly fucked-out. Jensen, on his knees, sucking on Jared's fingers as Jared watched, his tongue laving and teeth scraping gently, looking up at Jared through his eyelashes.
The memory leaves Jared instantly, blindingly hard.
"Jay?"
It's Jensen; his smile a little hesitant, as if unsure of its welcome; Jensen, pure as a field on a sunny day. Jared's throat feels dry, and his chest gives a little.
He's harder than he's been in public for the longest time.
"You alright?" Jensen asks.
Jared nods, too fast, a little panicked, maybe.
And then Jensen leaves with a nod, and Jared slumps, his head falling on his arms on the table. He's still turned on beyond comprehension, a little dizzy with it, drunk on the solid fact of Jensen.
Jared's so, so fucked.
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