SPN Fic: By All Means, Rome (1/4)
title: By All Means, Rome
author: deirdre_c
characters: Jared/Jensen
rating: NC-17
length: ~28,000 words
summary: Jared Padalecki is an American living in Rome and writing for a celebrity gossip magazine. One night he rescues a stranger off the street who turns out to be mega-star Jensen Ackles, two-time Oscar winner and notorious recluse. Jared thinks he can trick Jensen into giving him the story of a lifetime. Will he succeed? Or will twenty-four hours spent together in Rome change Jared’s life story forever? An AU based on the classic film, Roman Holiday.
disclaimer: This is purely a work of fiction.
author’s notes: Written for the spn_j2_bigbang.
Words cannot express my gratitude to my betas, veronamay and audrarose for their incredible generosity, help, and support. This story would never have come together without them. In addition, I have to give enormous thanks to the fantastic kros_21 for taking on the job of “Rome expert” for a complete stranger and reviewing my story for contextual and linguistic inaccuracies. The three of them are not responsible in any way for remaining errors contained within, those are all my own.
Thanks and praise to my amazing artist, bittersweet_art. I still cannot believe how lucky I was that she picked my story. Working with her has been a dream come true from start to finish.
Also, thanks to wendy and thehighwaywoman for all of their ridiculous hard work in coordinating the spn_j2_bigbang. You both rock.
I also want to express my life-long gratitude to John Dighton and Dalton Trumbo for writing and to William Wyler for directing one of my favorite films, Roman Holiday.
Part 1:
***
“Come to Papà!”
Jared performs a little victory dance in his seat as he drags the pile of chips across the table. He pictures himself in Vegas, bright lights dazzling, audience cheering, cameras rolling, the deep-voiced announcer dubbing him World Poker Champion.
Chad groans. “You are one lucky son-of-a-bitch tonight.”
Mike throws down his cards and Sandy scootches her chair back from the table with a disgusted look at the meager stack of chips she has left in front of her. “That’s it. I’m done.”
Jared raises his eyebrows, all innocence. “What can I say? Must be my night.”
He stands and wends his way through the decorating disaster of Sandy and Genevieve’s apartment-random piles of pottery shards, over-sized baroque gilded putti, a four-foot-high woven basket, delicately carved wooden cabinets and tables filling every inch of wall space-to snag another beer from the fridge. Genevieve is doing a post-doc in archeology and her collection of flea market finds from Porta Portese makes the room look like a cross between an art history museum and a garbage dump. But the girls’ place is the only one that can fit all of them for their regular Sunday ex-pat Poker Night.
Tom addresses the room at large, “So who’s working the Storm Surge press conference tomorrow?”
Chad and Sandy respond simultaneously, “I am.”
Jared calls from the kitchen, “Me too.”
“I hear Jensen Ackles will actually be answering questions,” Sandy says. “I’m hoping I can get a quote from him about the rumors linking him and Scarlett.”
Tom lounges back, stretching long legs and arms in opposite directions, rolling his wrists with a series of cracks. Jared smiles into his bottle as he catches both Mike and Genevieve staring. Oblivious, Tom says, “I bet he just sits there acting bored and grouchy, like usual. The dude’s so lame. Just skates by on his looks.”
“Two Oscars says different," Sandy replies.
Jared slides back into his seat and plugs his ears. “La La La. You guys, I’m begging you. We have to deal with this shit all day. Don’t make me bring my work home.”
Mike, ignoring him, chimes in. “Guess what they’re calling that new haircut all the Hollywood starlets are sporting? ‘The Jensen.’” He even does the air quotes.
Sandy adds, “I hear he has those long blond locks insured by Lloyd’s of London.”
“I thought that was Salma Hayek’s tits?”
Chad gets a slap across the back of the head from Genevieve for his trouble. “That was Betty Grable’s legs, you perv.”
Chad doesn't know when to quit. “I’m pretty sure it’s both Ackles’ hair and Salma’s tits.”
He's obviously a terrible influence because Jared, unplugging his ears-no one's heeding his pain anyway-says, “Sandy’s got better tits than Salma Hayek anyway.”
“Shut up.” Sandy rolls her eyes, but looks pleased. “What makes you an authority on tits, gaylord?”
“Hey, a guy can have a keen aesthetic appreciation, even if they’re a turn-off,” Jared retorts.
Genevieve snickers, then hauls Jared up out of his chair by the collar. “I can’t stand to see this night degenerate any further. Good night, gentlemen. And I use that term loosely.”
Mike pouts at her for a second or two with no success. “I guess this means we’re officially kicked out, guys. Wanna hit the bar?” He turns and throws his arms around both Chad’s and Tom’s shoulders. Jared’s pretty sure Chad got included in that maneuver as an excuse.
Tom shrugs a casual affirmative and Chad says, “Sure.”
But Jared says, “Naw. The money I won off you suckers tonight is going into The Fund." His friends know that he’s slowly but surely been saving for grad school, which is hard when he can barely cover the rent most months. Sometimes he wonders whether his buddies let him win on poker nights, except for the fact they’re all scraping by, too. “Besides I’ve gotta be up in just a couple hours for that press conference. And so do all y’all, Rosenbaum.”
“Eh. I can cover these things with my eyes closed.” He holds an imaginary mic up to Chad’s face and inquires breathlessly, “Director X, how would you describe your film? Visionary? Epic? Taking filmmaking to a whole new depth in the cesspool?”
The girls laugh and herd them toward the door. Mike and Chad stumble out, but Sandy manages to give Tom a squeeze and Genevieve pulls Jared down to give him a couple of quick pecks on the cheeks. “Ciao, babies. Until next week.”
When they get to the sidewalk, Jared waves over his shoulder to the guys and heads up the street towards his apartment.
***
It’s about a twenty-minute walk from Sandy and Genevieve’s, familiar enough that he doesn't have to pay attention to where he’s going, which is fortunate because that last beer is hitting him harder than he thought. Weaving a little, his feet carry him along the rough-cobbled stones of Rome. He imagines himself an Italian nobleman of yore, stealing through the dark streets to some assignation. He’s got a sword on his hip. Maybe a cloak and a feathered cap. Which would look unbelievably stupid on him all gigantic and dorky like he is, so he pretends that he’s slim and lithe with dark flashing eyes. He’d look like Milo, that guy he crushed on freshman year of college, although he didn’t actually call it a crush at the time.
Out of habit, he reaches up to touch the crumbling mortar of the archway that leads to his street, everything a moonlit-white that transforms brick into marble. Behind him rumbles the sound of a truck as it rounds the nearest traffic circle.
Up ahead, a trio of figures scuffle in the shadows. It takes Jared a second to process what he’s seeing, because actual muggings are almost unheard of in this part of the city, and this is the first one Jared’s witnessed up close. He’s walking along so quickly that he's almost on top of the scene before he manages to skid to a halt.
They’re just a couple of fucking teenagers, don’t look more than 15 or 16, and Jared can’t tell if they’re from the neighborhood or not. But their victim appears to be an American: college sweatshirt and pristine white sneakers. The guy is taking a beating, slumped against the wall, face bloody, hardly protecting himself.
Without stopping to think about it, Jared closes in with three quick strides, grabbing one attacker by the shoulder and spinning him around, ramming a fist into his stomach hard enough to double him over. The other punk turns away from the man on the ground, knife glinting in his hand. Jared doesn't hesitate, just grabs the kid’s wrist and smashes it against the wall, then kicks the weapon away when it clatters to the ground. He’s probably got at least seventy pounds on the kid and Jared uses it to spin him around and slam him up against the wall, grinding his face into the rough brick for good measure. Not enough to really hurt, just enough to get the creep’s attention.
In Italian, Jared growls, “Take your friend and get the fuck out of here. If I ever see you again, I’ll send you to the hospital in pieces.”
“Sì, sì,” the punk babbles, nodding furiously. Jared lets go and immediately he runs, his partner staggering along behind him.
Jared puts a hand on the brick to steady himself. It’s so dark there in the shadows he has to bend down to check to see if their victim’s all right and then he simply… plops down on his ass. What the hell just happened? he wonders.
He peers over at the stranger, who’s on the ground too, leaning his temple woozily against the wall, blood trickling down his face from a cut over one eye.
“A knife.” Jared gulps. “They had a fucking knife!”
“Dude,” the guy deadpans. “It's like you’re Batman.”
He starts giggling and it’s contagious which means Jared can’t help but throw his head back and cackle out his relief and excess adrenaline. He catches his breath and goes to help the guy up. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
“No.” The dude’s head is lolling around like he’s about five tequila shots past full-on drunk, but the denial is firm. “No hospitals. Jus’… jus’… point me toward a men’s room or something and I’ll clean m’self up.” He rubs a hand across his face and then draws his forearm across it, smearing blood all over the damn place.
“Sorry, but where do you think you are, Disneyland?” Jared says. “There’s no public restroom around here! Especially not this time of night.”
The guy leans over to scoop up a battered Rangers baseball cap that must’ve been knocked off him during the attack. He teeters and nearly keels over. Jared grabs for him, still buzzed and not exactly steady himself, catches him by the arm and hitches him up on his shoulder, shooting a prayer up to heaven that the Good Samaritan story wasn’t the punchline of a cosmic joke. “C’mon. My place is right up this way.”
Jared’s apartment is in the next building. The front gate is nine tall feet of iron and scratched in a thousand places, as if wild dogs have been trying to break into the courtyard. His key unlocks the right-hand side and it swings open with a tiny shriek of old metal. Inside, Jared push-pulls his burden up the four open-air flights of thick, worn concrete stairs.
Fumbling one-handed with the apartment key, he lurches as the guy leans heavily against his back, ungainly, resting his cheek against Jared’s shoulder blade, probably bleeding all over, and this is one of Jared’s nicer shirts.
“Come on now, you can’t be drunk as all that.”
Jared’s stray mumbles out a response, almost to himself, “Not drunk at all. Just-,” and his voice turns sing-song, “-verrrrry happy.”
The slur is thick and warm, and Jared half-smiles, recalling plenty of his own “happy” nights out. Jared throws the door open wide and hits the light switch with an elbow as he lugs his guest inside.
The guy pulls himself upright and peers around, blinking owlishly in surprise. “’Sa shoebox!”
Jared tries to look at his place with fresh eyes. It’s indeed tiny; his landlady once told him that all the apartment units in the building were converted from individual rooms in an old hotel, which means only about 250 square feet worth of living space. Jared also realizes that he may possibly be hoarding too much stuff to be contained in 250 square feet.
He shrugs. “Well, yeah, I guess it is pretty damn small. But I was just psyched to find a place of my own in the centro storico, ya know? And I don’t have to share a bathroom and I’ve got this cool little kitchen, which is more than I can say for Mike and Tom’s place. God, you couldn’t pay me to live there.” Jared wonders why he feels the need to defend his apartment to his uninvited guest.
