Fic: Unlearning Misha - Jensen/Misha, NC-17 (SPN RPS)
Author: qthelights
Title: Unlearning Misha
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, I just play with them. All is made up and absolutely no disrespect is intended. To those who I write about and might be offended: By all means, write fic about me and publish it on the net. I promise I won't complain ;)
Summary: Jensen can't quite figure Misha out, it makes him uncomfortable.
A/N: Thanks to blue_fjords for the beta and kadiel_krieger for the encouragement. I'm strangely nervous to be writing RPS again, especially in a new(ish) fandom. Despite this I am unrepentantly not ashamed!
It took Jensen two days, half an hour and three bottles of beer to figure out Jared. Not that the guy was simple, far from it, but he was open and honest and yeah, they just fit. It was easy and comfortable.
Misha, though, Jensen still can’t pin down. Figuratively speaking.
He watches as Misha gathers up errant belongings, a dog-eared script and a very un-Castiel windbreaker from a director’s chair. One of the techs walks past and lays a casual hand on his shoulder. Misha’s answering smile is wide and full of mirth, they share a joke, or at least Jensen imagines that to be the case, he’s too far away to actually hear any words. The two guys laugh, and the tech is passing on.
Apparently the crew has no problem friending the guy.
With all the scenes they’re filming together and the run-throughs and press junkets, it’s beginning to get tiring keeping a protective veneer up. Not that he thinks Misha is dangerous or anything. Just that, as a general rule, Jensen likes to know what’s what and who’s who. And as of yet, he hasn’t worked out just who Misha Collins is.
Maybe it’s kind of hypocritical, for an actor to feel uncomfortable with someone else’s facade, but Jensen has never been in acting for wearing other people’s masks. He’s only ever been in it to allow his to drop.
It’s pretty easy with guest stars - they’re only ever around for a week - and Jensen is fine with stepping back and letting Jared play welcoming committee. He’s polite and friendly, of course, as is his job as a show’s star, but he’s never really truly himself around strangers.
Which is why Misha really throws him for a loop. It’s becoming apparent pretty quickly that Misha isn’t going anywhere, people love him, including the fans, and he’s being written in for the long haul.
So Jensen needs to figure him out and get comfortable.
Only he’s having trouble with the ‘figuring him out’ part, and that sets him on edge.
Misha surveys the set as he makes to leave, bends to pick up a half-drunken Evian bottle at his feet. When he glances up his eye catches Jensen’s across the sound stage, catches him watching. Misha pauses, head tilting slightly to the side in a way that Jensen recognizes as Castiel’s ‘confused’ pose.
Swearing internally at being caught, Jensen just smiles widely and waves, passes off his interest as ‘goodnight, see you tomorrow’. Or tries to anyway. Judging by Misha’s slightly guarded smile and hesitant half wave before he turns and leaves the set, it wasn’t entirely convincing.
Oh well. Jensen’s never been good at playing himself. He’s the first to admit it.
He tunes back in to the heated discussion happening beside him as he waits to get on with his scene. Tunes back out again when the argument proves technical and not aesthetic. Contemplates Misha some more as he stares at the door the guy disappeared behind.
One of the first things that Jensen noticed about Misha was that the guy never stopped touching things. Like ever. He always has something in his hands. Water bottle, chewed up old pen, dog-eared paperback. Microphone, if someone is insane enough to give him one. Grabby hands are a definite thing when something shiny or sparkly is around. Sometimes even for fluffy. He always has something he can grip, use as a prop or pour restless energy into with a curl of silver-adorned fingers. Jensen wonders if maybe it’s some kind of security blanket thing.
It’d be too ironic, he thinks, if Misha, the most self-assured guy in the world, is actually kinda insecure.
Realizing the reset going on in front of him is spiraling out from ‘just a second’ to ‘half an hour’ Jensen leaves his mark, and the bickering director and soundman, to settle into his chair at the side of the stage. Somewhere outside he can hear Jared’s booming laugh echoing in the chill of the night air. It makes him smile. Dork.
His mind wanders back to Misha again. It’s been doing that a lot lately, if he stops to think about it. Which he steadfastly does not.
The weirdest thing about the guy, despite the constant inanimate object obsession, is that Misha doesn’t fidget. Not like normal people do, anyway. As if all his pent up energy can’t possibly come out in something as mundane and regular as erratic, unconscious muscle twitching. His fingers don’t drum against tabletops, his foot doesn’t tap. He doesn’t fidget restlessly in chairs trying to find a comfortable position. No, with Misha, all that potential energy has to come out in more controlled ways. He's always moving, definitely, but it's so thought out, so...dramatic, in a theatrical sense. As if it's all carefully planned.
And that makes Jensen wonder. Just what the hell is all that control keeping in check? ‘Cause the dude certainly can’t be hiding anything weirder in there.
Generally, Misha’s overflow of energy spills out in the form of verbal diarrhea. Endless strings of random thoughts on the nature of fans, the vulnerability of the fourth wall, or the congressional hiccup in this or that amendment fall out of Misha’s head and straight off his tongue. Sometimes with accents. Equally likely, it will be some intimate fact or childhood moment, that really, Jensen hadn’t asked to be privy to and feels awkward upon hearing, unsure if he should give something back of equal measure, equal intimacy. The way normal confidences occur.
But then there’s a blink of impossibly blue eyes and the topic changes - or takes a ninety degree banking turn - to something trivial and gossip-ridden. The calorie count of what they’re serving at craft services. Which PA got blind stinking drunk at last year’s wrap party and pashed the best boy in the restaurant’s supply closet. And just what do you think he did to be called the ‘best’ boy, anyway. The colour of the sky. Eggs.
At first Jensen tries to discern it all, sort it into neat categories of information. After all, Misha always sounds like he has something interesting to say, something worth listening to. And it’s true, a lot of the time Misha does say things worth listening to. It’s just that, a lot of the time he also doesn’t. A lot of the time he’s just speaking for the sake of spending energy. And so the only way to get to the stuff that might be worth listening to, as far as Jensen can tell, is to listen to the whole damn lot.
It’s kind of exhausting, actually.
Jensen shifts restlessly in his chair, his brain supplying the ‘like a normal person,’ and settles for slumping, legs straight out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
Misha gives the impression of having no filter between his brain and his mouth. But Jensen suspects it’s carefully controlled. That and the fact that Misha seems to have given up actually caring what he shares. It’s a pretty smart move really. The more you give out the less you have to worry about keeping in.
