Fic: Reconciling Hollywood - Jensen/Misha, NC-17 - chapter one
One
May 2010
Halfway through college, when he'd needed a break and an adventure, he had spent twelve months in Nepal and Tibet. It was enlightening in more ways than one, and since then, he has made a point to spend at least two weeks of each year at a silent retreat. It's not the same as doing it halfway up a Himalayan mountain, but it's restorative nonetheless. Usually it's a Buddhist one, but really, it doesn't matter. He's there to be quiet. Very quiet. To relax and let his mind turn off or on as he chooses, but above all, to keep his mouth firmly shut. It just so happens that the Buddhist ones always seem to be the quietest.
Filming wrapped three and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago he was back in LA and two weeks ago he flew to Kentucky. He'd spent the visit in glorious silence; talking to no one, having no one talk to him. No phones, no internet, no twitter. Just him. Well, him and a half dozen monks. But, generally speaking, monks weren't big on the socialising.
Normally, it would have done him the world of good. He's come to rely on those two weeks getting him through the other fifty each year. Being allowed to slough off his masks, personae and commitments and the restless need to be doing and just be. Let his mind wander and sort through its mess of files, wipe away the dust and clutter.
He would come back serene, beatific smile on his face and often with an abundance of energy and the uncrushable need to talk the ear off of the first person who accidentally wandered into his field of vision; pin them down and subject them to his newly rediscovered theories of life the universe and everything.
Except this time.
Now, as he sits in his seat waiting for the plane to refuel - or whatever it is that's making a hundred or so people wait for takeoff for going on 45 minutes after boarding - he doesn't feel serene at all.
In place of the low-level thrum of contentment at his lot in life that would normally be suffusing his blood after a retreat he just feels itchy.
Partly, it's the cheap nylon fabric of the airplane seat that's scratching along his arms every time he moves. Partly, it's the 5 year old in the seat next to him getting sticky red sugar over everything while his indifferent mother nurses a less-sticky baby from the aisle seat and the fact that they've been sitting on the tarmac for the last 45 while jets come and go from the bays next to them.
But he can't even blame the waiting on the feeling of annoyance prickling under his skin. Not honestly, because he's been feeling it since before he unpacked his bags in the spartan stone-floored room that he's called home for the previous two weeks. Hell. Even before that, but he'd thought that was just the yearly need for concentrated solitude.
Apparently not.
Something doesn't feel right. It's been knocking him off kilter since the wrap party, since filming ended and Eric waved and said he'd be in touch. Since Jared clapped him on the shoulder and told him not to get in too much trouble while he was off travelling the world with his new bride, asked him to keep Jensen fed and watered for him. Since Jensen rolled his eyes and said he'd catch up with him over the break.
Misha likes to think he's fairly self-aware. Granted, often he deliberately doesn't analyse things that rock and roll around in his head, but he's still fairly conscious of not thinking about them.
But what's got him slipping from highs to lows, eating at his nerves and slumping his shoulders, he honestly has no idea. He feels unsettled and out of sorts, and everything he looks at is coming through that filter. It's depressing and emo and he doesn't like that he can't shake it. Generally speaking he likes his artistic bouts of depression to be deliberate forays into the accessing of dark emotions. Days of woe and misery and snappish behaviour that only his mother would recognise from teenage years gone by put on like a familiar coat when a little release is required. A little petulance wallowed in for the sake of appreciating the rest. This though, is not deliberate.
And frankly, it's beginning to piss him off.
He'd wandered the gardens of the monastery, sat in quiet cavernous rooms, avoided eye contact and eaten food that, well, food was a generous way to describe it. He'd scribbled in journals and burned the pages in acts of catharsis. He befriended the monastery's marmalade cat. Refused to talk to it when it rubbed up against his shins and pressed a fingertip to its nose when it mewled in a broken sort of way, because rules were rules after all, but he'd snuck it bits of cheese from the dinner table in apology. He mused on the nature of world domination and excess and happiness and all kinds of things Nietzsche would have had problems with.
It should have let his mind unwind, soothed his jangled nerves and uncertain heart. Rejuvenated his joie de vivre. But it didn't. And that unnerves him more than anything.
His mood isn't being helped any by the gnawing hunger in his stomach, mind. He'd gone with a no frills airline to save a little money; by habit more than anything else given that he finally had enough money in the bank to relax a little bit. It meant no food was going to be forthcoming, even if they wouldn't serve anything until they were in the damned air. Sure, he could spend an exorbitant amount of money on a minuscule bag of peanuts, but really, even his hungry stomach won't allow him to just throw money away, although he can afford it.
