posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rockstarpeach at 11:28pm on 02/11/2012 under character: jared, character: jensen, character: misha, the first time
rockstarpeach at 11:28pm on 02/11/2012 under character: jared, character: jensen, character: misha, the first timeTitle: I Called You Sweetheart
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Jensen/Misha, implied Misha/Sebastian Roche, slight Jensen/Jared (mostly friendship)
Summary: Jensen and Misha were high school sweethearts, now they’re college sweethearts and they’re well on their way to being sweethearts through finishing grad school, to joining the workforce, to becoming little old men, screaming at kids to get off their lawn. A few weeks ago, though, Jensen messed up. Big time. He let flattery and curiosity and base desire get the better of him and he crossed a line. He cheated.
Now he has to deal with the repercussions of what he’s done, and the possibility that Misha might not be as able to forgive him as he’d hoped.
MASTERPOST
“Maybe you were right.”
It’s been two weeks since they had sex and they’ve barely even spoken since then, so Jensen can’t really imagine what it is he was right about. Maybe Misha finally thinks they should spring for that widescreen HD TV Jensen’s been telling him they need for years now, but Jensen kind of doubts it.
“About?” Jensen asks. His breath catches and his chest gets tight when Misha grabs the remote off the coffee table and hits pause, Paul Newman frozen with his yoyo raised high overhead, ready to swing. Whatever it is, it’s serious then, which at the moment can’t possibly be a good thing.
Cool Hand Luke has been one of Jensen’s favourite movies since he first watched it with Misha back in tenth grade, but he has a sinking feeling he won’t be able to watch it again, after tonight.
“About us,” Misha answers, putting the remote back down on the table. He sits back on the couch, settles in a little further from Jensen than he was before. “We’ve been together since we were kids and maybe you were right, maybe we just… got comfortable. Maybe we need some… I don’t know, space? Time? Something.”
“What?” Jensen asks, because seriously, what? He’s pretty sure he’d remember saying something like that. Because that sounds pretty much exactly like a break-up speech, not that he’s had one directed at him before. Still. That’s what they sound like in books and movies and he’s damn sure that he’d never in a million years suggest that he and Misha break up. Fuck.
“What you did…” Misha starts.
“What I did was wrong, Misha. A huge fucking mistake, that’s it. It wasn’t… I was wrong.”
Misha tilts his head a smiles a crooked smile.
“Maybe it was what you needed. Jensen…” he sighs and his voice is strained, like maybe this is as hard for Misha to say as it is for Jensen to hear. “I feel like maybe this was your way of telling me you need to see what else is out there. I feel like… Like I didn’t give you the chance to grow on your own. Like I wanted you and I won you and now I’m all you’ve ever known and maybe that’s the only reason you’re still with me.”
“No, that’s not…” Jensen starts, but Misha just talks right over him.
“And now I’m wondering if I didn’t give me the chance to see who I would be, on my own. I think maybe we could both do with a break. A chance to breathe.”
Except Jensen can’t breathe, suddenly. The prospect of not being with Misha, of not seeing him every day and coming home to him every night, of Misha out there, dating other people… It makes him sick, makes the air heavy and sticky and he has to fight to get it into his lungs. Being away from Misha won’t help him breathe at all. It will suffocate him.
“Misha, no. Don’t. Please don’t. I love you.” He knows he sounds desperate, his voice cracked. His fingers are digging into his thighs so hard his knuckles turn white. He doesn’t care.
“I love you, too,” Misha tells him with a slight, sad smile. “But I think this will be good for us.”
“No. It…”
“Jensen,” Misha cuts him off again and Jensen’s mouth snaps shut. “This is what I need right now.”
It takes all the strength Jensen has in him, including some he didn’t even know about, not too keep arguing, not to tackle Misha and tie him up and make him stay. It’s what Misha needs. And Jensen can be one selfish son of a bitch on occasion, but he’s not lying when he tells Misha he loves him.
And no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much Jensen knows Misha is wrong, when Misha tells Jensen he needs something, Jensen will give it to him. His heart, his body, the right side of the bedroom closet and first choice in colours when they play RISK. He’ll give him anything, even this.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” Jensen tells him, because even though he’s lost, he can’t just keep his mouth shut. He’s not that graceful.
