To Teach the Human Heart the Knowledge of Itself, 1/5
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It's snowing when Jensen steps off the plane.
The wind gusts through the gaps where the walkway fails miserably at its singular purpose of securely joining the terminal and the aircraft, and the frigid New England Chill of Death latches onto the back of his neck and creeps steadily down his spine.
It’s spring break. Clearly, though, something’s been lost in translation; whichever game of operator brought that news to the northeast corner of the country mangled the secret well before whispering it over the border.
Jensen sighs. This is usually his favorite time of year; he’s been looking forward to it for months, but right now, he misses the warmth of San Antonio with a fierce and sudden allegiance that he couldn't even begin to put into words suitable for polite conversation.
He’s four hours behind schedule and counting.
It’s obvious that no one else in the terminal has anywhere important to be, though, and he ends up stuck crawling along at a pace he’s pretty sure he could beat fucking standing still on his way to the baggage claim-at which he claims absolutely no baggage whatsoever, because the friendly folks at Southwest have apparently decided that what his luggage really needs is a week in lovely, scenic Detroit.
Jensen's having a bad day.
By the time he gets out of the airport and on the road to Bumfuck Nowhere College, nestled in the rolling hills of Wherethefuckeverville, Massachusetts, it's just late enough that the sunset’s searing his eyes the whole trip, until it's not, and he can't see far enough in front of the car to read the names on the goddamn dorms.
Because he’s got nothing better to do while he NASCARs his way around the college and squints at the names on the buildings, he starts composing his end of the week evaluation comments in his head, beginning with why the hell they're doing this in the frigid north, and paying special attention to the many benefits of artificial lighting-including, but not limited to, its extremely helpful tendency to combat darkness.
For example, the darkness in the general vicinity of the dorm he needs to find. Washington, maybe, or Hamilton.
The road bends to the left again, and Jensen goes with it.
He’s been doing this for seven years now. Not fucking-navigating circles around a pitch black college campus in the snow. ACT! For The Arts, spending spring break putting on a play and raising money for local arts charities.
Seven years, and he's never once had this problem.
When he passes a statue he's already seen at least twice, he considers stopping to ask for directions, only he can't remember which founding father he's supposed to be looking for, and his registration packet's forty thousand feet in the air, somewhere east of Detroit. He sighs and makes another left turn.
It's no consolation that he probably couldn't find anyone to ask, even if he wanted to.
He grabs his phone from the cup holder and tries Chris's number one more time, just because the first several thousand times he called were so successful.
Also, it’s pretty much his only option. Jeff’s phone is dead, as usual, Steve’s new number is written down in his suitcase instead of programmed into his contacts, and Sophia’s going to kill him-probably in some very organized, methodical way, like hacking off his body parts one by one in alphabetical order or something-when she finds out he never got around to transferring her number out of his old phone after he switched carriers a few months ago.
The ringing against his ear turns to beeping, but Jensen doesn't leave a message. He's planning to, because he's got some really choice words for Chris right about now, maybe something along the lines of pick up your goddamn phone and give me some fucking directions, you motherfucking redneck bitch-only slightly less polite-but then he gets caught up in almost running his rental car off the road on a patch of ice and drops the phone.
It's not exactly a miracle that he survives, given that the only thing within fifty feet of him in any direction appears to be a field of some sort, but he's grateful anyway, because the car's safe, and now that he's finally old enough to get a rental without paying for it with an arm and a leg and the soul of his firstborn, he intends to keep it that way.
The spin leaves him facing in the direction of a little street he's pretty sure he hasn't tried yet, and when the street dead-ends into a parking lot in the middle of a small cluster of dorms, one of which has lights on and a big sign that says ACT! out front, he says, “Fucking finally," and eases the rental into a spot a safe distance away from the other cars.
“Beware the ides of fucking March,” Jensen mutters, wipes his snow-splattered glasses on his sweater. He throws his carry-on down on the bed and sighs in the direction of the mattress. It’s barely wider than he is, and he wonders, same as every year, how he ever survived six semesters in the dorms.
“Close. But actually, that was yesterday.”
He figures he should probably be some flavor of startled at the words, the guy attached to them, but all his body’s giving him is an unconsummated urge to yawn and a prickle that knots his shoulders and clenches his molars so tightly he can feel the spots where they don’t line up quite right.
“Figures,” Jensen says. Seriously, he can't fucking win today. “So you're in my room why, exactly?”
It's a single, just the one bed and just Jensen's name on the door, and like every other thing that’s happened since he got to the airport this morning, that’s anything but good news. Jensen's been on Chad duty for years now, and if Jeff's finally letting him off the hook, that means something's up, and Jensen's not gonna like it.
He pulls off his sweater, which appears to have miraculously regained the ability to provide warmth now that he’s inside and doesn’t need it, and dumps it on top of his bag.
“On second thought, don't answer that,” he says. He digs his phone out of his pocket and flips it open. If his day's somehow figured out a way to get even worse, he doesn't want to hear about it. “And close the door on your way out.”
As far as Jensen's concerned, it's clearly the end of the conversation, and he punctuates it by turning his back and stabbing at the number seven on his speed dial. Again.
He feels a vague prickle of bewilderment when the guy doesn't make a move to vacate the room's single desk chair, but it doesn’t tip over into shock, or even surprise. That yawn’s still tugging at Jensen’s lungs, and he just can't muster the energy. Instead, he drops down onto the extra-long twin mattress and concentrates on ignoring the guy's presence in the hope that maybe it’ll lead to him getting the point and going away.
Jensen’s been living this day for almost fifteen hours; he really should know better by now.
When the phone beeps in his ear after three and a half rings, it's not so much a leave a message at the tone kind of beep as a shutting off kind of beep, and Jensen catches a glimpse of the flashing empty battery light before the screen on his phone goes blank.
“Oh, this is just fucking outstanding,” he says.
That's when the guy finally moves.
Not far, just a few feet down the wall, where he taps on a plate that's clearly been painted a few too many shades of off-white over the years and says, “It's called electricity. You should try it out sometime.”
Jensen crushes his dead phone in his fist and tries not to throw it. He succeeds only because someday, he's going to get his luggage back, and his charger with it, and it'd be stupid to have a broken phone when that happens.
“Anyway, it's nice to meet you, too,” the guy continues. “See how I did that, all nice and polite?”
Jensen hasn't read the code of conduct in quite a few years, but he's pretty sure assaulting the other participants isn't technically allowed, and when he stands and finds himself eye to chin with the guy, he gets the impression intimidation's off the list, too.
He sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes, presses the heel of his palm against his temple.
“How do I make you go away?” he says instead, because he's out of ideas and asking’s got to be quicker than guessing.
The first thing he really notices about the guy, the first thing that cuts cleanly through the black haze of the day from hell and really grabs Jensen’s attention, is the way the tiniest flicker at the corner of his mouth spreads out through his jaw and up to his eyes and wipes every trace of exasperated amusement from his face, leaves his expression dull and hardened.
The change is subtle, a chain of little shifts in tiny muscles, but the effect is huge, and Jensen wonders how he failed to notice the genuineness of the smile that framed the guy's smart-ass mouth until it was replaced by this hard, white-pink line.
A little twinge blooms somewhere north of his stomach, feels suspiciously like contrition or regret, and Jensen clenches his jaw against it. He’s not the one being unreasonable here. He’s not gonna feel bad about it.
The silence takes on weight, a heaviness he can feel in his bones, can see in the slope of the guy’s shoulders.
“Hey, I'm going,” the guy says, raising his hands up in front of his body, palms out, and his voice is different, a little lower, rougher. “I just figured since we're gonna be working together so much, I'd introduce myself. Seeing as everyone says you're such a great guy and all.”
It’s a bullet that’s obviously meant to hit dead center, and it does, but Jensen manages not to flinch until the guy says, “I'm Jared, by the way. You should probably know that, since we're gonna be alone on stage together for most of the play.”
In the end, it's Jensen who leaves the room. He's out in the hallway muttering curses under his breath before he really thinks about the fact that he just walked out on the guy-Jared-without a word, but he can't really bring himself to care.
Right now, he just needs to figure out what the fuck is going on, and for that, he needs Jeff.
Jensen's not even all the way through the doorway to Jeff's room when Jeff says, “He seems like a good kid. And he asked for it.”
It's enough to confirm Jensen's suspicion that Chris really isn't here, and after so many years, it's hard to imagine spending this week without him, impossible to imagine spending it up on stage with Jared instead. This is the first time in five or six years that Jensen's had a reason to hate the seniority-based casting system, and he wonders if maybe the universe has just been waiting all this time to unload this on him, because this? Jesus. It’s a really fucking good reason.
It's his last year with the program, Chris's too, and they're supposed to be playing these roles-these goddamn weird-as-fuck experimental roles that Chris picked out-together. He can't just get up on stage and do this shit with some random stranger. The leads have to trust each other, otherwise it's all gonna fall apart. He trusts Chris. He doesn't even know Jared.
He flops down on the spare bed, and Jeff chuckles and says, “Hi, by the way.”
Jensen flips his middle finger in Jeff's general direction. “Where the fucking fuck is Chris?” he asks.
“I don't know, something about a band?” Jeff says, eyebrows drawn together like he’s trying to remember, like it wasn't just a month ago they met up in Austin to see Chris and the guys perform.
His lip’s half quirked under his trademark scruff, trapped halfway between stubble and a beard, and Jensen snorts out a non-laugh meant to convey just how funny Jeff isn’t and rolls his eyes in the direction of the ceiling, the world at large.
“Seriously?” Jensen says, and Jeff nods. “So Steve, too?”
“Don't you check your email, kid?”
Jensen sits up against the wall and glares. “Have I not been dropping my computer off for upgrades every spring break for the last six years?” he says. “I can't believe the fucker didn't call me.”
He catches the balled up wad of paper that Jeff aims at his head, opens it to find a draft of the cast list for the program layout, Christian Kane right there under Jensen Ackles.
“Well excuse the world for not knowing your computer maintenance schedule, princess,” Jeff says, and the glint of fondness in his eyes softens out to something warm and maybe a little bit cajoling. “It was last minute, apparently. It's Europe, Jen.”
Jensen looks up at that. “Seriously, Europe?” he says. Europe, like it's a single dot on the map instead of a collection of places, and Jensen knows from experience just how quickly the two syllables will lose all meaning if they keep saying them over and over, but he can't help it. “Europe. Huh.”
Europe, otherwise known as Chris and Steve's Holy Grail. They've explained it a million times-hell, Chris has been talking about it since they were sixteen-but Jensen still doesn't understand why it's Europe they've been gunning for all these years, especially when they're just starting to make progress at home.
It’s pretty much their dream come true, though, and the bitch of it is, now he’s gotta figure out how to be happy for them and pissed as fuck at being ditched at the same time.
Postponing the happy part until tomorrow seems like a good start.
“Like I said, he seems like a good kid,” Jeff says, and Jensen sighs. Jared's probably fine, but he's not Chris. Hell, he's not even Tommy or Mike or one of the other guys who've been doing this for at least a few years.
“And he's the only other one who asked for the part?”
“Who else would've?” Jeff says, because he’s got a way of being irritatingly sensible about things. “Everyone from last year was there when you and Chris grabbed the leads, and the rest of the first timers had more sense than to waste their picks asking for a part they were never gonna get.”
Jensen bites down on the urge to turn his anger on Jeff for somehow managing to make a situation this craptastic sound entirely reasonable.
If he were into math, he'd calculate the odds of this happening-of almost twenty people, most of whom have been doing this for two or three years now, all requesting three parts each and getting cast in the best available by order of seniority-and somehow, one of the leads goes to Jared.
“Just give him a chance,” Jeff says. “That's all you can do, right?”
Jensen’s tempted to counter that point with petty technicalities, but he doesn’t. It’s the truth, in all the ways that matter, and arguing with Jeff won’t change anything.
Instead, he starts a slow, careful tear in the wrinkled paper he’s still holding, watches jagged edges form as the page splits down an invisible line in the center of Chris’s name, and tries not to feel as pathetic as he probably looks.
He’s pretty sure there’s no way to salvage the week now that it’s been fucked up so completely; he knows he should just deal, get up off his ass and find Tommy and Mike-and Sophia, ’cause she’s already pissed at him for never calling, and she might just kill him if he doesn’t at least stop in to say hi before bed tonight.
He balls up the paper and doesn’t move any further than the foot or so he has to stretch to toss it into the little wastebasket behind Jeff’s chair.
There’s no way he can just move on and pretend this is still the week he’s been looking forward to all year, but that doesn’t matter because everything starts tomorrow, whether Jensen’s cool with the situation or not.
They’ve got four days to bring this play to life out of thin air. Four days of rehearsals and costuming and set design, local schools visiting in the mornings and afternoons, whatever ridiculous fundraising activities Jeff’s got set up this year, and Jensen knows from experience that it's gonna be Friday in about three seconds.