As he tapers off, the guy stumbles into the apartment, tripping over running shoes at the doorway and, immediately after, a small pile clothes Jared had left on the floor that morning. “’Sa pigsty, too,” he grouses, glaring over his shoulder at the offending laundry.
“Hey!” Jared protests. “I happen to know a great patch of sidewalk downstairs with your name on it.”
The guy smirks at the threat. “L-lovely place. Very cozy.” Like a marionette with cut strings, he flops down on the queen-sized Murphy bed that’s still pulled down from the wall after last night, sheets and blankets in a ball at the foot. It takes up most of the free floor space in the apartment when it’s down, but there’s no way Jared would be able to sleep on anything smaller.
“Damn straight it is.” Jared heads toward the bathroom to fetch the first aid kit. “Don’t you dare pass out there. That’s my bed. You can have the couch. C-O-U-C-H.”
Well, it’s more of a love seat. Or is it a divan? Pretty much it’s just a glorified chair. But Jared figures this beggar can’t be a chooser.
It takes him a second to remember what he’s in the bathroom for, swaying a little in front of the mirror, but then, oh yeah, he returns with a washcloth and some bandaids. The guy’s still slouched right where Jared left him, trying to staunch the wound over his eye with the hem of his crimson Sooners sweatshirt. Jared tugs the shirttail out of his hand and replaces it with the washcloth, watching him smear it around his face.
“Are you from Oklahoma, man?” Jared indicates the school logo.
“Nope, Texas born and bred.” Then he gazes up at Jared, a blissful look in the one uncovered eye. “Hey, you’re American, too!”
“Acute observation,” Jared says wryly. “Also from Texas, actually.”
“Awesome, pardner.” He laughs, throaty and warm.
Jared snorts in return at the guy’s exaggerated accent. Then he tears an oversize bandage out of its package and presses it to where the guy’s eyebrow is split. Jared limits himself to the slow movements of someone just drunk enough to know he needs to be careful. As he suspected, the injury’s really not too bad, already slowing to an ooze.
"Take that sweatshirt off,” Jared orders. “Jeans too, they’re a mess. I don’t want that shit all over the place.” Between the blood and some kind of mud or puddle or urban sludge the guy landed in down in the alleyway, he’s pretty disgusting. “I don’t think the cut’s that bad, you’re just bleeding like a motherfucker."
“Gotta be the best at everything,” the guy mumbles as he struggles to get the shirt over his head, getting lost inside somewhere, knotting his arms. He’s stuck half-in, half-out and Jared has to give him a hand.
Underneath he’s wearing a simple grey t-shirt, but it's tight enough to cling to some impressive shoulders and what looks like a gorgeous chest. Jared had gotten a sense that the guy was nicely built when he was hauling him up the stairs, but he kind of wishes he didn’t have this much confirmation, given the complete inappropriateness of lusting after his little rescue project. Jared’s mind suddenly feels the inconvenient need to calculate exactly how many hours it’s been since he got off in the shower yesterday morning.
He turns away, yanks open a drawer in the dresser, and hands the guy a pair of sweats. He doesn’t want to spend the whole night thinking about his visitor passed out in only his underwear a few feet away.
Of course, the guy takes that very moment to lean back on his elbows. "Help me into them?"
Jared throws up his hands in frustration. Now that he’s noticed, he can’t help staring at the guy’s amazing body-flat stomach, slim hips, toned thighs, the way his cock is framed by the jeans when he’s stretched out like that-but the fact that he’s both stoned drunk and bleeding helps to bring Jared’s sense of chivalry to the fore. Jared reaches out and carefully undoes the top button of the guy’s jeans. "There you are. That’s all I’m helping. Put one leg in here, put the other leg here. Pull them up. I'm going to…to… get you a glass of water."
He retreats once more into the bathroom, and comes back with the water to find the guy changed into the sweats, still seated on the edge of the bed. Jared goes to hand him the glass, but he slumps forward and suddenly he’s leaning into Jared, a solid weight, mumbling into Jared’s belly, “You’re really nice, you know?”
Jared lets himself fantasize for a second that the guy’s a hooker, some charge-by-the-hour rentboy. That he’d been out turning tricks all night before one of his johns decided to get rough, but then Jared showed up and rescued him from squalor and degradation and a life of selling himself. That he’s so thankful he decides to slither off the bed and onto his knees and show Jared just what a professional can do.
Of course, Jared has to admit that he doesn’t believe most streetwalkers in Rome dress in XL college sweatshirts and New Balance tennis shoes to drum up business.
He clears his throat, gently pushing the guy back and stepping away. “Where’re you staying?”
“Mmmm, I dunno. Some hotel. Pretty sure, can’t remember. Walked a long way.” His eyes are dull and blurry and he’s looking around like a yellow-brick path back to his hotel is going to wink to life just behind him.
“Check your wallet,” Jared suggests.
“Those assholes got my wallet.”
Drunk and broke, Jared thinks. Great. Jared asks himself why he’s doing this. What does he owe this stranger? Probably gonna want coffee tomorrow. Probably going to kill Jared in his sleep for the €150 in the dresser drawer and his iPod. Probably end up choking on his own vomit and Jared will have a dead body on his hands. But even as Jared lists the reasons this is a bad idea, he acknowledges that he’d never throw someone out on the street. “Dude, what’s your name anyway?”
The guy slurs something that sounds like “Jason” and then slumps over. Jared stares for a second or two, then tries to pull him up off the bed to move him, but he’s a dead weight. And it’s as if the guy passing out has sapped all of Jared’s remaining energy and sobriety, too, because for no good reason he thinks, fuck it, and curls up on the couch.
***
When the sun hits Jared's eyes, he realizes he’s in trouble. He’s not sure what kind of trouble it is, but it can’t be good.
Normally, Jared’s a morning person, and his alarm is set to wake him up early, even-especially-after a night of poker and booze, in order to get some of his own writing done and a run in before whatever work is scheduled for that day. That time is always before full daylight has the chance to brighten the room.
He sits up and groans at the excruciating crick in his neck. It’s then that Jared’s hungover brain comes online. He leaps off of the couch, praying that there’s still enough time to make the Storm Surge press conference, but he doubts that. Highly, highly doubts it, as he hears one of the local churches’ carillons chime ten.
He glances frantically around and sees a motionless, man-sized lump in his bed. He’s momentarily stunned and confused, shocked at the possibility that he brought home a hookup. Then last night’s events all rush back over him and he’s hit by the urgent need to get rid of the guy, get himself changed, and get gone. His iPhone rings and Jared groans again.
He fumbles in his pocket-he’d slept in his clothes, for Christ’s sake-and hits Talk. “Pronto?” he croaks.
“How’d it go?” It’s Sera Gambini, his boss at the magazine, voice like a scalpel. Jared glances over toward the bed, frowning. He slips out onto the landing, edging the door almost shut behind him. There’s a little white handwritten note taped to the door-another gentle warning from his landlady about late rent- which he absently tears down and shoves into his pocket.
“Fine, fine. Got some super quotes.” Jared sends up new prayers that he can bribe Tom or Chad by promising to withhold sexual favors so that they’ll give him a recording of the thing.
“You did? Really? I doubt it.” Sera’s voice shoots up an octave. “Because it was postponed!”
Jared winces, holding the phone away from his ear. “Oh.” Wow, that went south faster than he’d anticipated.
“Yeah, ‘oh.’ It turns out Ackles came down sick and bailed. They rescheduled for tomorrow. You’d better be there, I’m serious.”
“Wait a minute.” Jared pauses in thought, then looks over his shoulder at the apartment door. He vaguely hears Sera trying to get his attention-- Jared? Are you there?-- but it fades into the background as he tries to sharpen his memory of blurry events from the previous night. Finally, he replies, “Did you say Ackles was sick?”
“Yes, fessacchione. That’s why the conference. Was. Postponed. Christ, Jared, sober up and get a story for me tomorrow. Otherwise, I don’t care if you are my best writer, I will kick your ass to the curb.”
Jared’s still only half listening, boggled by this strange notion, this possible secret-identity of his accidental guest. He blurts out, “How much would a private, exclusive interview with Ackles be worth to you?”
Sera scoffs. “No one gets a private interview with Jensen Ackles, Padalecki. No one. I don’t think he’s given one since the ‘Jenneel’ breakup after the Ten Inch Hero debacle.”
“How much? Hypothetically?”
“Depends on how juicy the details are, but I can imagine the magazine paying seventy-five grand for something like that. Up to a hundred if there were some useable pictures, too. None of the paps can even get pictures of the guy coming out of the grocery store. But that’s the kind of money I’d offer if an interview actually took place. Which it would not.”
Jared tries to wrap his mind around the idea of a hundred thousand euros. Forget worrying about the rent-he could move back home, pay off his undergrad loans, start grad school.
“Don’t plan on firing me yet, Sera,” he mutters into the phone. “I may have a something big for you tomorrow.” Jared doesn’t even say goodbye, just punches End and thumps his head back against the wall.
***
When he steps back into the apartment, the stranger is still asleep, now sprawled diagonally across the whole bed, blanket flung off, one arm stretched out with fingers loosely curled across an empty palm. Morning sunlight bathes the back of his legs.
Jared sneaks around the edge of the mattress to get a good look at the guy’s face. Holy shit, it’s Jensen Ackles. In my goddamn fucking bed.
Jared can’t help staring at his hair. His hair. Ackles cut his hair! No wonder Jared hadn’t recognized him-aside from the fact that, you know, who expects a drunken Jensen Ackles to show up on your doorstep at two in the morning?-because now his hair is practically a buzz-cut, an inch at its longest and dark brown instead of the streaked-blond mane he was so renowned for.
Jared, doesn’t even think about it, just pulls out his phone again-thank goodness the magazine pays for him to have one-- and takes a picture of Jensen Ackles sleeping in his bed.
Click.
Jared feels the kind of surreal calm in the face of absurdity that usually only comes in dreams. All he needs is a plan. He could get a once-in-a-lifetime interview. He really, really needs it. But the minute Jensen wakes up, he’s going to run away from Jared Padalecki, columnist for OK Italy, like a tiger with its tail on fire. Jensen hardly speaks to the press; getting a “no comment” from him is two words more than most reporters manage on a good day.
Jared realizes the only way he’s going to get Jensen to talk is if it’s not an interview. Perhaps he can fool Jensen into thinking he’s just some random guy. Perhaps they hang out, get some breakfast, chat, casual-like, they hit it off, Jensen decides that Jared should be his official biographer, Jared goes on to write a Pulitzer Prize winning, New York Times bestseller about Jensen’s sensational secret life as a spy for the CIA.
