fic: If You Care To Stay, J2 AU, NC-17, 1/2.
title - If You Care To Stay
rating - NC-17
wordcount - ~14,000
characters - Jared/Jensen, Chad/Sophia, Jensen/Misha, random other familiar faces.
summary - Jensen's got a thing for his roommate... he just doesn't know which roommate.
notes - My whenboymeetsboy fic, based on The Night We Never Met, an old Matthew Broderick movie. I appear to be the only person who's seen this movie, so, um, BLAME ANYTHING YOU DISLIKE ABOUT THIS STORY ON THE MOVIE. There may be a lot on that list. I'm not crazy about it myself. Also, this now has a soundtrack.
Monday morning, Jensen wanders into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. He leaves it on the table and ventures over the sleeping bodies littering the living room floor to fetch the paper. When he gets back, there are two naked girls having sex right on the tabletop, next to his steaming Optimus Prime mug. So that's kind of a lost cause.
“I'm not saying I hate you,” he tells Chris over pancakes at IHOP later. “Just that if I have to live with you for one more second, I'm going to fucking kill myself.”
“They probably would've let you join in,” Chris says, like that's going to make it all better. “Did you ask?”
Jensen shudders and tries to focus on the classifieds, but all he can see is the image in his head.
“They could have at least put down a tablecloth or something. A runner.”
Chris gives him a long, incredulous stare and tips too much syrup onto his plate.
“There is no word for how gay you are.”
“Not in our primitive language, no,” Jensen says, stealing a strip of bacon off his friend's plate. “But I hear the Inuit have a couple dozen.”
Curling a protective arm around his plate, Chris says, “Eat your own goddamn bacon. And you can't leave, you fucker. I'm kicking your ass out.”
Jensen flips the paper around so Chris can see the ad he's circled.
“Check it out. Up to four days a week, no credit check, no first and last.”
“Well, then I'm kicking your ass halfway out,” Chris says, hanging onto his disgruntled tone. It's one of his favourites. “And that's assuming you get the place. You'll probably end up busted for babysitting some dude's basement meth lab, anyway. This is how all the good TV movies start.”
“I'd probably get more privacy in prison than I do at your place,” Jensen says, smirking.
Chris just shrugs. “Can't argue with that,” he says, and gulps down his cold coffee.
Jensen works at Dean & DeLuca. He kind of hates it. Mainly, his job entails the selling of ridiculously expensive cheeses to people who don't deserve them. It's a sad fact that about 90% of his customers are just looking to impress their dinner guests, so most of the time they just nod vacantly and ignore his professional advice in favour of the highest price tag. Which Jensen finds both tragic and infuriating, although it makes his boss pretty happy.
But dammit, Jensen has a degree in the Culinary Arts. Granted, it's from a community college and not, say, the Culinary Institute of America, but it still counts. He's still an artist.
Danneel is lounging in the break room when he gets off shift, and he makes a show of stomping through the door and tearing off his black cap with the embroidered lettering.
“Caciocavallo. Everyone wants Caciocavallo,” he says, ruffling his own hair and trying to relax with a couple of deep breaths. It doesn't work. “I probably have more orders for Caciocavallo than there is Caciocavallo in existence.”
“It's very in right now,” Danneel says with a shrug and a crooked grin.
“Yeah, til they find out it tastes like twigs. Then I'm the one who's gotta deal with the complaints.”
“Smile,” Danneel says. “You're done for the day. I've still got four hours of this shit.”
Jensen tosses his apron and cap onto the shelf of his locker.
“No time to smile. I gotta go look at an apartment.”
“Oh my god, you're leaving the commune?”
“Part-time,” Jensen says. “Maybe.”
She gives him a blank look.
“I don't know what that means.”
He shrugs and heads out. No time to explain.
The kitchen is heaven. Gas range, convection oven, wide-set double sink with garbage disposal, marble countertops. There's plenty of work and cupboard space, and a dining area bordered by floor-to-ceiling windows with a frontside view of the street. Oh, the rest of the apartment is nice, too, but Jensen only has eyes for the kitchen. He stands next to the cooking island and happy violin music plays in his head while the girl giving him the tour goes on and on about the trendiness of the neighbourhood. It's love.
“We're trying to work out a schedule,” the girl says, and Jensen tunes out the violins and returns to the present. “My boss, Mr. Murray, only uses this place three days a week, and there's another applicant who wants the place for two days. I don't know if that kinda ruins it for you. You'd be splitting the rent with the other tennant, so that's a plus, right? And it's partially furnished, which you've probably noticed. Everything that's here is staying. And yeah, that includes the plasma screen. Fifty-two inches, in case you're wondering.”
She looks a bit tired and manic, like she's been pitching this arrangement all day with no success.
Jensen looks around, takes in the kitchen, stainless steel appliances gleaming in the late afternoon light. The orchestra swells in his head again.
“I'm definitely interested,” he says. “Even just for two days a week.”
“Really?” she says. Her tone is more disbelief than genuine interest. “How come?”
“My current living situation is, uh... a little bohemian,” Jensen says. It's the polite way of putting it. “I could use a break, even just for a couple of days a week.”
“Awesome,” the girl says, her long blonde ponytail bouncing as she rushes over to grab a black notebook off the table. She flips through until she comes upon a particularly messy page. “Well, not so awesome that you're living with the cast of Rent, or whatever, but awesome that you're interested. I've been here way too long.”
She sighs, pooching her lip out so that the air makes her bangs puffed up, and then she frowns at the notebook. “Okay, hm. Mr. Murray needs Thursday and Saturday for sure... and Jared asked for Sunday, so the weekend is sort of spoken for, sorry. But Friday's free?”
“Well, Wednesday and Friday would be best for me, so...”
“So that's perfect!”
“Seems that way.”
He gives her what he hopes is a calming, encouraging smile, and she grins back.
“Should I use a pen or a pencil?”
“What?”
“To mark you down in the schedule.” When Jensen just gives her a blank look, she smiles a little sweetly and says, “It was a cute way of making sure you're serious.”
“Oh!” Jensen says. “I will. I mean, I am.” He shakes his head and grins at her. “Pen, please.”
“You got it,” the girl says. “I'm Katie, by the way.”
“Jensen Ackles.”
She starts to scribble in her notebook, then pauses and glances up at him for a long moment.
“And how do you spell that, exactly?” she says, finally.
Jensen laughs and goes over to help her.
*
“When are you moving into this place?” Sandy says over breakfast.
Well, she's having breakfast. Jared is working a knot out of one of his shoelaces while the dogs pace at the door behind him, leashes dragging.
“Next Sunday, I guess,” he says. “Picked up the keys yesterday. I'm not gonna bring much, just some clothes and books. Maybe my chess set.”
He tries using his teeth to pry the knot apart, but that doesn't work, and he only realizes after he's done it that putting his shoe in his mouth was kind of a bad idea. Sandy's looking at him in disgust, spoon abandoned in her bowl of Cheerios.
“Give it here,” she says, resigned, and he hands it over. “You're still looking for a full-time place, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Jared says. “Totally. It's hard with the dogs, though. And my paychecks are still being held.”
“Here,” Sandy says, handing back his de-snarled sneaker almost instantly.
“Thanks,” Jared says. He slips it on and props his foot on one of the kitchen chairs to tighten the laces, which makes Sandy frown.
At least, she frowns until he finishes tying his shoe, zips up his hoodie and kisses her, a quick peck on the lips. They both sort of freeze. Sandy picks up her spoon.
“Uh,” Jared says.