“Maybe,” Misha doesn’t quite agree. “But I owe it to myself to find out.”
And Jensen… Jensen can’t disagree with that, much as he wants to. He doesn’t say anything, stays quiet for long enough that Misha knows the conversation is over.
“I’ll go pack,” Misha says. “I’ll stay with Justin for a while, I think.”
Jensen just nods, watches dumbly as Misha stands and walks down the hall, blinks when he hears the bedroom door shut behind him. It’s another minute or two before Jensen picks up the remote and turns the movie back on.
Paul swings and Jensen flinches.
***
In the end, it’s Jensen who moves out.
He figures he’s the one that should leave, given he’s the one who broke them.
He stays with Mike.
He doesn’t have much of a choice, really. He doesn’t have a lot of friends. Not close ones, anyway. Not friends he’d want to spill his guts to, admit to why it is he’s suddenly homeless. He’s not like Misha.
But he’s known Mike since his first year in Columbus and Mike’s a good guy. Besides Misha, Jensen has only had a handful of what he’d consider to be really good friends. Mainly Rob and Julie, back in high school, Lenny, when he was a kid. There were a couple of guys from the football team a few years ago he really came to care about, and there’s Mike.
There’s a reason Mike makes the short list.
He doesn’t even ask why Jensen needs to crash on his couch, just gives him an extra key and a commiserating hug and tells Jensen to make himself at home.
Jensen doesn’t.
He sleeps lightly and he doesn’t unpack the one duffle bag he brought with him and he doesn’t buy any groceries. He eats out and he does laundry every four days and he spends more time at the library than he ever did before. Misha said he needed a break, he didn’t say he wanted to break up. There’s a very distinct difference and whatever Misha needs at the moment, whatever he needs to get out of his system, Jensen plans on making Misha his again.
He can’t make himself at home here, or anywhere else. His hands are tied.
Misha is home.
***
Misha’s phone goes straight to voicemail, all three times he tries to call.
It’s not surprising. One week apart probably isn’t the time and space Misha said he needed, but Jensen has to try.
***
Sixteen days since he started bunking with Mike, and Jensen lets himself get dragged to a Delta Phi party by a few of the guys in his physiology class.
It’s not his usual scene, not at all, but Mike can be persuasive after a few beers. Besides, it’s the first day of Christmas break and he needs some fun, something to distract him and get his thoughts on anything that’s not his broken heart. And anywhere frat boys are getting hammered is somewhere you can pretty much guarantee Misha will not be.
He feels dull when he stands next to the keg and asks the guy with ridiculously perfect teeth for a drink. He drinks it in one long pull before he hands back the empty plastic cup and asks for another.
They guy smiles, tells him “That’s the spirit!”, claps him on the back and hands him two more.
He wanders around for a while and gives one of his new drinks to Brian, who joined the football team the last year Jensen was on it. Jensen hates small talk, but he’s good at it, so he talks about classes and the weather and asks how the team is holding up. Brian talks about his plans for Christmas and asks if Jensen is still queer, then immediately looks horrified.
“Shit, man,” he apologises. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just, there are some quality honeys here tonight, so I could hook you up. I mean, if you’re into that.”
Jensen barely resists rolling his eyes. Most people have always just assumed that Jensen is gay because Misha is the only one he’s ever been with. Truth is, Jensen experimented a little when he was a teenager and it’s become even more clear over the years that girls do it for him, too.
And while he doesn’t hide that fact, he doesn’t make a point of advertising it, either. What would be the point?
“Thanks, I’m good,” Jensen tells him, instead and heads off in search of his third drink.
Later, there’s a girl with dark brown hair and a stark red tank that shares her mickey of red label with him on one of the couches. She tells him how she wants to work with Doctors Without Borders, once she finishes med school and he listens quietly while her breasts rub lightly, accidentally-on-purpose against his arm.
She’s pretty, sweet. She’s warm when he leans closer and she smiles at him and her fingers dance over his thigh. She wants him. He’s lightheaded and it feels good.
He kisses her.
It’s nice.
He hasn’t thought about Misha in almost an hour.