There's no time to waste on complaining about how everything's fucked up, no matter how badly that’s all Jensen wants to do.
“He better be decent,” Jensen says.
“You better be decent,” Jeff counters, but his words are softened by a smile. “So what've you been doing with yourself?”
“Since this morning?”
“Smart-ass,” Jeff says.
“Actually, they got me on a flight pretty much right away after we talked.”
“So what took you so long?”
Jensen shrugs. “Lost an hour when they bumped me, then I ended up with a three hour layover in Atlanta. And then they sent my suitcase to Detroit instead of Boston, and then I got lost. Your phone's off, by the way.”
Jeff stacks the papers he's been organizing at the desk and turns to face Jensen. “Well, that sucks.”
“Yeah, your inability to manage your cell phone pretty much blows,” Jensen says, smirks when Jeff rolls his eyes. “Wake me up tomorrow? Seeing as my alarm clock is still flying the friendly skies.”
“What am I, your mother?” Jeff tosses a little yellow envelope in Jensen's direction and gets up to hand him a larger one. “Six-thirty, on the dot. Key, schedule, local information. You need a script?”
“Nah,” Jensen says. “Had it in my carry-on.”
“All right, then.” Jeff levels a pointed look at Jensen. “I'm gonna go lock up the main entrance, you go take care of whatever it is you said to Jared.”
He doesn’t ask how Jeff knows, just stands and rolls his shoulders against the tension that’s creeping up his spine.
“Yes, Mom,” he says, and Jeff shakes his head and shoves Jensen lightly out the door.
Jensen finds Jared's name on the door across the hall from his own. Chad's name is up there too, and Jensen sighs. Apparently, he hasn't escaped Chad duty, he's just been moved off-site, like his room's a home office or a satellite location or something.
He knocks on the door, thinks polite, professional thoughts, and hopes Jared's the one who answers, because as much as he doesn’t want to deal with Jared right now, he can’t handle Chad, not tonight.
It's not that Chad's a bad person or anything-he just needs a lot of supervision. He's got a good heart and an appalling lack of judgment that tend to combine in ways which leave messes for Jensen to clean up. Last year, he actually adopted a puppy from a local shelter, and the messes were a little more literal than usual.
When the door opens, it's Chad, of course. If this were three years ago at that little liberal arts school an hour outside of Vegas, Jensen would so be getting in his car to go put some money down on his own bad luck, because right now, it's pretty much a sure thing.
Chad just yanks Jensen down into a quick hug, though, says, “You suck, Ackles,” and heads off down the hallway with a shopping bag full of what look like empty soda bottles.
Jensen doesn't ask because he doesn't even want to know.
Instead, he nudges at the open door with his foot. Jared's lying on his bed with headphones on, and he fills up the entire mattress, but with his knees bent up and his shoulders tucked in against the corner of the wall, he almost looks comfortable.
His hair's falling into his eyes, and it's been a few years since Jensen had his hair cut the same way, but he remembers the feeling, and despite the fact that Jared’s presence is pretty much ruining his week, his fingers itch with the reflexive need to brush it back.
Something vaguely obscene echoes down the hallway. Jensen has no doubt that Chad is involved.
The sound catches Jared's attention too, and Jensen can't help feeling a little bit bad. There's no way a first timer's gonna be able to handle keeping up with the schedule and looking after Chad at the same time. It's just not possible.
Jared sits up and pulls his headphones off.
“Hey,” Jensen says. He has to be civil, probably even polite, if he wants this week to be bearable, but he doesn’t have to start tonight. “So, uh. This is a bad day. Can we talk tomorrow?”
Tomorrow Jensen will be perfectly capable of being professional, and if not, he’ll just fake it. It’ll be Friday in no time, and by this time next week, he’ll be home.
Jared doesn't answer, just gets up and grabs a bag-Jensen's carry-on-from one of the desk chairs.
“I grabbed this for you,” he says, holding it out. “You just left, and your door was open, and I didn't know if you had anything valuable in it, so.”
He shrugs like it’s entirely normal to ensure the safekeeping of a stranger’s possessions, and not at all presumptuous to do it without the stranger’s knowledge or consent.
Jensen clears his throat and considers the merits of thanks for taking my stuff without permission as an expression of gratitude.
When he grabs the bag from Jared, Jared's thumb grazes his knuckles, paints a warm stripe that he can still feel when the bag's securely in his own hand. “Pretzels,” he says, feeling a little off balance. He stares at his knuckles, at his hand, fisted around the bag’s handle, and for some reason, he keeps on talking. “Just-my script, some condoms, and a big ass bag of pretzels.”
It’s nothing like what he meant to say; it’s barely even coherent, and he feels a flash of heat spread across his cheeks.
He’s clearly not capable of dealing with Jared right now.
“It’s late,” he says, “so.”
The corners of Jared's mouth turn up just the tiniest bit, and he says, “Goodnight, Jensen,” before closing the door.
As it turns out, Jeff wasn't kidding about the six-thirty wake up call. He pounds on the door until Jensen gets out of bed and opens it, and Jensen glares and hates the world while Jeff laughs in his face.
He has towels, though, and soap and toothpaste and shampoo, so Jensen forgives him.
Jared's just coming out of the showers when Jensen goes in, and Jensen has the presence of mind to not screw up their already tenuous situation, but he's not up to mending any fences before he gets a fucking truckload of caffeine in his system, so he just kind of waves and stays out of Jared's way.
It's not as easy as it looks, given that there are only three sinks and Jared's big enough to take up two and a half of them, but he manages, and he's brushing his teeth with his finger when Jared finishes up whatever he's doing and leaves.
While he's scrubbing his hair and thinking idly about why the hell Jared's up so early on purpose, and kind of accidentally using him as a musculature diagram, which is a habit he picked up in Anatomy I and hasn’t been able to kick-it’s practically Pavlovian; he sees muscles, he names them, and it turns out Jared’s ripped, every cut and curve so well defined that they might as well be outlined in red ink and labeled-it occurs to him that he might have accidentally been less than civil with Jared anyway, despite his best efforts to stay out of the guy's way.
He doesn’t do mornings well.
He’s been warned about how he looks fresh out of bed, sloppy and squinty, the kind of miserable that can easily pass for resentful or rude, according to his mom and just about every other woman who's ever seen him pre-coffee, and now that he’s awake enough for almost semi-lucid thought, he doesn't know whether his wave communicated the pained but courteous early morning commiseration he was going for or whether it came across as more of a brush off.
He closes his eyes and ducks under the water. With the way his luck’s been going, it’s probably too much to ask for Jared to somehow miraculously not have gotten the wrong idea.
Never mind the fact that he wasn't actually being an asshole this time.
He lets the shower’s spray fill his mouth just so he can spit it out, and the bathroom door squeaks open. “Jen, you in here?”
“Hmmm,” Jensen says, which is close enough to an answer, and Jeff's always been pretty good at figuring out what Jensen means in the morning anyway.
“I'm going out to grab the breakfast spread, you want anything besides donuts and muffins?”
“Coffee,” Jensen monotones. “Bagel.”
The door squeaks, then squeaks again when Jensen shouts, “Jeff, wait!”
“Yeah?”
“Jared's up too,” he says. It's a longstanding tradition that anyone who's awake when Jeff does the breakfast run gets to put in their own order, and if Jared's gonna be up at this ungodly hour, he should at least reap the benefits.
“Sure,” Jeff says, and Jensen figures that’s a good start on evening out any possible accidental rudeness from earlier and goes back to rinsing.
When the water runs clear, and then clear turns into cold, he sighs and shuts it off, but he takes his time getting dry. The idea of going to his room and getting back into yesterday's clothes isn't exactly appealing.
He can’t spend all day toweling off, though, not if he wants to grab Jeff's phone and call the airline. It's probably about two hours until breakfast, two and a half until rehearsal gets started. Hopefully, that'll be enough time to fit in yelling at someone about his suitcase and finding some kind of even footing with Jared-and if there's time left over, maybe he'll call Jennie and see if there's a way to get ahold of her fucktard of a brother while he's in Europe.
The hallway's empty when Jensen gets back to his room, but Jared's door is cracked open
Jensen's ignoring that fact and rushing his key into his door lock when Jared says, “Hey,” behind him.
Jensen turns. “Hey,” he echoes. “I didn’t mean to be, uh... well. Mornings aren't my thing.”
Jared's slightly fuzzy in his doorway, two or three feet too far away for Jensen to really see him clearly without contacts or glasses. He doesn't appear to be charging across the hallway with his fists drawn, though. That’s probably a good sign.
“Heard about your luggage, man,” he says. “That sucks.”
Jensen nods his agreement, and since he needs to get this over with, make sure they’re both ready to do good work and be professional, he says, “You wanna head over to the stage in a few? Jeff'll be going straight there with breakfast.”
“Sure,” Jared answers, and then he tosses something that Jensen manages to catch with the hand that's not holding up his towel. Up close, it turns out to be a gray hooded sweatshirt, and Jared says, “Thought you might want something clean,” and goes back inside his room.
Outside, last night's snow has almost disappeared already, and it's warmer, but still not nearly warm enough. Jensen makes it about five steps before he stops carrying Jared’s sweatshirt over his arm just to be polite and shoves it down over his head instead.
The wind picks up when they exit the sheltered area inside the cluster of dorms, steals Jensen’s breath and makes his eyes water, and he says, “I am so driving next time.”
He hears a soft huff that might be Jared, might be the wind; hell, it might just be the universe having a laugh at his expense, but he looks over anyway.
“Dude, it's like forty-five degrees out here,” Jared says, and his mouth curves into a smile. “Try spending nine months of the year in Michigan.”
Jensen shakes his head and cringes when the motion gives the cold air access to his neck.
“Yeah, no thanks.”
Jared snorts out a laugh as Jensen turtles as far as he can into his borrowed hoodie, and Jensen flips him off, then instantly regrets the decision to expose his hand to the elements. Jared just laughs harder, throws his head back like it's the funniest thing in the world and doesn't stop until Jensen's chuckling too. It's contagious, and genuine, if not hearty, and by the time they follow the map on the schedule all the way to the theater, Jensen’s almost warm.
Jared stops at the glass door, turns toward Jensen. His smile’s flattened out into a soft curve, and he’s watching Jensen’s chin, or maybe his shoulder. “You should laugh more,” he says. “I mean, it’s nice.”
He turns back toward the building, and Jensen’s throat constricts around the tail end of a chuckle, burns as he swallows it down.
It’s a poorly veiled criticism, vaguely complimentary in a way that’s completely transparent, and it’s like a slap in the face-not just because Jared doesn’t know a goddamn thing about him, but because Jensen’s apparently gotten so caught up in nothing, just, what? Walking with Jared? That he’s forgotten to make his point, completely failed to impress upon Jared the importance of being professional.
Irony, thy name is Jensen. Jesus.
A creeping flush follows in the wake of that realization; he feels it belatedly wipe the smile from his face, sees it reflected a second later in glass panes of the windowed entryway behind Jared.
This isn’t how things are supposed to be going.
He’s supposed to be setting a professional tone for the week; he’s supposed to be clearing the air, making sure they can work together, not making small talk about the weather and laughing like an idiot over nothing at all.
Jared turns back again when Jensen doesn’t move. His smile fades, but he doesn’t stop watching, and Jensen shifts his gaze entirely to his own reflection in the windows. No surprise, he looks like a guy who lost his luggage, soft hair falling a little too far forward, wire-framed glasses he hasn’t updated in years, faded blue and gold logo on his chest from a place he’s never been, never wants to see.
He turns back to Jared, clears his throat and says, “Yeah, well. I’ll laugh more when there’s more to laugh about.” He keeps his tone even and professional, makes his way back to the point. “So we’ve gotta get through this week together,” he says. “Are we cool, or do we need to... I mean, you know. Last night.”
Jared shakes his head. “Bad day, man,” he says, “I get it.”
It's too easy, the way Jared says it, the way he just reaches for the door when the wind whips his hair into his eyes, already on to the next thing.
Jensen doesn’t follow, can’t seem to force his body into motion.
This-just walking away, shrugging it off like there’s nothing to be discussed, settled, forgotten-it’s exactly what Chris would do, just call a dick a dick and move on.
It’s so familiar and so not, and Jensen just stares, like Jared’s somehow going to lose six inches, forty pounds or so, grow a fugly cowboy hat and a perpetual smirk and start railing on the record industry for keeping good music down.
Jared pauses in the doorway.
“I mean, you're done being a dick, right?” he says, one corner of his mouth pulled up into a teasing smirk that shows off a wicked dimple, and Jesus, for a second, it’s-it’s not what Chris would say, not how Chris would say it, but it’s exactly what he’d do, and an answering smile tugs at the edge of Jensen’s mouth even as a thread of anxiety wraps around his stomach, winds lines of tension up through his chest into his shoulders, his neck, his jaw.