She just stares straight ahead, so he gets going, wrapping one dog's leash around each wrist and mostly nudging the door open with his knee.
The thing about a relationship ending, Jared thinks on his way downstairs, is that it's supposed to end. He and Sandy seem to have missed that memo along the way, and it's causing all kinds of minor disasters like what just happened upstairs.
It doesn't help that they're still living together. Once he gets his own place, his daily dose of awkwardness will probably decrease significantly. Maybe. He hopes.
For now, he's got to settle for this shared two day scenario, because it's all he can afford. But one day, when his back pay comes in from the toy store, he's going to get off Sandy's couch and rent his own apartment, one in a nice neighbourhood, near a park where Harley and Sadie can run and play, and where he can sleep in a bed more than two nights a week. It's going to be amazing.
When he gets home, sweaty and winded from racing the dogs upstairs, Sandy's already left for work, and the message light on the machine is blinking.
“Hi, this is a message for Jared. It's Katie Cassidy. I'm Mr. Murray's assistant, we met the other day. Listen, Mr. Murray would like you to give him a call as soon as possible. It's about the apartment. Uh, don't worry, everything's fine, he's just had a couple of things come up and he'd like to ask you about switching days. Only if you don't mind, of course. 555-7100. Thanks, Jared. Talk to you later.”
Jared glances at the schedule he left sitting out on the counter. He's got Tuesday and Sunday right now, which he kind of likes because he works a long shift at the toy store on Mondays, so Sunday to Tuesday will almost seem like three straight days away from the whole Sandy situation. But he might be talked into switching, with the right incentive.
*
Chad looks up in the mirror to find Sophia half-frowning, little creases between her eyes.
“Is that what you're wearing?”
“Yeah?” he says, tugging a little at his tie.
When her expression refuses to soften, he pulls the blue and green tie all the way off. She just frowns more.
“What?”
“That was the only part that looked good on you.”
He looks down at the rest of his outfit - white shirt, brown slacks, white socks, black shoes. Pretty plain.
“I don't get it,” he says.
“You're colourblind,” Sophia says. “Or you hate me and this is some sort of passive-aggressive attempt to sabotage everything.”
“Right,” Chad says. “I'm going to sabotage our entire relationship with my pants.”
She stares at him good and long, like she honestly suspects him of coming up with a cunning plan involving poor fashion choices. Then she sighs and starts digging through his sock drawer.
“So you're colourblind.”
“Nobody's perfect,” Chad says, even though he's pretty sure he's not colourblind. He's just a guy, which Sophia sometimes seems to think is the same thing. Which is crazy, because if he was colourblind, he wouldn't be able to fly a helicopter, and Chad could totally fly a helicopter if he wanted. He's never tried, but that's beside the point.
“Here,” she says, tossing him a balled up pair of black dress socks.
“These make my feet itch,” he says, but she's in the walk-in closet and doesn't hear, which is probably lucky for him.
She forces him into an equally itchy pair of dark grey trousers and redoes his tie for him, knotting it loosely around her own slim neck before gingerly pulling it off and slipping it over his head. Then she stands behind him and adjusts it in the mirror. He feels about five years old, which isn't unusual. His defence mechanism isn't very unusual either.
“So when we meet the minister, I should pretend like we're both virgins, right?” he says, sly grin tugging at his cheeks. “Should I ask him what to expect on the wedding night?”
She whacks him in the back, knuckles out, hard enough to make his breath hitch.
“Don't you dare, Chad Michael Murray.”
“What, you don't think he might have a couple of pointers for us?”
“What I think is that you're trying to piss me off,” she says, but she looks at least a little amused. “And you don't have to try so hard. I'm there already.”
“I wasn't,” Chad says, and it comes out sounding sulky.
“Baby,” she says, abandoning his tie and wrapping her arms around his chest instead. “I just want this to be perfect for both of us. We're only getting married once, you know?”
“Yeah,” Chad breathes. His vocal chords seem to be taking a break.
“So come with me,” she mutters into his ear. “And don't act like a jackass, alright?”
“Yeah,” he says again. She kisses him on the cheek, and he shivers. The version of him in the mirror shivers, too.
*
The guy from the apartment returns his phone call just as they're leaving the church, so Chad can't really talk as freely as he'd like. Sophia's right there, getting in the car beside him, so he tells the guy he'll call him back later. Then he hangs up and says, “Work,” even though she didn't ask who was calling.
He waits until Monday morning to call the guy back, from his work phone, like he's paranoid Sophia's going to find the phone bill and grill him over the numbers. The guy, Jared, agrees to switch Chad's Saturday for his Sunday, but then he demands Chad's Thursday, too, which is just weird. He should be psyched that Chad's got that stupid marriage preparation course on Saturdays and can't use the apartment on the prime party day of the whole week, not negotiating for extra favours. Still, Chad can't afford to tell him to fuck off, so he agrees to switch his Thursday for Jared's Tuesday, and all of a sudden instead of three random days spread throughout the week, he's got the apartment for a full block from Sunday to Tuesday.
He hangs up the phone, prints out a copy of the new revised schedule for Katie to bring to Jared, and starts plotting. Fake business trips require a lot of planning and detail. He knows this from experience.
*
Jensen moves in on a Wednesday. He claims the three leftmost drawers in the bedroom for his two bags of clothes, and then everything else is kitchen stuff: his cast iron skillet, somehow still in one piece despite various roommate mishaps over the years, his griddle, a set of good knives.
He spends his whole first day just sort of basking in the silence. So much so that he's pretty sure he accidentally deletes a voicemail from Katie while he's trying to lower the volume on his phone, but he figures if it was important, she'll call back. She doesn't, and he forgets to follow-up.
For a while in the afternoon, he turns on the TV and channel surfs. This Murray guy (first name Chad, according to the printed schedule Katie gave Jensen when he went to pick up his keys last week) has them hooked up to all the sports stations, and he spends half an hour watching the end of a re-broadcast of last night's Cowboys game, but most of the day he just lounges in silence and does absolutely nothing.
It's amazing. He falls asleep on the comfiest couch he's ever had the pleasure to stretch out on, and wakes up rested, in plenty of time for work on Thursday morning.
When he walks into Dean & DeLuca, he's humming happily, and the first few hours of his shift do nothing to ruin his good mood, even though not one, not two, but three yoga moms grill him about the high fat content of a new Gouda like he's personally responsible for their thunder thighs.
Danneel looks at him like he's walking around naked or something. Jensen's a little insulted. It's not that weird for him to be in a good mood, is it?
After work, he walks around for a while and takes his sweet time eating dinner at a diner downtown. Then he heads back to the old apartment, bracing himself for chaos and clinging to the little bit of stillness one night away from there has managed to create inside him.
The first thing that hits him is the stink of cheap Chinese food. There are half-empty cartons spilled carelessly across the table and counter, and it looks like they've been there a while. Jensen resists the temptation to clean up after whoever made the mess, and instead just holds his breath when he walks past the kitchen. In the living room, Chris and a half-dozen random people are plucking guitars and passing a joint around. Some girl is rocking out on a tambourine, oblivious to everything else, including the general concept of rhythm.
Jensen spends a couple of minutes in there, just long enough that Chris starts calling him Jenny and grinning that dangerous grin at him, the one that usually ends with them trapped on the roof, or provoking a bar fight in New Jersey, or, once, waiting around in the dressing room of a strip club for someone named Aquanette who, apparently, had some sort of peyote hookup.