Jared realizes that it’s one of his typical flights of fancy. It’s just that this time-at the core of it-there’s the foundation of a path to success. He starts to rush around the room, scrambling to throw out all of the papers and magazines lying around the apartment, scooping up photos and ticket stubs, anything that might offer a hint that the occupant knows the first thing about pop culture.
He gives a brief thought to journalistic integrity. Despite the fact that he doesn’t respect his so-called magazine or the genre in which he currently writes even a tiny bit, he’s damn good at it and for the past year has stuck to the most rigorous standards he could: limitation of harm, truthfulness, accuracy, steering clear of libel.
However, Jared has also found that celebrities often bring trouble upon themselves by generally being enormous asshats, with Jensen Ackles topping lots of people’s lists of the most aloof and pretentious. The celebrity press was rife with stories of having to jump through hoops for an interview with Jensen only to have it abruptly cancelled or how he’d just never show, of him storming off of photo shoots, of him barricaded in his trailer on movie sets. Just last year Tom was working the red carpet at Cannes and Jensen stalked right past him without a word.
He looks over at Jensen’s sleeping form and grimaces. It’s a sucky thing to do, to trick someone, trap them. But it’s a cold, cold world, and Jared has adjusted to that. It’s even colder if one is only a few euros away from being evicted.
Once he’s satisfied that he’s scoured the apartment for incriminating evidence, Jared throws himself into the bathroom and strips, showering faster than he ever has in his life. Hair. Pits. Crotch. Rinse. He towels off and shakes the water out of his hair like a dog, then throws on boxers and jeans. He realizes he forget to grab a shirt, so he gambles that Jensen’s still out cold and sneaks out into the room.
As luck would have it, Jensen Ackles is awake, lying in Jared’s bed staring up at the ceiling, hands scrubbing through his short hair. He sits up abruptly when Jared appears. His eyes widen briefly in surprise, then he shutters his expression, trades it for a mask of bland cynicism, eyebrows raised in judgment, as if Jared didn’t have a right to walk around however he liked in his own home.
Jared quickly snags a shirt from the nearby laundry hamper and goes for casual-just a normal day of chatting with the homeless, bruised-up stranger in his apartment-as he says, “Hey, man. You said it was ‘Jason’ last night, right?”
Jared has a reputation for being a terrible liar-which makes this plan pretty stupid from the get-go, when you think about it-so he throws the shirt over his head to hide his eyes.
“Yeah, I’m Jason. Who are you? Where am I?” On the other hand, Jensen Ackles can lie with the best of them. Not a blink at the weirdness of his surroundings. Just like that, he’s got a new name and he’s on the offensive.
Jared says, “This is my apartment.”
“And exactly how did I get here?” It doesn’t come out anxious or accusatory, just a matter-of-fact question. Jared’s impressed at how Jensen can cover, can present a calm and contained demeanor in such a very odd situation. Jared knows if it were him, waking up with a stranger in a strange place, he’d be freaking out. He wonders what Jensen is thinking under that curtain across his features.
“Pretty sure you walked. Until you got jumped by a couple of thieves in the street outside, that is.”
Jensen reaches up and feels the bandage over his eye, wincing. “And you are-?"
"Jared, Jared Padalecki," he offers. Nice, Jared thinks, mentally kicking himself. He hasn't the faintest idea why he'd just given Jensen his real name, but it had come out all the same. It’s a long shot that Jensen would recognize the name of a two-bit tabloid journalist here in Europe, but you never know. Biting his cheek nervously, Jared waits for a reply.
Jensen breaks into a smile, warm and almost friendly, and Jared can’t figure out how the guy, battered and bedraggled, can manage to look twice as gorgeous in person as he does on a 50-foot screen. "Thanks, Jared. I’m not sure I remember everything exactly, but I’m pretty sure you saved my ass.”
Jared, appalled to find himself actually blushing like some star-struck preteen girl, turns toward the kitchen. Really it’s just a little galley in the corner, barely larger than the width of Jared’s armspan. Two-burner stove, a few pots and a skillet hang from a rack overhead; mismatched plates and thick, tiny glasses are stacked on open shelves next to pots of herbs and heaps of random utensils and a couple of empty wine bottles.
“No problem. Glad I could be of help.” Jared putters around for a minute then asks, “Cappuccino or coffee?”
“Coffee?” Jensen sounds desperate. Jared imagines that, between the hangover and the blow to the head, Jensen’s got a pretty wicked headache going, if Jared’s own is anything to go by. “God, yes, coffee. Black. Please.”
Jared’s glad he didn’t buy whole bean this week, thinks neither he nor Jensen could stand the sound of the grinder right now. He starts some water heating for the press, then turns his attention back to his quarry. “So, Jason, you got a last name?”
“Yeah. It’s Ross,” he responds easily.
Jensen’s famous enough and Jared’s been in the business long enough to recognize the guy’s middle name. Damn, he’s good. Jared has to hide a smile. “So what happened last night? Out on a bender?”
“No. Well… sort of, but accidentally.”
“Yeah?” Jared asks, trying to sound noncommittal, like he’s just asking to be polite, not that he’s dying to take verbatim notes on every detail.
“I’m, uh, just here in Rome on business. Was out drinking with some colleagues.” Jensen stops for a second, pinches the bridge of his nose and says ruefully, “I think someone slipped me something.”
“What?” Jared asks, shocked. “You mean you were roofied?” And he thinks that his €100,000 could be made on this story alone: Jensen Ackles Date Rape Near Miss! Holy cow, his plan is really working. Given Jensen’s reputation for reserve, Jared had expected to have to extract information like pulling teeth, but he’s being miraculously forthcoming. “Damn, man. How in the world did that go down?”
“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. We were in the hotel bar, I was nursing a drink and trying to avoid small talk while at the same time trying to avoid looking like a stuck-up, antisocial bastard.” He turns up the corner of his mouth and Jared can’t help but nod… and hope Jensen can’t read minds. “Guess I wasn’t succeeding. I remember someone telling me that I needed to ‘loosen up.’ Or something.” At that, Jensen pauses and frowns, rubs at the back of his neck, then he hurries to sum up, “And then I started feeling strange and got out of there, but once out on the street, I got all turned around and I walked for hours and I think maybe I did some really weird stuff.” He runs a hand through his hair again.
“Weird like ‘new tattoo’ weird?” Jared asks.
Jensen’s eyes widen with panic, but Jared laughs and reassures him. “I’m kidding! You’d be feeling it sore as hell if you’d gone and got yourself a tattoo.”
“Man, I don’t know. I’m sore all over.” He presses a hand to his ribs and groans, then flops back on the bed.
Jared is a bit shocked; he expected that a one-name celeb like Jensen would’ve gone running for a mirror the minute he woke up, check on his moneymaker, freak out about the cut on his face. But Jensen’s just… calm? Normal? Jared shakes his head and walks over with a cup of coffee in one hand, a couple of ibuprofen in the other.
Jensen accepts them and tosses back the pills, then takes a sip of coffee, groaning this time with pleasure. “So what do you do, Jared? Besides saving people.”
Jared feels himself blush again at the compliment, but now it’s welcome because it acts as cover for a little prevarication. “I’m, um, an author. Fiction, mostly.”
Which is true, to a certain extent. When Jared had come to Rome almost two years ago, straight out of college, he’d planned to sit in a garret and hammer out the next Great Novel. One month in, he discovered he liked eating too much to play the starving artist and gotten the job with OK Italy. But he’s also managed to sell some freelance stuff-short stories, poetry-on the side and he does hope to make a career of that some day. So it isn’t a complete falsehood.
Jensen’s eyes roam over the apartment. He gingerly stands up and wanders over to look out the tiny window's view of the city. "It must be fun to live in a place like this."
"Yeah, it’s pretty fantastic. I mean, I get really wrapped up in the history and architecture, but I don’t keep up much with the current styles, you know, fashion, fads, all that stuff." If Jared can just convince Jensen that he’s out of the loop, as far from paparazzi as the sun from Pluto, Jensen’ll reveal all kinds of secrets. At least that what Jared hopes. All it’ll take is trust.
Never taking his eyes from the view, Jensen says, “I travel to dozens of cities every year for work, and I never really get to get to know any of them. Only the insides of hotel rooms and private cars and over and over the same parties with the same people-" He cuts himself off. “So, what’s Rome like?”
"Why don't you check it out for yourself?" Jared suggests a little too eagerly. Back off, idiot.
"Well-" Jensen seems to ponder the offer. “I’m already missing-in-action, aren’t I?" Jensen turns to look at him hopefully. It’s as if he’s asking Jared for permission, for reassurance. “What happens in Rome, stays in Rome?”
Jared had always found that movie stars on a whole were a bunch of narcissistic assholes who weren't interested in anything but themselves and their headlines and their diets and their skin tone. He recalls Ryan Gosling ignoring him to talk on the phone with his publicist for the first twenty-five minutes of a thirty minute interview, and the time Miley Cyrus refused to look him in the eye and sent him to fetch her three different kinds of bottled water. This guy, though. He’s not getting that vibe from him at all. Jared’s intrigued by the disconnect between Jensen-Ackles-the-star and the Jensen he’s seen so far this morning. Which one is real? What’s Jensen really like? Would Jensen like Jared if he got to know him?
Then he shrugs off the speculation, needs to focus on this plan. Sera’s always complaining that Jared needs to be tougher, so he strives for tough.
"Live dangerously," Jared tempts. "Take the whole day."
Jensen turns to the window again, takes another drink from his coffee. "I could do some of the things I've always wanted to," he admits.
"Like what?"
"Oh, it’s pretty boring, you’ll think I’m a weirdo. It’s just I-I'd do just whatever I liked all day long. Walk around. Eat at restaurants. See the city like a normal person." He flinches slightly when he says the word “normal.”
Jared hums an encouragement and then pretends to look thoughtful. "You know what? There's no reason you shouldn’t do all of those things. I mean, why not? Maybe I could go with you to show you around?"
Jensen raises his eyebrows skeptically and winces at the stretch against the bandaid, putting a hand to his forehead. "You would? But don't you have to work?"
"Um,” Jared casts about for an excuse. “I’m actually waiting around for my editor to email me with revisions to the latest chapter of my novel.” Jared blurts it out, but then realizes that checking his email will be a great pretext for getting his phone out to take covert pictures. All day, all around the city. “In the meantime, today could be a holiday!"
Jensen still looks doubtful, despite Jared’s redoubled attempt to appear completely innocent. "You want to spend your day off walking around with me?"
“Why not, Jason?” Jared says, emphasizing the alias. “Rome is amazing, I never get tired of it. Besides, this novel I’m working on, it’s, ah, set here in Rome. Playing tour guide gives me a chance to do some more research on locales.”