Misha eyes the plump child next to him as it waves the lollipop around in a dangerous curve of sugary stain.
He wonders what it says about him that he'd sooner consider stealing candy from a baby than pay ten dollars for peanuts.
Probably nothing good.
Biting back a sigh, he turns his gaze out the window and tries to ignore the chatter of increasingly irate passengers around him as he watches the sun shimmer off the tarmac in waves of heat. After two weeks of nothing but his own head, the noises seem sharper and more insidious, ricocheting around his cranium and settling an ache down in the base of his skull. It's all a little too much.
Idly getting his phone out, he taps around the internet for a few, thinks about twitter and in a rare fit of sanity thinks better of twittering his snark out into the world. Which should be a clue as to just how not right he's feeling.
When he gets back to LAX he was planning to just catch a cab, or if there's a wait, the bus. He used to have half the bus routes in LA committed to memory from rambling excursions, auditions and general life. It alarms him that he can't even bring to mind the number of the route he'd get from the airport back to home. When did he lose that?
Fuck it. It's too much and too hard and though it pains him to do it, he finds himself bringing up Jensen's number, sending a text.
misha collins: up wall. candy from bb. taxi = can't be fucked. send driver prty pls? wn645 mci to lax 5:23.
Jensen's driver, and Misha can't even believe that he has something as celebri-bratty as a 'driver,' is actually a pretty good one. Punctual, discrete, quiet. It's the quiet that Misha is focusing on right now. God help him but he doesn't think he can handle having to make small talk with a chatty cab driver. Not after the almost four hours he's going to have to be in the air in a small enclosed cabin of sheer noise. And that's assuming they actually take off sometime in the next century.
His phone vibrates in his hand and the screen lights up with the blue bubble of Jensen's answering text.
jensen ackles: no worries. consider it organised. safe flying and don't eat any babies.
Misha follows through on the sigh this time, relieved that he has one less thing to think about. Plugging his earphones into his iphone he selects music at random and leans back into the seat, wills the time to snap and bend and deliver him to Los Angeles before he can blink.
Somehow, as a cherry-flavoured candy is brought down on his knuckles followed by a delighted high-pitch laugh and a frazzled "David!", he doesn't think it will.
* * *
Exiting the main terminal Misha heads straight for the outside world. All he has is a duffel with his now dirty clothes so there was no need to check any luggage, no need to jostle at the carousel or scrutinize each bag to make sure it was really his. His nerves feel even more frayed, tension jangling down his spine with each step closer to freedom. 'David' had not behaved himself on the flight. And while normally he might try and engage the little human in riddles and puzzles, teach him the importance of a liberal education or celery or some such nonsense, the red sticky film covering his jeans and sleeve had made him disinclined to play nice.
Instead he'd glared at the mother, who it turned out was fairly immune to death glares from random surly strangers given she was dealing with a bratty kid and baby and traveling on her own. She'd just shrugged, what am I going to do?, and turned back to trying to get the baby, currently whimpering on the verge of bawling, to feed. Consequently, the last 3 and half hours Misha would really really like to forget. Or possibly drown in a haze of alcohol.
The light of Los Angeles is bright, even in the wavering afternoon sun, a solid wall of white encroaches into the gloom inside. Misha shields his eyes with a cupped palm, gaze searching for the black town car and suited driver.
He can't see it, or him, and he can already feel his blood pressure nudging up a notch when he glances right once more and sees Jensen instead, leaning casually against his dark blue SUV in the pick-up/drop-off lane.
Not what he was expecting.
What the hell? The idea was for someone to pick him up so that he didn't have to interact. He can already feel his inner brat aching to lash out and wound, despite the fact that all that has happened is that someone has done him a favour. It wasn't one he asked for.
Misha carefully schools his face into poker blank, smiles tightly as he approaches. Jensen's smile is wide and lazy in comparison.
"Hey," Misha says when he's close enough for Jensen to hear. "What happened to your guy?"
Jensen shrugs lightly, still smiling. He pushes off the car and offers out a hand to take the bag slung across Misha's shoulder. "Had another engagement, thought I'd save him the trouble of calling around. How was your trip?"
"Um, yeah good," Misha says, momentarily thrown by the change in plans. He lets Jensen take his bag, watches him throw it in the back seat and open the drivers side door. With a shake to bring himself back to reality - because really, Jensen picking him up is not something that should fucking throw him - he steps forward, opens the car door and hitches himself up into the seat.
Jensen pulls out into the stream of cabs and traffic inching towards the exit, fumbles in the glove compartment and pulls out a pair of sunglasses to slip on. Misha wishes he had his with him.