Truth be told, Jensen thinks he’s probably a bit envious of that. It must be freeing, in a way. But then he thinks through the things that he’d be sharing about himself, were he to take such a position with fans and the like, and it makes him shudder. It might be more work, keeping everything secret, but at least you could still hold onto some of yourself. Keep it safe.
Hell, Misha doesn’t just share words, he shares thoughts. Jensen has never really met anyone who he could see thinking. But with Misha it’s clear as day. The second he pauses, mid-monologue, eyes glancing slowly, glacially, to the side as if gauging his surroundings, Jensen can practically see the cogs ticking over.
Tick, tick, tick…and there it is, some inane fact or deftly delivered put down that is so sly he isn’t even always sure he’s been mocked until it’s too late to be indignant without being considered slow.
Jensen allows his thoughts to wander into less confusing territory, zoning out as the various tech things go on around him. That’s one thing he’d learned from acting, the ability to rest with just about any amount of noise and chaos going on around him.
Even so, the idea of real actual in-a-bed sleeping had its merits, and so he tries not to be too overjoyed when the director throws his hands up in defeat at the ‘technical difficulties’ and motions to Jensen that he may as well call it a night. They’ll pick it up again tomorrow.
It’s an early night, relatively speaking, being well past the point where normal people would have turned in. Jensen gathers his own crap together, shrugs on the enormous parka handed to him and trudges off the sound stage into the freezing darkness outside.
Misha is leaning against the side of the building, sans bottle and script, chatting intensely with a pretty blonde girl from wardrobe. Sally something, Jensen’s brain tries helpfully to provide. The halogen downlight on the side of the building is shining down on them in a celestially bright glow.
Jensen nods at them briefly and heads in the direction of his trailer, careful not to lose his footing in the icy dew forming over the paths.
He’s only gone a few yards beyond the ambient light of the cluster of buildings when he hears the snow-crunch of footfalls hurrying up behind him. It’s Misha, jogging up beside him in the inch or so of snow beside the path. Misha falls into step with him, hands scrunched down in the pockets of his jeans.
“Hey,” Jensen says, glancing sideways at his new found companion.
Misha just nods, trudges silently next to him. In the snow.
“You’ll get your shoes wet,” Jensen says, eyebrow arching and head nodding in the direction of Misha’s feet.
“Probably,” Misha agrees amiably, his breath puffing out white in the frigid air. “But I won’t slip on the ice and break an elbow.”
Jensen wants to ask ‘why an elbow?’ but thinks better of it and comes out instead with a very enlightening, “Ah.”
Smooth.
They keep walking in silence, and Jensen wonders what exactly he owes this nightly escort to. This is exactly why he’s on edge around the guy, he thinks. The dude is weird.
Was he walking with him because he happened to be going the same way? Was he waiting for him outside the set? He’d finished up a good hour ago, and he’d obviously dumped his own stuff back at his own trailer at some point.
They’re coming up to the lot where the trailers are parked, ringed by fir trees and darkness and Jensen’s about to make some excuse and scurry off to his trailer when Misha beats him to the punch.
“You were watching me,” Misha says calmly, with no inflection whatsoever.
Jensen nearly slips on the ice.
“Dude, what?” He tries rather lamely.
“Earlier,” Misha explains matter-of-factly, continues to wander in step with Jensen. “On set. You were watching me.”
Jensen considers answering with some kind of passive-aggressive brush off. ‘In your dreams, man’ or ‘Whateverthefuckyoureckon’ but decides to take a leaf from Misha’s book and just be honest.
“I was trying to figure you out,” he shrugs.
Misha seems to digest this, taking it in stride. Three strides actually, before he says, “And?”
“I got nothing.” Jensen admits.
“Ah.” It’s Misha’s turn at illuminating dialogue.
Well now, this isn’t awkward at all, Jensen thinks. He rolls his eyes at the night sky.
They continue into the mess of trailers, stepping over the snow dusted cables. Jared’s windows are dark next door to Jensen’s trailer. They reach the steps up to Jensen’s door; he fishes in his pockets for the keys. Misha is standing silently next to him, eyes fixed on the ground, apparently deep in thought.
Jensen hates to think what’s going through the guy’s brain.
He slips the key into the lock, clears his throat. “Um, do you want to come in?” Because really, what the hell else is he meant to say? The dude’s just standing there.
Misha looks up, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that Jensen doesn’t know how to interpret.
“Sure.”
Jensen just shakes his head at the weirdness of it all and climbs gingerly up the icy steps and into the warmth.
Misha follows behind him.
“Drink?” Jensen asks, toeing off his ice-laden shoes and shrugging off his extra layers.
Misha nods, shedding his own shoes and coat. His socks are grey, Jensen notes absently.
Instead of elaborating on what kind of drink he’d like though, he says “I’m not that complicated, you know.”
“Have you met you?” Jensen retorts before he can think better of it. There’s a kind of stunned silence where Misha’s eyes widen comically and Jensen wonders if he totally just said the wrong thing.
And then Misha’s laughing, loud and completely unaffected. Something uncoils languidly in Jensen’s belly and the weirdness of the situation is replaced with something a lot more comfortable. Finally.
Jensen pours them both a large Bourbon and gestures to Misha to make himself at home on the couch while he packs things up for the night.
Misha hums happily into his drink and stretches out effortlessly sprawling against the back corner of the couch. His gaze follows Jensen’s path around the trailer.
“I’m really not though, truthfully,” Misha tries again, sounding more relaxed. He takes a sip of his drink and Jensen watches as Misha’s throat swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing lightly.
Jensen shakes off the weird feeling that tingles at the back of his skull. He picks up the dirty t-shirts that have congregated at the foot of the door to the small bathroom and throws them into the hamper. He doesn’t bother to answer Misha though.
“Pretty much, what you see is what you get,” Misha continues regardless of Jensen’s lack of response, fingers fluttering through the air to indicate himself.
Jensen pauses, and turns to consider the man on his couch. He finds his own glass where he left it on the counter, raises it and lets the bourbon burn down the back of his throat. He keeps his gaze on Misha.
“I’m not…sure that’s entirely true.” He comes out with eventually and takes a larger gulp of his drink.
If they’re doing ‘truth’ then he might as well be all in.