Except, now he has, so he tells her his friends are waiting for him and leaves her with a lopsided smile and kiss to her forehead.
There’s another girl sometime in the night, with blond hair tied up in a bun and she doesn’t give the impression she’s drinking any booze at all, but she sits in Jensen’s lap and lets his hand wander under her skirt a little too high.
He doesn’t really know what he’s doing. This isn’t him. He’s never been the guy who drunkenly fucks around with strangers at parties. He’s never had the chance. And maybe that was kind of Misha’s point. They need to see who Jensen and Misha are when they’re not Jensen and Misha. Jensen doesn’t like it so far.
There’s a cute guy with black hair that catches Jensen’s eye when he comes out of the bathroom and Jensen’s pretty sure he could get him on his back by the end of the night. He’s a little tipsy and he misses Misha like fuck and he’s seriously considering it because Misha’s probably off somewhere doing the same and Jensen’s hating himself almost about enough that a cheap hookup sounds like a good idea at the moment. But someone taps him on the shoulder and when he turns around he loses eye contact with the guy.
And just like that, screwing around with someone who isn’t Misha seems like the worst idea ever. It’s kinda funny, he figures, when he sees who’s standing behind him.
“Jared,” he says, snorting a little. He hasn’t seen Jared since… Yeah. He was kind of hoping to never run into him again. He doesn’t want to make the guy feel any more uncomfortable than he already has. “Shit. I’m sorry. I can leave, if you want.”
“I’m that disgusting?” Jared asks, eyebrow cocked and mouth turned up at the corner. He’s teasing. Jared’s teasing him. Like they do that. Like they’re friends or something, which is so far from the case it’s not even funny.
“No!” Jensen answers. “God, no. Just… I know we didn’t exactly part on the best terms.”
Actually, Jared was remarkably cool about the whole thing. He was pissed as hell at Jensen – of course he fucking was. Jensen led Jared on. Unintentionally, perhaps, but he did it. And when Jared pushed for more, Jensen didn’t stop him, not when it mattered. And he did it all without ever telling Jared he had a boyfriend.
But Jared didn’t make any trouble for him; a fact for which Jensen is eternally grateful. Even if it might have ended up costing him Misha, at least he still has a job.
“Yeah,” Jared says, ducks his head and fucking blushes, Jesus Christ. The world is wholly unfair to Jensen. Turns out, after everything, he’s still attracted to the guy.
“So how was… I mean… You look good.”
Jensen laughs.
He can’t help it. He doesn’t even think he should help it, because it’s a funny fucking thing. Jensen looks good. He feels terrible.
“It uh… It didn’t work out like I wanted,” Jensen says, shakes his empty cup and looks around quickly to exchange it for a full one, but doesn’t find anything nearby. Which is a good thing, really. He should probably stop drinking. “Shockingly enough.”
“Yeah,” Jared agrees, but he doesn’t go on. It’s big of him, Jensen figures. Because Jared has a fuckin’ barrel full, here. If anyone was in a position to tell Jensen just exactly how much he deserves what he’s gotten, and if anyone ever had the moral high ground over him, it’s Jared, now.
“You want to get out of here?” Jared asks, and Jensen doesn’t really know what to say to that.
“I really don’t think…”
“Not like that!” Jared says, pulling a face. “Dude, please. I’m completely over you.” Jensen smiles a little at that. He hopes so. “I just… You look like you could use a friend.”
“That bad, huh?” Jensen asks. He pictures the bags under his eyes and rubs a hand over his stomach to smooth out the wrinkles he knows are all over his shirt. His other hand combs through his hair to flatten down the disarray of tufts and spikes. He showered this morning, but it’s been days since he’s styled it. Jared was lying; he obviously looks like hell.
Jared’s smile gets a little smaller.
“Nah, not really. You look good, like I said. Just a little… out of place.”
Jensen can’t really argue with that, so they go. A coffee shop down the road and Jensen buys them each a hot chocolate and a raised maple. Jared looks at him a little funny but he smiles and digs in and Jensen feels like an asshole for buying Jared Misha’s favourite.
