J2 | Pieces of the Puzzle | PG
Title: Pieces of the Puzzle
Words: 4,000
Rating: PG
Summary: Jared wants to solve the puzzle that is Jensen Ackles. It's not always so easy to do.
Notes: HS AU. This is based on dephigravity's prompt of "Freaks and geeks" for spnspringfling. I couldn't make it work in a week for less than 2500 words. I wanted to feel it through and decided to shelve it. Then I realized today tomorrow is his birthday, so it now serves for that. Happy birthday bb! Also, thanks to kelleigh for talking this through with me way back when and then to strangeallure for nudging me on this and helping to talk through bits and pieces <3
Today’s lunch hour is regrettably bright. Makes no difference that it’s mid-January, Jared still has to squint and duck his head down and away from the sun. It doesn’t help much because now the rays glare off the metal bleachers where he, Jensen, and a handful of other school rejects always escape to.
When he looks up and to his left, he finds Danneel. Her darkly dyed hair in tight, tiny braids obscure her painted-pale face but he can tell she’s eyeing him. She has been ever since Jensen first took a stroll down a handful of benches to greet Jared. Back then, Jared had been studying quiet and resolute, with his earbuds loud enough that The Beautiful Mind soundtrack drowned out the animated conversations Jensen and Danneel used to have.
Jared twitches his foot, but Jensen holds on and presses the green Sharpie’s tip harder to the white, rubber toe of Jared’s grey Cons.
Things have changed in two months. Well, some.
“Why is it always my shoes?” Jared asks.
“No real estate here,” Jensen mumbles as he taps his flip flop against Jared’s thigh.
Jared nudges his foot in Jensen’s hands then sighs. “My mom’s gonna freak.”
“Tell her Hansen said to chill out on a long wave,” Jensen replies slowly, referring to himself in third person. Or rather, the ridiculous name he insists to be called today.
Jared sighs and Jensen lazily smiles as he glances up. It’s a nice smile, has been for a while. And as always, Jared has to turn his face so he’s no longer under its power. He finds Danneel staring at him again, hard this time, like she’s daring to crawl into his brain from where she sits.
Jared frowns a bit even while he’s trying to smile at her. It’s all so awkward.
Jensen makes a few last marks on Jared’s shoe then lifts his hands in a finger-gun salute. “Now you’re alllll cool.”
“What’d you do now?” Jared asks warily, worrying his lower lip between his teeth when he leans forward and Jensen sprawls back like he has no care. “Really?”
“It’s true, man,” Jensen says lazily.
Love is a 4 letter word is drawn in flowery letters. Both Os have a peace sign in the center.
“You should’ve spelled out four,” Jared points out. Then cringes; it's petty to edit what he’s pretty sure are Jason Mraz lyrics, but it’s true. “And you forgot to hyphenate.”
“You need to hyphenate your state of mind.”
Jared sighs, rubs beneath his dark-framed glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose as he winces. “Grammar is not a state of mind.”
“No, but Marley is.” Jensen offers up an ear bud for Jared to share. “Every little thing is gonna be alright,” he sings.
Jared rolls his eyes and wants to instantly knock Jensen down a peg for his sluggish words, the droopy smile, and most of all today’s surfer look. His outfit is complete with board shorts, lime green tank top, and a puka-shell necklace.
The outfit’s new, but the intention remains the same - to not be the same.
***
East Valley High looks like every California school on TV and in the movies. Jared wasn’t too surprised when he arrived in the fall as a 15-year-old senior transplant. He wasn’t shocked by the sharp, healthy green of the lawns, the school’s sprawling footprint, or the fact that he had no reason to belong.
He’s a 4.6 GPA on a four-point scale. Has mastered every honor’s class he’s sat in, and already racked up a dozen or so college credits. Read Nietzsche. Twice. And enjoyed it. Great Expectations is that moronic two-week nap he took in between devouring Dante’s Inferno and breathing The Iliad.
A lot in the world makes sense to him - the inner workings of a diesel engine, black holes, electoral colleges. Things that don’t are open for interpretation. In fact, those are his favorite conditions - the ones that dare not be explained, only hypothesized.
Jensen Ackles, however is in neither of those categories, hasn’t been for any of the days Jared’s known him.
He thinks that’s okay.
***
For Valentine’s Day, Jensen adopts goth and insists his name is Orpheus.
Jared quickly translates the name to darkness and frowns, but Danneel grins when Jensen moseys up the bleachers, flaps the tail of his leather duster out, and drops down into a crouch next to Jared. He doesn’t say a word, but Jared can read the tell-tale wrinkle across Jensen’s forehead, the tuck of Jensen’s pink tongue between his black-painted lips. Jensen doesn’t say a word, but he’s sketching something on Jared’s shoe.
Jared lets Jensen work, doesn’t bother to protest or remove his earbuds to start a conversation. He cautiously glances over his shoulder to Danneel and feels like he’s under a heat lamp with how she won’t stop watching them. He smiles a little and waves. She does neither, but she’s not glaring at him or trying to read his mind right now, so he figures it’s getting a little better.
After fifteen minutes, Jared sneaks a peek at his shoe to find Jensen filling in the dark hair of a round-faced, sad girl. One eye is covered by jagged bangs and the other is darkly lined.