Anyway, when Chris gets that look on his face, Jensen knows it's time to either commit to the insanity or retire gracefully for the evening, so he heads to the bedroom he usually shares with whoever happens to crash there. The room is tiny and ill-lit, basically a glorified closet at the end of the hall with two narrow beds spread as far apart as possible, a distance of about three feet.
There's already a gasping, snoring lump on one of the beds. Jensen doesn't bother finding out who it is, just crawls under the sheets of his own bed and closes his eyes. The mattress is lumpy and uncomfortable, the pillow smells like smoke and sweat, and the noise from the other room makes sleep a real challenge, but Jensen's got tomorrow night to look forward to. He thinks he'll try to make it to the bed this time before he passes out. Just the thought spreads a calming warmth through his belly.
It's nice to have something to look forward to.
The next morning, he stumbles into the kitchen for some coffee and runs smack into his shirtless ex-boyfriend.
“Oh,” Jensen says, his zombie brain still trying to side-step in the direction of the coffee maker while the rest of him refuses to deal.
“Hey, how are you?” Misha says. He looks genuinely interested, concerned, even, and Jensen is incapable of looking away, although that might have more to do with Misha's sexy rumpled hair and sleepy eyes than anything else.
“I'm okay,” Jensen manages, shrugging awkwardly. “You know. Work is work.”
Misha nods. “Cheese.”
“But, uh. I've been good. Got a few new things going on...”
He finally reaches the coffee pot and pours himself a steaming cup, gulps it too soon, black and bitter and scalding his throat. He struggles not to make a face.
“Yeah,” Misha's saying, taking a seat at the tiny table. “I noticed you weren't around on Wednesday night, so I figured you had, uh...”
He tilts his head and smiles a little weirdly, and even this early in the morning, Jensen knows what that means. He just returns the smile and tries to stay mysterious, because it's kind of nice that Misha thinks he's hooking up with someone, even if the truth is something more akin to Jensen becoming a part-time monk, complete with vow of silence.
Unfortunately, staying mysterious gets awkward after a couple of minutes, and Jensen starts talking again.
“You were here on Wednesday?” Jensen says, finally. “What, are you living here now?”
Misha just shrugs, but then this girl Lauren, who's been staying at the apartment for the past couple of months, pads in on bare feet. She's wearing basically the missing half of Misha's outfit: a shirt Jensen's seen him in at least a dozen times before - hell, a shirt he's removed from Misha's body on occasion. And panties. Nothing else. She crosses the cold linoleum and climbs right into Misha's lap, tucking her cold toes into the backs of his knees as she kisses him good morning.
Jensen doesn't know why he's so shocked. This kind of bullshit is exactly the reason they're not together anymore. But it still feels just a little like Misha's running him through with his own carving knife.
And then Misha looks up, oblivious, and says, “Oh, hey, Jensen? I meant to tell you, I'm working on a new show. I was wondering if I could borrow you and your camera for opening night?”
While he waits for Jensen's answer, he goes back to kissing Lauren, one hand now slipping up the front of her barely-buttoned shirt. Jensen watches for a full minute, unable to look away, like it's a deadly car crash or one of those disturbing web videos where people interact with various bodily fluids and containers.
Finally, he says, “Yeah, maybe.”
He immediately hates himself for it.
*
Dear Thursday,
You're probably wondering what happened to your Italian sausage. I'm very sorry - I don't usually steal my roommates' food. And yeah, I realize that we've only been roommates for a day, so as far as you're concerned, stealing food is *all* I do, but I assure you that I am usually much more respectful. I just happened to have had an especially craptastic day, which led directly to my kidnapping your (awesome) Italian sausage and using it to make risotto. Rest assured, I will replace said missing sausage as soon as possible, meaning Wednesday. In the meantime, please enjoy my leftovers. You'll find reheating instructions taped to the green container in the fridge.
Friday
Sure enough, there's a note right where the guy said it would be, tucked into an envelope and taped to a green Tupperware tub. Jared opens the plastic container and gets a whiff of something amazing. All his nose will tell him is CHEESE, but he's sure it's much, much more than that. He turns the envelope over and reads what's written on the back.
Don't just reheat me - make me into delicious patties!
Huh. First-person food. Jared smiles as he pulls the note out and carefully unfolds it.
You will need:
- 1 half-empty bottle Chianti (check cupboard above sink)
- frying pan
- extra virgin olive oil (same cupboard)
- leftover sausage & red wine risotto
What to do:
- Pour wine into glass. Drink.
- Shape risotto into small patties.
- Drink more.
- Fry patties in hot oil until crispy.
- In the event of glass becoming empty, refill. Drink more.
Enjoy!
It takes him about a second to find the wine, longer to find the glasses, which aren't in a cupboard at all but lined up on a high shelf halfway into the living room. When he passes the table, he pauses to tug the revised apartment schedule out from under his keys and wallet.
MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayChadChadJensenJaredJensenJaredChad
Wednesdays and Fridays. Jensen Ackles. Weird name.
*
Dear Wednesday,
Never apologize for feeding me, ever ever again.
Thursday
PS - how craptastic does a day have to be to have that kind of outcome? Because I am seriously considering screwing with you if it gets me more awesome meals & free booze.
Jensen folds the note back along its creases.
He's had the whole weekend and then some to think about Misha and Lauren, and he's mostly come to the conclusion that he doesn't want to think about it. Not an entirely healthy view, but one that's helped him feel better. A couple of days spent hanging out with Chris and his band have given him a little distance.
Still, he's glad for the apartment. It doesn't even bother him that much that there are dirty tube socks strewn all over the living room, and that an overflowing box of porn magazines from the early nineties has taken over the space where he was thinking of putting his guitar stand. When he ventures into the bedroom, he finds the sheets a mess and some sort of hair grease making the pillow shiny. He holds back his shudder and just changes the bedding, smoothing fresh, cool sheets over the mattress.
He consults the chart he got from Katie when he picked up his keys.
MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayChadJaredJensenChadJensenChadJared
Tuesdays, and therefore the socks, the hair gel and possibly the porn, belong to someone named Jared. It's all right, really. Jensen would rather clean up after someone who's gone than have to deal with their slobby presence in person.
He kicks the dirty socks into the corner next to the box of porn, and then sets up his guitar in a different spot.
*
Dear Thursday,
Unless you can somehow find my ex and get him over here to make out with my new roommate again, I don't think you're going to be able to piss me off that badly. I guess it's ramen for you, bro.
Wednesday
(OK, fine, there are some extra dumplings in the fridge, help yourself)
*
Jensen buys some living herbs. Nothing fancy, just some lettuce leaf basil, parsley and oregano. And of course, lemongrass, dill, rosemary, coriander, purple sage, chives, mint, Russian taragon and thyme. All right, so maybe he sort of underestimated the amount of space he'd need. He's always been bad with spatial concepts and planning.
Anyway, once he's lined their little containers up in a couple of cardboard box lids and set them down in front of a wide south-facing window, they're not all that in the way anymore. They're still in an awkward place as far as getting to and from the bathroom/laundry room goes, but he'll figure something out later. For now, just moving them around has released delicious scents into the air, and he's got to do something about that. Something along the lines of bolognese sauce, if his stomach has any say in the matter, which it most definitely does.
On Friday there are a few new things in the apartment. One is a chessboard with stout, crudely-carved wooden pieces. It's sitting slightly askew on the coffee table, pawns a little adrift toward the board's Southwest corner. Jensen spends a minute straightening them out and then absently moves the white queen's pawn two rows forward, the way he'd start a regular game, before getting distracted by something.