Chris would fucking love Jared. Jensen’s suddenly sure of that the same way he’s sure of anything he can’t really explain: gravity, evolution, the continued success of American Idol. He’d call Jared kid or hey, you to his face, say nothing but good things about him behind his back, lay the same smackdown he did four years ago, when Steve was a new face and Jensen wasn’t ready to give him a chance.
This isn’t the same situation, though, and since Chris’s ass isn’t here, his opinion doesn’t matter.
All Jensen has to do is be professional. This isn’t what he signed up for, but he’s here now, and the program does good work, so he just has to do his best and not be a jerk to Jared along the way.
That’s all anyone can ask of him.
From the doorway, Jared heaves a sigh and says, “Fine, you can still be a dick. But only to Chad. And only when he deserves it.”
Jensen doesn’t answer, just chokes down a snort and runs a hand over his mouth, smoothes the upturned corners down as best he can and follows Jared inside.
Jensen's on the phone, not deaf, which is how he hears Jeff saying, “You caffeinate him or something?”
“I can hear you,” Jensen says.
Three feet to his right, on the other side of Jeff, Jared answers, “Nah, man.”
“Huh,” Jeff says. “Seven years, and I don't think I've ever seen him smile before he's had his coffee before.”
“I will dump this in your lap,” Jensen warns, clutching his too-hot coffee tight to his chest. It's an idle threat, and he knows that Jeff knows it, but still. It's the thought that counts.
“Maybe it wasn't a smile,” Jared says. “Maybe it was just gas.”
Jensen rolls his eyes and abandons his front row seat to go sit up on the edge of the stage.
His bad mood’s back in full force, has been ever since Jared pulled his rolled-up script out of his back pocket and started thumbing through it during the pauses in his conversation with Jeff.
Rehearsal starts in under an hour and a half, according to the clock on the back wall, and then Jensen’s gonna know just how badly he’s screwed.
For now, he’s on hold.
He's been on hold for at least a half hour, and Jared and Jeff have spent most of that time talking about their dogs. Sadie, Bisou, and Harley, apparently. One of them's got one and the other's got two, or maybe they both have one and a half, he wasn't really paying all that much attention until his name came up.
He remembers something about Jeff getting a puppy a couple of years ago, though. He’s fuzzy on the specifics, the names and numbers. Chris would know. He always remembers the details.
Of course, remembering to call his oldest friend in the world when he cancels plans with him to go to Europe instead is too much to ask, obviously.
Jensen sighs, wedges Jeff’s miraculously half-charged phone in against his shoulder and leans back on his elbows. The alternating elevator music and assurances that his call will be taken in the order it was received don't waver, and he picks at the flaking varnish on the stage floor as he takes a minute to look at Jared.
From this distance, he can't hear the conversation clearly over the hold music pressed against his ear, but Jared's laughing about something.
The guy laughs like no one Jensen's ever seen, so completely that he just about breaks apart with it. It's huge and easy and infectious, just like his smile, and Jensen can't help wondering how that's going to play on stage.
It was Chris who picked this year's play, brought it to Jeff's attention and insisted that it'd be awesome. He said the part was made for him, and Jensen agreed, still does, even though he'd rather be doing something more traditional than this borderline experimental shit that Chris loves so much. Beckett, Shaw, maybe Wilde.
Chris has always done things a little differently, though-like the time he went missing and turned up on a goddamn TV series before he thought to let anyone know where he was-but no matter how frustrating it can be, Jensen wouldn’t change it.
And if Chris were here, playing his part, Jensen wouldn’t change the play, either.
It’s like nothing Jensen’s ever read, based on a book (award-winning, but really fucking weird, according to Steve, the only one who’s actually taken the time to read it) designed to make dissociative identity disorder accessible for kids and teens-and as bizarre as that is, with Chris, it felt right.
It’s something about the way they grew up, the way they are. Chris has been his best friend since second grade, but they haven’t lived within two hundred miles of each other since Chris’s family relocated from Dallas to Oklahoma when they were thirteen.
It’s never been hard, though. Summer camp when they were young, road trips later on, and now-Jensen can go a year without seeing Chris in person, or they can crash on each others’ couches for six months straight; they can talk all night or rely on emails and texts for weeks at a time, and they’re always okay.
With Chris, he can relate to the part, he can construct the character out of pieces of himself. Hell, half the time he feels like Chris is kind of like another part of him anyway, so it fits.
But now he’s doing Chris's play without Chris, and putting Jared in the role completely changes the tone of the thing, changes how the audience will see it, changes how it resonates for Jensen.
He’s not sure how to do it now, not sure it’s going to work, and it’s terrifyingly easy to rearrange those words in his mind until he’s sure it’s not going to work.
Chris and Jared are just so different. Similar, maybe, underneath it all, but. God, not even close.
Where Chris is compact, Jared's huge; where almost nothing Chris does, on stage or off, is without an edge of mischief or adventure, Jared seems simpler, easier. Less restlessly intense, and it's that kind of constant buzz of tension that Chris does so well that really defined the part for Jensen.
He's not sure Jared's got that, not sure Jared will even take it in that direction.
In the front row, Jared pats Jeff on the back over something Jensen can't hear, and Jeff smiles, then leaves Jared alone with his script.
Jensen watches Jared’s hair fall over his face, his lips move over the words.
It's not very often they end up with an actor who's legitimately bad. Jensen's seen it maybe twice in his seven years with ACT!, but mostly, people who've actually heard of the program and bother to seek it out are experienced, and at the very least, decent.
This time, though-Jesus. Decent’s not good enough.
The play's a fucking minefield of lines and pauses that fall in and out of unison, conversations that won't line up, won't make sense unless they're executed perfectly, a million little spots where one misstep by either of them will leave the other completely fucked, and there's no exit stage left in this play, no time to regroup.
They're on stage for literally the entire play, and alone together for a good part of it.
Jensen sets his coffee down and lies all the way back, looks up at the lights and the curtains, away from Jared. He's got nerves and caffeine churning in his stomach, and it's not a great combination, but he can't help it.
He closes his eyes, tries to focus on the hold music that’s boring its way into his brain instead of anything that’s going on in the auditorium. He wants to tune it all out, Jeff, Jared, the occasional shuffling noises he can’t accurately attribute to either one of them, but when he hears footsteps edging close, feels a hand on his knee, he turns his head.
Sophia hops up on the stage and lies down beside him, and he shifts Jeff’s phone to his other ear.
“Hey, beautiful,” she says. She laces her fingers through his. “You’re sorry you didn’t come see me last night. And you’re very sorry you never call, because you know email’s not the same as hearing your gorgeous voice. You’re gonna do much better from now on, you promise.”
Jensen squeezes her fingers.
“I’m sorry about Chris,” she says. “And Steve. And your luggage. But Jared seems okay. I heard he won some kind of national drama competition in high school.”
This isn’t high school drama, though. And if Jensen’s being honest, it’s not only Jared’s performance he’s worried about.
He can’t just put himself out there with a complete stranger. Not like this, not when he came here ready to tear himself down and then piece himself back together into this character in a way that only his best friend in the world would understand and appreciate.
He can’t do that now, and the problem isn’t that he can’t do it with Jared. He can’t do it with anyone. Only Chris, and since Chris isn’t here, he doesn’t have a fucking clue what’s going to happen when he gets on stage.
He squeezes Sophia’s hand again, and she squeezes back.
“I meant everything you said,” he says.
She kisses his shoulder and says, “I know you did, beautiful.”
He sighs and sits up again, takes another sip of his coffee.
By the time people start wandering in, Jensen's just about got everything squared away with the airline. At least one part of his life is looking up; his suitcase apparently had a lovely trip and is going to be delivered sometime this afternoon.
Jeff's separating the first timers from the rest of the group when Jensen hops down off the stage.
“You wanna get this?” Jeff says, pointing the first timers toward the corner of the auditorium and jerking his head in the direction of everyone else.
Jensen shrugs, looks out into the crowd and says, “Chris and Steve bailed. Donuts are over there.”
“Jen!” Jeff yells from across the room.
“Fine,” Jensen yells back. He rolls his eyes and smiles a little. “Okay, who's got a schedule?”
Sophia, who is without a doubt the most disgustingly organized person on the planet, aside from Jeff, holds hers up, and Jensen grabs it, kisses her on the cheek and says, “Lose something, please. Prove to us all you're a human being.”
“All right,” he says, “Jeff's doing ACT! one-oh-one for the first timers, then we've got the morning meeting from nine-thirty to ten, full runthrough with scripts followed by a group critique from ten to twelve. Lunch is twelve to one, then director's roundtable one to two, set design, lighting and costuming meetings and small group rehearsals from two to three, then another full runthrough from three to five. Six to seven is first night dinner and debriefing, and now I'm taking drink orders.”
He trades Sophia her schedule for a pen and paper, and he's writing down different kinds of liquor and beer when Jeff starts leading the group of first timers back over.
“Patron Silver and strawberry margarita mix,” Mike calls out. “And a blender! And salt!”
“Fuck you,” Jensen says with a smile, “drink like a man or don't drink at all!”
“Language, children,” Jeff says. He points to the five first timers he's got with him in order and says, “Julie, Jonah, Sandy, Jared, Mark.” Then he looks out at everyone else, scattered in the first three rows of seats and says, “Christ, okay. This one's Jensen,” Jeff points in Jensen's direction, “and the rest, you'll learn.”
“Impressive,” Jensen says.
“Almost as impressive as your ability to read the schedule out loud,” Jeff answers dryly. “Sit.”
The morning meeting's a tradition, kind of a cross between a pep talk and a status conference with a little bit of free-for-all thrown in for good measure.
Jensen sits, per Jeff’s request, and a chorus of exaggerated yawns erupts from behind him. Jared lifts a questioning eyebrow from one seat over, and Jensen bites down on his chuckle and says, “It's a Chris thing. Trust me, you want to pay attention.”
It'd take more hands than they’ve currently got available to count out how many times Chris screwed up because he fell asleep at the morning meeting, though he always maintained that it was part of his charm, usually emphasized the statement with a well-placed finger.
“It sucks that he's not here,” Jensen says, because apparently, he really blows at the whole being professional and not rude thing. He sucks in a breath. “I don't mean-just. You’d like him. Everyone does.”
“No, I get it, man,” Jared says. “He's your friend.”
Jeff clears his throat and looks pointedly at Jensen, and Jensen just smiles as angelically as he can, until Jeff rolls his eyes and shakes his head. It's their morning routine; Jensen pretends to be a pain in the ass, Jeff pretends to be exasperated. Like everything else, though, it's different without Chris, and Jensen sighs and leans back into his cushioned seat.
“Okay,” Jeff says, “you all know why you're here, so I'm not gonna tell you, and if you forgot, well, that's tough shit ’cause it's too late to go home.”
Over the scattered groans and laughter, Jeff continues. “New stuff first,” he says. “First of all, congratulations, you're all legal this year, and this isn’t a dry building, so you don't have to hide the alcohol. Be safe, be responsible or I will kill you, and most importantly, do it on your time. Mr. Murray, when is your time?”
“Sir, after dinner, Sir, unless you tell us otherwise, Sir!” Chad barks.
Jared covers his face with his hands through the bright wave of laughter that follows, and Jensen can’t help reaching over, reassuring Jared with a clap on the shoulder and his whispered suspicion that it's probably about evenly divided between at Chad and with Chad.
“Good man,” Jeff says. “And don't think you're going out clubbing, or whatever it is you do, building curfew's still ten o'clock. There's an exception on Thursday, but that's a fundraiser, and we'll talk about it later.”
“Later?” Jared whispers.
Jensen leans in. “Never a good sign,” he whispers back. He could elaborate; he’s got more than a few fundraising horror stories, but he leans back in his seat instead and turns his eyes toward Jeff.
“Also new this year,” Jeff continues, “we've got a dedicated background crew. Julie, Jonah, and Sandy, and that takes some of the pressure off, so Jensen, Jared, I'm not gonna need you behind the scenes at all. Everyone else, signups'll go around at lunchtime.”
That's news to Jensen, though he's not sure whether it's good news or bad news. He's not really happy about getting kicked out of a job, even a job he hates as much as painting scenery or spell-checking the programs, but he and Jared are going to need all the time they can get to rehearse, so it's probably not the worst thing.
Jeff says, “We've got casting changes, for those of you who haven't read your schedules. Sophia, love of my life and the only person who reads the documents I so painstakingly prepare for you guys, tell ’em all what's going on.”
“Jared's taking Chris's part,” she says, “Chad's tripling up with Steve's part and Jared's old part.”
“Didn't know that, did you?” Jeff says, raising an eyebrow at Chad, who's gaping just a little bit. He'll be fine, though. His brain is obviously defective in many, many ways, but Jensen knows from experience that memorization isn't one of them.