“No?” Misha asks with a raise of an eyebrow.
Jensen shakes his head slowly. “No.”
He grabs the bottle of Bourbon and thumbs open the screw cap, lets it fall with a faux-metallic ‘plink’ onto the counter top. He refills his glass and heads over to the couch where Misha is watching him expectantly. Jensen holds out the bottle by the neck, waggles it in question and fills Misha’s glass when it’s thrust out towards him.
He flips one of the chairs out from under the table, swivels it around and straddles it to sit backwards, facing Misha, arms folded across the top. He takes another sip of alcohol, while examining just how much he wants to reveal of his ‘Misha thoughts’ here.
Misha is blessedly silent, he nurses his drink, but his gaze never falters from Jensen’s face.
“You’re…,” he begins hesitantly, “a lot to take in.”
Christ. What the hell does that mean? This, right here, is why he doesn’t understand Misha. This is not how normal people bond. They don’t psychoanalyze each other late at night after work. Hell, while they are still at work.
Misha makes an amused and undignified snorting sound into his glass before tipping back more liquid. Jensen finds himself watching the muscles undulating in Misha’s throat. Again.
“I’ve been called a lot of things,” Misha murmurs with a slight smile, tongue flicking out to lick wayward bourbon from the bottom of his lip, “But I don’t think ‘a lot to take in’ was ever one of them.”
He pauses, smile widening. “Oh hell, of course it was. But I don’t think it was meant the same way as you mean it.”
Jensen feels the alcohol starting to imbue his blood stream, wonders if this is the smartest conversation to be having right now. “You never stop talking,” Jensen says bluntly. “What’s with that?”
The smile at the corners of Misha’s lips falter slightly. “Maybe I just like the sound of my own voice,” he quips.
“Do you?” Jensen asks plainly.
“Sometimes.”
It’s not really an answer, and Jensen suspects that it came out much more maudlin than Misha would have liked if he were completely sober. He sighs, “Whatever, man. I’m not trying to get you to out your issues here.”
“You kinda are,” Misha points out with a sardonic grin.
Jensen has the grace to be abashed, he grins ruefully into his glass, “Okay, maybe I kinda am.” He glances back up at Misha and finds himself locked in his gaze in a way that makes his stomach flip strangely.
He’s feeling a little breathless all of a sudden, reaches behind him to set his glass on the table. That’s clearly enough of that. He wonders briefly when he turned into such a fucking lightweight.
Jensen clears his throat. “Like I said, I just haven’t figured you out yet. Don’t worry about it, it’s just a ‘me’ thing,” he says apologetically.
Misha studies him for a moment thoughtfully, then throws back the remaining bourbon in his glass and stands up with a stretch.
Suddenly he’s standing right in front of Jensen, between his legs but for the back of Jensen’s chair, holding his empty glass. “Thanks for the drink,” he says and leans around Jensen to put it on the table behind him next to Jensen’s half-full one.
Jensen smells classic aftershave and warmth waft past him and inhales sharply as Misha invades his personal space.
“For what it’s worth,” Misha murmurs, voice pitched low and leaning down close enough that Jensen can feel the moist warmth of his breath against his neck, “you’re welcome to try.”
Misha leans back, straightens up and stares down at Jensen. There’s a challenge in his gaze.
When his brain catches back up with this sudden turn of events Jensen just blinks before coughing out, “Welcome to try what?”
Misha holds his gaze; shrugs lightly, too casually. “Figure me out.”
And suddenly, it occurs to Jensen that he wants nothing more than to do just that, to breathe in deep and turn Misha inside out. Find what hides behind the chatter and insanity, the controlled but constant movement.
Before he’s really processed what he’s doing, his arms untangle from their resting place atop the chair back and his fingers have gripped tightly Misha’s hipbones. He hears Misha’s intake of breath, it’s of surprise, definitely, but not shock. Jensen pulls him closer, arms sliding around Misha’s waist, trapping the back of the chair between them.
He has no idea what he’s doing, or why, but it has suddenly become imperative to know Misha, to figure him the fuck out and be done with all the messy uncertainty.
Misha’s fingers flutter into his hair, threading through it firmly but gentle and Jensen can feel himself getting hard already, pressing against the inside of his jeans. He pushes his hips forward into the slats of the chair to increase the friction.
He presses his face into Misha’s stomach, the soft slide of warm Misha-scented t-shirt scratching against the stubble of his cheek. He feels the muscles jump beneath his lips and the random unconscious fidget of the movement makes him heady. Jensen pushes the line of his nose into the crease between Misha’s stomach and left hip, just above the edge of his belt, and nuzzles and mouths through the cotton.
The answering shudder he feels slither down Misha’s body, the way the fingers in his hair silently clench, confirms the thought. This is where the real Misha lies. This, Jensen understands.
This is normal.
Finally, Jensen is feeling in control, for what feels like the first time in fucking weeks.
Abruptly, he stands, kicks the chair out from under his legs with a wooden crash and is crowding Misha back against the kitchenette cabinets. He holds him in place with his hips, feels the answering hardness growing there.
Misha’s eyes are wide and blown dark with sudden lust. His lips part and Jensen watches as Misha’s tongue darts quickly out, moistening. But Misha says nothing, the only sound in the trailer the sound of their quickened breathing, and Jensen realizes he may have also discovered the way to make Misha shut up.
And a hell of a way it is.
He slips his palm around to cradle the back of Misha’s neck for leverage and crushes his lips to Misha’s, hard and insistent. Misha’s mouth opens to him instantly, their tongues tangling and sliding, hot and slick and tasting of alcohol. One of them whimpers in the back of his throat, and he suspects it was Misha because it causes him to groan and thrust his pelvis forward, frantically seeking pressure and traction.
Misha’s fingertips are scattering over his back, dancing and clawing for purchase. It’s delightfully uninhibited and Jensen arches into the touch with a sigh. Misha’s tongue is tangling and caressing in a way that Jensen’s pretty sure would be illegal back home. He pulls back, lets his teeth sink into Misha’s plump bottom lip, rolling it into his mouth and sucking the taste of him, hard.
Their hips are beginning a slow grind, denim stuttering over denim, hard flesh beneath. Misha’s eyes flicker open, his stare too intense to deal with and Jensen ducks his head, laves his mouth to Misha’s throat, nips and sucks and elicits exactly the type of noises he expects. Each gasp and mewl ricocheting in his head as ‘power’ and ‘knowledge’ and ‘Misha’. It’s a startling aphrodisiac and Jensen can’t get enough of it.