The other new thing is the herb garden. Someone (Chad, his schedule says Thursdays are Chad's) has transplanted all of Jensen's little shoots and frilled leaves into a broad wooden planter filled with dark, damp earth. It now has its own spot by a different window, supported by a sturdy shelf that most definitely wasn't there before. The light falling across the fragile plants is golden, warm. They look happy, Jensen thinks, and then blushes in the empty room, embarrassed at the sentiment.
*
They settle into a routine. It's one Jared feels is unfairly to his advantage, but he's not about to start complaining. Early every Thursday and Saturday, he leaves the apartment he and Sandy were supposed to get married and live happily ever after in, and heads to his part-time apartment, closer to downtown. There is almost always delicious food waiting. There is always a note.
According to the arrangement, days are supposed to run from nine one morning to nine the following, but Jared gets into the habit of showing up early. One or two minutes at first, skulking guiltily in the hallway, then a full five one Thursday, breathless as he fits the key into the lock and steps into the empty place. He is steadily five minutes early from then on, then one brave Saturday he shows up a full twenty ahead of schedule, but it's no use. There is no fake-accidental meeting with Jensen, because there is no Jensen. The guy is long gone.
He's not really sure what he's trying to accomplish. He's not even sure if he'd approach the guy, or if it would be okay just to watch from afar and see what he looks like.
Anyway, there's food. And notes. And recently, an ongoing game of chess, in which Jared happens to be kicking some serious Jensen Ackles ass. He's trying to go easy on the guy, but it's actually really hard for Jared not to win at chess, okay? He can't help it that he thinks eight moves in advance. He explains as much in a note to Jensen, to which Jensen responds that Jared's arrogance will be punished in due time, when they switch to Monopoly.
Jared doesn't doubt it. Something tells him Jensen is a fucking terror at Monopoly.
One Thursday afternoon, Jared comes home from his 4-hour shift at the toy store to find the door unlocked. His heart starts to race, and he's not even sure if it's from the possibility of a burglary in progress or from the half-formed idea that it might be Jensen, forgetting what day it is, or coming over for some other reason.
He's going to focus on the possibility of immediate danger, though. Grabbing an umbrella from the front closet and angling it over his shoulder, he quietly makes his way down the hall and pauses to mentally prepare before entering the living room.
There is definitely someone moving around in there, knocking stuff around and using a lot of variations of the word fuck. It suddenly occurs to Jared that even if it is Jensen, somehow, Jared has no idea what Jensen looks or sounds like, would have no way to recognize him, other than maybe handwriting analysis, which: how the hell would he convince a robber to write something down for him to compare?
He's so busy confusing himself with this weirdness that he doesn't even realize that whoever's in the living room has moved into sight of the doorway where Jared's lurking, standing in full view and looking right at him. He wonders if it's too late to swing the umbrella.
“Hey, sorry, you didn't happen to see a Blackberry around?”
Jared blinks. The guy upheaves the couch cushions and gropes underneath. He's blond, hair all matted into stiff peaks by too much gel, and he's got this oddball face, like his neutral expression is close to the way most people look when squinting irritably into the sun. Not in an entirely bad way, just weird.
Could this be Jensen? Jared scrambles in vain to come up with some kind of handwriting test, heart still hammering out a jumpy rhythm, before realizing how ridiculous the entire train of thought actually is.
“Are you Jensen?” he says, and swallows, nervous to hear the answer somehow.
“Chad,” the guy says. “Blackberry?”
“Sorry,” Jared says distractedly, while everything slots into place in his head. If this is Chad, Sunday to Tuesday, then this is the guy who owns the pile of model airplane junk in the corner of the bedroom and the vaguely pornographic framed Magic Eye print hanging over the couch, the one it took Jared two weeks of staring to see, and that he can no longer un-see. Jensen still hasn't managed, or at least he hadn't at the time he wrote his last note.
“Shit,” Chad's saying, tossing the cushions back onto the couch in a messy pile. “My fiancée's going to kill me. That thing had three weeks' worth of my self-actualization journal on it.”
“You have a fiancée?” Jared says, putting down the umbrella. It's meant to sound conversational, easygoing, but somehow he gets the emphasis all wrong, stresses the you in such a way that it changes the entire meaning of the question. Luckily, Chad misses it completely.
“Yeah, and she's a real buzzkill with all this wedding shit. Why do you think I bought this place?”
“Uh,” Jared says. He hasn't really thought about it before, just assumed that Chad's reasons were legitimate.
“You got a girl?” Chad says. He yanks one cushion out of the pile and fixes the right-hand corner of the couch, then sits, head in hands, leaving the rest of the mess for Jared.
Jared busies himself fluffing cushions. Actually, it's a little more like punching the crap out of them.
“Yeah, not anymore,” he says.
It's hard to say if Chad's wincing sympathetically at what Jared said or if that's just the way his face happens to look.
“So, living the single life, huh?” he says, wistful. “Must be nice.”
Jared lets out a short, harsh laugh. “Sure. My ex decided she loved me like a brother, not a lover, and I still have to see her five days out of seven because I can't afford to move out beyond coming here twice a week. Nice is totally the word I would use.”
Okay, Chad is actually wincing now.
“A brother?” he says. “She said that?”
Jared nods.
“Ouch, dude.”
“Yeah,” Jared says, sighing heavily as he flops onto the couch. “Welcome to my world.”
They watch TV for a while, even though it's Thursday afternoon and the only thing on is a marathon of those Caught On Tape compilation shows, which Jared hates because it never fails to disappoint him how many stupid people there are in the world. Chad seems to like them, at least from the way he's constantly snarfing his beer. Which might be a symptom of stupidity in and of itself, Jared thinks, how he keeps taking these huge gulps and then nearly choking on them when yet another moron getaway driver sideswipes a cop car.
*
Dear Friday,
Did you see last night's Hell's Kitchen? CLASSIC. So glad I started watching. I Tivo'd it for you just in case you were busy or something. Spoiler alert: someone's hair catches fire! I won't tell you whose, though. HAHAHA.
Oh, also, I met our other roommate and guess what: he's never seen the Magic Eye picture, either, even though it's his. I asked him about it and he went on and on about sailboats. I laughed my goddamn ass off. I swear, somebody really mean told him there were boats in there. Wish I'd thought of it first!
FYI: there are no boats. Unless by “boat” you mean “boob”, in which case there are four.
Thursday
PS - Check.
Jensen looks over at the chessboard and frowns. Again? He was just in check two moves ago. Now he's lost a bishop and it looks like he's going to have to sacrifice one of his rooks. So unfair. He needs to buy a book about chess or something, needs to study some strategy, because Chad is kicking his ass.
He places the rook into Chad's queen's path of destruction, tries to visualize what the board will look like in two, three moves, but he's distracted.
Misha's one-man show opens tonight, which Jensen already knew, thanks to the fact that he owns both a calendar and a pen, and wrote the date down weeks ago. This hasn't stopped Misha from sending him a text message reminder every day for the last week, though.
Don't forget tonite! Can't wait! <333
Yeah, little bastard text hearts. Jensen has no idea what that means, but he can't help but feel a little hopeful at the sight of them. Which is not at all a good thing, or at least that's what his brain keeps telling him. He's been down this road before.
His brain continues to sound the bad idea alarm as he showers, shaves, strategically plucks and trims, and puts on a new shirt that the sales guy said totally made his shoulders look eight miles wide. His mind quiets down a bit, though, when he cues up the Tivo and watches Gordon Ramsay make a 300-pound fry cook from downtown Detroit cry like a little girl. This show is always good for a bit of relaxation. By the time he leaves, camera and gift in hand, Jensen's almost entirely managed to fool himself into thinking this is a good idea.