It’s kind of depressing, but Jared takes a moment to smile. “You should be an illustrator.”
“Why should I be anything?” Jensen asks quietly.
He’s not trying to dig, but he’s interested to go deeper with Jensen all the same. “Then you could draw all your characters.” When Jensen looks up, seeming annoyed, Jared explains, “All the people you pretend to be.”
“You think I’m pretending?”
Jared only shrugs.
They both fall silent, Jensen handing over an earbud and flicking through his iPod. Mechanical sounds blare, a hard drumbeat drills into his ears, and Jared squints at the iPod’s screen to read Nine Inch Nails “Terrible Lie.” He frowns at the title, but doesn’t stop the moment. Jensen’s sitting tightly next to him and if Jared leans an inch or two into him, Jared can’t explain it.
***
Talk around school says Jensen had been the sophomore class president, head of the forensics squad, and on the homecoming court until he just wasn’t. No one could - or would - say why. It was like living in Fight Club with a lot less testosterone; Jensen doesn’t exactly seem like a fighter.
Costumer is more like it. Imposter. Impersonator. A chameleon who latches onto a new style, innovation, or fad every week. He overcommits to the change, head-to-toe perfection of whatever his newest creation is. But then he detaches and recreates himself days later.
Doesn’t exactly make him welcome in East Valley. Exactly the opposite, and somehow it’s exactly what Jensen seems to want.
Once, Jared dared to ask Jensen why he did it, and Jensen had replied, “You know how the puzzle on the box looks perfect, all put together and in-tact, but there’s that last piece that refuses to slide into place? Sometimes it’s just the piece’s choice to not be part of a fucking puzzle, ya know?”
On one hand, Jared appreciated the dreamy way Jensen had pulled those statements together. But when he got right down to it, Jared didn’t understand Jensen at all.
***
Jared’s mother is a physics professor, recent transfer to UC Berkley, and the reason the Padaleckis hauled themselves across the country. Jared could detail every facet of his mom’s research, but he doesn’t bother. Most eyes glaze over in four seconds.
His dad is a freelance journalist who has more stories to tell than an encyclopedia. Random facts and images to explain on any number of subjects.
They’re the reason he is the way he is, he thinks. Full of equations and hypotheticals and more questions than answers. Mom often tells him that science is the root of all, including his keen interest in philosophy. Dad says the first rule of understanding a subject is research. They say he lives in a world awaiting answers so he asks all the questions. Insist it’ll make him a brilliant theorist.
Except, asking too many questions and knowing too much always gets him into trouble. It’s what put him out on the bleachers at lunchtime.
No one’s interested in what he has to ask or say. Except Jensen.
One gloomy afternoon they argue over Jensen’s declaration that music is the accumulation of every human mind.
“The feelings, the enemy thoughts, the frantic dreams,” Jensen raves. Waving his hands about, the open tails of his flannel flowing around him, Jensen almost seem normal. Except he also has fake piercings wrapped around the corners of his lips, nose, and ear lobes. And insists he be called Eddie Kobain.
“I don’t doubt it,” Jared replies, nudging his glasses into place.
“The words are formed by letters, but the lyrics are formed by everything we’ve got in here,” to which Jensen sets his open, warm palm to the center of Jared’s chest.
Jared’s breath stops and he unconsciously covers Jensen’s hand with his own. He keeps it there for an indeterminable amount of time until his heart beats wildly and he realizes he’s feeling something. Far beyond common sense and facts, Jared can’t find the right words to reply or correct path of analysis to figure it out.
He lets go of Jensen’s hand and shifts back a few inches.
“What are some of your favorite lyrics?” Jensen asks. He’s smiling at Jared, warmly, like he cares to hear the answer.
Jared shrugs. “Sometimes I just like listening. Words don’t always matter.”
“Words always matter!” Jensen laughs grimly and shakes his head. “What’re we gonna do with you?”
“Nothing that a good crime scene analyst won’t figure out,” Jared says before he can stop.
He winces, but Jensen is chuckling. “You’re a comedian today.”
“I made one comment,” Jared mumbles. “One variable does not create an actuality.”
“Sometimes, all you need is one variable to kickstart a constant.”
Jared thinks about that for longer than he probably should. Throughout the day and evening he tries to consider the possibility of Jensen being right.
Worse yet, he analyzes why his body turned over when Jensen touched him, and more so when Jensen had insisted Jared open his ears and turn off his brain the next time he listens to music. Then he’d winked at Jared and headed back to class.
***
It’s not as if Jensen won’t speak about why he does it, and it’s not as thought Jared doesn’t have enough questions to get through it. It’s more like the two don’t match up.
Jared has asked why Jensen selected his personas at the time that he’s wearing them. Each time, Jensen has a slick response that’s well-tuned to who he is that day. But never why the whole charade is happening in the first place.
After four rounds of such questioning and non-answering, Jared had given up and mentally tossed the puzzle of Jensen Ackles into the inconclusive pile.
***
When Jensen shows up for the first day back from Spring Break dressed like he’s fresh off his daytrip of wine country, Jared gives in. He can’t help but ask, “Why not just be you?”
“And who’s that?” Jensen asks with some lilt of a cocky, rich accent. It sounds awful.
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“Jensen Mitford Ackleston the third.”