He needs more.
Briefly he moves back up, licks at Misha’s lips and then leaves them behind, slithering down Misha’s body to his knees on the dirty linoleum of the trailer floor. He stares up to find Misha staring back down, a look of such intense unabashed openness on his face that it sends shivers down Jensen’s spine. Straight to his groin, as it turns out.
He grins up at Misha - because, hell, they are really doing this - and is rewarded with a wide smile, too much teeth, too much gum, and eyes crinkling at the corners.
Yeah, Jensen thinks, he could get used to that being turned on him.
Which is a weird thought, given everything, and one that really ought to freak him out just a little bit more than it is.
His fingers fumble at Misha’s belt buckle, sliding it clinking open and hurrying to slip the button of his jeans through the worn denim buttonhole, sliding the zip down without preamble. He pulls roughly at the waistband of Misha’s jeans and briefs, yanking them down mid thigh, his knuckles sliding against hot skin.
Misha’s cock slips free, jerking back upright as the cotton-elastic releases him. Jensen doesn’t waste time, just wraps his palm around the base and sucks him into his mouth. Misha tastes hot and salty, and solid against his tongue. He tastes good.
But even better is the sharp "Fuck, Jensen…" that Misha hisses out above him and the jerk forward that has the head of Misha’s cock hitting the back of Jensen’s throat with a slip-sliding thwack.
It’s really all the motivation Jensen needs and he begins sucking in earnest. Undulates the flat of his tongue against Misha as his hand sets up a steady push and pull.
Misha is flying apart above him, guttural gasps echoing loudly in the silence of the trailer, matched only by the obscene wet suction sounds of Jensen’s making. His hips are shuddering, ratcheting forward, being barely held back by their owner. Misha has one hand in Jensen’s hair again, fingernails scratching into his scalp, the other gripping tightly onto the edge of the benchtop beside them, white-knuckled.
Jensen tightens his lips in a ring around Misha’s cock and then relaxes it. Does it again and then drags his teeth feather-light along the slick flesh.
And Misha’s just gone. His hips stabbing forward and a startled gasped moan is pulled from his lungs as he spills down Jensen’s throat, coating the back of his tongue. It’s glorious, and Jensen softens the grip of his hand, swallows him down and laps at Misha’s softening cock with his tongue.
“Fuck,” Misha shudders again, and when Jensen glances up Misha’s eyes are closed tight, head tilted back, mouth slack.
“Quite,” Jensen answers, straightening up with a hand on Misha’s knee for support. He pulls Misha’s briefs and jeans back up, doesn’t bother doing them up though, instead choosing to lay himself against him, his own cock pressing tightly against the denim of his jeans and against Misha’s abdomen. Misha’s hands come to rest lightly on Jensen’s hips and still.
Jensen kisses him, wonders if Misha can taste himself on his tongue, knows he probably can. Misha’s mouth is softer, his tongue lazy and slow.
Which would be fine, if Jensen was in the same place right now…but he definitely isn’t.
“Give me your hand,” Jensen says, using his own to flick open the button of his jeans and draw the zip down quickly.
Misha doesn’t say a word, doesn’t argue or quip, just slips a hand between them straight away.
Jensen guides it under the waistband of his briefs, groaning as Misha’s fingers slide in the pre-come against the over-sensitive head of his cock. And then Misha’s fingers slide past, sliding the wet down and wrap around him. He covers Misha’s hand with his own, setting a rhythm and yet not letting go. The sensory deception of his own pace and Misha’s hand in-between his own and his cock flipping a switch in his brain from ‘masturbation’ to ‘sex’.
It only takes half a moment, the tension building stupidly quick, tightening and pressing outwards. Misha leans into him awkwardly over their arms, bites down on Jensen’s lip and Jensen’s coming, guttural noises falling from him as his come slides through their fingers.
He collapses against him, face pressed hotly into the crook of Misha’s neck. Rides out the echoing shivers and twitches and is vaguely aware of Misha’s free hand sliding gently up and down his spine. Still Misha says nothing, but there’s a veritable hum of contentment coming off his body in waves and they stay there, propping each other up as normalcy threatens to return.
When he can think again, hell, when he can breathe again, he pulls back, regards the peaceful expression in Misha’s eyes and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. It’s strangely intimate, but Misha doesn’t seem to mind, just smiles and shrugs in a ‘sure, why not’ manner.
Jensen pulls the mess of their tangled hands out of his underwear and turns Misha around silently with his other hand to face the kitchenette sink. He layers himself behind him, and flips on the tap. The water is fucking cold, but the come slides off in it, disappears down the drain.
He’s going to have trouble using the sink to refill the coffee pot for at least a week.
Misha’s fingers turn briefly and entwine with his in the frigid water before they squeeze lightly and are gone and Misha’s turning off the water.
They put themselves back together, zipping and buckling. Jensen doesn’t bother cleaning himself up first; he’ll be home soon enough anyway.
They’re silent, but it doesn’t feel strange. Just…comfortable. Which, Jensen supposes, is strange in and of itself. But he’s leaving that one untouched, for the moment.
Misha leans against the countertop, mirroring his position from earlier, more debauched but fully clothed. He smiles gently, easily, at Jensen and finally speaks, “So did you figure me out?”
Jensen chuckles, stretches his arms up over his head, fingers entwined outwards. “Not even close.”
He absolutely notices Misha’s glaze flicker involuntarily to the crescent of skin at Jensen’s waist as his t-shirt rides up with his stretching.
“I’m really not that complicated, you know.” Misha’s smile widens into a toothy grin.
Jensen just raises an eyebrow at him incredulously. “Right.”
Not complicated his ass.
Misha continues to grin, throat now twitching with silent laughter.
“C’mon,” Jensen says, gathering his keys and tomorrow’s script from the counter. “I’ll give you a lift back to yours. I’ll work you out another day.”
Misha just gives him an amused look, holds out Jensen’s coat to him.
He definitely hasn’t figured out who exactly Misha is, he thinks, takes the coat and toes his feet back into his boots, doesn’t bother with the laces. He flips the lights off and follows Misha out the door into the cold.
But he thinks that there’s something calmer, more relaxed, beneath Misha’s overt insanity. And figuring it out just got a lot more interesting.