Part Two
rating - NC-17
wordcount - ~14,000
characters - Jared/Jensen, Chad/Sophia, Jensen/Misha, random other familiar faces.
summary - Jensen's got a thing for his roommate... he just doesn't know which roommate.
notes - My whenboymeetsboy fic, based on The Night We Never Met, an old Matthew Broderick movie. I appear to be the only person who's seen this movie, so, um, BLAME ANYTHING YOU DISLIKE ABOUT THIS STORY ON THE MOVIE. There may be a lot on that list. I'm not crazy about it myself. Also, this now has a soundtrack.
Monday morning, Jensen wanders into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. He leaves it on the table and ventures over the sleeping bodies littering the living room floor to fetch the paper. When he gets back, there are two naked girls having sex right on the tabletop, next to his steaming Optimus Prime mug. So that's kind of a lost cause.
“I'm not saying I hate you,” he tells Chris over pancakes at IHOP later. “Just that if I have to live with you for one more second, I'm going to fucking kill myself.”
“They probably would've let you join in,” Chris says, like that's going to make it all better. “Did you ask?”
Jensen shudders and tries to focus on the classifieds, but all he can see is the image in his head.
“They could have at least put down a tablecloth or something. A runner.”
Chris gives him a long, incredulous stare and tips too much syrup onto his plate.
“There is no word for how gay you are.”
“Not in our primitive language, no,” Jensen says, stealing a strip of bacon off his friend's plate. “But I hear the Inuit have a couple dozen.”
Curling a protective arm around his plate, Chris says, “Eat your own goddamn bacon. And you can't leave, you fucker. I'm kicking your ass out.”
Jensen flips the paper around so Chris can see the ad he's circled.
“Check it out. Up to four days a week, no credit check, no first and last.”
“Well, then I'm kicking your ass halfway out,” Chris says, hanging onto his disgruntled tone. It's one of his favourites. “And that's assuming you get the place. You'll probably end up busted for babysitting some dude's basement meth lab, anyway. This is how all the good TV movies start.”
“I'd probably get more privacy in prison than I do at your place,” Jensen says, smirking.
Chris just shrugs. “Can't argue with that,” he says, and gulps down his cold coffee.
Jensen works at Dean & DeLuca. He kind of hates it. Mainly, his job entails the selling of ridiculously expensive cheeses to people who don't deserve them. It's a sad fact that about 90% of his customers are just looking to impress their dinner guests, so most of the time they just nod vacantly and ignore his professional advice in favour of the highest price tag. Which Jensen finds both tragic and infuriating, although it makes his boss pretty happy.
But dammit, Jensen has a degree in the Culinary Arts. Granted, it's from a community college and not, say, the Culinary Institute of America, but it still counts. He's still an artist.
Danneel is lounging in the break room when he gets off shift, and he makes a show of stomping through the door and tearing off his black cap with the embroidered lettering.
“Caciocavallo. Everyone wants Caciocavallo,” he says, ruffling his own hair and trying to relax with a couple of deep breaths. It doesn't work. “I probably have more orders for Caciocavallo than there is Caciocavallo in existence.”
“It's very in right now,” Danneel says with a shrug and a crooked grin.
“Yeah, til they find out it tastes like twigs. Then I'm the one who's gotta deal with the complaints.”
“Smile,” Danneel says. “You're done for the day. I've still got four hours of this shit.”
Jensen tosses his apron and cap onto the shelf of his locker.
“No time to smile. I gotta go look at an apartment.”
“Oh my god, you're leaving the commune?”
“Part-time,” Jensen says. “Maybe.”
She gives him a blank look.
“I don't know what that means.”
He shrugs and heads out. No time to explain.
The kitchen is heaven. Gas range, convection oven, wide-set double sink with garbage disposal, marble countertops. There's plenty of work and cupboard space, and a dining area bordered by floor-to-ceiling windows with a frontside view of the street. Oh, the rest of the apartment is nice, too, but Jensen only has eyes for the kitchen. He stands next to the cooking island and happy violin music plays in his head while the girl giving him the tour goes on and on about the trendiness of the neighbourhood. It's love.
“We're trying to work out a schedule,” the girl says, and Jensen tunes out the violins and returns to the present. “My boss, Mr. Murray, only uses this place three days a week, and there's another applicant who wants the place for two days. I don't know if that kinda ruins it for you. You'd be splitting the rent with the other tennant, so that's a plus, right? And it's partially furnished, which you've probably noticed. Everything that's here is staying. And yeah, that includes the plasma screen. Fifty-two inches, in case you're wondering.”
She looks a bit tired and manic, like she's been pitching this arrangement all day with no success.
Jensen looks around, takes in the kitchen, stainless steel appliances gleaming in the late afternoon light. The orchestra swells in his head again.
“I'm definitely interested,” he says. “Even just for two days a week.”
“Really?” she says. Her tone is more disbelief than genuine interest. “How come?”
“My current living situation is, uh... a little bohemian,” Jensen says. It's the polite way of putting it. “I could use a break, even just for a couple of days a week.”
“Awesome,” the girl says, her long blonde ponytail bouncing as she rushes over to grab a black notebook off the table. She flips through until she comes upon a particularly messy page. “Well, not so awesome that you're living with the cast of Rent, or whatever, but awesome that you're interested. I've been here way too long.”
She sighs, pooching her lip out so that the air makes her bangs puffed up, and then she frowns at the notebook. “Okay, hm. Mr. Murray needs Thursday and Saturday for sure... and Jared asked for Sunday, so the weekend is sort of spoken for, sorry. But Friday's free?”
“Well, Wednesday and Friday would be best for me, so...”
“So that's perfect!”
“Seems that way.”
He gives her what he hopes is a calming, encouraging smile, and she grins back.
“Should I use a pen or a pencil?”
“What?”
“To mark you down in the schedule.” When Jensen just gives her a blank look, she smiles a little sweetly and says, “It was a cute way of making sure you're serious.”
“Oh!” Jensen says. “I will. I mean, I am.” He shakes his head and grins at her. “Pen, please.”
“You got it,” the girl says. “I'm Katie, by the way.”
“Jensen Ackles.”
She starts to scribble in her notebook, then pauses and glances up at him for a long moment.
“And how do you spell that, exactly?” she says, finally.
Jensen laughs and goes over to help her.
*
“When are you moving into this place?” Sandy says over breakfast.
Well, she's having breakfast. Jared is working a knot out of one of his shoelaces while the dogs pace at the door behind him, leashes dragging.
“Next Sunday, I guess,” he says. “Picked up the keys yesterday. I'm not gonna bring much, just some clothes and books. Maybe my chess set.”
He tries using his teeth to pry the knot apart, but that doesn't work, and he only realizes after he's done it that putting his shoe in his mouth was kind of a bad idea. Sandy's looking at him in disgust, spoon abandoned in her bowl of Cheerios.
“Give it here,” she says, resigned, and he hands it over. “You're still looking for a full-time place, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Jared says. “Totally. It's hard with the dogs, though. And my paychecks are still being held.”
“Here,” Sandy says, handing back his de-snarled sneaker almost instantly.
“Thanks,” Jared says. He slips it on and props his foot on one of the kitchen chairs to tighten the laces, which makes Sandy frown.
At least, she frowns until he finishes tying his shoe, zips up his hoodie and kisses her, a quick peck on the lips. They both sort of freeze. Sandy picks up her spoon.
“Uh,” Jared says.
She just stares straight ahead, so he gets going, wrapping one dog's leash around each wrist and mostly nudging the door open with his knee.