Jeff flips over to the second page of his schedule. “Okay, this morning, we've got JFK and Fall Brook-those are grammar schools-and Howser K through eight’s coming in after lunch. Remember to watch your language around the kids. Any questions?” he asks, doesn’t wait for an answer. “All right, then, let's go, people. We've got work to do.”
Jensen can't focus during the group critique. He hears the words, misses the context, tries his best to keep his eyes fixed on a neutral spot, away from Jared, away from Jeff. They're both watching him-both completely failing to be subtle about it-maybe because his performance was so off during the runthrough, or maybe just because he's not really participating in the critique, Jensen doesn't know.
He does know that he’s ready for the constructive criticism portion of the program to be over. None of it’s going to be relevant the next time he gets up on stage, and what he needs right now isn’t an obsolete critique, it’s a minute to himself, a minute to take in where they are and where they’re going, what kind of work they really need to do.
Jared looks over again, peeks out from under his bangs in a way that’s so far from subtle that Jensen almost has to smile.
Almost, because he’s an edgy, raw kind of nervous right now, nearly giddy with it in a leg-twitching, stomach-fluttering kind of way, and he’s pretty sure he can’t smile without laughing, can’t laugh without sounding a little bit insane.
He just needs this to be over so they can move on.
Because, yeah, he expected it to go badly, but-just, in a very different way.
When Jeff officially calls it for lunch-finally-Jensen means to stick around for a while, smile and socialize with the kids and teachers, talk with Jeff, then grab Jared for a minute or two of professional, candid discussion, tell him, hey, it’s okay, we'll get it next time.
That's not what happens, though.
What happens is that Jared grins, dimples cut deep in his cheeks, massive expanse of teeth-because Jesus, everything about him is huge-and says, “That was great, man, for a first shot? Wanna compare notes during lunch?” and Jensen mumbles something that skirts the line between affirmative and noncommittal and tries to keep his gait reasonably casual as he lunges for the nearest exit.
He’s not running away-he’s not, he just needs some air, needs space, needs time, needs to get his head wrapped around things, and he needs to do it somewhere where he’s not two feet away from Jared and his ridiculously huge smile.
He ends up in the hallway behind the stage. It's empty, and heavy with a forced kind of silence that he thinks maybe comes from years and years of whispers substituting for voices, too close to the stage for even casual, low volume conversation.
He heads away from the auditorium, follows the hallway through a heavy swinging door that leads him to a landing, a half flight of stairs, a back exit. It's brighter here; sunlight stripes the floor, and the air is cooler, lighter.
He drops down onto the top step, hits it a little harder than he means to and shifts so he's half leaning against the wall.
Jared was fucking incredible.
Jared, who’s this massive, huge-guy, who laughs like nothing Jensen’s ever seen, smiles and jokes around, gets this wicked dimple on one side when he’s teasing, who-Jesus, gave Jensen a sweatshirt for no apparent reason, and he just.
Nailed it in a way Jensen wouldn’t have even thought was possible.
He was like a fuse of coiled intensity, just-transforming as they went along, burning down to something raw underneath, something Jensen never saw in the part until Jared brought it out. It caught his breath, stole his rhythm, left him off balance in a way he's never been before, and for all the energy he put into worrying that Jared wouldn't be good enough, that he wouldn't be able to give enough, it's Jensen who failed to measure up.
He's not used to being the weakest link, and it leaves him feeling unsteady, top heavy with a kind of mental vertigo he can't shake or explain, but god, if Jensen can get his fucking shit together-when he gets his shit together-they're gonna blow the goddamn roof off.
The knowledge floods his system in a quivering rush, sets his skin buzzing, strands him in the middle of a laugh he can't quite quell, a tremble he can't quite still. It turns circles in his stomach, this idea that there's more, that he can be better-maybe even better than he was with Chris, and so much better than he could ever be on his own.
He’s already making changes in his head, rebuilding his character from scratch, because the way he’s been playing it-even if he’d done it right instead of fumbling around like an idiot because he couldn’t tear himself away from Jared’s performance-isn’t quite right, now that he’s seen what Jared’s going to do.
When Jared comes through the door a few minutes later carrying a pizza and a two liter bottle of soda like it's the most normal thing in the world, Jensen decides that maybe it is because the awkwardness he's expecting never comes.
Instead, Jared just kicks Jensen's legs off the landing to make room for the food and sits.
Jeff's got a knack for always finding the best pizza, no matter where they are. This one's in a box that says Papa Gino's, and it's possibly the best thing Jensen's ever had in his mouth.
They pass the box and the bottle back and forth for a little while, until Jared leans back against the railing and says, “You know, I get it, man, you were expecting to do the part with someone else, it's a big change.” He shrugs. “So just tell me what I can do to, y'know. Improve, or-make it easier, or whatever.”
He says it the same way he tossed his sweatshirt in Jensen’s direction earlier, straightforward and easy, and Jensen’s so caught off guard by the wrongness of it that he just stares for a second, mid-bite, watches Jared’s sneakers next to his own on the steps, the ridiculous length of his legs, the way his hair’s almost falling into his eyes again. When he finally responds, says, “Dude, stop saying that,” his voice is rough, and he’s stilling his hand against his thigh, willing away that familiar urge to brush Jared’s out of control hair away from his face.
Jared counters with, “Dude, chew,” and Jensen flips him off and swallows his mouthful of pizza.
He doesn't really want to ruin the whole companionable silence thing they've got going on, because it’s so much better than the constant ebb and flow of tension they’ve been dealing with so far, but there’s got to be some amount of trust between them-not like the kind of relationship he has with Chris or anything, but god.
They’re not even gonna come close, if Jared's always letting him off the hook.
“Stop saying you get it, man,” he says. “Tell me I'm an asshole, tell me I screwed up. I'm the one who fucked up out there today, and you know it.”
Jared shrugs again, and that’s when Jensen notices the half-quirked lip, one dimple carved out next to it. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “But I figure that's not what you want to hear, what with you coming out here to cry over it and all.”
“Fuck you,” Jensen says, but he feels the corner of his mouth turn up in response to Jared's growing smile, and he shoves at Jared's knee with his sneaker. “And stop listening to Chad.”
Jared snorts. “Been trying about four years now. Turns out it's not that easy.”
Jensen’s pizza freezes halfway to his mouth. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, Chad's actually my best friend.” Jared says, and he ducks his head, half chuckles, half groans. “I really have no idea how that happened.”
“So you know Chad.”
“I know Chad. Hell, I know everything there is to know about Chad.”
“Huh,” Jensen says. It’s kind of a terrifying thought. Chad’s a good guy, but there are things about him that Jensen just doesn’t ever want to know. Like, say, the end of the brownie story from two years ago, or what, exactly, he was doing with those soda bottles last night.
In fact, that’s pretty much his number one rule when it comes to Chad. As long as no one’s getting hurt-without their prior consent, and it’s just so fucking wrong that there’s a reason for that clarification-he doesn’t even want to know.
“He's really not such a bad guy, you know.”
Jensen shakes his head. “No, yeah, I know.” Mike always says he has a Chad face, and he’s not really sure what that is, exactly, but he tries not to be making it, seeing as Chad is apparently Jared’s best friend, and Jensen actually doesn’t think Chad’s a bad person.
Except for that one time.
“Well,” he says, “there was the time Mike caught him making out backstage with a seventeen year old on a field trip. But we don't talk about that.”
Jared snorts. “Yeah, that sounds like Chad.”
“He still have that puppy?”
“Harley?” Jared says, smile spread wide. “Yeah, that was-Chad actually brought him home for me as a birthday gift.”
It’s the kind of thing that should be surprising, but Jensen’s known Chad for years now, and somehow, it’s really just not.
“So, uh. You’ve got a birthday coming up?” he says, because it’s polite to ask, and not at all because he’s just noticed that they’re both stretched out on the stairs, Jared’s long-ass legs bridging Jensen’s-and Jensen’s pretty damn far from short-and he’s lost track of what they were talking about, which was-dogs. Dog. Harley.
Right.
Jared shakes his head. “No, see, you've gotta understand Chad’s logic, it’s like. Anti-logic.”
“So, no birthday?”
“I'll be twenty-two. In July.”
“Huh,” Jensen says, and clearly, he’s known Chad for way too long, because he can almost see the way it would make sense in Chad’s head. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Thanks for taking him off my hands, by the way.”
“No problem. I'm used to him anyway, I mean. We got assigned to be roommates freshman year, and then every spring, he just kept signing us up together again and I didn't have the heart to say no, you know? And then boom, one day I wake up and we’re sharing an apartment off campus together and he's my best friend in the world.” Jared shakes his head. “I don't even know.”
Jensen grins and says, “Hey, you promise to keep him in line, and I promise not to hold your Chad affiliation against you.” He grabs another slice of pizza. “So that's why you signed up? Chad?”
“Yeah,” Jared says. “I mean, I've been thinking about it for a while. Been watching the DVDs every year, and Chad loves it, so. It seemed like a good thing to do. Plus, I'm graduating, so this is pretty much my last shot.”
“No grad school?” Jensen asks.
“I applied,” Jared says. “I just don't know if I'm gonna go. Might take some time first, figure out what I really want to do, you know?”
Jensen nods, means to say something about how he gets it, understands that kind of pivotal uncertainty, but after a second or two of silence, what comes out is, “Seriously, the videos?”
His voice comes out a little whinier than it needs to be, ever, and he cringes.
As far as he’s concerned, the videos are a necessary evil-light on the necessary, really fucking heavy on the evil.
Jeff brings in an audiovisual company to tape the Friday night performance every year, and it’s promotion, mainly, which Jensen’s definitely in favor of, but then everyone involved gets a DVD, too.
Jensen's got his stacked neatly on a shelf. In his mother’s living room. In Richardson. Approximately four hours and thirty-three minutes from his apartment in San Antonio. He keeps hoping they’ll mysteriously disappear, but as far as he knows, it hasn’t happened yet.
He’s never watched them, never plans on it, and he can feel the heat rising on his cheeks at the thought that Jared has.
He clears his throat. “Jesus,” he says. “So.”
“So you’re in grad school,” Jared says, and he’s watching Jensen a little more intently than the question requires, one corner of his mouth raised just enough to show off a dimple, and Jensen doesn’t even care, as long as it means he doesn’t have to think about the damn videos anymore.
“Physical therapy,” he says. “Graduating in May, so. This is my last year.” One of the program rules is that participants have to be in either college or grad school. There's an age restriction, too, eighteen minimum, and Jensen's pretty sure the upper number is actually whatever age Mike is in any given year.
“Cool,” Jared says, still smiling that same little smile, and Jensen’s trapped there with him, still thinking about the damn videos.
He clears his throat again and works on steering the conversation in an entirely new and hopefully less painfully awkward direction-because yes, okay, maybe it’s completely irrational that he’s this freaked out by the thought of Jared watching his old performances, but it’s also entirely justified, after this morning. He’s filled his screwing up in front of Jared quota for the rest of time, if not longer, and he doesn’t need to think about all of his past mistakes laid out for Jared’s viewing pleasure as well.
“I don’t suck,” he says. More like blurts, actually, because apparently, changing the subject is not his forte.
Jared drops one of his legs down a step, nudges Jensen’s, and he says, “Duh.”
There’s a chuckle on the edge of his voice, but Jensen doesn’t look up at him, doesn’t look away from where their ankles are curved against each other, instep to instep.
Jared eventually shifts away, and Jensen clears his throat, tries the whole subject changing thing again.
“So, uh. One thing I’ve gotta know,” he says. “Why'd you ask for this part?”
“Just optimistic, I guess,” Jared answers. “I wasn't expecting to get it or anything. I mean, the seniority system's pretty clear, but then Jeff called a few days ago, and, you know. Here I am.”
“That’s, uh. Good,” Jensen says, after a minute. “I mean, I think it’ll be-I think it won’t suck.”
“Ringing endorsement,” Jared says, eyebrow raised, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and Jensen swallows against a fierce and sudden urge to explain himself; apologize, maybe, or hell, maybe just say whatever random thing pops into his head, because that’s been working great so far.
But then Jared ducks his head, says, “Thanks,” and something in the way he looks up makes Jensen think that maybe he gets it, so he just nods in response.
The silence that follows is light, easy in a way that doesn’t make sense, given the way everything Jensen says around Jared-in anger, on stage, in conversation, everything-is pretty much a complete disaster, but Jensen’s not about to question it.
Instead, he leans back a little further, closes his eyes for a minute. It’s nice-for a stairwell-cool and sunlit, quiet. He can hear Jared’s breathing as easily as his own, and he just listens until Jared says, “Hey.”
Jensen says, “Hey,” back, soft and lazy, before it occurs to him that he should probably be opening his eyes instead of talking.
When he does, Jared holds up his watch.
“Shit,” Jensen says. “We gotta get back.”
“Yeah.”
For a minute, Jared looks like he might say something else, but then he stands and gathers up the pizza box, holds a hand out to pull Jensen up.
part two
It's snowing when Jensen steps off the plane.