“Of course,” Jared says with a roll of his eyes.
“Of course what?” he asks, dropping down to sit next to Jared.
“Why don’t you just be you?”
Jensen cocks an eyebrow and some of his normal intonation returns. “And who’s that Philosophy Man?” The capitalization is obvious in Jensen's attitude.
Jared shrugs. “I don’t know.” Because he really doesn’t. He’s unsure which corner or inside piece of any one of the costumes are really a part of Jensen’s puzzle.
Suddenly, Jensen flashes a blue marker, jogs the retractable top, and grins.
This isn’t a question, but Jared knows the answer lies in him putting his foot on display. His left, he decides. The right is filling up with all of Jensen’s doodles.
“Some of us would like to know, though,” Jared says, voice getting quieter as he speaks. “The you that exists beneath it all.”
Jensen pauses but doesn’t meet Jared’s eyes. “You’re getting a barnacle today.”
Jared sighs.
“Just for being so ridiculous to think that.”
Jared ends up a skull and crossbones on a waving black flag across the side of his shoe.
Jensen smiles a little when he’s done. “There.”
He smiles at Jensen, too, and gets that odd feeling in his chest. It feels too tight to breathe steadily and his fingers won’t stop drumming on his thighs. “I would,” he blurts then snaps his mouth shut.
“You would what?”
“Want to know,” is all he says, but Jensen seems tense all the same.
***
Sometime in the next week, Jared sits across from his mother at the dining room table. He looks at her and contemplates how to best approach his problem. She’s consumed with writing a midterm test while Jared taps a pen to his Advanced Bio text, but she’s always told him he could - and should - ask anything.
“I had a strange reaction at school the other day,” he says slowly.
She nods and keeps scribbling notes on a legal pad, her preferred method of working. “Did you eat something bad?”
He bites the side of his mouth then sucks in a deep breath. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“Mid-teens is a perfectly acceptable age to develop allergies.”
Jared taps his pen a little faster. This is nerve-wracking; he doesn’t want to spell it out. His mother is a world-class scientist, she should be able to come to another hypothesis without full disclosure. “Mmm, no, not that.”
His father is across the way in his armchair in the den. He’s reading the newspaper, but drops it enough to look at Jared over the top of it. “Jared?” he asks carefully.
He faces his dad and sucks in another breath, holding it until he can admit, “It was to another person.”
“Maybe you’re allergic to her perfume,” his mom offers casually, head still down and focused on her notes.
Jared presses the tip of his pen into his text. He pushes down to imprint the pages with tiny indents. Over and over and over …
“My stomach kinda hurt and I had trouble breathing.”
His mom picks her head up and furrows her brow. “Asthma attack?”
“He confuses me. This confuses me. Why I feel this way and why I can’t stop thinking about him - it.” After a long moment, he frowns at his mom. “Why can’t I solve it?”
Jared’s dad snorts and shakes his head. “Jared, people are not equations waiting to be solved.”
Jared shifts to fully face his dad. “Everything is.”
“Some things are never answered.”
“That is very disappointing.”
His dad nods. “That’s life, buddy.”
Jared doesn’t often question his parents, but he spends that night piecing together the bits and pieces he knows of Jensen.
***
That next day, Jensen shows to lunch late. The period’s nearly over, but suddenly he stands at the foot of the bleachers, turning one toe of his dark grey gym shoes in, tucking one hand into his jeans pocket, crossing his other arm across his body. Beyond the sudden nervousness, Jared can’t put the pieces together of Jensen’s newest role.
Jensen’s just wearing a navy blue polo and jeans. There are no bright colors to be overly obnoxious and loud. No holes breaking the fabric apart like when he was Eddie. No dark pins holding anything together as there were when he was dark and gothic.
It is a shirt and faded, fitted jeans, and Jared is confused beyond words.
Even more confusing is Danneel gasping from behind Jared. When he glances over his shoulder, she’s even more shocked than Jared.
She mumbles something and Jensen grumbles as he moves up the bleachers to sit by Jared. “Shut up, Dan.”
“You’re late,” Jared says dumbly.
“It happens,” Jensen mumbles back.
“Tardiness can be a sign of laziness.” Jared winces once he’s said it. It’s a statement his mother had drilled into his head at a young age. He has no intentions to apply the same reasoning to Jensen. He’s just too darn nervous right now. To cover that up, he says quickly, “I have a few chips left, if you haven’t had anything yet.” Jared shucks his crinkled paper lunch bag into Jensen’s hands.
Jensen closes his hands around the bag and turns it over, awkwardly smiling. He puts it down and looks over his shoulder. Jared looks, too, and Danneel is watching them.
“Is something wrong?” Jared asks quietly.
Jensen shakes his head. “No, not really. But it feels wrong.”
Jared is distracted from asking more by the few others on the bleachers gathering their things and heading back towards school. It’s time to return; in less than five minutes, Jared should be in the back corner seat of his Advanced Calc class.
As Danneel comes down the bleachers, she squeezes Jensen’s shoulder and flashes a small, brief smile in Jared’s direction.
This is a very odd surprise.
Jensen like this, awkwardly shifting and quiet, plain clothed and simple, is so far off the pattern of the last year. And now Danneel is smiling at Jared. Odd doesn’t begin to cut it.