The thing about a relationship ending, Jared thinks on his way downstairs, is that it's supposed to end. He and Sandy seem to have missed that memo along the way, and it's causing all kinds of minor disasters like what just happened upstairs.
It doesn't help that they're still living together. Once he gets his own place, his daily dose of awkwardness will probably decrease significantly. Maybe. He hopes.
For now, he's got to settle for this shared two day scenario, because it's all he can afford. But one day, when his back pay comes in from the toy store, he's going to get off Sandy's couch and rent his own apartment, one in a nice neighbourhood, near a park where Harley and Sadie can run and play, and where he can sleep in a bed more than two nights a week. It's going to be amazing.
When he gets home, sweaty and winded from racing the dogs upstairs, Sandy's already left for work, and the message light on the machine is blinking.
“Hi, this is a message for Jared. It's Katie Cassidy. I'm Mr. Murray's assistant, we met the other day. Listen, Mr. Murray would like you to give him a call as soon as possible. It's about the apartment. Uh, don't worry, everything's fine, he's just had a couple of things come up and he'd like to ask you about switching days. Only if you don't mind, of course. 555-7100. Thanks, Jared. Talk to you later.”
Jared glances at the schedule he left sitting out on the counter. He's got Tuesday and Sunday right now, which he kind of likes because he works a long shift at the toy store on Mondays, so Sunday to Tuesday will almost seem like three straight days away from the whole Sandy situation. But he might be talked into switching, with the right incentive.
*
Chad looks up in the mirror to find Sophia half-frowning, little creases between her eyes.
“Is that what you're wearing?”
“Yeah?” he says, tugging a little at his tie.
When her expression refuses to soften, he pulls the blue and green tie all the way off. She just frowns more.
“What?”
“That was the only part that looked good on you.”
He looks down at the rest of his outfit - white shirt, brown slacks, white socks, black shoes. Pretty plain.
“I don't get it,” he says.
“You're colourblind,” Sophia says. “Or you hate me and this is some sort of passive-aggressive attempt to sabotage everything.”
“Right,” Chad says. “I'm going to sabotage our entire relationship with my pants.”
She stares at him good and long, like she honestly suspects him of coming up with a cunning plan involving poor fashion choices. Then she sighs and starts digging through his sock drawer.
“So you're colourblind.”
“Nobody's perfect,” Chad says, even though he's pretty sure he's not colourblind. He's just a guy, which Sophia sometimes seems to think is the same thing. Which is crazy, because if he was colourblind, he wouldn't be able to fly a helicopter, and Chad could totally fly a helicopter if he wanted. He's never tried, but that's beside the point.
“Here,” she says, tossing him a balled up pair of black dress socks.
“These make my feet itch,” he says, but she's in the walk-in closet and doesn't hear, which is probably lucky for him.
She forces him into an equally itchy pair of dark grey trousers and redoes his tie for him, knotting it loosely around her own slim neck before gingerly pulling it off and slipping it over his head. Then she stands behind him and adjusts it in the mirror. He feels about five years old, which isn't unusual. His defence mechanism isn't very unusual either.
“So when we meet the minister, I should pretend like we're both virgins, right?” he says, sly grin tugging at his cheeks. “Should I ask him what to expect on the wedding night?”
She whacks him in the back, knuckles out, hard enough to make his breath hitch.
“Don't you dare, Chad Michael Murray.”
“What, you don't think he might have a couple of pointers for us?”
“What I think is that you're trying to piss me off,” she says, but she looks at least a little amused. “And you don't have to try so hard. I'm there already.”
“I wasn't,” Chad says, and it comes out sounding sulky.
“Baby,” she says, abandoning his tie and wrapping her arms around his chest instead. “I just want this to be perfect for both of us. We're only getting married once, you know?”
“Yeah,” Chad breathes. His vocal chords seem to be taking a break.
“So come with me,” she mutters into his ear. “And don't act like a jackass, alright?”
“Yeah,” he says again. She kisses him on the cheek, and he shivers. The version of him in the mirror shivers, too.
*
The guy from the apartment returns his phone call just as they're leaving the church, so Chad can't really talk as freely as he'd like. Sophia's right there, getting in the car beside him, so he tells the guy he'll call him back later. Then he hangs up and says, “Work,” even though she didn't ask who was calling.
He waits until Monday morning to call the guy back, from his work phone, like he's paranoid Sophia's going to find the phone bill and grill him over the numbers. The guy, Jared, agrees to switch Chad's Saturday for his Sunday, but then he demands Chad's Thursday, too, which is just weird. He should be psyched that Chad's got that stupid marriage preparation course on Saturdays and can't use the apartment on the prime party day of the whole week, not negotiating for extra favours. Still, Chad can't afford to tell him to fuck off, so he agrees to switch his Thursday for Jared's Tuesday, and all of a sudden instead of three random days spread throughout the week, he's got the apartment for a full block from Sunday to Tuesday.
He hangs up the phone, prints out a copy of the new revised schedule for Katie to bring to Jared, and starts plotting. Fake business trips require a lot of planning and detail. He knows this from experience.
*
Jensen moves in on a Wednesday. He claims the three leftmost drawers in the bedroom for his two bags of clothes, and then everything else is kitchen stuff: his cast iron skillet, somehow still in one piece despite various roommate mishaps over the years, his griddle, a set of good knives.
He spends his whole first day just sort of basking in the silence. So much so that he's pretty sure he accidentally deletes a voicemail from Katie while he's trying to lower the volume on his phone, but he figures if it was important, she'll call back. She doesn't, and he forgets to follow-up.
For a while in the afternoon, he turns on the TV and channel surfs. This Murray guy (first name Chad, according to the printed schedule Katie gave Jensen when he went to pick up his keys last week) has them hooked up to all the sports stations, and he spends half an hour watching the end of a re-broadcast of last night's Cowboys game, but most of the day he just lounges in silence and does absolutely nothing.
It's amazing. He falls asleep on the comfiest couch he's ever had the pleasure to stretch out on, and wakes up rested, in plenty of time for work on Thursday morning.
When he walks into Dean & DeLuca, he's humming happily, and the first few hours of his shift do nothing to ruin his good mood, even though not one, not two, but three yoga moms grill him about the high fat content of a new Gouda like he's personally responsible for their thunder thighs.
Danneel looks at him like he's walking around naked or something. Jensen's a little insulted. It's not that weird for him to be in a good mood, is it?
After work, he walks around for a while and takes his sweet time eating dinner at a diner downtown. Then he heads back to the old apartment, bracing himself for chaos and clinging to the little bit of stillness one night away from there has managed to create inside him.
The first thing that hits him is the stink of cheap Chinese food. There are half-empty cartons spilled carelessly across the table and counter, and it looks like they've been there a while. Jensen resists the temptation to clean up after whoever made the mess, and instead just holds his breath when he walks past the kitchen. In the living room, Chris and a half-dozen random people are plucking guitars and passing a joint around. Some girl is rocking out on a tambourine, oblivious to everything else, including the general concept of rhythm.
Jensen spends a couple of minutes in there, just long enough that Chris starts calling him Jenny and grinning that dangerous grin at him, the one that usually ends with them trapped on the roof, or provoking a bar fight in New Jersey, or, once, waiting around in the dressing room of a strip club for someone named Aquanette who, apparently, had some sort of peyote hookup.
Anyway, when Chris gets that look on his face, Jensen knows it's time to either commit to the insanity or retire gracefully for the evening, so he heads to the bedroom he usually shares with whoever happens to crash there. The room is tiny and ill-lit, basically a glorified closet at the end of the hall with two narrow beds spread as far apart as possible, a distance of about three feet.