“Well. Okay. I, uh… I should probably-” Jensen picks up his sweatshirt from the floor where it had been unceremoniously tossed the night before. Both it and his jeans are ruined, bloody and muddy and torn. He’s still in his tee and the sweats that Jared had loaned him the night before. He looks boyish and flustered and approachable and suddenly Jared has a vivid fantasy of striding over, tumbling Jensen back down on the bed and pushing up his the shirt, sliding the soft cotton down over his hips and…
Jared gives a little cough, fairly ashamed of himself, because he’s already exploiting the guy enough, thank you very much. He says, “Too bad about your sweatshirt.”
“Eh, no loss. It was a gag gift from my buddy, Chris. I’m a Longhorns fan all the way.”
“Really? UT? My brother went there. We’re from San Antone.”
Jensen grins. “Cool. I’m from Dallas.” Of course Jared knew that. Richardson, actually, his brain supplies. But it’s nice to know Jensen’s not lying about everything. Not like I am.
“What do you say to breakfast?” Jared quickly changes the subject. “I need more sustenance than this,” holding up his nearly-empty mug. “But first, we gotta find you something to wear other than sweats. And those aren’t really cutting it either.” He points to Jensen’s tennis shoes on the floor.
“What?”
“Shoes like that, it’s as if you’re wearing a flashing neon sign: ‘I’m an American!’ Don’t you want to blend in?”
“Apparently I’m going to be walking around with a seven-foot, cornfed giant.” Jensen looks him up and down. “How do you plan to blend?”
“Dude! I’m practically a native,” Jared says. “I swear to you, clothes make the man. We can go see a guy I know. He’s got this second-hand shop and we can get you some clothes that fit there.”
“I can’t buy any clothes, I don’t have any money. Wallet’s gone,” Jensen reminds him.
It takes Jared only a second to weigh the cost-benefit of keeping this scheme on track. His supply of cash is pretty meager, to say the least, but the promise of Sera’s huge bonus lures him recklessly on. “Well, I’m not exactly rolling in dough, but I also am the undisputed king of finding bargains in the city. How about this: I front you some money and you pay me back once you’re back at your hotel?”
“How am I going to find you to pay you back?” Jensen asks. Then he reaches out, motioning with his hand. “Here. Gimme your phone.”
Jared puts his palm over his back pocket, gripping it tight like Jensen’s going to snatch the phone out and from it deduce Jared’s true identity. “Why?”
“I’ll give you my cell number, and then when I have my own phone back, you can contact me and I can send you what I owe.”
Jensen Ackles’ private phone number. Jesus Christ. A quick glance at the phone assures him there’s nothing incriminating on the screen, so he hands it over. He watches Jensen cup it in his strong, square hands, his tongue peeking out from between his teeth as he enters the string of numbers, and, wow, he really needs to stop being so sexy and start being the jerk Jared assumed he was less than an hour ago.
Jared gets Jensen up and moving with the promise of more coffee with breakfast. He slips his entire emergency supply of cash out of the dresser and into his pocket, then locks up and they descend the chiseled stairs, through the gate, and out to the narrow sidewalk. Along Jared’s street, apartment buildings loom above shops, hundreds of balconies crammed with geraniums, hydrangea, and bucanville. It’s mid-morning and the neighborhood is bustling, but not crowded.
Before they go to a caffè, he’s determined to get Jensen out of such a conspicuous outfit and into something that will help him stay anonymous. The hair helps, sure, but if Jensen starts attracting a horde of fans, Jared’s plan to get him to expose the “real” Jensen for all of OK Italy’s readers will be ruined. Good luck with that, he thinks, glancing sidelong at Jensen’s remarkable profile where he has it ducked down, turned slightly toward Jared, hiding in plain view.
Jared can’t understand how he overlooked it for one second.
Jared leads them just around the corner a few blocks to his favorite resale clothing store. It’s pretty tough finding inexpensive clothes in Rome when you’re Jared’s height and breadth, but he’d found an ally in the proprietor, Giacomo, who constantly manages to ferret out well-made, fashionable, cheap clothes big enough for Jared. Honestly, he’s kind of a miracle worker.
Giacomo’s shop hides down below street-level, a discreet little oval sign pointing the way down some steep stairs, damp and cramped. As they walk through the door, a bell tinkles overhead. Giacomo himself bustles out, a lean, leather-skinned old man with white hair and wide, watery eyes; every seam and wrinkle on his face carves a bit deeper as he grins wide and welcoming at Jared. “Buon giorno! Buon giorno, amico mio."
Jared smiles back, clasping both of the man’s small hands in his own to shake in greeting. “Buon giorno, Papi.” Jared wasn’t sure when, but at some point, Giacomo had informally adopted him.
Jared turns briefly to Jensen, who’s looking around uncertainly at the jumbled, overflowing bins and racks of men’s clothing: suits of mismatched coats and pants, messy piles of jeans, boxes full of belts mixed with shoes and hats. He can’t imagine Jensen Ackles ever deigning to shop in a place like this.
“So,” Jared says to him, “They don’t really speak English here, but I promise it’ll be all good.”
Jared turns back to Giacomo and explains that his friend, indicating Jensen, needs new pants and shirt and shoes, everything, to look more Italian, less turista.
“Non c’è problema, come volete.” Giacomo looks Jensen swiftly up and down, judging for size, then snaps his fingers and disappears into the back. He immediately pops back in and waves for Jensen to follow.
Jared shoos him along. “Go on. There’s a changing room back there. Try some things on.”
“Dude, seriously?”
“Hey,” Jared continues. “If you want to wear the sweatpants around all day, be my guest.”
Jensen grimaces, shrugs, and heads to the back of the shop.
Jared follows after a second and plants himself on a little bench right outside the dressing room. He thinks that, if this were one of Jensen’s films, this is where there’d be a musical montage of Jensen popping out from behind the dressing room curtain in outfit after outfit, twirling around for Jared’s nods of approval. There’d be one with tight jeans, another with a Henley and suspenders, maybe a fútbol uniform complete with shin guards, definitely a tux. Oh, and a kilt.
Jared pulls out his phone.
Not five minutes later, Jensen emerges wearing an expression that’s a mixture of surprised and pleased. He has on a pair of black slacks that fit him perfectly-not that Jared’s staring at the way they flatter Jensen’s ass or anything-and a plain but gorgeous soft gray button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves with a black undershirt peeking out at the neck. Giacomo even found him some sleek leather slip-on shoes that hopefully fit well enough for walking.
Jared doesn’t look up right away, pretends to be reading something on his phone.
Click.
He catches Jensen looking in the mirror, eyes wide, as he runs his hands through his shorn hair, touches the bandage over his right eye. Jared notices he’s wearing a couple of worn black thongs around one wrist, and he wonders if they have some significance or if Jensen just affects them for kicks.
“Wow, Jason,” Jared says. “You look great! I’d never have guessed you’d clean up so well.” He makes it obvious it’s a joke so that Jensen won’t think he’s hitting on him, or worse, that he’s recognized him, but in fact, Jensen does indeed look simply amazing.
“You’ll need these, too.” He snags a pair of sunglasses out of a nearby bin and tosses them to Jensen, who snatches them out of the air. “Easiest way to get tagged as a tourist?” Jared continues, "Not wearing sunglasses.”
“Okay, yeah.” Jensen says with a small, sweet smile. “Thanks.”
Giacomo brings out the sweats and tee Jensen had left behind, folded neatly with the sneakers set on top. He adds up the total on an old-time register that jangles and shakes when the cash drawer pops out. Jared slowly pulls out his wallet, feeling a little queasy when he sees the total. As inexpensive as Giacomo’s second-hand stock is, Jensen’s outfit still adds up to a pretty big chunk of change.
Giacomo clears his throat and offers, “Jared, why don’t you pay half now and half later?”
“Really?” Jared gives a hopeful smile. “I would appreciate it so much.”
He hands over the adjusted amount and as Giacomo takes it, he nods toward Jensen. “That’s a nice boy. Polite. You should keep him, ragazzo.”
Polite. It’s not the first adjective Jared would have thought to describe Jensen Ackles. Jared shoots a worried look over his shoulder, even though he knows Jensen can’t follow the Italian, and stutters, “It’s… it’s not really like that.” But before he can come up with a plausible alternative explanation, a pair of four-year-old girls wander in. They’re Giacomo’s granddaughters, twins with matching glossy black ponytails and round little chins, identical except for Teresa’s pierced ears. They see Jared and squeal in unison, running to him. He picks one up in each arm.
”Buon giorno, bambine,” Jared says, and gives them both a kiss on each cheek. He asks, “Where is Alessandro?”
“Out back,” Elena tells him. “We’ll go get him.” They run out.
Less than a minute later an older boy runs in and stands before Jared. As he’s done many times before, Jared crouches down and pulls out a euro coin, hands it to the boy along with the stack of borrowed clothes and shoes.
“Per favore, run these up to my apartment, leave them in the woodbox for me?”
Jared’s place, like many others, has storage outside the door, a left-over tradition from when homes were heated with stoves. He wouldn’t necessarily leave anything really valuable there, but he’s never had any trouble when packages and other little items were left in there for a few hours.
“Si, signore.”
“Grazie.”
The girls hop and tug at his shirt, begging, “Can we go, too?”
Jared sets a hand atop each of their heads. “No, piccole mie. You’re still too young. Next time, maybe.”
Over the girls’ loud protests, Jared thanks Giacomo again for his help and leads a quiet Jensen back out into the daylight and up the stairs to the street. Jensen dons the sunglasses and ducks his head, much like he’d done on the way here. Jared finds himself a bit nervous at Jensen’s silence, despite the fact that he’s not a chatty guy. Did Jared give himself away somehow? Is Jensen about to ditch him?
“So, how about I show you around a bit?”
Jensen asks, “Don’t you have something better to do?”
Jared was expecting it to come out sarcastic or annoyed, but he swears Jensen sounds a little forlorn. Perhaps Jensen wants him to stick around after all.
“Well, my other choices are to sleep or sit staring at my phone waiting for my email. Oh, or I could spend the day cleaning up my ‘pigsty.’”
“Ouch. Did I really say that last night?” Jensen says, contrite. “I meant to say ‘nest.’ Or maybe ‘burrow.’ Den? Lair?”
It startles a laugh out of Jared and he takes a fake swipe at Jensen, like he would a friend who was giving him shit. This is going way better than Jared would have anticipated. Heck, might even be fun.
“Do what you want, man. I’m going to get breakfast. If I don’t get some sustenance in me soon, I may perish.” He baits the hook. “And, once again, I’m buying.”