Jared runs through the possibilities, yet comes up empty. He’s perplexed, and it’s made worse when Jensen won’t say anything as he fidgets beside Jared. “Who are you today?” Jared asks carefully.
Jensen quietly replies, “I’m me.”
He can’t bear to admit he doesn’t get it; Jared gets pretty much everything. Except Jensen apparently.
The bell from inside the building sounds and Jared flinches. He hurries to stand and gather his things, but only makes it a few steps before he turns around to Jensen, to this puzzle. He suddenly can’t make himself to move without solving this equation.
“Why are you you today?” Jared asks quickly.
Jensen shrugs, his eyes going all around them, but never to Jared. “You wanted to see it.”
“Why don’t you do this always?”
He makes a face and fiddles with the seam of his jeans near his knee. “Not everyone feels comfortable just being them.”
After a few seconds, Jared wonders at what point his questions will lead to a straight answer. He’s not sure he cares, so long as Jensen is the one answering. “Are we supposed to?”
“I did once.”
“And then?”
“And then I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Jensen chuckles, but it feels weird. False. “I think you’re hitting the record for questions today. And you’re missing Calc.”
Jared’s brain stutters; Jensen knows he has Calc after lunch. He’s uncertain what this all means, but Jensen is quickly upright and walking back to the building.
***
In addition to being late to Calc, Jared can’t concentrate on any equation drawn on the board. The same happens in Contemporary English to round out his afternoon. Both teachers question his attention and both times he quietly brushes it off.
As he goes through his locker, putting up and pulling down the right books and folders for homework and stuffing them in his backpack, he can see Danneel milling around a classroom just twenty feet away. It’s the English faculty office and she’s clutching her Victorian English text.
Jared knows she’s there with purpose. He’s moving towards her before he realizes that he has to interrupt her wait anyway.
“Hi,” she says with wide eyes once he’s in front of her.
“Hi,” he replies plainly. Then doesn’t say anything because he hadn’t planned this far.
“Did you want something?”
He nods and when she rings her hand in the air, prompting him to speak, he pushes his glasses up his nose and breathes as evenly as he can. “I’m confused by Jensen.”
She snorts. “Most people are. He likes it that way.”
“Why did he show up like he did today?”
Her posture goes rigid. After a moment, she sighs. “That’s Jensen. The real Jensen.”
“But why?”
She sighs again, drops her book to her side, and fidgets. “Maybe he’s tired of pretending to not be him?”
“Why does he pretend at all?”
Danneel smirks. “How long have you been waiting to ask that?”
Forever could be his answer, instead he merely shrugs. “I’ve heard stories. But I didn’t want to push them.”
“The official story,” she says briskly, “Is that when the good ol’ boys found out what Jensen really is, they didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“What he really is?”
She tsks and shakes her head angrily. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to speak the words. That she hates them. “I’m sure you’ve heard from the gossip hounds that he’s gay.”
Jared clears his throat, feeling awkward for having started to conversation though thankful to have real answers. “I’m not really in with the gossip hounds. And I had a feeling about the other part.”
She searches his eyes. He’s not sure what she’s looking for, or what she finds, but it can’t be bad because she sadly smiles. Just as quickly as she had smiled, she now frowns as a student leaves the office and she must be next. “Just, don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“I would read it before judging,” he replies seriously. It’s confusing that she chuckles and pats his arm before going into the office.
She’s never smiled or touched him before, and now she’s done both inside a minute.
He’s not sure he’s felt more confused. He has more evidence to explain Jensen’s way, but he’s not feeling any better for it. It’s even more confusing when he leaves school and finds Jensen leaning on a railing by the front steps.
“I am confused,” Jared says matter-of-factly.
Jensen smiles a little, and Jared’s resolute to ignore how it makes him feel even more nervous than he usually is in front of Jensen.
To make it more perplexing, all Jensen says is, “The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
Jared thinks between Danneel’s words and all the past versions of Jensen he’s seen. He runs his eyes over Jensen’s face then slowly smiles, feels his eyes burn with the knowledge. Suddenly it all makes sense. “Bob Marley.”
Jensen seems to replicate the way Jared’s feeling, all warm yet cautious. “How did you …”
“Research,” he mumbles. “My dad says everything can be explained through research. I wanted to explain you.”
“You researched me?”
“I researched all the fake yous,” Jared admits. “The music and lyrics you always talked about.”
Jensen nods, then grows serious. “People aren’t always comfortable in their own skin.”
Jared nods, too. “Someone told me that once.”
“I told you that.”
“I know.” Jared feels his face warm with his smile. He takes a deep breath and prepares himself for what just may be the most important question of all. “Do you want to walk home?”
“Can you promise to stop asking me so many questions?” Jensen asks.
There’s a strange smirk on Jensen’s face, and somehow Jared feels like he’s returning the look. “You don’t like my questions?”
Jensen chuckles shyly and pushes off the railing. As he walks forward, Jared falls into step beside him, taking the stairs and setting off down the sidewalk. “I do. But sometimes they’re overwhelming.”
Jared looks down to his feet, watching every step they take. “I’ll try to cut back.”
“No, you shouldn’t have to.”
“No one should,” Jared agrees.
Jared’s shocked at the feel of Jensen’s hand slipping into his own. Jensen squeezes his hand around Jared’s and smiles softly, another puzzle piece fitting in its place.