The wind gusts through the gaps where the walkway fails miserably at its singular purpose of securely joining the terminal and the aircraft, and the frigid New England Chill of Death latches onto the back of his neck and creeps steadily down his spine.
It’s spring break. Clearly, though, something’s been lost in translation; whichever game of operator brought that news to the northeast corner of the country mangled the secret well before whispering it over the border.
Jensen sighs. This is usually his favorite time of year; he’s been looking forward to it for months, but right now, he misses the warmth of San Antonio with a fierce and sudden allegiance that he couldn't even begin to put into words suitable for polite conversation.
He’s four hours behind schedule and counting.
It’s obvious that no one else in the terminal has anywhere important to be, though, and he ends up stuck crawling along at a pace he’s pretty sure he could beat fucking standing still on his way to the baggage claim-at which he claims absolutely no baggage whatsoever, because the friendly folks at Southwest have apparently decided that what his luggage really needs is a week in lovely, scenic Detroit.
Jensen's having a bad day.
By the time he gets out of the airport and on the road to Bumfuck Nowhere College, nestled in the rolling hills of Wherethefuckeverville, Massachusetts, it's just late enough that the sunset’s searing his eyes the whole trip, until it's not, and he can't see far enough in front of the car to read the names on the goddamn dorms.
Because he’s got nothing better to do while he NASCARs his way around the college and squints at the names on the buildings, he starts composing his end of the week evaluation comments in his head, beginning with why the hell they're doing this in the frigid north, and paying special attention to the many benefits of artificial lighting-including, but not limited to, its extremely helpful tendency to combat darkness.
For example, the darkness in the general vicinity of the dorm he needs to find. Washington, maybe, or Hamilton.
The road bends to the left again, and Jensen goes with it.
He’s been doing this for seven years now. Not fucking-navigating circles around a pitch black college campus in the snow. ACT! For The Arts, spending spring break putting on a play and raising money for local arts charities.
Seven years, and he's never once had this problem.
When he passes a statue he's already seen at least twice, he considers stopping to ask for directions, only he can't remember which founding father he's supposed to be looking for, and his registration packet's forty thousand feet in the air, somewhere east of Detroit. He sighs and makes another left turn.
It's no consolation that he probably couldn't find anyone to ask, even if he wanted to.
He grabs his phone from the cup holder and tries Chris's number one more time, just because the first several thousand times he called were so successful.
Also, it’s pretty much his only option. Jeff’s phone is dead, as usual, Steve’s new number is written down in his suitcase instead of programmed into his contacts, and Sophia’s going to kill him-probably in some very organized, methodical way, like hacking off his body parts one by one in alphabetical order or something-when she finds out he never got around to transferring her number out of his old phone after he switched carriers a few months ago.
The ringing against his ear turns to beeping, but Jensen doesn't leave a message. He's planning to, because he's got some really choice words for Chris right about now, maybe something along the lines of pick up your goddamn phone and give me some fucking directions, you motherfucking redneck bitch-only slightly less polite-but then he gets caught up in almost running his rental car off the road on a patch of ice and drops the phone.
It's not exactly a miracle that he survives, given that the only thing within fifty feet of him in any direction appears to be a field of some sort, but he's grateful anyway, because the car's safe, and now that he's finally old enough to get a rental without paying for it with an arm and a leg and the soul of his firstborn, he intends to keep it that way.
The spin leaves him facing in the direction of a little street he's pretty sure he hasn't tried yet, and when the street dead-ends into a parking lot in the middle of a small cluster of dorms, one of which has lights on and a big sign that says ACT! out front, he says, “Fucking finally," and eases the rental into a spot a safe distance away from the other cars.
“Beware the ides of fucking March,” Jensen mutters, wipes his snow-splattered glasses on his sweater. He throws his carry-on down on the bed and sighs in the direction of the mattress. It’s barely wider than he is, and he wonders, same as every year, how he ever survived six semesters in the dorms.
“Close. But actually, that was yesterday.”
He figures he should probably be some flavor of startled at the words, the guy attached to them, but all his body’s giving him is an unconsummated urge to yawn and a prickle that knots his shoulders and clenches his molars so tightly he can feel the spots where they don’t line up quite right.
“Figures,” Jensen says. Seriously, he can't fucking win today. “So you're in my room why, exactly?”
It's a single, just the one bed and just Jensen's name on the door, and like every other thing that’s happened since he got to the airport this morning, that’s anything but good news. Jensen's been on Chad duty for years now, and if Jeff's finally letting him off the hook, that means something's up, and Jensen's not gonna like it.
He pulls off his sweater, which appears to have miraculously regained the ability to provide warmth now that he’s inside and doesn’t need it, and dumps it on top of his bag.
“On second thought, don't answer that,” he says. He digs his phone out of his pocket and flips it open. If his day's somehow figured out a way to get even worse, he doesn't want to hear about it. “And close the door on your way out.”
As far as Jensen's concerned, it's clearly the end of the conversation, and he punctuates it by turning his back and stabbing at the number seven on his speed dial. Again.
He feels a vague prickle of bewilderment when the guy doesn't make a move to vacate the room's single desk chair, but it doesn’t tip over into shock, or even surprise. That yawn’s still tugging at Jensen’s lungs, and he just can't muster the energy. Instead, he drops down onto the extra-long twin mattress and concentrates on ignoring the guy's presence in the hope that maybe it’ll lead to him getting the point and going away.
Jensen’s been living this day for almost fifteen hours; he really should know better by now.
When the phone beeps in his ear after three and a half rings, it's not so much a leave a message at the tone kind of beep as a shutting off kind of beep, and Jensen catches a glimpse of the flashing empty battery light before the screen on his phone goes blank.
“Oh, this is just fucking outstanding,” he says.
That's when the guy finally moves.
Not far, just a few feet down the wall, where he taps on a plate that's clearly been painted a few too many shades of off-white over the years and says, “It's called electricity. You should try it out sometime.”
Jensen crushes his dead phone in his fist and tries not to throw it. He succeeds only because someday, he's going to get his luggage back, and his charger with it, and it'd be stupid to have a broken phone when that happens.
“Anyway, it's nice to meet you, too,” the guy continues. “See how I did that, all nice and polite?”
Jensen hasn't read the code of conduct in quite a few years, but he's pretty sure assaulting the other participants isn't technically allowed, and when he stands and finds himself eye to chin with the guy, he gets the impression intimidation's off the list, too.
He sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes, presses the heel of his palm against his temple.
“How do I make you go away?” he says instead, because he's out of ideas and asking’s got to be quicker than guessing.
The first thing he really notices about the guy, the first thing that cuts cleanly through the black haze of the day from hell and really grabs Jensen’s attention, is the way the tiniest flicker at the corner of his mouth spreads out through his jaw and up to his eyes and wipes every trace of exasperated amusement from his face, leaves his expression dull and hardened.
The change is subtle, a chain of little shifts in tiny muscles, but the effect is huge, and Jensen wonders how he failed to notice the genuineness of the smile that framed the guy's smart-ass mouth until it was replaced by this hard, white-pink line.
A little twinge blooms somewhere north of his stomach, feels suspiciously like contrition or regret, and Jensen clenches his jaw against it. He’s not the one being unreasonable here. He’s not gonna feel bad about it.
The silence takes on weight, a heaviness he can feel in his bones, can see in the slope of the guy’s shoulders.
“Hey, I'm going,” the guy says, raising his hands up in front of his body, palms out, and his voice is different, a little lower, rougher. “I just figured since we're gonna be working together so much, I'd introduce myself. Seeing as everyone says you're such a great guy and all.”
It’s a bullet that’s obviously meant to hit dead center, and it does, but Jensen manages not to flinch until the guy says, “I'm Jared, by the way. You should probably know that, since we're gonna be alone on stage together for most of the play.”
In the end, it's Jensen who leaves the room. He's out in the hallway muttering curses under his breath before he really thinks about the fact that he just walked out on the guy-Jared-without a word, but he can't really bring himself to care.
Right now, he just needs to figure out what the fuck is going on, and for that, he needs Jeff.
Jensen's not even all the way through the doorway to Jeff's room when Jeff says, “He seems like a good kid. And he asked for it.”
It's enough to confirm Jensen's suspicion that Chris really isn't here, and after so many years, it's hard to imagine spending this week without him, impossible to imagine spending it up on stage with Jared instead. This is the first time in five or six years that Jensen's had a reason to hate the seniority-based casting system, and he wonders if maybe the universe has just been waiting all this time to unload this on him, because this? Jesus. It’s a really fucking good reason.
It's his last year with the program, Chris's too, and they're supposed to be playing these roles-these goddamn weird-as-fuck experimental roles that Chris picked out-together. He can't just get up on stage and do this shit with some random stranger. The leads have to trust each other, otherwise it's all gonna fall apart. He trusts Chris. He doesn't even know Jared.
He flops down on the spare bed, and Jeff chuckles and says, “Hi, by the way.”
Jensen flips his middle finger in Jeff's general direction. “Where the fucking fuck is Chris?” he asks.
“I don't know, something about a band?” Jeff says, eyebrows drawn together like he’s trying to remember, like it wasn't just a month ago they met up in Austin to see Chris and the guys perform.
His lip’s half quirked under his trademark scruff, trapped halfway between stubble and a beard, and Jensen snorts out a non-laugh meant to convey just how funny Jeff isn’t and rolls his eyes in the direction of the ceiling, the world at large.
“Seriously?” Jensen says, and Jeff nods. “So Steve, too?”
“Don't you check your email, kid?”
Jensen sits up against the wall and glares. “Have I not been dropping my computer off for upgrades every spring break for the last six years?” he says. “I can't believe the fucker didn't call me.”
He catches the balled up wad of paper that Jeff aims at his head, opens it to find a draft of the cast list for the program layout, Christian Kane right there under Jensen Ackles.
“Well excuse the world for not knowing your computer maintenance schedule, princess,” Jeff says, and the glint of fondness in his eyes softens out to something warm and maybe a little bit cajoling. “It was last minute, apparently. It's Europe, Jen.”
Jensen looks up at that. “Seriously, Europe?” he says. Europe, like it's a single dot on the map instead of a collection of places, and Jensen knows from experience just how quickly the two syllables will lose all meaning if they keep saying them over and over, but he can't help it. “Europe. Huh.”
Europe, otherwise known as Chris and Steve's Holy Grail. They've explained it a million times-hell, Chris has been talking about it since they were sixteen-but Jensen still doesn't understand why it's Europe they've been gunning for all these years, especially when they're just starting to make progress at home.
It’s pretty much their dream come true, though, and the bitch of it is, now he’s gotta figure out how to be happy for them and pissed as fuck at being ditched at the same time.
Postponing the happy part until tomorrow seems like a good start.
“Like I said, he seems like a good kid,” Jeff says, and Jensen sighs. Jared's probably fine, but he's not Chris. Hell, he's not even Tommy or Mike or one of the other guys who've been doing this for at least a few years.
“And he's the only other one who asked for the part?”
“Who else would've?” Jeff says, because he’s got a way of being irritatingly sensible about things. “Everyone from last year was there when you and Chris grabbed the leads, and the rest of the first timers had more sense than to waste their picks asking for a part they were never gonna get.”
Jensen bites down on the urge to turn his anger on Jeff for somehow managing to make a situation this craptastic sound entirely reasonable.
If he were into math, he'd calculate the odds of this happening-of almost twenty people, most of whom have been doing this for two or three years now, all requesting three parts each and getting cast in the best available by order of seniority-and somehow, one of the leads goes to Jared.
“Just give him a chance,” Jeff says. “That's all you can do, right?”
Jensen’s tempted to counter that point with petty technicalities, but he doesn’t. It’s the truth, in all the ways that matter, and arguing with Jeff won’t change anything.
Instead, he starts a slow, careful tear in the wrinkled paper he’s still holding, watches jagged edges form as the page splits down an invisible line in the center of Chris’s name, and tries not to feel as pathetic as he probably looks.
He’s pretty sure there’s no way to salvage the week now that it’s been fucked up so completely; he knows he should just deal, get up off his ass and find Tommy and Mike-and Sophia, ’cause she’s already pissed at him for never calling, and she might just kill him if he doesn’t at least stop in to say hi before bed tonight.
He balls up the paper and doesn’t move any further than the foot or so he has to stretch to toss it into the little wastebasket behind Jeff’s chair.
There’s no way he can just move on and pretend this is still the week he’s been looking forward to all year, but that doesn’t matter because everything starts tomorrow, whether Jensen’s cool with the situation or not.
They’ve got four days to bring this play to life out of thin air. Four days of rehearsals and costuming and set design, local schools visiting in the mornings and afternoons, whatever ridiculous fundraising activities Jeff’s got set up this year, and Jensen knows from experience that it's gonna be Friday in about three seconds.