"You really didn't have to pick me up. I would have gotten a cab."
Jensen snorts, glances at him but Misha can't tell what his expression is beneath the mirror of the lenses. "And have your pretty ass all pissy at me for the whole summer?"
Misha lets his lip curl in a wry smile. "So really, it was just because you're a selfish prick who doesn't have Jared as entertainment for the summer?"
This time Jensen grins. "Pretty much."
"Lucky me," Misha retorts, does a passable job at keeping the sarcasm out of his tone. He turns his gaze out the window, watches the industrial wasteland blur past the window. Welcome to LA.
He waits for Jensen to say something. Defend considering Misha a bff-sidekick-replacement while Jared tours the Andes or Vesuvius or whatever the fuck he was doing. Question him further about the trip. Start yammering on about the latest call from Jared or, fuck, talk about how he separates his lights from his darks for all Misha knows. He really doesn't give a crap what the talk is, he just knows he doesn't want to do it.
But strangely, Jensen remains silent. And it's not even uncomfortable. Jensen seems happy to play chauffeur, navigate the freeways and smog, happily eating up the road, one hand on the wheel, fingers tapping lightly, the other resting loosely on the gearshift.
Misha's surprised, and kind of grateful.
He leans his head back against the headrest and dozes in the afternoon sun.
When he blinks his eyes open again he's outside his own house and Jensen's hand is warm on his wrist, softly waking him with a tap.
"Go get some rest, man. You look beat," Jensen says gently. His sunglasses have migrated to the top of his head and Jensen's eyes are a dark olive in the fading light.
Misha can only nod in agreement, he reaches between the seats and hauls his bag over.
Tugging the door handle open though he pauses, blinks sleepily at Jensen, back-lit by the orange-tinged smog sunset. He gestures with a wave at the steering wheel. "Thanks for the ride. Sorry I went narcoleptic on you."
Jensen smiles, doesn't seem in the least bit put out. "Hey, you needed a lift, not a sparring partner."
Misha wipes a hand down over his mouth, tries to pull alertness into his fading muscles. "Still... appreciate it."
He nods one last time and unfolds himself out of the car, watches as Jensen reverses back into the street, one arm over the passenger seat as he twists for a better view. It's not until the brake lights slow at the end of Misha's street that he realises he's still standing there, watching Jensen leave.
* * *
chapter two
May 2010
Halfway through college, when he'd needed a break and an adventure, he had spent twelve months in Nepal and Tibet. It was enlightening in more ways than one, and since then, he has made a point to spend at least two weeks of each year at a silent retreat. It's not the same as doing it halfway up a Himalayan mountain, but it's restorative nonetheless. Usually it's a Buddhist one, but really, it doesn't matter. He's there to be quiet. Very quiet. To relax and let his mind turn off or on as he chooses, but above all, to keep his mouth firmly shut. It just so happens that the Buddhist ones always seem to be the quietest.
Filming wrapped three and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago he was back in LA and two weeks ago he flew to Kentucky. He'd spent the visit in glorious silence; talking to no one, having no one talk to him. No phones, no internet, no twitter. Just him. Well, him and a half dozen monks. But, generally speaking, monks weren't big on the socialising.
Normally, it would have done him the world of good. He's come to rely on those two weeks getting him through the other fifty each year. Being allowed to slough off his masks, personae and commitments and the restless need to be doing and just be. Let his mind wander and sort through its mess of files, wipe away the dust and clutter.
He would come back serene, beatific smile on his face and often with an abundance of energy and the uncrushable need to talk the ear off of the first person who accidentally wandered into his field of vision; pin them down and subject them to his newly rediscovered theories of life the universe and everything.
Except this time.
Now, as he sits in his seat waiting for the plane to refuel - or whatever it is that's making a hundred or so people wait for takeoff for going on 45 minutes after boarding - he doesn't feel serene at all.
In place of the low-level thrum of contentment at his lot in life that would normally be suffusing his blood after a retreat he just feels itchy.
Partly, it's the cheap nylon fabric of the airplane seat that's scratching along his arms every time he moves. Partly, it's the 5 year old in the seat next to him getting sticky red sugar over everything while his indifferent mother nurses a less-sticky baby from the aisle seat and the fact that they've been sitting on the tarmac for the last 45 while jets come and go from the bays next to them.
But he can't even blame the waiting on the feeling of annoyance prickling under his skin. Not honestly, because he's been feeling it since before he unpacked his bags in the spartan stone-floored room that he's called home for the previous two weeks. Hell. Even before that, but he'd thought that was just the yearly need for concentrated solitude.