Words: 4,000
Rating: PG
Summary: Jared wants to solve the puzzle that is Jensen Ackles. It's not always so easy to do.
Notes: HS AU. This is based on dephigravity's prompt of "Freaks and geeks" for spnspringfling. I couldn't make it work in a week for less than 2500 words. I wanted to feel it through and decided to shelve it. Then I realized today tomorrow is his birthday, so it now serves for that. Happy birthday bb! Also, thanks to kelleigh for talking this through with me way back when and then to strangeallure for nudging me on this and helping to talk through bits and pieces <3
Today’s lunch hour is regrettably bright. Makes no difference that it’s mid-January, Jared still has to squint and duck his head down and away from the sun. It doesn’t help much because now the rays glare off the metal bleachers where he, Jensen, and a handful of other school rejects always escape to.
When he looks up and to his left, he finds Danneel. Her darkly dyed hair in tight, tiny braids obscure her painted-pale face but he can tell she’s eyeing him. She has been ever since Jensen first took a stroll down a handful of benches to greet Jared. Back then, Jared had been studying quiet and resolute, with his earbuds loud enough that The Beautiful Mind soundtrack drowned out the animated conversations Jensen and Danneel used to have.
Jared twitches his foot, but Jensen holds on and presses the green Sharpie’s tip harder to the white, rubber toe of Jared’s grey Cons.
Things have changed in two months. Well, some.
“Why is it always my shoes?” Jared asks.
“No real estate here,” Jensen mumbles as he taps his flip flop against Jared’s thigh.
Jared nudges his foot in Jensen’s hands then sighs. “My mom’s gonna freak.”
“Tell her Hansen said to chill out on a long wave,” Jensen replies slowly, referring to himself in third person. Or rather, the ridiculous name he insists to be called today.
Jared sighs and Jensen lazily smiles as he glances up. It’s a nice smile, has been for a while. And as always, Jared has to turn his face so he’s no longer under its power. He finds Danneel staring at him again, hard this time, like she’s daring to crawl into his brain from where she sits.
Jared frowns a bit even while he’s trying to smile at her. It’s all so awkward.
Jensen makes a few last marks on Jared’s shoe then lifts his hands in a finger-gun salute. “Now you’re alllll cool.”
“What’d you do now?” Jared asks warily, worrying his lower lip between his teeth when he leans forward and Jensen sprawls back like he has no care. “Really?”
“It’s true, man,” Jensen says lazily.
Love is a 4 letter word is drawn in flowery letters. Both Os have a peace sign in the center.
“You should’ve spelled out four,” Jared points out. Then cringes; it's petty to edit what he’s pretty sure are Jason Mraz lyrics, but it’s true. “And you forgot to hyphenate.”
“You need to hyphenate your state of mind.”
Jared sighs, rubs beneath his dark-framed glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose as he winces. “Grammar is not a state of mind.”
“No, but Marley is.” Jensen offers up an ear bud for Jared to share. “Every little thing is gonna be alright,” he sings.
Jared rolls his eyes and wants to instantly knock Jensen down a peg for his sluggish words, the droopy smile, and most of all today’s surfer look. His outfit is complete with board shorts, lime green tank top, and a puka-shell necklace.
The outfit’s new, but the intention remains the same - to not be the same.
***
East Valley High looks like every California school on TV and in the movies. Jared wasn’t too surprised when he arrived in the fall as a 15-year-old senior transplant. He wasn’t shocked by the sharp, healthy green of the lawns, the school’s sprawling footprint, or the fact that he had no reason to belong.
He’s a 4.6 GPA on a four-point scale. Has mastered every honor’s class he’s sat in, and already racked up a dozen or so college credits. Read Nietzsche. Twice. And enjoyed it. Great Expectations is that moronic two-week nap he took in between devouring Dante’s Inferno and breathing The Iliad.
A lot in the world makes sense to him - the inner workings of a diesel engine, black holes, electoral colleges. Things that don’t are open for interpretation. In fact, those are his favorite conditions - the ones that dare not be explained, only hypothesized.
Jensen Ackles, however is in neither of those categories, hasn’t been for any of the days Jared’s known him.
He thinks that’s okay.
***
For Valentine’s Day, Jensen adopts goth and insists his name is Orpheus.
Jared quickly translates the name to darkness and frowns, but Danneel grins when Jensen moseys up the bleachers, flaps the tail of his leather duster out, and drops down into a crouch next to Jared. He doesn’t say a word, but Jared can read the tell-tale wrinkle across Jensen’s forehead, the tuck of Jensen’s pink tongue between his black-painted lips. Jensen doesn’t say a word, but he’s sketching something on Jared’s shoe.
Jared lets Jensen work, doesn’t bother to protest or remove his earbuds to start a conversation. He cautiously glances over his shoulder to Danneel and feels like he’s under a heat lamp with how she won’t stop watching them. He smiles a little and waves. She does neither, but she’s not glaring at him or trying to read his mind right now, so he figures it’s getting a little better.
After fifteen minutes, Jared sneaks a peek at his shoe to find Jensen filling in the dark hair of a round-faced, sad girl. One eye is covered by jagged bangs and the other is darkly lined.
It’s kind of depressing, but Jared takes a moment to smile. “You should be an illustrator.”