There's no time to waste on complaining about how everything's fucked up, no matter how badly that’s all Jensen wants to do.
“He better be decent,” Jensen says.
“You better be decent,” Jeff counters, but his words are softened by a smile. “So what've you been doing with yourself?”
“Since this morning?”
“Smart-ass,” Jeff says.
“Actually, they got me on a flight pretty much right away after we talked.”
“So what took you so long?”
Jensen shrugs. “Lost an hour when they bumped me, then I ended up with a three hour layover in Atlanta. And then they sent my suitcase to Detroit instead of Boston, and then I got lost. Your phone's off, by the way.”
Jeff stacks the papers he's been organizing at the desk and turns to face Jensen. “Well, that sucks.”
“Yeah, your inability to manage your cell phone pretty much blows,” Jensen says, smirks when Jeff rolls his eyes. “Wake me up tomorrow? Seeing as my alarm clock is still flying the friendly skies.”
“What am I, your mother?” Jeff tosses a little yellow envelope in Jensen's direction and gets up to hand him a larger one. “Six-thirty, on the dot. Key, schedule, local information. You need a script?”
“Nah,” Jensen says. “Had it in my carry-on.”
“All right, then.” Jeff levels a pointed look at Jensen. “I'm gonna go lock up the main entrance, you go take care of whatever it is you said to Jared.”
He doesn’t ask how Jeff knows, just stands and rolls his shoulders against the tension that’s creeping up his spine.
“Yes, Mom,” he says, and Jeff shakes his head and shoves Jensen lightly out the door.
Jensen finds Jared's name on the door across the hall from his own. Chad's name is up there too, and Jensen sighs. Apparently, he hasn't escaped Chad duty, he's just been moved off-site, like his room's a home office or a satellite location or something.
He knocks on the door, thinks polite, professional thoughts, and hopes Jared's the one who answers, because as much as he doesn’t want to deal with Jared right now, he can’t handle Chad, not tonight.
It's not that Chad's a bad person or anything-he just needs a lot of supervision. He's got a good heart and an appalling lack of judgment that tend to combine in ways which leave messes for Jensen to clean up. Last year, he actually adopted a puppy from a local shelter, and the messes were a little more literal than usual.
When the door opens, it's Chad, of course. If this were three years ago at that little liberal arts school an hour outside of Vegas, Jensen would so be getting in his car to go put some money down on his own bad luck, because right now, it's pretty much a sure thing.
Chad just yanks Jensen down into a quick hug, though, says, “You suck, Ackles,” and heads off down the hallway with a shopping bag full of what look like empty soda bottles.
Jensen doesn't ask because he doesn't even want to know.
Instead, he nudges at the open door with his foot. Jared's lying on his bed with headphones on, and he fills up the entire mattress, but with his knees bent up and his shoulders tucked in against the corner of the wall, he almost looks comfortable.
His hair's falling into his eyes, and it's been a few years since Jensen had his hair cut the same way, but he remembers the feeling, and despite the fact that Jared’s presence is pretty much ruining his week, his fingers itch with the reflexive need to brush it back.
Something vaguely obscene echoes down the hallway. Jensen has no doubt that Chad is involved.
The sound catches Jared's attention too, and Jensen can't help feeling a little bit bad. There's no way a first timer's gonna be able to handle keeping up with the schedule and looking after Chad at the same time. It's just not possible.
Jared sits up and pulls his headphones off.
“Hey,” Jensen says. He has to be civil, probably even polite, if he wants this week to be bearable, but he doesn’t have to start tonight. “So, uh. This is a bad day. Can we talk tomorrow?”
Tomorrow Jensen will be perfectly capable of being professional, and if not, he’ll just fake it. It’ll be Friday in no time, and by this time next week, he’ll be home.
Jared doesn't answer, just gets up and grabs a bag-Jensen's carry-on-from one of the desk chairs.
“I grabbed this for you,” he says, holding it out. “You just left, and your door was open, and I didn't know if you had anything valuable in it, so.”
He shrugs like it’s entirely normal to ensure the safekeeping of a stranger’s possessions, and not at all presumptuous to do it without the stranger’s knowledge or consent.
Jensen clears his throat and considers the merits of thanks for taking my stuff without permission as an expression of gratitude.
When he grabs the bag from Jared, Jared's thumb grazes his knuckles, paints a warm stripe that he can still feel when the bag's securely in his own hand. “Pretzels,” he says, feeling a little off balance. He stares at his knuckles, at his hand, fisted around the bag’s handle, and for some reason, he keeps on talking. “Just-my script, some condoms, and a big ass bag of pretzels.”
It’s nothing like what he meant to say; it’s barely even coherent, and he feels a flash of heat spread across his cheeks.
He’s clearly not capable of dealing with Jared right now.
“It’s late,” he says, “so.”
The corners of Jared's mouth turn up just the tiniest bit, and he says, “Goodnight, Jensen,” before closing the door.
As it turns out, Jeff wasn't kidding about the six-thirty wake up call. He pounds on the door until Jensen gets out of bed and opens it, and Jensen glares and hates the world while Jeff laughs in his face.
He has towels, though, and soap and toothpaste and shampoo, so Jensen forgives him.
Jared's just coming out of the showers when Jensen goes in, and Jensen has the presence of mind to not screw up their already tenuous situation, but he's not up to mending any fences before he gets a fucking truckload of caffeine in his system, so he just kind of waves and stays out of Jared's way.
It's not as easy as it looks, given that there are only three sinks and Jared's big enough to take up two and a half of them, but he manages, and he's brushing his teeth with his finger when Jared finishes up whatever he's doing and leaves.
While he's scrubbing his hair and thinking idly about why the hell Jared's up so early on purpose, and kind of accidentally using him as a musculature diagram, which is a habit he picked up in Anatomy I and hasn’t been able to kick-it’s practically Pavlovian; he sees muscles, he names them, and it turns out Jared’s ripped, every cut and curve so well defined that they might as well be outlined in red ink and labeled-it occurs to him that he might have accidentally been less than civil with Jared anyway, despite his best efforts to stay out of the guy's way.
He doesn’t do mornings well.
He’s been warned about how he looks fresh out of bed, sloppy and squinty, the kind of miserable that can easily pass for resentful or rude, according to his mom and just about every other woman who's ever seen him pre-coffee, and now that he’s awake enough for almost semi-lucid thought, he doesn't know whether his wave communicated the pained but courteous early morning commiseration he was going for or whether it came across as more of a brush off.
He closes his eyes and ducks under the water. With the way his luck’s been going, it’s probably too much to ask for Jared to somehow miraculously not have gotten the wrong idea.
Never mind the fact that he wasn't actually being an asshole this time.
He lets the shower’s spray fill his mouth just so he can spit it out, and the bathroom door squeaks open. “Jen, you in here?”
“Hmmm,” Jensen says, which is close enough to an answer, and Jeff's always been pretty good at figuring out what Jensen means in the morning anyway.
“I'm going out to grab the breakfast spread, you want anything besides donuts and muffins?”
“Coffee,” Jensen monotones. “Bagel.”
The door squeaks, then squeaks again when Jensen shouts, “Jeff, wait!”
“Yeah?”
“Jared's up too,” he says. It's a longstanding tradition that anyone who's awake when Jeff does the breakfast run gets to put in their own order, and if Jared's gonna be up at this ungodly hour, he should at least reap the benefits.
“Sure,” Jeff says, and Jensen figures that’s a good start on evening out any possible accidental rudeness from earlier and goes back to rinsing.
When the water runs clear, and then clear turns into cold, he sighs and shuts it off, but he takes his time getting dry. The idea of going to his room and getting back into yesterday's clothes isn't exactly appealing.
He can’t spend all day toweling off, though, not if he wants to grab Jeff's phone and call the airline. It's probably about two hours until breakfast, two and a half until rehearsal gets started. Hopefully, that'll be enough time to fit in yelling at someone about his suitcase and finding some kind of even footing with Jared-and if there's time left over, maybe he'll call Jennie and see if there's a way to get ahold of her fucktard of a brother while he's in Europe.
The hallway's empty when Jensen gets back to his room, but Jared's door is cracked open
Jensen's ignoring that fact and rushing his key into his door lock when Jared says, “Hey,” behind him.
Jensen turns. “Hey,” he echoes. “I didn’t mean to be, uh... well. Mornings aren't my thing.”
Jared's slightly fuzzy in his doorway, two or three feet too far away for Jensen to really see him clearly without contacts or glasses. He doesn't appear to be charging across the hallway with his fists drawn, though. That’s probably a good sign.
“Heard about your luggage, man,” he says. “That sucks.”
Jensen nods his agreement, and since he needs to get this over with, make sure they’re both ready to do good work and be professional, he says, “You wanna head over to the stage in a few? Jeff'll be going straight there with breakfast.”
“Sure,” Jared answers, and then he tosses something that Jensen manages to catch with the hand that's not holding up his towel. Up close, it turns out to be a gray hooded sweatshirt, and Jared says, “Thought you might want something clean,” and goes back inside his room.
Outside, last night's snow has almost disappeared already, and it's warmer, but still not nearly warm enough. Jensen makes it about five steps before he stops carrying Jared’s sweatshirt over his arm just to be polite and shoves it down over his head instead.
The wind picks up when they exit the sheltered area inside the cluster of dorms, steals Jensen’s breath and makes his eyes water, and he says, “I am so driving next time.”
He hears a soft huff that might be Jared, might be the wind; hell, it might just be the universe having a laugh at his expense, but he looks over anyway.
“Dude, it's like forty-five degrees out here,” Jared says, and his mouth curves into a smile. “Try spending nine months of the year in Michigan.”
Jensen shakes his head and cringes when the motion gives the cold air access to his neck.
“Yeah, no thanks.”
Jared snorts out a laugh as Jensen turtles as far as he can into his borrowed hoodie, and Jensen flips him off, then instantly regrets the decision to expose his hand to the elements. Jared just laughs harder, throws his head back like it's the funniest thing in the world and doesn't stop until Jensen's chuckling too. It's contagious, and genuine, if not hearty, and by the time they follow the map on the schedule all the way to the theater, Jensen’s almost warm.
Jared stops at the glass door, turns toward Jensen. His smile’s flattened out into a soft curve, and he’s watching Jensen’s chin, or maybe his shoulder. “You should laugh more,” he says. “I mean, it’s nice.”
He turns back toward the building, and Jensen’s throat constricts around the tail end of a chuckle, burns as he swallows it down.
It’s a poorly veiled criticism, vaguely complimentary in a way that’s completely transparent, and it’s like a slap in the face-not just because Jared doesn’t know a goddamn thing about him, but because Jensen’s apparently gotten so caught up in nothing, just, what? Walking with Jared? That he’s forgotten to make his point, completely failed to impress upon Jared the importance of being professional.
Irony, thy name is Jensen. Jesus.
A creeping flush follows in the wake of that realization; he feels it belatedly wipe the smile from his face, sees it reflected a second later in glass panes of the windowed entryway behind Jared.
This isn’t how things are supposed to be going.
He’s supposed to be setting a professional tone for the week; he’s supposed to be clearing the air, making sure they can work together, not making small talk about the weather and laughing like an idiot over nothing at all.
Jared turns back again when Jensen doesn’t move. His smile fades, but he doesn’t stop watching, and Jensen shifts his gaze entirely to his own reflection in the windows. No surprise, he looks like a guy who lost his luggage, soft hair falling a little too far forward, wire-framed glasses he hasn’t updated in years, faded blue and gold logo on his chest from a place he’s never been, never wants to see.
He turns back to Jared, clears his throat and says, “Yeah, well. I’ll laugh more when there’s more to laugh about.” He keeps his tone even and professional, makes his way back to the point. “So we’ve gotta get through this week together,” he says. “Are we cool, or do we need to... I mean, you know. Last night.”
Jared shakes his head. “Bad day, man,” he says, “I get it.”
It's too easy, the way Jared says it, the way he just reaches for the door when the wind whips his hair into his eyes, already on to the next thing.
Jensen doesn’t follow, can’t seem to force his body into motion.
This-just walking away, shrugging it off like there’s nothing to be discussed, settled, forgotten-it’s exactly what Chris would do, just call a dick a dick and move on.
It’s so familiar and so not, and Jensen just stares, like Jared’s somehow going to lose six inches, forty pounds or so, grow a fugly cowboy hat and a perpetual smirk and start railing on the record industry for keeping good music down.
Jared pauses in the doorway.
“I mean, you're done being a dick, right?” he says, one corner of his mouth pulled up into a teasing smirk that shows off a wicked dimple, and Jesus, for a second, it’s-it’s not what Chris would say, not how Chris would say it, but it’s exactly what he’d do, and an answering smile tugs at the edge of Jensen’s mouth even as a thread of anxiety wraps around his stomach, winds lines of tension up through his chest into his shoulders, his neck, his jaw.