Apparently not.
Something doesn't feel right. It's been knocking him off kilter since the wrap party, since filming ended and Eric waved and said he'd be in touch. Since Jared clapped him on the shoulder and told him not to get in too much trouble while he was off travelling the world with his new bride, asked him to keep Jensen fed and watered for him. Since Jensen rolled his eyes and said he'd catch up with him over the break.
Misha likes to think he's fairly self-aware. Granted, often he deliberately doesn't analyse things that rock and roll around in his head, but he's still fairly conscious of not thinking about them.
But what's got him slipping from highs to lows, eating at his nerves and slumping his shoulders, he honestly has no idea. He feels unsettled and out of sorts, and everything he looks at is coming through that filter. It's depressing and emo and he doesn't like that he can't shake it. Generally speaking he likes his artistic bouts of depression to be deliberate forays into the accessing of dark emotions. Days of woe and misery and snappish behaviour that only his mother would recognise from teenage years gone by put on like a familiar coat when a little release is required. A little petulance wallowed in for the sake of appreciating the rest. This though, is not deliberate.
And frankly, it's beginning to piss him off.
He'd wandered the gardens of the monastery, sat in quiet cavernous rooms, avoided eye contact and eaten food that, well, food was a generous way to describe it. He'd scribbled in journals and burned the pages in acts of catharsis. He befriended the monastery's marmalade cat. Refused to talk to it when it rubbed up against his shins and pressed a fingertip to its nose when it mewled in a broken sort of way, because rules were rules after all, but he'd snuck it bits of cheese from the dinner table in apology. He mused on the nature of world domination and excess and happiness and all kinds of things Nietzsche would have had problems with.
It should have let his mind unwind, soothed his jangled nerves and uncertain heart. Rejuvenated his joie de vivre. But it didn't. And that unnerves him more than anything.
His mood isn't being helped any by the gnawing hunger in his stomach, mind. He'd gone with a no frills airline to save a little money; by habit more than anything else given that he finally had enough money in the bank to relax a little bit. It meant no food was going to be forthcoming, even if they wouldn't serve anything until they were in the damned air. Sure, he could spend an exorbitant amount of money on a minuscule bag of peanuts, but really, even his hungry stomach won't allow him to just throw money away, although he can afford it.
Misha eyes the plump child next to him as it waves the lollipop around in a dangerous curve of sugary stain.
He wonders what it says about him that he'd sooner consider stealing candy from a baby than pay ten dollars for peanuts.
Probably nothing good.
Biting back a sigh, he turns his gaze out the window and tries to ignore the chatter of increasingly irate passengers around him as he watches the sun shimmer off the tarmac in waves of heat. After two weeks of nothing but his own head, the noises seem sharper and more insidious, ricocheting around his cranium and settling an ache down in the base of his skull. It's all a little too much.
Idly getting his phone out, he taps around the internet for a few, thinks about twitter and in a rare fit of sanity thinks better of twittering his snark out into the world. Which should be a clue as to just how not right he's feeling.
When he gets back to LAX he was planning to just catch a cab, or if there's a wait, the bus. He used to have half the bus routes in LA committed to memory from rambling excursions, auditions and general life. It alarms him that he can't even bring to mind the number of the route he'd get from the airport back to home. When did he lose that?
Fuck it. It's too much and too hard and though it pains him to do it, he finds himself bringing up Jensen's number, sending a text.
misha collins: up wall. candy from bb. taxi = can't be fucked. send driver prty pls? wn645 mci to lax 5:23.
Jensen's driver, and Misha can't even believe that he has something as celebri-bratty as a 'driver,' is actually a pretty good one. Punctual, discrete, quiet. It's the quiet that Misha is focusing on right now. God help him but he doesn't think he can handle having to make small talk with a chatty cab driver. Not after the almost four hours he's going to have to be in the air in a small enclosed cabin of sheer noise. And that's assuming they actually take off sometime in the next century.
His phone vibrates in his hand and the screen lights up with the blue bubble of Jensen's answering text.
jensen ackles: no worries. consider it organised. safe flying and don't eat any babies.
Misha follows through on the sigh this time, relieved that he has one less thing to think about. Plugging his earphones into his iphone he selects music at random and leans back into the seat, wills the time to snap and bend and deliver him to Los Angeles before he can blink.
Somehow, as a cherry-flavoured candy is brought down on his knuckles followed by a delighted high-pitch laugh and a frazzled "David!", he doesn't think it will.