“Why should I be anything?” Jensen asks quietly.
He’s not trying to dig, but he’s interested to go deeper with Jensen all the same. “Then you could draw all your characters.” When Jensen looks up, seeming annoyed, Jared explains, “All the people you pretend to be.”
“You think I’m pretending?”
Jared only shrugs.
They both fall silent, Jensen handing over an earbud and flicking through his iPod. Mechanical sounds blare, a hard drumbeat drills into his ears, and Jared squints at the iPod’s screen to read Nine Inch Nails “Terrible Lie.” He frowns at the title, but doesn’t stop the moment. Jensen’s sitting tightly next to him and if Jared leans an inch or two into him, Jared can’t explain it.
***
Talk around school says Jensen had been the sophomore class president, head of the forensics squad, and on the homecoming court until he just wasn’t. No one could - or would - say why. It was like living in Fight Club with a lot less testosterone; Jensen doesn’t exactly seem like a fighter.
Costumer is more like it. Imposter. Impersonator. A chameleon who latches onto a new style, innovation, or fad every week. He overcommits to the change, head-to-toe perfection of whatever his newest creation is. But then he detaches and recreates himself days later.
Doesn’t exactly make him welcome in East Valley. Exactly the opposite, and somehow it’s exactly what Jensen seems to want.
Once, Jared dared to ask Jensen why he did it, and Jensen had replied, “You know how the puzzle on the box looks perfect, all put together and in-tact, but there’s that last piece that refuses to slide into place? Sometimes it’s just the piece’s choice to not be part of a fucking puzzle, ya know?”
On one hand, Jared appreciated the dreamy way Jensen had pulled those statements together. But when he got right down to it, Jared didn’t understand Jensen at all.
***
Jared’s mother is a physics professor, recent transfer to UC Berkley, and the reason the Padaleckis hauled themselves across the country. Jared could detail every facet of his mom’s research, but he doesn’t bother. Most eyes glaze over in four seconds.
His dad is a freelance journalist who has more stories to tell than an encyclopedia. Random facts and images to explain on any number of subjects.
They’re the reason he is the way he is, he thinks. Full of equations and hypotheticals and more questions than answers. Mom often tells him that science is the root of all, including his keen interest in philosophy. Dad says the first rule of understanding a subject is research. They say he lives in a world awaiting answers so he asks all the questions. Insist it’ll make him a brilliant theorist.
Except, asking too many questions and knowing too much always gets him into trouble. It’s what put him out on the bleachers at lunchtime.
No one’s interested in what he has to ask or say. Except Jensen.
One gloomy afternoon they argue over Jensen’s declaration that music is the accumulation of every human mind.
“The feelings, the enemy thoughts, the frantic dreams,” Jensen raves. Waving his hands about, the open tails of his flannel flowing around him, Jensen almost seem normal. Except he also has fake piercings wrapped around the corners of his lips, nose, and ear lobes. And insists he be called Eddie Kobain.
“I don’t doubt it,” Jared replies, nudging his glasses into place.
“The words are formed by letters, but the lyrics are formed by everything we’ve got in here,” to which Jensen sets his open, warm palm to the center of Jared’s chest.
Jared’s breath stops and he unconsciously covers Jensen’s hand with his own. He keeps it there for an indeterminable amount of time until his heart beats wildly and he realizes he’s feeling something. Far beyond common sense and facts, Jared can’t find the right words to reply or correct path of analysis to figure it out.
He lets go of Jensen’s hand and shifts back a few inches.
“What are some of your favorite lyrics?” Jensen asks. He’s smiling at Jared, warmly, like he cares to hear the answer.
Jared shrugs. “Sometimes I just like listening. Words don’t always matter.”
“Words always matter!” Jensen laughs grimly and shakes his head. “What’re we gonna do with you?”
“Nothing that a good crime scene analyst won’t figure out,” Jared says before he can stop.
He winces, but Jensen is chuckling. “You’re a comedian today.”
“I made one comment,” Jared mumbles. “One variable does not create an actuality.”
“Sometimes, all you need is one variable to kickstart a constant.”
Jared thinks about that for longer than he probably should. Throughout the day and evening he tries to consider the possibility of Jensen being right.
Worse yet, he analyzes why his body turned over when Jensen touched him, and more so when Jensen had insisted Jared open his ears and turn off his brain the next time he listens to music. Then he’d winked at Jared and headed back to class.
***
It’s not as if Jensen won’t speak about why he does it, and it’s not as thought Jared doesn’t have enough questions to get through it. It’s more like the two don’t match up.
Jared has asked why Jensen selected his personas at the time that he’s wearing them. Each time, Jensen has a slick response that’s well-tuned to who he is that day. But never why the whole charade is happening in the first place.
After four rounds of such questioning and non-answering, Jared had given up and mentally tossed the puzzle of Jensen Ackles into the inconclusive pile.
***
When Jensen shows up for the first day back from Spring Break dressed like he’s fresh off his daytrip of wine country, Jared gives in. He can’t help but ask, “Why not just be you?”
“And who’s that?” Jensen asks with some lilt of a cocky, rich accent. It sounds awful.
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“Jensen Mitford Ackleston the third.”
“Of course,” Jared says with a roll of his eyes.