Title: Unlearning Misha
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, I just play with them. All is made up and absolutely no disrespect is intended. To those who I write about and might be offended: By all means, write fic about me and publish it on the net. I promise I won't complain ;)
Summary: Jensen can't quite figure Misha out, it makes him uncomfortable.
A/N: Thanks to blue_fjords for the beta and kadiel_krieger for the encouragement. I'm strangely nervous to be writing RPS again, especially in a new(ish) fandom. Despite this I am unrepentantly not ashamed!
It took Jensen two days, half an hour and three bottles of beer to figure out Jared. Not that the guy was simple, far from it, but he was open and honest and yeah, they just fit. It was easy and comfortable.
Misha, though, Jensen still can’t pin down. Figuratively speaking.
He watches as Misha gathers up errant belongings, a dog-eared script and a very un-Castiel windbreaker from a director’s chair. One of the techs walks past and lays a casual hand on his shoulder. Misha’s answering smile is wide and full of mirth, they share a joke, or at least Jensen imagines that to be the case, he’s too far away to actually hear any words. The two guys laugh, and the tech is passing on.
Apparently the crew has no problem friending the guy.
With all the scenes they’re filming together and the run-throughs and press junkets, it’s beginning to get tiring keeping a protective veneer up. Not that he thinks Misha is dangerous or anything. Just that, as a general rule, Jensen likes to know what’s what and who’s who. And as of yet, he hasn’t worked out just who Misha Collins is.
Maybe it’s kind of hypocritical, for an actor to feel uncomfortable with someone else’s facade, but Jensen has never been in acting for wearing other people’s masks. He’s only ever been in it to allow his to drop.
It’s pretty easy with guest stars - they’re only ever around for a week - and Jensen is fine with stepping back and letting Jared play welcoming committee. He’s polite and friendly, of course, as is his job as a show’s star, but he’s never really truly himself around strangers.
Which is why Misha really throws him for a loop. It’s becoming apparent pretty quickly that Misha isn’t going anywhere, people love him, including the fans, and he’s being written in for the long haul.
So Jensen needs to figure him out and get comfortable.
Only he’s having trouble with the ‘figuring him out’ part, and that sets him on edge.
Misha surveys the set as he makes to leave, bends to pick up a half-drunken Evian bottle at his feet. When he glances up his eye catches Jensen’s across the sound stage, catches him watching. Misha pauses, head tilting slightly to the side in a way that Jensen recognizes as Castiel’s ‘confused’ pose.
Swearing internally at being caught, Jensen just smiles widely and waves, passes off his interest as ‘goodnight, see you tomorrow’. Or tries to anyway. Judging by Misha’s slightly guarded smile and hesitant half wave before he turns and leaves the set, it wasn’t entirely convincing.
Oh well. Jensen’s never been good at playing himself. He’s the first to admit it.
He tunes back in to the heated discussion happening beside him as he waits to get on with his scene. Tunes back out again when the argument proves technical and not aesthetic. Contemplates Misha some more as he stares at the door the guy disappeared behind.
One of the first things that Jensen noticed about Misha was that the guy never stopped touching things. Like ever. He always has something in his hands. Water bottle, chewed up old pen, dog-eared paperback. Microphone, if someone is insane enough to give him one. Grabby hands are a definite thing when something shiny or sparkly is around. Sometimes even for fluffy. He always has something he can grip, use as a prop or pour restless energy into with a curl of silver-adorned fingers. Jensen wonders if maybe it’s some kind of security blanket thing.
It’d be too ironic, he thinks, if Misha, the most self-assured guy in the world, is actually kinda insecure.
Realizing the reset going on in front of him is spiraling out from ‘just a second’ to ‘half an hour’ Jensen leaves his mark, and the bickering director and soundman, to settle into his chair at the side of the stage. Somewhere outside he can hear Jared’s booming laugh echoing in the chill of the night air. It makes him smile. Dork.
His mind wanders back to Misha again. It’s been doing that a lot lately, if he stops to think about it. Which he steadfastly does not.
The weirdest thing about the guy, despite the constant inanimate object obsession, is that Misha doesn’t fidget. Not like normal people do, anyway. As if all his pent up energy can’t possibly come out in something as mundane and regular as erratic, unconscious muscle twitching. His fingers don’t drum against tabletops, his foot doesn’t tap. He doesn’t fidget restlessly in chairs trying to find a comfortable position. No, with Misha, all that potential energy has to come out in more controlled ways. He's always moving, definitely, but it's so thought out, so...dramatic, in a theatrical sense. As if it's all carefully planned.
And that makes Jensen wonder. Just what the hell is all that control keeping in check? ‘Cause the dude certainly can’t be hiding anything weirder in there.
Generally, Misha’s overflow of energy spills out in the form of verbal diarrhea. Endless strings of random thoughts on the nature of fans, the vulnerability of the fourth wall, or the congressional hiccup in this or that amendment fall out of Misha’s head and straight off his tongue. Sometimes with accents. Equally likely, it will be some intimate fact or childhood moment, that really, Jensen hadn’t asked to be privy to and feels awkward upon hearing, unsure if he should give something back of equal measure, equal intimacy. The way normal confidences occur.
But then there’s a blink of impossibly blue eyes and the topic changes - or takes a ninety degree banking turn - to something trivial and gossip-ridden. The calorie count of what they’re serving at craft services. Which PA got blind stinking drunk at last year’s wrap party and pashed the best boy in the restaurant’s supply closet. And just what do you think he did to be called the ‘best’ boy, anyway. The colour of the sky. Eggs.
At first Jensen tries to discern it all, sort it into neat categories of information. After all, Misha always sounds like he has something interesting to say, something worth listening to. And it’s true, a lot of the time Misha does say things worth listening to. It’s just that, a lot of the time he also doesn’t. A lot of the time he’s just speaking for the sake of spending energy. And so the only way to get to the stuff that might be worth listening to, as far as Jensen can tell, is to listen to the whole damn lot.
It’s kind of exhausting, actually.
Jensen shifts restlessly in his chair, his brain supplying the ‘like a normal person,’ and settles for slumping, legs straight out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
Misha gives the impression of having no filter between his brain and his mouth. But Jensen suspects it’s carefully controlled. That and the fact that Misha seems to have given up actually caring what he shares. It’s a pretty smart move really. The more you give out the less you have to worry about keeping in.