Chris would fucking love Jared. Jensen’s suddenly sure of that the same way he’s sure of anything he can’t really explain: gravity, evolution, the continued success of American Idol. He’d call Jared kid or hey, you to his face, say nothing but good things about him behind his back, lay the same smackdown he did four years ago, when Steve was a new face and Jensen wasn’t ready to give him a chance.
This isn’t the same situation, though, and since Chris’s ass isn’t here, his opinion doesn’t matter.
All Jensen has to do is be professional. This isn’t what he signed up for, but he’s here now, and the program does good work, so he just has to do his best and not be a jerk to Jared along the way.
That’s all anyone can ask of him.
From the doorway, Jared heaves a sigh and says, “Fine, you can still be a dick. But only to Chad. And only when he deserves it.”
Jensen doesn’t answer, just chokes down a snort and runs a hand over his mouth, smoothes the upturned corners down as best he can and follows Jared inside.
Jensen's on the phone, not deaf, which is how he hears Jeff saying, “You caffeinate him or something?”
“I can hear you,” Jensen says.
Three feet to his right, on the other side of Jeff, Jared answers, “Nah, man.”
“Huh,” Jeff says. “Seven years, and I don't think I've ever seen him smile before he's had his coffee before.”
“I will dump this in your lap,” Jensen warns, clutching his too-hot coffee tight to his chest. It's an idle threat, and he knows that Jeff knows it, but still. It's the thought that counts.
“Maybe it wasn't a smile,” Jared says. “Maybe it was just gas.”
Jensen rolls his eyes and abandons his front row seat to go sit up on the edge of the stage.
His bad mood’s back in full force, has been ever since Jared pulled his rolled-up script out of his back pocket and started thumbing through it during the pauses in his conversation with Jeff.
Rehearsal starts in under an hour and a half, according to the clock on the back wall, and then Jensen’s gonna know just how badly he’s screwed.
For now, he’s on hold.
He's been on hold for at least a half hour, and Jared and Jeff have spent most of that time talking about their dogs. Sadie, Bisou, and Harley, apparently. One of them's got one and the other's got two, or maybe they both have one and a half, he wasn't really paying all that much attention until his name came up.
He remembers something about Jeff getting a puppy a couple of years ago, though. He’s fuzzy on the specifics, the names and numbers. Chris would know. He always remembers the details.
Of course, remembering to call his oldest friend in the world when he cancels plans with him to go to Europe instead is too much to ask, obviously.
Jensen sighs, wedges Jeff’s miraculously half-charged phone in against his shoulder and leans back on his elbows. The alternating elevator music and assurances that his call will be taken in the order it was received don't waver, and he picks at the flaking varnish on the stage floor as he takes a minute to look at Jared.
From this distance, he can't hear the conversation clearly over the hold music pressed against his ear, but Jared's laughing about something.
The guy laughs like no one Jensen's ever seen, so completely that he just about breaks apart with it. It's huge and easy and infectious, just like his smile, and Jensen can't help wondering how that's going to play on stage.
It was Chris who picked this year's play, brought it to Jeff's attention and insisted that it'd be awesome. He said the part was made for him, and Jensen agreed, still does, even though he'd rather be doing something more traditional than this borderline experimental shit that Chris loves so much. Beckett, Shaw, maybe Wilde.
Chris has always done things a little differently, though-like the time he went missing and turned up on a goddamn TV series before he thought to let anyone know where he was-but no matter how frustrating it can be, Jensen wouldn’t change it.
And if Chris were here, playing his part, Jensen wouldn’t change the play, either.
It’s like nothing Jensen’s ever read, based on a book (award-winning, but really fucking weird, according to Steve, the only one who’s actually taken the time to read it) designed to make dissociative identity disorder accessible for kids and teens-and as bizarre as that is, with Chris, it felt right.
It’s something about the way they grew up, the way they are. Chris has been his best friend since second grade, but they haven’t lived within two hundred miles of each other since Chris’s family relocated from Dallas to Oklahoma when they were thirteen.
It’s never been hard, though. Summer camp when they were young, road trips later on, and now-Jensen can go a year without seeing Chris in person, or they can crash on each others’ couches for six months straight; they can talk all night or rely on emails and texts for weeks at a time, and they’re always okay.
With Chris, he can relate to the part, he can construct the character out of pieces of himself. Hell, half the time he feels like Chris is kind of like another part of him anyway, so it fits.
But now he’s doing Chris's play without Chris, and putting Jared in the role completely changes the tone of the thing, changes how the audience will see it, changes how it resonates for Jensen.
He’s not sure how to do it now, not sure it’s going to work, and it’s terrifyingly easy to rearrange those words in his mind until he’s sure it’s not going to work.
Chris and Jared are just so different. Similar, maybe, underneath it all, but. God, not even close.
Where Chris is compact, Jared's huge; where almost nothing Chris does, on stage or off, is without an edge of mischief or adventure, Jared seems simpler, easier. Less restlessly intense, and it's that kind of constant buzz of tension that Chris does so well that really defined the part for Jensen.
He's not sure Jared's got that, not sure Jared will even take it in that direction.
In the front row, Jared pats Jeff on the back over something Jensen can't hear, and Jeff smiles, then leaves Jared alone with his script.
Jensen watches Jared’s hair fall over his face, his lips move over the words.
It's not very often they end up with an actor who's legitimately bad. Jensen's seen it maybe twice in his seven years with ACT!, but mostly, people who've actually heard of the program and bother to seek it out are experienced, and at the very least, decent.
This time, though-Jesus. Decent’s not good enough.
The play's a fucking minefield of lines and pauses that fall in and out of unison, conversations that won't line up, won't make sense unless they're executed perfectly, a million little spots where one misstep by either of them will leave the other completely fucked, and there's no exit stage left in this play, no time to regroup.
They're on stage for literally the entire play, and alone together for a good part of it.
Jensen sets his coffee down and lies all the way back, looks up at the lights and the curtains, away from Jared. He's got nerves and caffeine churning in his stomach, and it's not a great combination, but he can't help it.
He closes his eyes, tries to focus on the hold music that’s boring its way into his brain instead of anything that’s going on in the auditorium. He wants to tune it all out, Jeff, Jared, the occasional shuffling noises he can’t accurately attribute to either one of them, but when he hears footsteps edging close, feels a hand on his knee, he turns his head.
Sophia hops up on the stage and lies down beside him, and he shifts Jeff’s phone to his other ear.
“Hey, beautiful,” she says. She laces her fingers through his. “You’re sorry you didn’t come see me last night. And you’re very sorry you never call, because you know email’s not the same as hearing your gorgeous voice. You’re gonna do much better from now on, you promise.”
Jensen squeezes her fingers.
“I’m sorry about Chris,” she says. “And Steve. And your luggage. But Jared seems okay. I heard he won some kind of national drama competition in high school.”
This isn’t high school drama, though. And if Jensen’s being honest, it’s not only Jared’s performance he’s worried about.
He can’t just put himself out there with a complete stranger. Not like this, not when he came here ready to tear himself down and then piece himself back together into this character in a way that only his best friend in the world would understand and appreciate.
He can’t do that now, and the problem isn’t that he can’t do it with Jared. He can’t do it with anyone. Only Chris, and since Chris isn’t here, he doesn’t have a fucking clue what’s going to happen when he gets on stage.
He squeezes Sophia’s hand again, and she squeezes back.
“I meant everything you said,” he says.
She kisses his shoulder and says, “I know you did, beautiful.”
He sighs and sits up again, takes another sip of his coffee.
By the time people start wandering in, Jensen's just about got everything squared away with the airline. At least one part of his life is looking up; his suitcase apparently had a lovely trip and is going to be delivered sometime this afternoon.
Jeff's separating the first timers from the rest of the group when Jensen hops down off the stage.
“You wanna get this?” Jeff says, pointing the first timers toward the corner of the auditorium and jerking his head in the direction of everyone else.
Jensen shrugs, looks out into the crowd and says, “Chris and Steve bailed. Donuts are over there.”
“Jen!” Jeff yells from across the room.
“Fine,” Jensen yells back. He rolls his eyes and smiles a little. “Okay, who's got a schedule?”
Sophia, who is without a doubt the most disgustingly organized person on the planet, aside from Jeff, holds hers up, and Jensen grabs it, kisses her on the cheek and says, “Lose something, please. Prove to us all you're a human being.”
“All right,” he says, “Jeff's doing ACT! one-oh-one for the first timers, then we've got the morning meeting from nine-thirty to ten, full runthrough with scripts followed by a group critique from ten to twelve. Lunch is twelve to one, then director's roundtable one to two, set design, lighting and costuming meetings and small group rehearsals from two to three, then another full runthrough from three to five. Six to seven is first night dinner and debriefing, and now I'm taking drink orders.”
He trades Sophia her schedule for a pen and paper, and he's writing down different kinds of liquor and beer when Jeff starts leading the group of first timers back over.
“Patron Silver and strawberry margarita mix,” Mike calls out. “And a blender! And salt!”
“Fuck you,” Jensen says with a smile, “drink like a man or don't drink at all!”
“Language, children,” Jeff says. He points to the five first timers he's got with him in order and says, “Julie, Jonah, Sandy, Jared, Mark.” Then he looks out at everyone else, scattered in the first three rows of seats and says, “Christ, okay. This one's Jensen,” Jeff points in Jensen's direction, “and the rest, you'll learn.”
“Impressive,” Jensen says.
“Almost as impressive as your ability to read the schedule out loud,” Jeff answers dryly. “Sit.”
The morning meeting's a tradition, kind of a cross between a pep talk and a status conference with a little bit of free-for-all thrown in for good measure.
Jensen sits, per Jeff’s request, and a chorus of exaggerated yawns erupts from behind him. Jared lifts a questioning eyebrow from one seat over, and Jensen bites down on his chuckle and says, “It's a Chris thing. Trust me, you want to pay attention.”
It'd take more hands than they’ve currently got available to count out how many times Chris screwed up because he fell asleep at the morning meeting, though he always maintained that it was part of his charm, usually emphasized the statement with a well-placed finger.
“It sucks that he's not here,” Jensen says, because apparently, he really blows at the whole being professional and not rude thing. He sucks in a breath. “I don't mean-just. You’d like him. Everyone does.”
“No, I get it, man,” Jared says. “He's your friend.”
Jeff clears his throat and looks pointedly at Jensen, and Jensen just smiles as angelically as he can, until Jeff rolls his eyes and shakes his head. It's their morning routine; Jensen pretends to be a pain in the ass, Jeff pretends to be exasperated. Like everything else, though, it's different without Chris, and Jensen sighs and leans back into his cushioned seat.
“Okay,” Jeff says, “you all know why you're here, so I'm not gonna tell you, and if you forgot, well, that's tough shit ’cause it's too late to go home.”
Over the scattered groans and laughter, Jeff continues. “New stuff first,” he says. “First of all, congratulations, you're all legal this year, and this isn’t a dry building, so you don't have to hide the alcohol. Be safe, be responsible or I will kill you, and most importantly, do it on your time. Mr. Murray, when is your time?”
“Sir, after dinner, Sir, unless you tell us otherwise, Sir!” Chad barks.
Jared covers his face with his hands through the bright wave of laughter that follows, and Jensen can’t help reaching over, reassuring Jared with a clap on the shoulder and his whispered suspicion that it's probably about evenly divided between at Chad and with Chad.
“Good man,” Jeff says. “And don't think you're going out clubbing, or whatever it is you do, building curfew's still ten o'clock. There's an exception on Thursday, but that's a fundraiser, and we'll talk about it later.”
“Later?” Jared whispers.
Jensen leans in. “Never a good sign,” he whispers back. He could elaborate; he’s got more than a few fundraising horror stories, but he leans back in his seat instead and turns his eyes toward Jeff.
“Also new this year,” Jeff continues, “we've got a dedicated background crew. Julie, Jonah, and Sandy, and that takes some of the pressure off, so Jensen, Jared, I'm not gonna need you behind the scenes at all. Everyone else, signups'll go around at lunchtime.”
That's news to Jensen, though he's not sure whether it's good news or bad news. He's not really happy about getting kicked out of a job, even a job he hates as much as painting scenery or spell-checking the programs, but he and Jared are going to need all the time they can get to rehearse, so it's probably not the worst thing.
Jeff says, “We've got casting changes, for those of you who haven't read your schedules. Sophia, love of my life and the only person who reads the documents I so painstakingly prepare for you guys, tell ’em all what's going on.”
“Jared's taking Chris's part,” she says, “Chad's tripling up with Steve's part and Jared's old part.”
“Didn't know that, did you?” Jeff says, raising an eyebrow at Chad, who's gaping just a little bit. He'll be fine, though. His brain is obviously defective in many, many ways, but Jensen knows from experience that memorization isn't one of them.