“Of course what?” he asks, dropping down to sit next to Jared.
“Why don’t you just be you?”
Jensen cocks an eyebrow and some of his normal intonation returns. “And who’s that Philosophy Man?” The capitalization is obvious in Jensen's attitude.
Jared shrugs. “I don’t know.” Because he really doesn’t. He’s unsure which corner or inside piece of any one of the costumes are really a part of Jensen’s puzzle.
Suddenly, Jensen flashes a blue marker, jogs the retractable top, and grins.
This isn’t a question, but Jared knows the answer lies in him putting his foot on display. His left, he decides. The right is filling up with all of Jensen’s doodles.
“Some of us would like to know, though,” Jared says, voice getting quieter as he speaks. “The you that exists beneath it all.”
Jensen pauses but doesn’t meet Jared’s eyes. “You’re getting a barnacle today.”
Jared sighs.
“Just for being so ridiculous to think that.”
Jared ends up a skull and crossbones on a waving black flag across the side of his shoe.
Jensen smiles a little when he’s done. “There.”
He smiles at Jensen, too, and gets that odd feeling in his chest. It feels too tight to breathe steadily and his fingers won’t stop drumming on his thighs. “I would,” he blurts then snaps his mouth shut.
“You would what?”
“Want to know,” is all he says, but Jensen seems tense all the same.
***
Sometime in the next week, Jared sits across from his mother at the dining room table. He looks at her and contemplates how to best approach his problem. She’s consumed with writing a midterm test while Jared taps a pen to his Advanced Bio text, but she’s always told him he could - and should - ask anything.
“I had a strange reaction at school the other day,” he says slowly.
She nods and keeps scribbling notes on a legal pad, her preferred method of working. “Did you eat something bad?”
He bites the side of his mouth then sucks in a deep breath. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“Mid-teens is a perfectly acceptable age to develop allergies.”
Jared taps his pen a little faster. This is nerve-wracking; he doesn’t want to spell it out. His mother is a world-class scientist, she should be able to come to another hypothesis without full disclosure. “Mmm, no, not that.”
His father is across the way in his armchair in the den. He’s reading the newspaper, but drops it enough to look at Jared over the top of it. “Jared?” he asks carefully.
He faces his dad and sucks in another breath, holding it until he can admit, “It was to another person.”
“Maybe you’re allergic to her perfume,” his mom offers casually, head still down and focused on her notes.
Jared presses the tip of his pen into his text. He pushes down to imprint the pages with tiny indents. Over and over and over …
“My stomach kinda hurt and I had trouble breathing.”
His mom picks her head up and furrows her brow. “Asthma attack?”
“He confuses me. This confuses me. Why I feel this way and why I can’t stop thinking about him - it.” After a long moment, he frowns at his mom. “Why can’t I solve it?”
Jared’s dad snorts and shakes his head. “Jared, people are not equations waiting to be solved.”
Jared shifts to fully face his dad. “Everything is.”
“Some things are never answered.”
“That is very disappointing.”
His dad nods. “That’s life, buddy.”
Jared doesn’t often question his parents, but he spends that night piecing together the bits and pieces he knows of Jensen.
***
That next day, Jensen shows to lunch late. The period’s nearly over, but suddenly he stands at the foot of the bleachers, turning one toe of his dark grey gym shoes in, tucking one hand into his jeans pocket, crossing his other arm across his body. Beyond the sudden nervousness, Jared can’t put the pieces together of Jensen’s newest role.
Jensen’s just wearing a navy blue polo and jeans. There are no bright colors to be overly obnoxious and loud. No holes breaking the fabric apart like when he was Eddie. No dark pins holding anything together as there were when he was dark and gothic.
It is a shirt and faded, fitted jeans, and Jared is confused beyond words.
Even more confusing is Danneel gasping from behind Jared. When he glances over his shoulder, she’s even more shocked than Jared.
She mumbles something and Jensen grumbles as he moves up the bleachers to sit by Jared. “Shut up, Dan.”
“You’re late,” Jared says dumbly.
“It happens,” Jensen mumbles back.
“Tardiness can be a sign of laziness.” Jared winces once he’s said it. It’s a statement his mother had drilled into his head at a young age. He has no intentions to apply the same reasoning to Jensen. He’s just too darn nervous right now. To cover that up, he says quickly, “I have a few chips left, if you haven’t had anything yet.” Jared shucks his crinkled paper lunch bag into Jensen’s hands.
Jensen closes his hands around the bag and turns it over, awkwardly smiling. He puts it down and looks over his shoulder. Jared looks, too, and Danneel is watching them.
“Is something wrong?” Jared asks quietly.
Jensen shakes his head. “No, not really. But it feels wrong.”
Jared is distracted from asking more by the few others on the bleachers gathering their things and heading back towards school. It’s time to return; in less than five minutes, Jared should be in the back corner seat of his Advanced Calc class.
As Danneel comes down the bleachers, she squeezes Jensen’s shoulder and flashes a small, brief smile in Jared’s direction.
This is a very odd surprise.
Jensen like this, awkwardly shifting and quiet, plain clothed and simple, is so far off the pattern of the last year. And now Danneel is smiling at Jared. Odd doesn’t begin to cut it.