Truth be told, Jensen thinks he’s probably a bit envious of that. It must be freeing, in a way. But then he thinks through the things that he’d be sharing about himself, were he to take such a position with fans and the like, and it makes him shudder. It might be more work, keeping everything secret, but at least you could still hold onto some of yourself. Keep it safe.
Hell, Misha doesn’t just share words, he shares thoughts. Jensen has never really met anyone who he could see thinking. But with Misha it’s clear as day. The second he pauses, mid-monologue, eyes glancing slowly, glacially, to the side as if gauging his surroundings, Jensen can practically see the cogs ticking over.
Tick, tick, tick…and there it is, some inane fact or deftly delivered put down that is so sly he isn’t even always sure he’s been mocked until it’s too late to be indignant without being considered slow.
Jensen allows his thoughts to wander into less confusing territory, zoning out as the various tech things go on around him. That’s one thing he’d learned from acting, the ability to rest with just about any amount of noise and chaos going on around him.
Even so, the idea of real actual in-a-bed sleeping had its merits, and so he tries not to be too overjoyed when the director throws his hands up in defeat at the ‘technical difficulties’ and motions to Jensen that he may as well call it a night. They’ll pick it up again tomorrow.
It’s an early night, relatively speaking, being well past the point where normal people would have turned in. Jensen gathers his own crap together, shrugs on the enormous parka handed to him and trudges off the sound stage into the freezing darkness outside.
Misha is leaning against the side of the building, sans bottle and script, chatting intensely with a pretty blonde girl from wardrobe. Sally something, Jensen’s brain tries helpfully to provide. The halogen downlight on the side of the building is shining down on them in a celestially bright glow.
Jensen nods at them briefly and heads in the direction of his trailer, careful not to lose his footing in the icy dew forming over the paths.
He’s only gone a few yards beyond the ambient light of the cluster of buildings when he hears the snow-crunch of footfalls hurrying up behind him. It’s Misha, jogging up beside him in the inch or so of snow beside the path. Misha falls into step with him, hands scrunched down in the pockets of his jeans.
“Hey,” Jensen says, glancing sideways at his new found companion.
Misha just nods, trudges silently next to him. In the snow.
“You’ll get your shoes wet,” Jensen says, eyebrow arching and head nodding in the direction of Misha’s feet.
“Probably,” Misha agrees amiably, his breath puffing out white in the frigid air. “But I won’t slip on the ice and break an elbow.”
Jensen wants to ask ‘why an elbow?’ but thinks better of it and comes out instead with a very enlightening, “Ah.”
Smooth.
They keep walking in silence, and Jensen wonders what exactly he owes this nightly escort to. This is exactly why he’s on edge around the guy, he thinks. The dude is weird.
Was he walking with him because he happened to be going the same way? Was he waiting for him outside the set? He’d finished up a good hour ago, and he’d obviously dumped his own stuff back at his own trailer at some point.
They’re coming up to the lot where the trailers are parked, ringed by fir trees and darkness and Jensen’s about to make some excuse and scurry off to his trailer when Misha beats him to the punch.
“You were watching me,” Misha says calmly, with no inflection whatsoever.
Jensen nearly slips on the ice.
“Dude, what?” He tries rather lamely.
“Earlier,” Misha explains matter-of-factly, continues to wander in step with Jensen. “On set. You were watching me.”
Jensen considers answering with some kind of passive-aggressive brush off. ‘In your dreams, man’ or ‘Whateverthefuckyoureckon’ but decides to take a leaf from Misha’s book and just be honest.
“I was trying to figure you out,” he shrugs.
Misha seems to digest this, taking it in stride. Three strides actually, before he says, “And?”
“I got nothing.” Jensen admits.
“Ah.” It’s Misha’s turn at illuminating dialogue.
Well now, this isn’t awkward at all, Jensen thinks. He rolls his eyes at the night sky.
They continue into the mess of trailers, stepping over the snow dusted cables. Jared’s windows are dark next door to Jensen’s trailer. They reach the steps up to Jensen’s door; he fishes in his pockets for the keys. Misha is standing silently next to him, eyes fixed on the ground, apparently deep in thought.
Jensen hates to think what’s going through the guy’s brain.
He slips the key into the lock, clears his throat. “Um, do you want to come in?” Because really, what the hell else is he meant to say? The dude’s just standing there.
Misha looks up, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that Jensen doesn’t know how to interpret.
“Sure.”
Jensen just shakes his head at the weirdness of it all and climbs gingerly up the icy steps and into the warmth.
Misha follows behind him.
“Drink?” Jensen asks, toeing off his ice-laden shoes and shrugging off his extra layers.
Misha nods, shedding his own shoes and coat. His socks are grey, Jensen notes absently.
Instead of elaborating on what kind of drink he’d like though, he says “I’m not that complicated, you know.”
“Have you met you?” Jensen retorts before he can think better of it. There’s a kind of stunned silence where Misha’s eyes widen comically and Jensen wonders if he totally just said the wrong thing.
And then Misha’s laughing, loud and completely unaffected. Something uncoils languidly in Jensen’s belly and the weirdness of the situation is replaced with something a lot more comfortable. Finally.
Jensen pours them both a large Bourbon and gestures to Misha to make himself at home on the couch while he packs things up for the night.
Misha hums happily into his drink and stretches out effortlessly sprawling against the back corner of the couch. His gaze follows Jensen’s path around the trailer.
“I’m really not though, truthfully,” Misha tries again, sounding more relaxed. He takes a sip of his drink and Jensen watches as Misha’s throat swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing lightly.
Jensen shakes off the weird feeling that tingles at the back of his skull. He picks up the dirty t-shirts that have congregated at the foot of the door to the small bathroom and throws them into the hamper. He doesn’t bother to answer Misha though.
“Pretty much, what you see is what you get,” Misha continues regardless of Jensen’s lack of response, fingers fluttering through the air to indicate himself.
Jensen pauses, and turns to consider the man on his couch. He finds his own glass where he left it on the counter, raises it and lets the bourbon burn down the back of his throat. He keeps his gaze on Misha.
“I’m not…sure that’s entirely true.” He comes out with eventually and takes a larger gulp of his drink.
If they’re doing ‘truth’ then he might as well be all in.
“No?” Misha asks with a raise of an eyebrow.