Jeff flips over to the second page of his schedule. “Okay, this morning, we've got JFK and Fall Brook-those are grammar schools-and Howser K through eight’s coming in after lunch. Remember to watch your language around the kids. Any questions?” he asks, doesn’t wait for an answer. “All right, then, let's go, people. We've got work to do.”
Jensen can't focus during the group critique. He hears the words, misses the context, tries his best to keep his eyes fixed on a neutral spot, away from Jared, away from Jeff. They're both watching him-both completely failing to be subtle about it-maybe because his performance was so off during the runthrough, or maybe just because he's not really participating in the critique, Jensen doesn't know.
He does know that he’s ready for the constructive criticism portion of the program to be over. None of it’s going to be relevant the next time he gets up on stage, and what he needs right now isn’t an obsolete critique, it’s a minute to himself, a minute to take in where they are and where they’re going, what kind of work they really need to do.
Jared looks over again, peeks out from under his bangs in a way that’s so far from subtle that Jensen almost has to smile.
Almost, because he’s an edgy, raw kind of nervous right now, nearly giddy with it in a leg-twitching, stomach-fluttering kind of way, and he’s pretty sure he can’t smile without laughing, can’t laugh without sounding a little bit insane.
He just needs this to be over so they can move on.
Because, yeah, he expected it to go badly, but-just, in a very different way.
When Jeff officially calls it for lunch-finally-Jensen means to stick around for a while, smile and socialize with the kids and teachers, talk with Jeff, then grab Jared for a minute or two of professional, candid discussion, tell him, hey, it’s okay, we'll get it next time.
That's not what happens, though.
What happens is that Jared grins, dimples cut deep in his cheeks, massive expanse of teeth-because Jesus, everything about him is huge-and says, “That was great, man, for a first shot? Wanna compare notes during lunch?” and Jensen mumbles something that skirts the line between affirmative and noncommittal and tries to keep his gait reasonably casual as he lunges for the nearest exit.
He’s not running away-he’s not, he just needs some air, needs space, needs time, needs to get his head wrapped around things, and he needs to do it somewhere where he’s not two feet away from Jared and his ridiculously huge smile.
He ends up in the hallway behind the stage. It's empty, and heavy with a forced kind of silence that he thinks maybe comes from years and years of whispers substituting for voices, too close to the stage for even casual, low volume conversation.
He heads away from the auditorium, follows the hallway through a heavy swinging door that leads him to a landing, a half flight of stairs, a back exit. It's brighter here; sunlight stripes the floor, and the air is cooler, lighter.
He drops down onto the top step, hits it a little harder than he means to and shifts so he's half leaning against the wall.
Jared was fucking incredible.
Jared, who’s this massive, huge-guy, who laughs like nothing Jensen’s ever seen, smiles and jokes around, gets this wicked dimple on one side when he’s teasing, who-Jesus, gave Jensen a sweatshirt for no apparent reason, and he just.
Nailed it in a way Jensen wouldn’t have even thought was possible.
He was like a fuse of coiled intensity, just-transforming as they went along, burning down to something raw underneath, something Jensen never saw in the part until Jared brought it out. It caught his breath, stole his rhythm, left him off balance in a way he's never been before, and for all the energy he put into worrying that Jared wouldn't be good enough, that he wouldn't be able to give enough, it's Jensen who failed to measure up.
He's not used to being the weakest link, and it leaves him feeling unsteady, top heavy with a kind of mental vertigo he can't shake or explain, but god, if Jensen can get his fucking shit together-when he gets his shit together-they're gonna blow the goddamn roof off.
The knowledge floods his system in a quivering rush, sets his skin buzzing, strands him in the middle of a laugh he can't quite quell, a tremble he can't quite still. It turns circles in his stomach, this idea that there's more, that he can be better-maybe even better than he was with Chris, and so much better than he could ever be on his own.
He’s already making changes in his head, rebuilding his character from scratch, because the way he’s been playing it-even if he’d done it right instead of fumbling around like an idiot because he couldn’t tear himself away from Jared’s performance-isn’t quite right, now that he’s seen what Jared’s going to do.
When Jared comes through the door a few minutes later carrying a pizza and a two liter bottle of soda like it's the most normal thing in the world, Jensen decides that maybe it is because the awkwardness he's expecting never comes.
Instead, Jared just kicks Jensen's legs off the landing to make room for the food and sits.
Jeff's got a knack for always finding the best pizza, no matter where they are. This one's in a box that says Papa Gino's, and it's possibly the best thing Jensen's ever had in his mouth.
They pass the box and the bottle back and forth for a little while, until Jared leans back against the railing and says, “You know, I get it, man, you were expecting to do the part with someone else, it's a big change.” He shrugs. “So just tell me what I can do to, y'know. Improve, or-make it easier, or whatever.”
He says it the same way he tossed his sweatshirt in Jensen’s direction earlier, straightforward and easy, and Jensen’s so caught off guard by the wrongness of it that he just stares for a second, mid-bite, watches Jared’s sneakers next to his own on the steps, the ridiculous length of his legs, the way his hair’s almost falling into his eyes again. When he finally responds, says, “Dude, stop saying that,” his voice is rough, and he’s stilling his hand against his thigh, willing away that familiar urge to brush Jared’s out of control hair away from his face.
Jared counters with, “Dude, chew,” and Jensen flips him off and swallows his mouthful of pizza.
He doesn't really want to ruin the whole companionable silence thing they've got going on, because it’s so much better than the constant ebb and flow of tension they’ve been dealing with so far, but there’s got to be some amount of trust between them-not like the kind of relationship he has with Chris or anything, but god.
They’re not even gonna come close, if Jared's always letting him off the hook.
“Stop saying you get it, man,” he says. “Tell me I'm an asshole, tell me I screwed up. I'm the one who fucked up out there today, and you know it.”
Jared shrugs again, and that’s when Jensen notices the half-quirked lip, one dimple carved out next to it. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “But I figure that's not what you want to hear, what with you coming out here to cry over it and all.”
“Fuck you,” Jensen says, but he feels the corner of his mouth turn up in response to Jared's growing smile, and he shoves at Jared's knee with his sneaker. “And stop listening to Chad.”
Jared snorts. “Been trying about four years now. Turns out it's not that easy.”
Jensen’s pizza freezes halfway to his mouth. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, Chad's actually my best friend.” Jared says, and he ducks his head, half chuckles, half groans. “I really have no idea how that happened.”
“So you know Chad.”
“I know Chad. Hell, I know everything there is to know about Chad.”
“Huh,” Jensen says. It’s kind of a terrifying thought. Chad’s a good guy, but there are things about him that Jensen just doesn’t ever want to know. Like, say, the end of the brownie story from two years ago, or what, exactly, he was doing with those soda bottles last night.
In fact, that’s pretty much his number one rule when it comes to Chad. As long as no one’s getting hurt-without their prior consent, and it’s just so fucking wrong that there’s a reason for that clarification-he doesn’t even want to know.
“He's really not such a bad guy, you know.”
Jensen shakes his head. “No, yeah, I know.” Mike always says he has a Chad face, and he’s not really sure what that is, exactly, but he tries not to be making it, seeing as Chad is apparently Jared’s best friend, and Jensen actually doesn’t think Chad’s a bad person.
Except for that one time.
“Well,” he says, “there was the time Mike caught him making out backstage with a seventeen year old on a field trip. But we don't talk about that.”
Jared snorts. “Yeah, that sounds like Chad.”
“He still have that puppy?”
“Harley?” Jared says, smile spread wide. “Yeah, that was-Chad actually brought him home for me as a birthday gift.”
It’s the kind of thing that should be surprising, but Jensen’s known Chad for years now, and somehow, it’s really just not.
“So, uh. You’ve got a birthday coming up?” he says, because it’s polite to ask, and not at all because he’s just noticed that they’re both stretched out on the stairs, Jared’s long-ass legs bridging Jensen’s-and Jensen’s pretty damn far from short-and he’s lost track of what they were talking about, which was-dogs. Dog. Harley.
Right.
Jared shakes his head. “No, see, you've gotta understand Chad’s logic, it’s like. Anti-logic.”
“So, no birthday?”
“I'll be twenty-two. In July.”
“Huh,” Jensen says, and clearly, he’s known Chad for way too long, because he can almost see the way it would make sense in Chad’s head. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Thanks for taking him off my hands, by the way.”
“No problem. I'm used to him anyway, I mean. We got assigned to be roommates freshman year, and then every spring, he just kept signing us up together again and I didn't have the heart to say no, you know? And then boom, one day I wake up and we’re sharing an apartment off campus together and he's my best friend in the world.” Jared shakes his head. “I don't even know.”
Jensen grins and says, “Hey, you promise to keep him in line, and I promise not to hold your Chad affiliation against you.” He grabs another slice of pizza. “So that's why you signed up? Chad?”
“Yeah,” Jared says. “I mean, I've been thinking about it for a while. Been watching the DVDs every year, and Chad loves it, so. It seemed like a good thing to do. Plus, I'm graduating, so this is pretty much my last shot.”
“No grad school?” Jensen asks.
“I applied,” Jared says. “I just don't know if I'm gonna go. Might take some time first, figure out what I really want to do, you know?”
Jensen nods, means to say something about how he gets it, understands that kind of pivotal uncertainty, but after a second or two of silence, what comes out is, “Seriously, the videos?”
His voice comes out a little whinier than it needs to be, ever, and he cringes.
As far as he’s concerned, the videos are a necessary evil-light on the necessary, really fucking heavy on the evil.
Jeff brings in an audiovisual company to tape the Friday night performance every year, and it’s promotion, mainly, which Jensen’s definitely in favor of, but then everyone involved gets a DVD, too.
Jensen's got his stacked neatly on a shelf. In his mother’s living room. In Richardson. Approximately four hours and thirty-three minutes from his apartment in San Antonio. He keeps hoping they’ll mysteriously disappear, but as far as he knows, it hasn’t happened yet.
He’s never watched them, never plans on it, and he can feel the heat rising on his cheeks at the thought that Jared has.
He clears his throat. “Jesus,” he says. “So.”
“So you’re in grad school,” Jared says, and he’s watching Jensen a little more intently than the question requires, one corner of his mouth raised just enough to show off a dimple, and Jensen doesn’t even care, as long as it means he doesn’t have to think about the damn videos anymore.
“Physical therapy,” he says. “Graduating in May, so. This is my last year.” One of the program rules is that participants have to be in either college or grad school. There's an age restriction, too, eighteen minimum, and Jensen's pretty sure the upper number is actually whatever age Mike is in any given year.
“Cool,” Jared says, still smiling that same little smile, and Jensen’s trapped there with him, still thinking about the damn videos.
He clears his throat again and works on steering the conversation in an entirely new and hopefully less painfully awkward direction-because yes, okay, maybe it’s completely irrational that he’s this freaked out by the thought of Jared watching his old performances, but it’s also entirely justified, after this morning. He’s filled his screwing up in front of Jared quota for the rest of time, if not longer, and he doesn’t need to think about all of his past mistakes laid out for Jared’s viewing pleasure as well.
“I don’t suck,” he says. More like blurts, actually, because apparently, changing the subject is not his forte.
Jared drops one of his legs down a step, nudges Jensen’s, and he says, “Duh.”
There’s a chuckle on the edge of his voice, but Jensen doesn’t look up at him, doesn’t look away from where their ankles are curved against each other, instep to instep.
Jared eventually shifts away, and Jensen clears his throat, tries the whole subject changing thing again.
“So, uh. One thing I’ve gotta know,” he says. “Why'd you ask for this part?”
“Just optimistic, I guess,” Jared answers. “I wasn't expecting to get it or anything. I mean, the seniority system's pretty clear, but then Jeff called a few days ago, and, you know. Here I am.”
“That’s, uh. Good,” Jensen says, after a minute. “I mean, I think it’ll be-I think it won’t suck.”
“Ringing endorsement,” Jared says, eyebrow raised, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and Jensen swallows against a fierce and sudden urge to explain himself; apologize, maybe, or hell, maybe just say whatever random thing pops into his head, because that’s been working great so far.
But then Jared ducks his head, says, “Thanks,” and something in the way he looks up makes Jensen think that maybe he gets it, so he just nods in response.
The silence that follows is light, easy in a way that doesn’t make sense, given the way everything Jensen says around Jared-in anger, on stage, in conversation, everything-is pretty much a complete disaster, but Jensen’s not about to question it.
Instead, he leans back a little further, closes his eyes for a minute. It’s nice-for a stairwell-cool and sunlit, quiet. He can hear Jared’s breathing as easily as his own, and he just listens until Jared says, “Hey.”
Jensen says, “Hey,” back, soft and lazy, before it occurs to him that he should probably be opening his eyes instead of talking.
When he does, Jared holds up his watch.
“Shit,” Jensen says. “We gotta get back.”
“Yeah.”
For a minute, Jared looks like he might say something else, but then he stands and gathers up the pizza box, holds a hand out to pull Jensen up.
part two