There's already a gasping, snoring lump on one of the beds. Jensen doesn't bother finding out who it is, just crawls under the sheets of his own bed and closes his eyes. The mattress is lumpy and uncomfortable, the pillow smells like smoke and sweat, and the noise from the other room makes sleep a real challenge, but Jensen's got tomorrow night to look forward to. He thinks he'll try to make it to the bed this time before he passes out. Just the thought spreads a calming warmth through his belly.
It's nice to have something to look forward to.
The next morning, he stumbles into the kitchen for some coffee and runs smack into his shirtless ex-boyfriend.
“Oh,” Jensen says, his zombie brain still trying to side-step in the direction of the coffee maker while the rest of him refuses to deal.
“Hey, how are you?” Misha says. He looks genuinely interested, concerned, even, and Jensen is incapable of looking away, although that might have more to do with Misha's sexy rumpled hair and sleepy eyes than anything else.
“I'm okay,” Jensen manages, shrugging awkwardly. “You know. Work is work.”
Misha nods. “Cheese.”
“But, uh. I've been good. Got a few new things going on...”
He finally reaches the coffee pot and pours himself a steaming cup, gulps it too soon, black and bitter and scalding his throat. He struggles not to make a face.
“Yeah,” Misha's saying, taking a seat at the tiny table. “I noticed you weren't around on Wednesday night, so I figured you had, uh...”
He tilts his head and smiles a little weirdly, and even this early in the morning, Jensen knows what that means. He just returns the smile and tries to stay mysterious, because it's kind of nice that Misha thinks he's hooking up with someone, even if the truth is something more akin to Jensen becoming a part-time monk, complete with vow of silence.
Unfortunately, staying mysterious gets awkward after a couple of minutes, and Jensen starts talking again.
“You were here on Wednesday?” Jensen says, finally. “What, are you living here now?”
Misha just shrugs, but then this girl Lauren, who's been staying at the apartment for the past couple of months, pads in on bare feet. She's wearing basically the missing half of Misha's outfit: a shirt Jensen's seen him in at least a dozen times before - hell, a shirt he's removed from Misha's body on occasion. And panties. Nothing else. She crosses the cold linoleum and climbs right into Misha's lap, tucking her cold toes into the backs of his knees as she kisses him good morning.
Jensen doesn't know why he's so shocked. This kind of bullshit is exactly the reason they're not together anymore. But it still feels just a little like Misha's running him through with his own carving knife.
And then Misha looks up, oblivious, and says, “Oh, hey, Jensen? I meant to tell you, I'm working on a new show. I was wondering if I could borrow you and your camera for opening night?”
While he waits for Jensen's answer, he goes back to kissing Lauren, one hand now slipping up the front of her barely-buttoned shirt. Jensen watches for a full minute, unable to look away, like it's a deadly car crash or one of those disturbing web videos where people interact with various bodily fluids and containers.
Finally, he says, “Yeah, maybe.”
He immediately hates himself for it.
*
Dear Thursday,
You're probably wondering what happened to your Italian sausage. I'm very sorry - I don't usually steal my roommates' food. And yeah, I realize that we've only been roommates for a day, so as far as you're concerned, stealing food is *all* I do, but I assure you that I am usually much more respectful. I just happened to have had an especially craptastic day, which led directly to my kidnapping your (awesome) Italian sausage and using it to make risotto. Rest assured, I will replace said missing sausage as soon as possible, meaning Wednesday. In the meantime, please enjoy my leftovers. You'll find reheating instructions taped to the green container in the fridge.
Friday
Sure enough, there's a note right where the guy said it would be, tucked into an envelope and taped to a green Tupperware tub. Jared opens the plastic container and gets a whiff of something amazing. All his nose will tell him is CHEESE, but he's sure it's much, much more than that. He turns the envelope over and reads what's written on the back.
Don't just reheat me - make me into delicious patties!
Huh. First-person food. Jared smiles as he pulls the note out and carefully unfolds it.
You will need:
- 1 half-empty bottle Chianti (check cupboard above sink)
- frying pan
- extra virgin olive oil (same cupboard)
- leftover sausage & red wine risotto
What to do:
- Pour wine into glass. Drink.
- Shape risotto into small patties.
- Drink more.
- Fry patties in hot oil until crispy.
- In the event of glass becoming empty, refill. Drink more.
Enjoy!
It takes him about a second to find the wine, longer to find the glasses, which aren't in a cupboard at all but lined up on a high shelf halfway into the living room. When he passes the table, he pauses to tug the revised apartment schedule out from under his keys and wallet.
MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayChadChadJensenJaredJensenJaredChad
Wednesdays and Fridays. Jensen Ackles. Weird name.
*
Dear Wednesday,
Never apologize for feeding me, ever ever again.
Thursday
PS - how craptastic does a day have to be to have that kind of outcome? Because I am seriously considering screwing with you if it gets me more awesome meals & free booze.
Jensen folds the note back along its creases.
He's had the whole weekend and then some to think about Misha and Lauren, and he's mostly come to the conclusion that he doesn't want to think about it. Not an entirely healthy view, but one that's helped him feel better. A couple of days spent hanging out with Chris and his band have given him a little distance.
Still, he's glad for the apartment. It doesn't even bother him that much that there are dirty tube socks strewn all over the living room, and that an overflowing box of porn magazines from the early nineties has taken over the space where he was thinking of putting his guitar stand. When he ventures into the bedroom, he finds the sheets a mess and some sort of hair grease making the pillow shiny. He holds back his shudder and just changes the bedding, smoothing fresh, cool sheets over the mattress.
He consults the chart he got from Katie when he picked up his keys.
MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayChadJaredJensenChadJensenChadJared
Tuesdays, and therefore the socks, the hair gel and possibly the porn, belong to someone named Jared. It's all right, really. Jensen would rather clean up after someone who's gone than have to deal with their slobby presence in person.
He kicks the dirty socks into the corner next to the box of porn, and then sets up his guitar in a different spot.
*
Dear Thursday,
Unless you can somehow find my ex and get him over here to make out with my new roommate again, I don't think you're going to be able to piss me off that badly. I guess it's ramen for you, bro.
Wednesday
(OK, fine, there are some extra dumplings in the fridge, help yourself)
*
Jensen buys some living herbs. Nothing fancy, just some lettuce leaf basil, parsley and oregano. And of course, lemongrass, dill, rosemary, coriander, purple sage, chives, mint, Russian taragon and thyme. All right, so maybe he sort of underestimated the amount of space he'd need. He's always been bad with spatial concepts and planning.
Anyway, once he's lined their little containers up in a couple of cardboard box lids and set them down in front of a wide south-facing window, they're not all that in the way anymore. They're still in an awkward place as far as getting to and from the bathroom/laundry room goes, but he'll figure something out later. For now, just moving them around has released delicious scents into the air, and he's got to do something about that. Something along the lines of bolognese sauce, if his stomach has any say in the matter, which it most definitely does.
On Friday there are a few new things in the apartment. One is a chessboard with stout, crudely-carved wooden pieces. It's sitting slightly askew on the coffee table, pawns a little adrift toward the board's Southwest corner. Jensen spends a minute straightening them out and then absently moves the white queen's pawn two rows forward, the way he'd start a regular game, before getting distracted by something.