“So I’m getting my little sister a pair of skis for Christmas,” Jared starts. His mouth is full and his bottom lip is dotted with candied maple and Jensen grins along with him. He hasn’t given much thought to Christmas yet, but Jared’s excitement is infectious. “They’re used, but the guy I’m getting them from says they’re really good and my sister has always wanted a pair of her own. Her friend has a pass for this place up north and my sister always wants to go…”
Jensen settles into his seat and he listens to Jared talk.
For the first time in a long time, Jensen shakes off all his bullshit. For the first time in a long time, Jensen means it when he smiles.
He doesn’t know Jared well, hasn’t known Jared long, but Jensen thinks he might soon be adding one more to his very short list of friends.
***
Two days later, Jensen heads home for Christmas. For a split second he wonders if Misha gassed up the car or whether they’ll get to stop at the gas station along the way with the really awesome microwave burritos. But then he remembers that their car is really Misha’s car, and it’s back at their apartment with Misha, and Misha is probably planning on driving home to Cicero without him. If he hasn’t already.
He wants to call and ask, but he’s already called Misha six times since he moved out and if Misha wanted to talk to him, he’d have answered by now.
It’s the twenty-first and he’s already done all his Christmas shopping – started and finished it yesterday – so he tosses the gifts in his suitcase and hops on a bus. There’s a PS3 controller and a 3D copy of Terminator for his brother, Ben. There’s a gift certificate for a weekend at a Niagara Falls hotel for his parents and there’s a copy of A Clockwork Orange on DVD for Rob and the latest Game of Thrones book for Julie. There’s something there for Misha, too, something he bought months ago, but it’s hidden under his laundry and it’s entirely possible it’ll stay that way.
When the bus turns north on I65, Jensen gets a text from Misha asking if he needs a ride home. Jensen laughs a little and texts back Thanks, I’m good. He hesitates for a minute before he adds I miss you. He figures that’s not too pathetic. Misha contacted him, offered to spend hours in a car with him, alone. That’s a good sign, right?
He doesn’t hear anything back from Misha after that, but that’s okay.
His parents hug him when he gets home, Ben too. Ben’s fiancée isn’t coming until Christmas day, so for now, it’s just the four of them. It hasn’t been just the four of them in years, and it would be better if Misha was around, absolutely, but it’s also kind of nice.
For three whole days, Jensen has nothing to do but sleep in and watch cartoons and play Call of Duty with his brother. For three days he does nothing but sleep in and watch cartoons and play Call of Duty with his brother, and his fingers kind of itch every time he looks at his cell phone. He hasn’t called Misha, Misha hasn’t called him and it’s starting to make him a little twitchy. On the fourth day, on Christmas Eve, after he gets home from lunch with Rob and Julie, his parents call him on it.
“Jensen,” his mother says, over peanut butter cookies after his brother fucks off to do some last minute shopping. “Isn’t Misha going to stop by?”
“We’ve got a gift for him,” Jensen’s dad adds. “But we can return it, if…”
Jensen’s mom elbows him in the side and sends him a scowl and Jensen snorts. It’s not funny, but it sort of is. His dad likes Misha, always has, and he’s never been anything but supportive. But no matter how hard he tries, he can never quite hide the fact that he’d be happier if Jensen was with a girl.
“No, mom, it…” Jensen says. He stops and bites his lip and fuck, he can’t believe he’s about to cry, here in front of his parents. He swallows down the tears and tries again. “I mean, yeah. We’re kind of… on hiatus. But don’t go returning anything. It’s not like that.”
“Jensen, if you need to talk about…”
“Mom, seriously. We’re... Can you just leave it for now? Please?”
“Of course, baby,” his mom says. His dad doesn’t say anything, just stands and puts his hand on Jensen’s shoulder, but it speaks a hell of a lot.
***
“Want me to kick his ass?” his brother asks later on, seemingly out of nowhere, after their parents have gone to bed for the night.
It’s Christmas already, just past midnight. They’re sitting on the couch in front of the tree, eating the cookies they still put out for Santa. Last year, the year before, every year since twelfth grade, Misha was here with them.
“You know,” Ben goes on. “It could be my Christmas present to you. Since I was too cheap to get you a real one.”
“Asshole,” Jensen mumbles, slamming his fist into Ben’s thigh. He’s smiling though; he can’t help it. His family is really pretty great. Jensen sort of hates them for being so cool about it.