Part 2 | Part 3 | Epilogue
author: deirdre_c
characters: Jared/Jensen
rating: NC-17
length: ~28,000 words
summary: Jared Padalecki is an American living in Rome and writing for a celebrity gossip magazine. One night he rescues a stranger off the street who turns out to be mega-star Jensen Ackles, two-time Oscar winner and notorious recluse. Jared thinks he can trick Jensen into giving him the story of a lifetime. Will he succeed? Or will twenty-four hours spent together in Rome change Jared’s life story forever? An AU based on the classic film, Roman Holiday.
disclaimer: This is purely a work of fiction.
author’s notes: Written for the spn_j2_bigbang.
Words cannot express my gratitude to my betas, veronamay and audrarose for their incredible generosity, help, and support. This story would never have come together without them. In addition, I have to give enormous thanks to the fantastic kros_21 for taking on the job of “Rome expert” for a complete stranger and reviewing my story for contextual and linguistic inaccuracies. The three of them are not responsible in any way for remaining errors contained within, those are all my own.
Thanks and praise to my amazing artist, bittersweet_art. I still cannot believe how lucky I was that she picked my story. Working with her has been a dream come true from start to finish.
Also, thanks to wendy and thehighwaywoman for all of their ridiculous hard work in coordinating the spn_j2_bigbang. You both rock.
I also want to express my life-long gratitude to John Dighton and Dalton Trumbo for writing and to William Wyler for directing one of my favorite films, Roman Holiday.
Part 1:
***
“Come to Papà!”
Jared performs a little victory dance in his seat as he drags the pile of chips across the table. He pictures himself in Vegas, bright lights dazzling, audience cheering, cameras rolling, the deep-voiced announcer dubbing him World Poker Champion.
Chad groans. “You are one lucky son-of-a-bitch tonight.”
Mike throws down his cards and Sandy scootches her chair back from the table with a disgusted look at the meager stack of chips she has left in front of her. “That’s it. I’m done.”
Jared raises his eyebrows, all innocence. “What can I say? Must be my night.”
He stands and wends his way through the decorating disaster of Sandy and Genevieve’s apartment-random piles of pottery shards, over-sized baroque gilded putti, a four-foot-high woven basket, delicately carved wooden cabinets and tables filling every inch of wall space-to snag another beer from the fridge. Genevieve is doing a post-doc in archeology and her collection of flea market finds from Porta Portese makes the room look like a cross between an art history museum and a garbage dump. But the girls’ place is the only one that can fit all of them for their regular Sunday ex-pat Poker Night.
Tom addresses the room at large, “So who’s working the Storm Surge press conference tomorrow?”
Chad and Sandy respond simultaneously, “I am.”
Jared calls from the kitchen, “Me too.”
“I hear Jensen Ackles will actually be answering questions,” Sandy says. “I’m hoping I can get a quote from him about the rumors linking him and Scarlett.”
Tom lounges back, stretching long legs and arms in opposite directions, rolling his wrists with a series of cracks. Jared smiles into his bottle as he catches both Mike and Genevieve staring. Oblivious, Tom says, “I bet he just sits there acting bored and grouchy, like usual. The dude’s so lame. Just skates by on his looks.”
“Two Oscars says different," Sandy replies.
Jared slides back into his seat and plugs his ears. “La La La. You guys, I’m begging you. We have to deal with this shit all day. Don’t make me bring my work home.”
Mike, ignoring him, chimes in. “Guess what they’re calling that new haircut all the Hollywood starlets are sporting? ‘The Jensen.’” He even does the air quotes.
Sandy adds, “I hear he has those long blond locks insured by Lloyd’s of London.”
“I thought that was Salma Hayek’s tits?”
Chad gets a slap across the back of the head from Genevieve for his trouble. “That was Betty Grable’s legs, you perv.”
Chad doesn't know when to quit. “I’m pretty sure it’s both Ackles’ hair and Salma’s tits.”
He's obviously a terrible influence because Jared, unplugging his ears-no one's heeding his pain anyway-says, “Sandy’s got better tits than Salma Hayek anyway.”
“Shut up.” Sandy rolls her eyes, but looks pleased. “What makes you an authority on tits, gaylord?”
“Hey, a guy can have a keen aesthetic appreciation, even if they’re a turn-off,” Jared retorts.
Genevieve snickers, then hauls Jared up out of his chair by the collar. “I can’t stand to see this night degenerate any further. Good night, gentlemen. And I use that term loosely.”
Mike pouts at her for a second or two with no success. “I guess this means we’re officially kicked out, guys. Wanna hit the bar?” He turns and throws his arms around both Chad’s and Tom’s shoulders. Jared’s pretty sure Chad got included in that maneuver as an excuse.
Tom shrugs a casual affirmative and Chad says, “Sure.”
But Jared says, “Naw. The money I won off you suckers tonight is going into The Fund." His friends know that he’s slowly but surely been saving for grad school, which is hard when he can barely cover the rent most months. Sometimes he wonders whether his buddies let him win on poker nights, except for the fact they’re all scraping by, too. “Besides I’ve gotta be up in just a couple hours for that press conference. And so do all y’all, Rosenbaum.”
“Eh. I can cover these things with my eyes closed.” He holds an imaginary mic up to Chad’s face and inquires breathlessly, “Director X, how would you describe your film? Visionary? Epic? Taking filmmaking to a whole new depth in the cesspool?”
The girls laugh and herd them toward the door. Mike and Chad stumble out, but Sandy manages to give Tom a squeeze and Genevieve pulls Jared down to give him a couple of quick pecks on the cheeks. “Ciao, babies. Until next week.”
When they get to the sidewalk, Jared waves over his shoulder to the guys and heads up the street towards his apartment.
***
It’s about a twenty-minute walk from Sandy and Genevieve’s, familiar enough that he doesn't have to pay attention to where he’s going, which is fortunate because that last beer is hitting him harder than he thought. Weaving a little, his feet carry him along the rough-cobbled stones of Rome. He imagines himself an Italian nobleman of yore, stealing through the dark streets to some assignation. He’s got a sword on his hip. Maybe a cloak and a feathered cap. Which would look unbelievably stupid on him all gigantic and dorky like he is, so he pretends that he’s slim and lithe with dark flashing eyes. He’d look like Milo, that guy he crushed on freshman year of college, although he didn’t actually call it a crush at the time.
Out of habit, he reaches up to touch the crumbling mortar of the archway that leads to his street, everything a moonlit-white that transforms brick into marble. Behind him rumbles the sound of a truck as it rounds the nearest traffic circle.
Up ahead, a trio of figures scuffle in the shadows. It takes Jared a second to process what he’s seeing, because actual muggings are almost unheard of in this part of the city, and this is the first one Jared’s witnessed up close. He’s walking along so quickly that he's almost on top of the scene before he manages to skid to a halt.
They’re just a couple of fucking teenagers, don’t look more than 15 or 16, and Jared can’t tell if they’re from the neighborhood or not. But their victim appears to be an American: college sweatshirt and pristine white sneakers. The guy is taking a beating, slumped against the wall, face bloody, hardly protecting himself.
Without stopping to think about it, Jared closes in with three quick strides, grabbing one attacker by the shoulder and spinning him around, ramming a fist into his stomach hard enough to double him over. The other punk turns away from the man on the ground, knife glinting in his hand. Jared doesn't hesitate, just grabs the kid’s wrist and smashes it against the wall, then kicks the weapon away when it clatters to the ground. He’s probably got at least seventy pounds on the kid and Jared uses it to spin him around and slam him up against the wall, grinding his face into the rough brick for good measure. Not enough to really hurt, just enough to get the creep’s attention.
In Italian, Jared growls, “Take your friend and get the fuck out of here. If I ever see you again, I’ll send you to the hospital in pieces.”
“Sì, sì,” the punk babbles, nodding furiously. Jared lets go and immediately he runs, his partner staggering along behind him.
Jared puts a hand on the brick to steady himself. It’s so dark there in the shadows he has to bend down to check to see if their victim’s all right and then he simply… plops down on his ass. What the hell just happened? he wonders.
He peers over at the stranger, who’s on the ground too, leaning his temple woozily against the wall, blood trickling down his face from a cut over one eye.
“A knife.” Jared gulps. “They had a fucking knife!”
“Dude,” the guy deadpans. “It's like you’re Batman.”
He starts giggling and it’s contagious which means Jared can’t help but throw his head back and cackle out his relief and excess adrenaline. He catches his breath and goes to help the guy up. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
“No.” The dude’s head is lolling around like he’s about five tequila shots past full-on drunk, but the denial is firm. “No hospitals. Jus’… jus’… point me toward a men’s room or something and I’ll clean m’self up.” He rubs a hand across his face and then draws his forearm across it, smearing blood all over the damn place.
“Sorry, but where do you think you are, Disneyland?” Jared says. “There’s no public restroom around here! Especially not this time of night.”
The guy leans over to scoop up a battered Rangers baseball cap that must’ve been knocked off him during the attack. He teeters and nearly keels over. Jared grabs for him, still buzzed and not exactly steady himself, catches him by the arm and hitches him up on his shoulder, shooting a prayer up to heaven that the Good Samaritan story wasn’t the punchline of a cosmic joke. “C’mon. My place is right up this way.”
Jared’s apartment is in the next building. The front gate is nine tall feet of iron and scratched in a thousand places, as if wild dogs have been trying to break into the courtyard. His key unlocks the right-hand side and it swings open with a tiny shriek of old metal. Inside, Jared push-pulls his burden up the four open-air flights of thick, worn concrete stairs.
Fumbling one-handed with the apartment key, he lurches as the guy leans heavily against his back, ungainly, resting his cheek against Jared’s shoulder blade, probably bleeding all over, and this is one of Jared’s nicer shirts.
“Come on now, you can’t be drunk as all that.”
Jared’s stray mumbles out a response, almost to himself, “Not drunk at all. Just-,” and his voice turns sing-song, “-verrrrry happy.”
The slur is thick and warm, and Jared half-smiles, recalling plenty of his own “happy” nights out. Jared throws the door open wide and hits the light switch with an elbow as he lugs his guest inside.
The guy pulls himself upright and peers around, blinking owlishly in surprise. “’Sa shoebox!”
Jared tries to look at his place with fresh eyes. It’s indeed tiny; his landlady once told him that all the apartment units in the building were converted from individual rooms in an old hotel, which means only about 250 square feet worth of living space. Jared also realizes that he may possibly be hoarding too much stuff to be contained in 250 square feet.
He shrugs. “Well, yeah, I guess it is pretty damn small. But I was just psyched to find a place of my own in the centro storico, ya know? And I don’t have to share a bathroom and I’ve got this cool little kitchen, which is more than I can say for Mike and Tom’s place. God, you couldn’t pay me to live there.” Jared wonders why he feels the need to defend his apartment to his uninvited guest.