The other new thing is the herb garden. Someone (Chad, his schedule says Thursdays are Chad's) has transplanted all of Jensen's little shoots and frilled leaves into a broad wooden planter filled with dark, damp earth. It now has its own spot by a different window, supported by a sturdy shelf that most definitely wasn't there before. The light falling across the fragile plants is golden, warm. They look happy, Jensen thinks, and then blushes in the empty room, embarrassed at the sentiment.
*
They settle into a routine. It's one Jared feels is unfairly to his advantage, but he's not about to start complaining. Early every Thursday and Saturday, he leaves the apartment he and Sandy were supposed to get married and live happily ever after in, and heads to his part-time apartment, closer to downtown. There is almost always delicious food waiting. There is always a note.
According to the arrangement, days are supposed to run from nine one morning to nine the following, but Jared gets into the habit of showing up early. One or two minutes at first, skulking guiltily in the hallway, then a full five one Thursday, breathless as he fits the key into the lock and steps into the empty place. He is steadily five minutes early from then on, then one brave Saturday he shows up a full twenty ahead of schedule, but it's no use. There is no fake-accidental meeting with Jensen, because there is no Jensen. The guy is long gone.
He's not really sure what he's trying to accomplish. He's not even sure if he'd approach the guy, or if it would be okay just to watch from afar and see what he looks like.
Anyway, there's food. And notes. And recently, an ongoing game of chess, in which Jared happens to be kicking some serious Jensen Ackles ass. He's trying to go easy on the guy, but it's actually really hard for Jared not to win at chess, okay? He can't help it that he thinks eight moves in advance. He explains as much in a note to Jensen, to which Jensen responds that Jared's arrogance will be punished in due time, when they switch to Monopoly.
Jared doesn't doubt it. Something tells him Jensen is a fucking terror at Monopoly.
One Thursday afternoon, Jared comes home from his 4-hour shift at the toy store to find the door unlocked. His heart starts to race, and he's not even sure if it's from the possibility of a burglary in progress or from the half-formed idea that it might be Jensen, forgetting what day it is, or coming over for some other reason.
He's going to focus on the possibility of immediate danger, though. Grabbing an umbrella from the front closet and angling it over his shoulder, he quietly makes his way down the hall and pauses to mentally prepare before entering the living room.
There is definitely someone moving around in there, knocking stuff around and using a lot of variations of the word fuck. It suddenly occurs to Jared that even if it is Jensen, somehow, Jared has no idea what Jensen looks or sounds like, would have no way to recognize him, other than maybe handwriting analysis, which: how the hell would he convince a robber to write something down for him to compare?
He's so busy confusing himself with this weirdness that he doesn't even realize that whoever's in the living room has moved into sight of the doorway where Jared's lurking, standing in full view and looking right at him. He wonders if it's too late to swing the umbrella.
“Hey, sorry, you didn't happen to see a Blackberry around?”
Jared blinks. The guy upheaves the couch cushions and gropes underneath. He's blond, hair all matted into stiff peaks by too much gel, and he's got this oddball face, like his neutral expression is close to the way most people look when squinting irritably into the sun. Not in an entirely bad way, just weird.
Could this be Jensen? Jared scrambles in vain to come up with some kind of handwriting test, heart still hammering out a jumpy rhythm, before realizing how ridiculous the entire train of thought actually is.
“Are you Jensen?” he says, and swallows, nervous to hear the answer somehow.
“Chad,” the guy says. “Blackberry?”
“Sorry,” Jared says distractedly, while everything slots into place in his head. If this is Chad, Sunday to Tuesday, then this is the guy who owns the pile of model airplane junk in the corner of the bedroom and the vaguely pornographic framed Magic Eye print hanging over the couch, the one it took Jared two weeks of staring to see, and that he can no longer un-see. Jensen still hasn't managed, or at least he hadn't at the time he wrote his last note.
“Shit,” Chad's saying, tossing the cushions back onto the couch in a messy pile. “My fiancée's going to kill me. That thing had three weeks' worth of my self-actualization journal on it.”
“You have a fiancée?” Jared says, putting down the umbrella. It's meant to sound conversational, easygoing, but somehow he gets the emphasis all wrong, stresses the you in such a way that it changes the entire meaning of the question. Luckily, Chad misses it completely.
“Yeah, and she's a real buzzkill with all this wedding shit. Why do you think I bought this place?”
“Uh,” Jared says. He hasn't really thought about it before, just assumed that Chad's reasons were legitimate.
“You got a girl?” Chad says. He yanks one cushion out of the pile and fixes the right-hand corner of the couch, then sits, head in hands, leaving the rest of the mess for Jared.
Jared busies himself fluffing cushions. Actually, it's a little more like punching the crap out of them.
“Yeah, not anymore,” he says.
It's hard to say if Chad's wincing sympathetically at what Jared said or if that's just the way his face happens to look.
“So, living the single life, huh?” he says, wistful. “Must be nice.”
Jared lets out a short, harsh laugh. “Sure. My ex decided she loved me like a brother, not a lover, and I still have to see her five days out of seven because I can't afford to move out beyond coming here twice a week. Nice is totally the word I would use.”
Okay, Chad is actually wincing now.
“A brother?” he says. “She said that?”
Jared nods.
“Ouch, dude.”
“Yeah,” Jared says, sighing heavily as he flops onto the couch. “Welcome to my world.”
They watch TV for a while, even though it's Thursday afternoon and the only thing on is a marathon of those Caught On Tape compilation shows, which Jared hates because it never fails to disappoint him how many stupid people there are in the world. Chad seems to like them, at least from the way he's constantly snarfing his beer. Which might be a symptom of stupidity in and of itself, Jared thinks, how he keeps taking these huge gulps and then nearly choking on them when yet another moron getaway driver sideswipes a cop car.
*
Dear Friday,
Did you see last night's Hell's Kitchen? CLASSIC. So glad I started watching. I Tivo'd it for you just in case you were busy or something. Spoiler alert: someone's hair catches fire! I won't tell you whose, though. HAHAHA.
Oh, also, I met our other roommate and guess what: he's never seen the Magic Eye picture, either, even though it's his. I asked him about it and he went on and on about sailboats. I laughed my goddamn ass off. I swear, somebody really mean told him there were boats in there. Wish I'd thought of it first!
FYI: there are no boats. Unless by “boat” you mean “boob”, in which case there are four.
Thursday
PS - Check.
Jensen looks over at the chessboard and frowns. Again? He was just in check two moves ago. Now he's lost a bishop and it looks like he's going to have to sacrifice one of his rooks. So unfair. He needs to buy a book about chess or something, needs to study some strategy, because Chad is kicking his ass.
He places the rook into Chad's queen's path of destruction, tries to visualize what the board will look like in two, three moves, but he's distracted.
Misha's one-man show opens tonight, which Jensen already knew, thanks to the fact that he owns both a calendar and a pen, and wrote the date down weeks ago. This hasn't stopped Misha from sending him a text message reminder every day for the last week, though.
Don't forget tonite! Can't wait! <333
Yeah, little bastard text hearts. Jensen has no idea what that means, but he can't help but feel a little hopeful at the sight of them. Which is not at all a good thing, or at least that's what his brain keeps telling him. He's been down this road before.
His brain continues to sound the bad idea alarm as he showers, shaves, strategically plucks and trims, and puts on a new shirt that the sales guy said totally made his shoulders look eight miles wide. His mind quiets down a bit, though, when he cues up the Tivo and watches Gordon Ramsay make a 300-pound fry cook from downtown Detroit cry like a little girl. This show is always good for a bit of relaxation. By the time he leaves, camera and gift in hand, Jensen's almost entirely managed to fool himself into thinking this is a good idea.
Part Two