Jensen shakes his head slowly. “No.”
He grabs the bottle of Bourbon and thumbs open the screw cap, lets it fall with a faux-metallic ‘plink’ onto the counter top. He refills his glass and heads over to the couch where Misha is watching him expectantly. Jensen holds out the bottle by the neck, waggles it in question and fills Misha’s glass when it’s thrust out towards him.
He flips one of the chairs out from under the table, swivels it around and straddles it to sit backwards, facing Misha, arms folded across the top. He takes another sip of alcohol, while examining just how much he wants to reveal of his ‘Misha thoughts’ here.
Misha is blessedly silent, he nurses his drink, but his gaze never falters from Jensen’s face.
“You’re…,” he begins hesitantly, “a lot to take in.”
Christ. What the hell does that mean? This, right here, is why he doesn’t understand Misha. This is not how normal people bond. They don’t psychoanalyze each other late at night after work. Hell, while they are still at work.
Misha makes an amused and undignified snorting sound into his glass before tipping back more liquid. Jensen finds himself watching the muscles undulating in Misha’s throat. Again.
“I’ve been called a lot of things,” Misha murmurs with a slight smile, tongue flicking out to lick wayward bourbon from the bottom of his lip, “But I don’t think ‘a lot to take in’ was ever one of them.”
He pauses, smile widening. “Oh hell, of course it was. But I don’t think it was meant the same way as you mean it.”
Jensen feels the alcohol starting to imbue his blood stream, wonders if this is the smartest conversation to be having right now. “You never stop talking,” Jensen says bluntly. “What’s with that?”
The smile at the corners of Misha’s lips falter slightly. “Maybe I just like the sound of my own voice,” he quips.
“Do you?” Jensen asks plainly.
“Sometimes.”
It’s not really an answer, and Jensen suspects that it came out much more maudlin than Misha would have liked if he were completely sober. He sighs, “Whatever, man. I’m not trying to get you to out your issues here.”
“You kinda are,” Misha points out with a sardonic grin.
Jensen has the grace to be abashed, he grins ruefully into his glass, “Okay, maybe I kinda am.” He glances back up at Misha and finds himself locked in his gaze in a way that makes his stomach flip strangely.
He’s feeling a little breathless all of a sudden, reaches behind him to set his glass on the table. That’s clearly enough of that. He wonders briefly when he turned into such a fucking lightweight.
Jensen clears his throat. “Like I said, I just haven’t figured you out yet. Don’t worry about it, it’s just a ‘me’ thing,” he says apologetically.
Misha studies him for a moment thoughtfully, then throws back the remaining bourbon in his glass and stands up with a stretch.
Suddenly he’s standing right in front of Jensen, between his legs but for the back of Jensen’s chair, holding his empty glass. “Thanks for the drink,” he says and leans around Jensen to put it on the table behind him next to Jensen’s half-full one.
Jensen smells classic aftershave and warmth waft past him and inhales sharply as Misha invades his personal space.
“For what it’s worth,” Misha murmurs, voice pitched low and leaning down close enough that Jensen can feel the moist warmth of his breath against his neck, “you’re welcome to try.”
Misha leans back, straightens up and stares down at Jensen. There’s a challenge in his gaze.
When his brain catches back up with this sudden turn of events Jensen just blinks before coughing out, “Welcome to try what?”
Misha holds his gaze; shrugs lightly, too casually. “Figure me out.”
And suddenly, it occurs to Jensen that he wants nothing more than to do just that, to breathe in deep and turn Misha inside out. Find what hides behind the chatter and insanity, the controlled but constant movement.
Before he’s really processed what he’s doing, his arms untangle from their resting place atop the chair back and his fingers have gripped tightly Misha’s hipbones. He hears Misha’s intake of breath, it’s of surprise, definitely, but not shock. Jensen pulls him closer, arms sliding around Misha’s waist, trapping the back of the chair between them.
He has no idea what he’s doing, or why, but it has suddenly become imperative to know Misha, to figure him the fuck out and be done with all the messy uncertainty.
Misha’s fingers flutter into his hair, threading through it firmly but gentle and Jensen can feel himself getting hard already, pressing against the inside of his jeans. He pushes his hips forward into the slats of the chair to increase the friction.
He presses his face into Misha’s stomach, the soft slide of warm Misha-scented t-shirt scratching against the stubble of his cheek. He feels the muscles jump beneath his lips and the random unconscious fidget of the movement makes him heady. Jensen pushes the line of his nose into the crease between Misha’s stomach and left hip, just above the edge of his belt, and nuzzles and mouths through the cotton.
The answering shudder he feels slither down Misha’s body, the way the fingers in his hair silently clench, confirms the thought. This is where the real Misha lies. This, Jensen understands.
This is normal.
Finally, Jensen is feeling in control, for what feels like the first time in fucking weeks.
Abruptly, he stands, kicks the chair out from under his legs with a wooden crash and is crowding Misha back against the kitchenette cabinets. He holds him in place with his hips, feels the answering hardness growing there.
Misha’s eyes are wide and blown dark with sudden lust. His lips part and Jensen watches as Misha’s tongue darts quickly out, moistening. But Misha says nothing, the only sound in the trailer the sound of their quickened breathing, and Jensen realizes he may have also discovered the way to make Misha shut up.
And a hell of a way it is.
He slips his palm around to cradle the back of Misha’s neck for leverage and crushes his lips to Misha’s, hard and insistent. Misha’s mouth opens to him instantly, their tongues tangling and sliding, hot and slick and tasting of alcohol. One of them whimpers in the back of his throat, and he suspects it was Misha because it causes him to groan and thrust his pelvis forward, frantically seeking pressure and traction.
Misha’s fingertips are scattering over his back, dancing and clawing for purchase. It’s delightfully uninhibited and Jensen arches into the touch with a sigh. Misha’s tongue is tangling and caressing in a way that Jensen’s pretty sure would be illegal back home. He pulls back, lets his teeth sink into Misha’s plump bottom lip, rolling it into his mouth and sucking the taste of him, hard.
Their hips are beginning a slow grind, denim stuttering over denim, hard flesh beneath. Misha’s eyes flicker open, his stare too intense to deal with and Jensen ducks his head, laves his mouth to Misha’s throat, nips and sucks and elicits exactly the type of noises he expects. Each gasp and mewl ricocheting in his head as ‘power’ and ‘knowledge’ and ‘Misha’. It’s a startling aphrodisiac and Jensen can’t get enough of it.