As he tapers off, the guy stumbles into the apartment, tripping over running shoes at the doorway and, immediately after, a small pile clothes Jared had left on the floor that morning. “’Sa pigsty, too,” he grouses, glaring over his shoulder at the offending laundry.
“Hey!” Jared protests. “I happen to know a great patch of sidewalk downstairs with your name on it.”
The guy smirks at the threat. “L-lovely place. Very cozy.” Like a marionette with cut strings, he flops down on the queen-sized Murphy bed that’s still pulled down from the wall after last night, sheets and blankets in a ball at the foot. It takes up most of the free floor space in the apartment when it’s down, but there’s no way Jared would be able to sleep on anything smaller.
“Damn straight it is.” Jared heads toward the bathroom to fetch the first aid kit. “Don’t you dare pass out there. That’s my bed. You can have the couch. C-O-U-C-H.”
Well, it’s more of a love seat. Or is it a divan? Pretty much it’s just a glorified chair. But Jared figures this beggar can’t be a chooser.
It takes him a second to remember what he’s in the bathroom for, swaying a little in front of the mirror, but then, oh yeah, he returns with a washcloth and some bandaids. The guy’s still slouched right where Jared left him, trying to staunch the wound over his eye with the hem of his crimson Sooners sweatshirt. Jared tugs the shirttail out of his hand and replaces it with the washcloth, watching him smear it around his face.
“Are you from Oklahoma, man?” Jared indicates the school logo.
“Nope, Texas born and bred.” Then he gazes up at Jared, a blissful look in the one uncovered eye. “Hey, you’re American, too!”
“Acute observation,” Jared says wryly. “Also from Texas, actually.”
“Awesome, pardner.” He laughs, throaty and warm.
Jared snorts in return at the guy’s exaggerated accent. Then he tears an oversize bandage out of its package and presses it to where the guy’s eyebrow is split. Jared limits himself to the slow movements of someone just drunk enough to know he needs to be careful. As he suspected, the injury’s really not too bad, already slowing to an ooze.
"Take that sweatshirt off,” Jared orders. “Jeans too, they’re a mess. I don’t want that shit all over the place.” Between the blood and some kind of mud or puddle or urban sludge the guy landed in down in the alleyway, he’s pretty disgusting. “I don’t think the cut’s that bad, you’re just bleeding like a motherfucker."
“Gotta be the best at everything,” the guy mumbles as he struggles to get the shirt over his head, getting lost inside somewhere, knotting his arms. He’s stuck half-in, half-out and Jared has to give him a hand.
Underneath he’s wearing a simple grey t-shirt, but it's tight enough to cling to some impressive shoulders and what looks like a gorgeous chest. Jared had gotten a sense that the guy was nicely built when he was hauling him up the stairs, but he kind of wishes he didn’t have this much confirmation, given the complete inappropriateness of lusting after his little rescue project. Jared’s mind suddenly feels the inconvenient need to calculate exactly how many hours it’s been since he got off in the shower yesterday morning.
He turns away, yanks open a drawer in the dresser, and hands the guy a pair of sweats. He doesn’t want to spend the whole night thinking about his visitor passed out in only his underwear a few feet away.
Of course, the guy takes that very moment to lean back on his elbows. "Help me into them?"
Jared throws up his hands in frustration. Now that he’s noticed, he can’t help staring at the guy’s amazing body-flat stomach, slim hips, toned thighs, the way his cock is framed by the jeans when he’s stretched out like that-but the fact that he’s both stoned drunk and bleeding helps to bring Jared’s sense of chivalry to the fore. Jared reaches out and carefully undoes the top button of the guy’s jeans. "There you are. That’s all I’m helping. Put one leg in here, put the other leg here. Pull them up. I'm going to…to… get you a glass of water."
He retreats once more into the bathroom, and comes back with the water to find the guy changed into the sweats, still seated on the edge of the bed. Jared goes to hand him the glass, but he slumps forward and suddenly he’s leaning into Jared, a solid weight, mumbling into Jared’s belly, “You’re really nice, you know?”
Jared lets himself fantasize for a second that the guy’s a hooker, some charge-by-the-hour rentboy. That he’d been out turning tricks all night before one of his johns decided to get rough, but then Jared showed up and rescued him from squalor and degradation and a life of selling himself. That he’s so thankful he decides to slither off the bed and onto his knees and show Jared just what a professional can do.
Of course, Jared has to admit that he doesn’t believe most streetwalkers in Rome dress in XL college sweatshirts and New Balance tennis shoes to drum up business.
He clears his throat, gently pushing the guy back and stepping away. “Where’re you staying?”
“Mmmm, I dunno. Some hotel. Pretty sure, can’t remember. Walked a long way.” His eyes are dull and blurry and he’s looking around like a yellow-brick path back to his hotel is going to wink to life just behind him.
“Check your wallet,” Jared suggests.
“Those assholes got my wallet.”
Drunk and broke, Jared thinks. Great. Jared asks himself why he’s doing this. What does he owe this stranger? Probably gonna want coffee tomorrow. Probably going to kill Jared in his sleep for the €150 in the dresser drawer and his iPod. Probably end up choking on his own vomit and Jared will have a dead body on his hands. But even as Jared lists the reasons this is a bad idea, he acknowledges that he’d never throw someone out on the street. “Dude, what’s your name anyway?”
The guy slurs something that sounds like “Jason” and then slumps over. Jared stares for a second or two, then tries to pull him up off the bed to move him, but he’s a dead weight. And it’s as if the guy passing out has sapped all of Jared’s remaining energy and sobriety, too, because for no good reason he thinks, fuck it, and curls up on the couch.
***
When the sun hits Jared's eyes, he realizes he’s in trouble. He’s not sure what kind of trouble it is, but it can’t be good.
Normally, Jared’s a morning person, and his alarm is set to wake him up early, even-especially-after a night of poker and booze, in order to get some of his own writing done and a run in before whatever work is scheduled for that day. That time is always before full daylight has the chance to brighten the room.
He sits up and groans at the excruciating crick in his neck. It’s then that Jared’s hungover brain comes online. He leaps off of the couch, praying that there’s still enough time to make the Storm Surge press conference, but he doubts that. Highly, highly doubts it, as he hears one of the local churches’ carillons chime ten.
He glances frantically around and sees a motionless, man-sized lump in his bed. He’s momentarily stunned and confused, shocked at the possibility that he brought home a hookup. Then last night’s events all rush back over him and he’s hit by the urgent need to get rid of the guy, get himself changed, and get gone. His iPhone rings and Jared groans again.
He fumbles in his pocket-he’d slept in his clothes, for Christ’s sake-and hits Talk. “Pronto?” he croaks.
“How’d it go?” It’s Sera Gambini, his boss at the magazine, voice like a scalpel. Jared glances over toward the bed, frowning. He slips out onto the landing, edging the door almost shut behind him. There’s a little white handwritten note taped to the door-another gentle warning from his landlady about late rent- which he absently tears down and shoves into his pocket.
“Fine, fine. Got some super quotes.” Jared sends up new prayers that he can bribe Tom or Chad by promising to withhold sexual favors so that they’ll give him a recording of the thing.
“You did? Really? I doubt it.” Sera’s voice shoots up an octave. “Because it was postponed!”
Jared winces, holding the phone away from his ear. “Oh.” Wow, that went south faster than he’d anticipated.
“Yeah, ‘oh.’ It turns out Ackles came down sick and bailed. They rescheduled for tomorrow. You’d better be there, I’m serious.”
“Wait a minute.” Jared pauses in thought, then looks over his shoulder at the apartment door. He vaguely hears Sera trying to get his attention-- Jared? Are you there?-- but it fades into the background as he tries to sharpen his memory of blurry events from the previous night. Finally, he replies, “Did you say Ackles was sick?”
“Yes, fessacchione. That’s why the conference. Was. Postponed. Christ, Jared, sober up and get a story for me tomorrow. Otherwise, I don’t care if you are my best writer, I will kick your ass to the curb.”
Jared’s still only half listening, boggled by this strange notion, this possible secret-identity of his accidental guest. He blurts out, “How much would a private, exclusive interview with Ackles be worth to you?”
Sera scoffs. “No one gets a private interview with Jensen Ackles, Padalecki. No one. I don’t think he’s given one since the ‘Jenneel’ breakup after the Ten Inch Hero debacle.”
“How much? Hypothetically?”
“Depends on how juicy the details are, but I can imagine the magazine paying seventy-five grand for something like that. Up to a hundred if there were some useable pictures, too. None of the paps can even get pictures of the guy coming out of the grocery store. But that’s the kind of money I’d offer if an interview actually took place. Which it would not.”
Jared tries to wrap his mind around the idea of a hundred thousand euros. Forget worrying about the rent-he could move back home, pay off his undergrad loans, start grad school.
“Don’t plan on firing me yet, Sera,” he mutters into the phone. “I may have a something big for you tomorrow.” Jared doesn’t even say goodbye, just punches End and thumps his head back against the wall.
***
When he steps back into the apartment, the stranger is still asleep, now sprawled diagonally across the whole bed, blanket flung off, one arm stretched out with fingers loosely curled across an empty palm. Morning sunlight bathes the back of his legs.
Jared sneaks around the edge of the mattress to get a good look at the guy’s face. Holy shit, it’s Jensen Ackles. In my goddamn fucking bed.
Jared can’t help staring at his hair. His hair. Ackles cut his hair! No wonder Jared hadn’t recognized him-aside from the fact that, you know, who expects a drunken Jensen Ackles to show up on your doorstep at two in the morning?-because now his hair is practically a buzz-cut, an inch at its longest and dark brown instead of the streaked-blond mane he was so renowned for.
Jared, doesn’t even think about it, just pulls out his phone again-thank goodness the magazine pays for him to have one-- and takes a picture of Jensen Ackles sleeping in his bed.
Click.
Jared feels the kind of surreal calm in the face of absurdity that usually only comes in dreams. All he needs is a plan. He could get a once-in-a-lifetime interview. He really, really needs it. But the minute Jensen wakes up, he’s going to run away from Jared Padalecki, columnist for OK Italy, like a tiger with its tail on fire. Jensen hardly speaks to the press; getting a “no comment” from him is two words more than most reporters manage on a good day.
Jared realizes the only way he’s going to get Jensen to talk is if it’s not an interview. Perhaps he can fool Jensen into thinking he’s just some random guy. Perhaps they hang out, get some breakfast, chat, casual-like, they hit it off, Jensen decides that Jared should be his official biographer, Jared goes on to write a Pulitzer Prize winning, New York Times bestseller about Jensen’s sensational secret life as a spy for the CIA.