Jared runs through the possibilities, yet comes up empty. He’s perplexed, and it’s made worse when Jensen won’t say anything as he fidgets beside Jared. “Who are you today?” Jared asks carefully.
Jensen quietly replies, “I’m me.”
He can’t bear to admit he doesn’t get it; Jared gets pretty much everything. Except Jensen apparently.
The bell from inside the building sounds and Jared flinches. He hurries to stand and gather his things, but only makes it a few steps before he turns around to Jensen, to this puzzle. He suddenly can’t make himself to move without solving this equation.
“Why are you you today?” Jared asks quickly.
Jensen shrugs, his eyes going all around them, but never to Jared. “You wanted to see it.”
“Why don’t you do this always?”
He makes a face and fiddles with the seam of his jeans near his knee. “Not everyone feels comfortable just being them.”
After a few seconds, Jared wonders at what point his questions will lead to a straight answer. He’s not sure he cares, so long as Jensen is the one answering. “Are we supposed to?”
“I did once.”
“And then?”
“And then I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Jensen chuckles, but it feels weird. False. “I think you’re hitting the record for questions today. And you’re missing Calc.”
Jared’s brain stutters; Jensen knows he has Calc after lunch. He’s uncertain what this all means, but Jensen is quickly upright and walking back to the building.
***
In addition to being late to Calc, Jared can’t concentrate on any equation drawn on the board. The same happens in Contemporary English to round out his afternoon. Both teachers question his attention and both times he quietly brushes it off.
As he goes through his locker, putting up and pulling down the right books and folders for homework and stuffing them in his backpack, he can see Danneel milling around a classroom just twenty feet away. It’s the English faculty office and she’s clutching her Victorian English text.
Jared knows she’s there with purpose. He’s moving towards her before he realizes that he has to interrupt her wait anyway.
“Hi,” she says with wide eyes once he’s in front of her.
“Hi,” he replies plainly. Then doesn’t say anything because he hadn’t planned this far.
“Did you want something?”
He nods and when she rings her hand in the air, prompting him to speak, he pushes his glasses up his nose and breathes as evenly as he can. “I’m confused by Jensen.”
She snorts. “Most people are. He likes it that way.”
“Why did he show up like he did today?”
Her posture goes rigid. After a moment, she sighs. “That’s Jensen. The real Jensen.”
“But why?”
She sighs again, drops her book to her side, and fidgets. “Maybe he’s tired of pretending to not be him?”
“Why does he pretend at all?”
Danneel smirks. “How long have you been waiting to ask that?”
Forever could be his answer, instead he merely shrugs. “I’ve heard stories. But I didn’t want to push them.”
“The official story,” she says briskly, “Is that when the good ol’ boys found out what Jensen really is, they didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“What he really is?”
She tsks and shakes her head angrily. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to speak the words. That she hates them. “I’m sure you’ve heard from the gossip hounds that he’s gay.”
Jared clears his throat, feeling awkward for having started to conversation though thankful to have real answers. “I’m not really in with the gossip hounds. And I had a feeling about the other part.”
She searches his eyes. He’s not sure what she’s looking for, or what she finds, but it can’t be bad because she sadly smiles. Just as quickly as she had smiled, she now frowns as a student leaves the office and she must be next. “Just, don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“I would read it before judging,” he replies seriously. It’s confusing that she chuckles and pats his arm before going into the office.
She’s never smiled or touched him before, and now she’s done both inside a minute.
He’s not sure he’s felt more confused. He has more evidence to explain Jensen’s way, but he’s not feeling any better for it. It’s even more confusing when he leaves school and finds Jensen leaning on a railing by the front steps.
“I am confused,” Jared says matter-of-factly.
Jensen smiles a little, and Jared’s resolute to ignore how it makes him feel even more nervous than he usually is in front of Jensen.
To make it more perplexing, all Jensen says is, “The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
Jared thinks between Danneel’s words and all the past versions of Jensen he’s seen. He runs his eyes over Jensen’s face then slowly smiles, feels his eyes burn with the knowledge. Suddenly it all makes sense. “Bob Marley.”
Jensen seems to replicate the way Jared’s feeling, all warm yet cautious. “How did you …”
“Research,” he mumbles. “My dad says everything can be explained through research. I wanted to explain you.”
“You researched me?”
“I researched all the fake yous,” Jared admits. “The music and lyrics you always talked about.”
Jensen nods, then grows serious. “People aren’t always comfortable in their own skin.”
Jared nods, too. “Someone told me that once.”
“I told you that.”
“I know.” Jared feels his face warm with his smile. He takes a deep breath and prepares himself for what just may be the most important question of all. “Do you want to walk home?”
“Can you promise to stop asking me so many questions?” Jensen asks.
There’s a strange smirk on Jensen’s face, and somehow Jared feels like he’s returning the look. “You don’t like my questions?”
Jensen chuckles shyly and pushes off the railing. As he walks forward, Jared falls into step beside him, taking the stairs and setting off down the sidewalk. “I do. But sometimes they’re overwhelming.”
Jared looks down to his feet, watching every step they take. “I’ll try to cut back.”
“No, you shouldn’t have to.”
“No one should,” Jared agrees.
Jared’s shocked at the feel of Jensen’s hand slipping into his own. Jensen squeezes his hand around Jared’s and smiles softly, another puzzle piece fitting in its place.