He needs more.
Briefly he moves back up, licks at Misha’s lips and then leaves them behind, slithering down Misha’s body to his knees on the dirty linoleum of the trailer floor. He stares up to find Misha staring back down, a look of such intense unabashed openness on his face that it sends shivers down Jensen’s spine. Straight to his groin, as it turns out.
He grins up at Misha - because, hell, they are really doing this - and is rewarded with a wide smile, too much teeth, too much gum, and eyes crinkling at the corners.
Yeah, Jensen thinks, he could get used to that being turned on him.
Which is a weird thought, given everything, and one that really ought to freak him out just a little bit more than it is.
His fingers fumble at Misha’s belt buckle, sliding it clinking open and hurrying to slip the button of his jeans through the worn denim buttonhole, sliding the zip down without preamble. He pulls roughly at the waistband of Misha’s jeans and briefs, yanking them down mid thigh, his knuckles sliding against hot skin.
Misha’s cock slips free, jerking back upright as the cotton-elastic releases him. Jensen doesn’t waste time, just wraps his palm around the base and sucks him into his mouth. Misha tastes hot and salty, and solid against his tongue. He tastes good.
But even better is the sharp "Fuck, Jensen…" that Misha hisses out above him and the jerk forward that has the head of Misha’s cock hitting the back of Jensen’s throat with a slip-sliding thwack.
It’s really all the motivation Jensen needs and he begins sucking in earnest. Undulates the flat of his tongue against Misha as his hand sets up a steady push and pull.
Misha is flying apart above him, guttural gasps echoing loudly in the silence of the trailer, matched only by the obscene wet suction sounds of Jensen’s making. His hips are shuddering, ratcheting forward, being barely held back by their owner. Misha has one hand in Jensen’s hair again, fingernails scratching into his scalp, the other gripping tightly onto the edge of the benchtop beside them, white-knuckled.
Jensen tightens his lips in a ring around Misha’s cock and then relaxes it. Does it again and then drags his teeth feather-light along the slick flesh.
And Misha’s just gone. His hips stabbing forward and a startled gasped moan is pulled from his lungs as he spills down Jensen’s throat, coating the back of his tongue. It’s glorious, and Jensen softens the grip of his hand, swallows him down and laps at Misha’s softening cock with his tongue.
“Fuck,” Misha shudders again, and when Jensen glances up Misha’s eyes are closed tight, head tilted back, mouth slack.
“Quite,” Jensen answers, straightening up with a hand on Misha’s knee for support. He pulls Misha’s briefs and jeans back up, doesn’t bother doing them up though, instead choosing to lay himself against him, his own cock pressing tightly against the denim of his jeans and against Misha’s abdomen. Misha’s hands come to rest lightly on Jensen’s hips and still.
Jensen kisses him, wonders if Misha can taste himself on his tongue, knows he probably can. Misha’s mouth is softer, his tongue lazy and slow.
Which would be fine, if Jensen was in the same place right now…but he definitely isn’t.
“Give me your hand,” Jensen says, using his own to flick open the button of his jeans and draw the zip down quickly.
Misha doesn’t say a word, doesn’t argue or quip, just slips a hand between them straight away.
Jensen guides it under the waistband of his briefs, groaning as Misha’s fingers slide in the pre-come against the over-sensitive head of his cock. And then Misha’s fingers slide past, sliding the wet down and wrap around him. He covers Misha’s hand with his own, setting a rhythm and yet not letting go. The sensory deception of his own pace and Misha’s hand in-between his own and his cock flipping a switch in his brain from ‘masturbation’ to ‘sex’.
It only takes half a moment, the tension building stupidly quick, tightening and pressing outwards. Misha leans into him awkwardly over their arms, bites down on Jensen’s lip and Jensen’s coming, guttural noises falling from him as his come slides through their fingers.
He collapses against him, face pressed hotly into the crook of Misha’s neck. Rides out the echoing shivers and twitches and is vaguely aware of Misha’s free hand sliding gently up and down his spine. Still Misha says nothing, but there’s a veritable hum of contentment coming off his body in waves and they stay there, propping each other up as normalcy threatens to return.
When he can think again, hell, when he can breathe again, he pulls back, regards the peaceful expression in Misha’s eyes and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. It’s strangely intimate, but Misha doesn’t seem to mind, just smiles and shrugs in a ‘sure, why not’ manner.
Jensen pulls the mess of their tangled hands out of his underwear and turns Misha around silently with his other hand to face the kitchenette sink. He layers himself behind him, and flips on the tap. The water is fucking cold, but the come slides off in it, disappears down the drain.
He’s going to have trouble using the sink to refill the coffee pot for at least a week.
Misha’s fingers turn briefly and entwine with his in the frigid water before they squeeze lightly and are gone and Misha’s turning off the water.
They put themselves back together, zipping and buckling. Jensen doesn’t bother cleaning himself up first; he’ll be home soon enough anyway.
They’re silent, but it doesn’t feel strange. Just…comfortable. Which, Jensen supposes, is strange in and of itself. But he’s leaving that one untouched, for the moment.
Misha leans against the countertop, mirroring his position from earlier, more debauched but fully clothed. He smiles gently, easily, at Jensen and finally speaks, “So did you figure me out?”
Jensen chuckles, stretches his arms up over his head, fingers entwined outwards. “Not even close.”
He absolutely notices Misha’s glaze flicker involuntarily to the crescent of skin at Jensen’s waist as his t-shirt rides up with his stretching.
“I’m really not that complicated, you know.” Misha’s smile widens into a toothy grin.
Jensen just raises an eyebrow at him incredulously. “Right.”
Not complicated his ass.
Misha continues to grin, throat now twitching with silent laughter.
“C’mon,” Jensen says, gathering his keys and tomorrow’s script from the counter. “I’ll give you a lift back to yours. I’ll work you out another day.”
Misha just gives him an amused look, holds out Jensen’s coat to him.
He definitely hasn’t figured out who exactly Misha is, he thinks, takes the coat and toes his feet back into his boots, doesn’t bother with the laces. He flips the lights off and follows Misha out the door into the cold.
But he thinks that there’s something calmer, more relaxed, beneath Misha’s overt insanity. And figuring it out just got a lot more interesting.