Jared realizes that it’s one of his typical flights of fancy. It’s just that this time-at the core of it-there’s the foundation of a path to success. He starts to rush around the room, scrambling to throw out all of the papers and magazines lying around the apartment, scooping up photos and ticket stubs, anything that might offer a hint that the occupant knows the first thing about pop culture.
He gives a brief thought to journalistic integrity. Despite the fact that he doesn’t respect his so-called magazine or the genre in which he currently writes even a tiny bit, he’s damn good at it and for the past year has stuck to the most rigorous standards he could: limitation of harm, truthfulness, accuracy, steering clear of libel.
However, Jared has also found that celebrities often bring trouble upon themselves by generally being enormous asshats, with Jensen Ackles topping lots of people’s lists of the most aloof and pretentious. The celebrity press was rife with stories of having to jump through hoops for an interview with Jensen only to have it abruptly cancelled or how he’d just never show, of him storming off of photo shoots, of him barricaded in his trailer on movie sets. Just last year Tom was working the red carpet at Cannes and Jensen stalked right past him without a word.
He looks over at Jensen’s sleeping form and grimaces. It’s a sucky thing to do, to trick someone, trap them. But it’s a cold, cold world, and Jared has adjusted to that. It’s even colder if one is only a few euros away from being evicted.
Once he’s satisfied that he’s scoured the apartment for incriminating evidence, Jared throws himself into the bathroom and strips, showering faster than he ever has in his life. Hair. Pits. Crotch. Rinse. He towels off and shakes the water out of his hair like a dog, then throws on boxers and jeans. He realizes he forget to grab a shirt, so he gambles that Jensen’s still out cold and sneaks out into the room.
As luck would have it, Jensen Ackles is awake, lying in Jared’s bed staring up at the ceiling, hands scrubbing through his short hair. He sits up abruptly when Jared appears. His eyes widen briefly in surprise, then he shutters his expression, trades it for a mask of bland cynicism, eyebrows raised in judgment, as if Jared didn’t have a right to walk around however he liked in his own home.
Jared quickly snags a shirt from the nearby laundry hamper and goes for casual-just a normal day of chatting with the homeless, bruised-up stranger in his apartment-as he says, “Hey, man. You said it was ‘Jason’ last night, right?”
Jared has a reputation for being a terrible liar-which makes this plan pretty stupid from the get-go, when you think about it-so he throws the shirt over his head to hide his eyes.
“Yeah, I’m Jason. Who are you? Where am I?” On the other hand, Jensen Ackles can lie with the best of them. Not a blink at the weirdness of his surroundings. Just like that, he’s got a new name and he’s on the offensive.
Jared says, “This is my apartment.”
“And exactly how did I get here?” It doesn’t come out anxious or accusatory, just a matter-of-fact question. Jared’s impressed at how Jensen can cover, can present a calm and contained demeanor in such a very odd situation. Jared knows if it were him, waking up with a stranger in a strange place, he’d be freaking out. He wonders what Jensen is thinking under that curtain across his features.
“Pretty sure you walked. Until you got jumped by a couple of thieves in the street outside, that is.”
Jensen reaches up and feels the bandage over his eye, wincing. “And you are-?"
"Jared, Jared Padalecki," he offers. Nice, Jared thinks, mentally kicking himself. He hasn't the faintest idea why he'd just given Jensen his real name, but it had come out all the same. It’s a long shot that Jensen would recognize the name of a two-bit tabloid journalist here in Europe, but you never know. Biting his cheek nervously, Jared waits for a reply.
Jensen breaks into a smile, warm and almost friendly, and Jared can’t figure out how the guy, battered and bedraggled, can manage to look twice as gorgeous in person as he does on a 50-foot screen. "Thanks, Jared. I’m not sure I remember everything exactly, but I’m pretty sure you saved my ass.”
Jared, appalled to find himself actually blushing like some star-struck preteen girl, turns toward the kitchen. Really it’s just a little galley in the corner, barely larger than the width of Jared’s armspan. Two-burner stove, a few pots and a skillet hang from a rack overhead; mismatched plates and thick, tiny glasses are stacked on open shelves next to pots of herbs and heaps of random utensils and a couple of empty wine bottles.
“No problem. Glad I could be of help.” Jared putters around for a minute then asks, “Cappuccino or coffee?”
“Coffee?” Jensen sounds desperate. Jared imagines that, between the hangover and the blow to the head, Jensen’s got a pretty wicked headache going, if Jared’s own is anything to go by. “God, yes, coffee. Black. Please.”
Jared’s glad he didn’t buy whole bean this week, thinks neither he nor Jensen could stand the sound of the grinder right now. He starts some water heating for the press, then turns his attention back to his quarry. “So, Jason, you got a last name?”
“Yeah. It’s Ross,” he responds easily.
Jensen’s famous enough and Jared’s been in the business long enough to recognize the guy’s middle name. Damn, he’s good. Jared has to hide a smile. “So what happened last night? Out on a bender?”
“No. Well… sort of, but accidentally.”
“Yeah?” Jared asks, trying to sound noncommittal, like he’s just asking to be polite, not that he’s dying to take verbatim notes on every detail.
“I’m, uh, just here in Rome on business. Was out drinking with some colleagues.” Jensen stops for a second, pinches the bridge of his nose and says ruefully, “I think someone slipped me something.”
“What?” Jared asks, shocked. “You mean you were roofied?” And he thinks that his €100,000 could be made on this story alone: Jensen Ackles Date Rape Near Miss! Holy cow, his plan is really working. Given Jensen’s reputation for reserve, Jared had expected to have to extract information like pulling teeth, but he’s being miraculously forthcoming. “Damn, man. How in the world did that go down?”
“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. We were in the hotel bar, I was nursing a drink and trying to avoid small talk while at the same time trying to avoid looking like a stuck-up, antisocial bastard.” He turns up the corner of his mouth and Jared can’t help but nod… and hope Jensen can’t read minds. “Guess I wasn’t succeeding. I remember someone telling me that I needed to ‘loosen up.’ Or something.” At that, Jensen pauses and frowns, rubs at the back of his neck, then he hurries to sum up, “And then I started feeling strange and got out of there, but once out on the street, I got all turned around and I walked for hours and I think maybe I did some really weird stuff.” He runs a hand through his hair again.
“Weird like ‘new tattoo’ weird?” Jared asks.
Jensen’s eyes widen with panic, but Jared laughs and reassures him. “I’m kidding! You’d be feeling it sore as hell if you’d gone and got yourself a tattoo.”
“Man, I don’t know. I’m sore all over.” He presses a hand to his ribs and groans, then flops back on the bed.
Jared is a bit shocked; he expected that a one-name celeb like Jensen would’ve gone running for a mirror the minute he woke up, check on his moneymaker, freak out about the cut on his face. But Jensen’s just… calm? Normal? Jared shakes his head and walks over with a cup of coffee in one hand, a couple of ibuprofen in the other.
Jensen accepts them and tosses back the pills, then takes a sip of coffee, groaning this time with pleasure. “So what do you do, Jared? Besides saving people.”
Jared feels himself blush again at the compliment, but now it’s welcome because it acts as cover for a little prevarication. “I’m, um, an author. Fiction, mostly.”
Which is true, to a certain extent. When Jared had come to Rome almost two years ago, straight out of college, he’d planned to sit in a garret and hammer out the next Great Novel. One month in, he discovered he liked eating too much to play the starving artist and gotten the job with OK Italy. But he’s also managed to sell some freelance stuff-short stories, poetry-on the side and he does hope to make a career of that some day. So it isn’t a complete falsehood.
Jensen’s eyes roam over the apartment. He gingerly stands up and wanders over to look out the tiny window's view of the city. "It must be fun to live in a place like this."
"Yeah, it’s pretty fantastic. I mean, I get really wrapped up in the history and architecture, but I don’t keep up much with the current styles, you know, fashion, fads, all that stuff." If Jared can just convince Jensen that he’s out of the loop, as far from paparazzi as the sun from Pluto, Jensen’ll reveal all kinds of secrets. At least that what Jared hopes. All it’ll take is trust.
Never taking his eyes from the view, Jensen says, “I travel to dozens of cities every year for work, and I never really get to get to know any of them. Only the insides of hotel rooms and private cars and over and over the same parties with the same people-" He cuts himself off. “So, what’s Rome like?”
"Why don't you check it out for yourself?" Jared suggests a little too eagerly. Back off, idiot.
"Well-" Jensen seems to ponder the offer. “I’m already missing-in-action, aren’t I?" Jensen turns to look at him hopefully. It’s as if he’s asking Jared for permission, for reassurance. “What happens in Rome, stays in Rome?”
Jared had always found that movie stars on a whole were a bunch of narcissistic assholes who weren't interested in anything but themselves and their headlines and their diets and their skin tone. He recalls Ryan Gosling ignoring him to talk on the phone with his publicist for the first twenty-five minutes of a thirty minute interview, and the time Miley Cyrus refused to look him in the eye and sent him to fetch her three different kinds of bottled water. This guy, though. He’s not getting that vibe from him at all. Jared’s intrigued by the disconnect between Jensen-Ackles-the-star and the Jensen he’s seen so far this morning. Which one is real? What’s Jensen really like? Would Jensen like Jared if he got to know him?
Then he shrugs off the speculation, needs to focus on this plan. Sera’s always complaining that Jared needs to be tougher, so he strives for tough.
"Live dangerously," Jared tempts. "Take the whole day."
Jensen turns to the window again, takes another drink from his coffee. "I could do some of the things I've always wanted to," he admits.
"Like what?"
"Oh, it’s pretty boring, you’ll think I’m a weirdo. It’s just I-I'd do just whatever I liked all day long. Walk around. Eat at restaurants. See the city like a normal person." He flinches slightly when he says the word “normal.”
Jared hums an encouragement and then pretends to look thoughtful. "You know what? There's no reason you shouldn’t do all of those things. I mean, why not? Maybe I could go with you to show you around?"
Jensen raises his eyebrows skeptically and winces at the stretch against the bandaid, putting a hand to his forehead. "You would? But don't you have to work?"
"Um,” Jared casts about for an excuse. “I’m actually waiting around for my editor to email me with revisions to the latest chapter of my novel.” Jared blurts it out, but then realizes that checking his email will be a great pretext for getting his phone out to take covert pictures. All day, all around the city. “In the meantime, today could be a holiday!"
Jensen still looks doubtful, despite Jared’s redoubled attempt to appear completely innocent. "You want to spend your day off walking around with me?"
“Why not, Jason?” Jared says, emphasizing the alias. “Rome is amazing, I never get tired of it. Besides, this novel I’m working on, it’s, ah, set here in Rome. Playing tour guide gives me a chance to do some more research on locales.”