* * *
Exiting the main terminal Misha heads straight for the outside world. All he has is a duffel with his now dirty clothes so there was no need to check any luggage, no need to jostle at the carousel or scrutinize each bag to make sure it was really his. His nerves feel even more frayed, tension jangling down his spine with each step closer to freedom. 'David' had not behaved himself on the flight. And while normally he might try and engage the little human in riddles and puzzles, teach him the importance of a liberal education or celery or some such nonsense, the red sticky film covering his jeans and sleeve had made him disinclined to play nice.
Instead he'd glared at the mother, who it turned out was fairly immune to death glares from random surly strangers given she was dealing with a bratty kid and baby and traveling on her own. She'd just shrugged, what am I going to do?, and turned back to trying to get the baby, currently whimpering on the verge of bawling, to feed. Consequently, the last 3 and half hours Misha would really really like to forget. Or possibly drown in a haze of alcohol.
The light of Los Angeles is bright, even in the wavering afternoon sun, a solid wall of white encroaches into the gloom inside. Misha shields his eyes with a cupped palm, gaze searching for the black town car and suited driver.
He can't see it, or him, and he can already feel his blood pressure nudging up a notch when he glances right once more and sees Jensen instead, leaning casually against his dark blue SUV in the pick-up/drop-off lane.
Not what he was expecting.
What the hell? The idea was for someone to pick him up so that he didn't have to interact. He can already feel his inner brat aching to lash out and wound, despite the fact that all that has happened is that someone has done him a favour. It wasn't one he asked for.
Misha carefully schools his face into poker blank, smiles tightly as he approaches. Jensen's smile is wide and lazy in comparison.
"Hey," Misha says when he's close enough for Jensen to hear. "What happened to your guy?"
Jensen shrugs lightly, still smiling. He pushes off the car and offers out a hand to take the bag slung across Misha's shoulder. "Had another engagement, thought I'd save him the trouble of calling around. How was your trip?"
"Um, yeah good," Misha says, momentarily thrown by the change in plans. He lets Jensen take his bag, watches him throw it in the back seat and open the drivers side door. With a shake to bring himself back to reality - because really, Jensen picking him up is not something that should fucking throw him - he steps forward, opens the car door and hitches himself up into the seat.
Jensen pulls out into the stream of cabs and traffic inching towards the exit, fumbles in the glove compartment and pulls out a pair of sunglasses to slip on. Misha wishes he had his with him.
"You really didn't have to pick me up. I would have gotten a cab."
Jensen snorts, glances at him but Misha can't tell what his expression is beneath the mirror of the lenses. "And have your pretty ass all pissy at me for the whole summer?"
Misha lets his lip curl in a wry smile. "So really, it was just because you're a selfish prick who doesn't have Jared as entertainment for the summer?"
This time Jensen grins. "Pretty much."
"Lucky me," Misha retorts, does a passable job at keeping the sarcasm out of his tone. He turns his gaze out the window, watches the industrial wasteland blur past the window. Welcome to LA.
He waits for Jensen to say something. Defend considering Misha a bff-sidekick-replacement while Jared tours the Andes or Vesuvius or whatever the fuck he was doing. Question him further about the trip. Start yammering on about the latest call from Jared or, fuck, talk about how he separates his lights from his darks for all Misha knows. He really doesn't give a crap what the talk is, he just knows he doesn't want to do it.
But strangely, Jensen remains silent. And it's not even uncomfortable. Jensen seems happy to play chauffeur, navigate the freeways and smog, happily eating up the road, one hand on the wheel, fingers tapping lightly, the other resting loosely on the gearshift.
Misha's surprised, and kind of grateful.
He leans his head back against the headrest and dozes in the afternoon sun.
When he blinks his eyes open again he's outside his own house and Jensen's hand is warm on his wrist, softly waking him with a tap.
"Go get some rest, man. You look beat," Jensen says gently. His sunglasses have migrated to the top of his head and Jensen's eyes are a dark olive in the fading light.
Misha can only nod in agreement, he reaches between the seats and hauls his bag over.
Tugging the door handle open though he pauses, blinks sleepily at Jensen, back-lit by the orange-tinged smog sunset. He gestures with a wave at the steering wheel. "Thanks for the ride. Sorry I went narcoleptic on you."
Jensen smiles, doesn't seem in the least bit put out. "Hey, you needed a lift, not a sparring partner."
Misha wipes a hand down over his mouth, tries to pull alertness into his fading muscles. "Still... appreciate it."
He nods one last time and unfolds himself out of the car, watches as Jensen reverses back into the street, one arm over the passenger seat as he twists for a better view. It's not until the brake lights slow at the end of Misha's street that he realises he's still standing there, watching Jensen leave.
* * *
chapter two