“Well. Okay. I, uh… I should probably-” Jensen picks up his sweatshirt from the floor where it had been unceremoniously tossed the night before. Both it and his jeans are ruined, bloody and muddy and torn. He’s still in his tee and the sweats that Jared had loaned him the night before. He looks boyish and flustered and approachable and suddenly Jared has a vivid fantasy of striding over, tumbling Jensen back down on the bed and pushing up his the shirt, sliding the soft cotton down over his hips and…
Jared gives a little cough, fairly ashamed of himself, because he’s already exploiting the guy enough, thank you very much. He says, “Too bad about your sweatshirt.”
“Eh, no loss. It was a gag gift from my buddy, Chris. I’m a Longhorns fan all the way.”
“Really? UT? My brother went there. We’re from San Antone.”
Jensen grins. “Cool. I’m from Dallas.” Of course Jared knew that. Richardson, actually, his brain supplies. But it’s nice to know Jensen’s not lying about everything. Not like I am.
“What do you say to breakfast?” Jared quickly changes the subject. “I need more sustenance than this,” holding up his nearly-empty mug. “But first, we gotta find you something to wear other than sweats. And those aren’t really cutting it either.” He points to Jensen’s tennis shoes on the floor.
“What?”
“Shoes like that, it’s as if you’re wearing a flashing neon sign: ‘I’m an American!’ Don’t you want to blend in?”
“Apparently I’m going to be walking around with a seven-foot, cornfed giant.” Jensen looks him up and down. “How do you plan to blend?”
“Dude! I’m practically a native,” Jared says. “I swear to you, clothes make the man. We can go see a guy I know. He’s got this second-hand shop and we can get you some clothes that fit there.”
“I can’t buy any clothes, I don’t have any money. Wallet’s gone,” Jensen reminds him.
It takes Jared only a second to weigh the cost-benefit of keeping this scheme on track. His supply of cash is pretty meager, to say the least, but the promise of Sera’s huge bonus lures him recklessly on. “Well, I’m not exactly rolling in dough, but I also am the undisputed king of finding bargains in the city. How about this: I front you some money and you pay me back once you’re back at your hotel?”
“How am I going to find you to pay you back?” Jensen asks. Then he reaches out, motioning with his hand. “Here. Gimme your phone.”
Jared puts his palm over his back pocket, gripping it tight like Jensen’s going to snatch the phone out and from it deduce Jared’s true identity. “Why?”
“I’ll give you my cell number, and then when I have my own phone back, you can contact me and I can send you what I owe.”
Jensen Ackles’ private phone number. Jesus Christ. A quick glance at the phone assures him there’s nothing incriminating on the screen, so he hands it over. He watches Jensen cup it in his strong, square hands, his tongue peeking out from between his teeth as he enters the string of numbers, and, wow, he really needs to stop being so sexy and start being the jerk Jared assumed he was less than an hour ago.
Jared gets Jensen up and moving with the promise of more coffee with breakfast. He slips his entire emergency supply of cash out of the dresser and into his pocket, then locks up and they descend the chiseled stairs, through the gate, and out to the narrow sidewalk. Along Jared’s street, apartment buildings loom above shops, hundreds of balconies crammed with geraniums, hydrangea, and bucanville. It’s mid-morning and the neighborhood is bustling, but not crowded.
Before they go to a caffè, he’s determined to get Jensen out of such a conspicuous outfit and into something that will help him stay anonymous. The hair helps, sure, but if Jensen starts attracting a horde of fans, Jared’s plan to get him to expose the “real” Jensen for all of OK Italy’s readers will be ruined. Good luck with that, he thinks, glancing sidelong at Jensen’s remarkable profile where he has it ducked down, turned slightly toward Jared, hiding in plain view.
Jared can’t understand how he overlooked it for one second.
Jared leads them just around the corner a few blocks to his favorite resale clothing store. It’s pretty tough finding inexpensive clothes in Rome when you’re Jared’s height and breadth, but he’d found an ally in the proprietor, Giacomo, who constantly manages to ferret out well-made, fashionable, cheap clothes big enough for Jared. Honestly, he’s kind of a miracle worker.
Giacomo’s shop hides down below street-level, a discreet little oval sign pointing the way down some steep stairs, damp and cramped. As they walk through the door, a bell tinkles overhead. Giacomo himself bustles out, a lean, leather-skinned old man with white hair and wide, watery eyes; every seam and wrinkle on his face carves a bit deeper as he grins wide and welcoming at Jared. “Buon giorno! Buon giorno, amico mio."
Jared smiles back, clasping both of the man’s small hands in his own to shake in greeting. “Buon giorno, Papi.” Jared wasn’t sure when, but at some point, Giacomo had informally adopted him.
Jared turns briefly to Jensen, who’s looking around uncertainly at the jumbled, overflowing bins and racks of men’s clothing: suits of mismatched coats and pants, messy piles of jeans, boxes full of belts mixed with shoes and hats. He can’t imagine Jensen Ackles ever deigning to shop in a place like this.
“So,” Jared says to him, “They don’t really speak English here, but I promise it’ll be all good.”
Jared turns back to Giacomo and explains that his friend, indicating Jensen, needs new pants and shirt and shoes, everything, to look more Italian, less turista.
“Non c’è problema, come volete.” Giacomo looks Jensen swiftly up and down, judging for size, then snaps his fingers and disappears into the back. He immediately pops back in and waves for Jensen to follow.
Jared shoos him along. “Go on. There’s a changing room back there. Try some things on.”
“Dude, seriously?”
“Hey,” Jared continues. “If you want to wear the sweatpants around all day, be my guest.”
Jensen grimaces, shrugs, and heads to the back of the shop.
Jared follows after a second and plants himself on a little bench right outside the dressing room. He thinks that, if this were one of Jensen’s films, this is where there’d be a musical montage of Jensen popping out from behind the dressing room curtain in outfit after outfit, twirling around for Jared’s nods of approval. There’d be one with tight jeans, another with a Henley and suspenders, maybe a fútbol uniform complete with shin guards, definitely a tux. Oh, and a kilt.
Jared pulls out his phone.
Not five minutes later, Jensen emerges wearing an expression that’s a mixture of surprised and pleased. He has on a pair of black slacks that fit him perfectly-not that Jared’s staring at the way they flatter Jensen’s ass or anything-and a plain but gorgeous soft gray button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves with a black undershirt peeking out at the neck. Giacomo even found him some sleek leather slip-on shoes that hopefully fit well enough for walking.
Jared doesn’t look up right away, pretends to be reading something on his phone.
Click.
He catches Jensen looking in the mirror, eyes wide, as he runs his hands through his shorn hair, touches the bandage over his right eye. Jared notices he’s wearing a couple of worn black thongs around one wrist, and he wonders if they have some significance or if Jensen just affects them for kicks.
“Wow, Jason,” Jared says. “You look great! I’d never have guessed you’d clean up so well.” He makes it obvious it’s a joke so that Jensen won’t think he’s hitting on him, or worse, that he’s recognized him, but in fact, Jensen does indeed look simply amazing.
“You’ll need these, too.” He snags a pair of sunglasses out of a nearby bin and tosses them to Jensen, who snatches them out of the air. “Easiest way to get tagged as a tourist?” Jared continues, "Not wearing sunglasses.”
“Okay, yeah.” Jensen says with a small, sweet smile. “Thanks.”
Giacomo brings out the sweats and tee Jensen had left behind, folded neatly with the sneakers set on top. He adds up the total on an old-time register that jangles and shakes when the cash drawer pops out. Jared slowly pulls out his wallet, feeling a little queasy when he sees the total. As inexpensive as Giacomo’s second-hand stock is, Jensen’s outfit still adds up to a pretty big chunk of change.
Giacomo clears his throat and offers, “Jared, why don’t you pay half now and half later?”
“Really?” Jared gives a hopeful smile. “I would appreciate it so much.”
He hands over the adjusted amount and as Giacomo takes it, he nods toward Jensen. “That’s a nice boy. Polite. You should keep him, ragazzo.”
Polite. It’s not the first adjective Jared would have thought to describe Jensen Ackles. Jared shoots a worried look over his shoulder, even though he knows Jensen can’t follow the Italian, and stutters, “It’s… it’s not really like that.” But before he can come up with a plausible alternative explanation, a pair of four-year-old girls wander in. They’re Giacomo’s granddaughters, twins with matching glossy black ponytails and round little chins, identical except for Teresa’s pierced ears. They see Jared and squeal in unison, running to him. He picks one up in each arm.
”Buon giorno, bambine,” Jared says, and gives them both a kiss on each cheek. He asks, “Where is Alessandro?”
“Out back,” Elena tells him. “We’ll go get him.” They run out.
Less than a minute later an older boy runs in and stands before Jared. As he’s done many times before, Jared crouches down and pulls out a euro coin, hands it to the boy along with the stack of borrowed clothes and shoes.
“Per favore, run these up to my apartment, leave them in the woodbox for me?”
Jared’s place, like many others, has storage outside the door, a left-over tradition from when homes were heated with stoves. He wouldn’t necessarily leave anything really valuable there, but he’s never had any trouble when packages and other little items were left in there for a few hours.
“Si, signore.”
“Grazie.”
The girls hop and tug at his shirt, begging, “Can we go, too?”
Jared sets a hand atop each of their heads. “No, piccole mie. You’re still too young. Next time, maybe.”
Over the girls’ loud protests, Jared thanks Giacomo again for his help and leads a quiet Jensen back out into the daylight and up the stairs to the street. Jensen dons the sunglasses and ducks his head, much like he’d done on the way here. Jared finds himself a bit nervous at Jensen’s silence, despite the fact that he’s not a chatty guy. Did Jared give himself away somehow? Is Jensen about to ditch him?
“So, how about I show you around a bit?”
Jensen asks, “Don’t you have something better to do?”
Jared was expecting it to come out sarcastic or annoyed, but he swears Jensen sounds a little forlorn. Perhaps Jensen wants him to stick around after all.
“Well, my other choices are to sleep or sit staring at my phone waiting for my email. Oh, or I could spend the day cleaning up my ‘pigsty.’”
“Ouch. Did I really say that last night?” Jensen says, contrite. “I meant to say ‘nest.’ Or maybe ‘burrow.’ Den? Lair?”
It startles a laugh out of Jared and he takes a fake swipe at Jensen, like he would a friend who was giving him shit. This is going way better than Jared would have anticipated. Heck, might even be fun.
“Do what you want, man. I’m going to get breakfast. If I don’t get some sustenance in me soon, I may perish.” He baits the hook. “And, once again, I’m buying.”
Part 2 | Part 3 | Epilogue