They’d probably be acting very differently if they knew the truth. They sure as hell wouldn’t be on his side if he admitted to them that he’s a lying, cheating bastard. That it’s all his fault Misha can’t stand to look at him right now.
He knows he doesn’t deserve their support in this, but he wants it anyway. He’s never felt this alone before and he really kind of needs them right now. Besides, he’s still sort hoping that if he doesn’t talk about anything out loud, it won’t be true.
“Nah. He’d probably win.”
“Oh, ouch,” Ben says, feigning insult. “Just for that…”
Then he twists around and lunges, grabs Jensen’s wrist in his hand and leans in to lick the side of the cookie he’s been holding.
“You fucker!” Jensen laughs and bends forward, goes for the three cookies remaining on the coffee table in front of them. Ben beats him there, though and picks up the plate, shovelling all three into his mouth at once.
“Ha!” he says, peanut butter crumbs and chunks of chocolate flying out and spilling all over his lap and the couch. And the brand new carpet his parents just put down a month ago. He looks pretty pleased with himself, for a dead man.
“Mom’s gonna kill you,” Jensen says with a smirk, looking down at the floor. Ben follows his line of sight and his eyes go wide when he realises he’s stepped on a piece of chocolate and ground it into the cream-coloured fibres.
“Fwwf!” he mumbles and some more crumbs fall. He spits the half-chewed cookies back out onto the plate and tries again. “Shit. Dude, Mom’s gonna kill me.”
Jensen rolls his eyes, but Ben just looks so damn horrified that he takes pity.
“I’ll get the vacuum,” he says as he stands, careful not to step on any more crumbs. “You get the soap.”
***
Nobody asks him where he’s going when he leaves the house right after Christmas supper, two sugar cookies tucked into his side coat pocket and a small package wrapped in shiny purple slotted into the inside. He stops by the corner store and buys two cups of hot chocolate, brown plastic lids fitted tightly over orange paper. They help keep his hands warm in the chill.
Hooper’s makes some damn good hot chocolate, and him and Misha have been going there for years, even in the summer. It’s close to Misha’s house and Mrs. Hooper always gives them two for one, because she thinks they’re cute.
The walk from the store to Misha’s place isn’t nearly as long as he remembers it being and he’s standing on the sidewalk at the edge of the driveway before he’s really ready for it.
He takes a dozen more steps and then spends a full minute kicking at the chipped ice patch outside the Collins’ front walk before the curtains flutter and Jensen knows he’s been spotted.
“Shit,” he curses, because that means he can’t chicken out now, can’t turn around and go back home. He doesn’t want to chicken out, just… now he can’t and that’s fucking with him. This whole situation is fucking with him. He’s nervous. He’s actually fucking nervous to knock on Misha’s front door. He hasn’t been nervous around Misha since he was sixteen years old and awkwardly fumbling his way through his first blow job.
God, nothing makes any fucking sense, anymore. He wonders if it’s normal to feel this way, like there’s something important he’s forgetting about, like everything seems backwards and completely unreal. Like everything he needs to make things right again is just a few feet away, but it’s thick and fuzzy, like a dream, like he can’t quite reach it. This can’t be his life, now.
He makes his way up the steps to the front porch and just as he lifts his foot to kick at the door (no, he wasn’t raised in a barn, but his hands are full) it opens wide from the inside.
“Jensen,” Misha greets. His voice isn’t warm, not really and he’s not smiling, but his eyes are happy. If you didn’t know him like Jensen does you wouldn’t be able to tell, but they’re happy. Misha is happy to see him. It’s a good start.
Jensen holds up one hand, shows Misha the dark orange paper cup with the brown lid and cocks his head.
“You want to go for a walk?”
Misha’s mouth turns up at the corner. A smile. An honest to God smile, but it’s gone even faster than it formed.
“Uh, sure,” Misha answers. He takes a few seconds to throw on a coat and a hat and a pair of boots and then he steps outside and follows Jensen down the steps to the sidewalk.
“Mrs. Hooper give you the discount?” he asks, when Jensen hands him the hot chocolate. Jensen grunts in answer and passes Misha one of the cookies from his pocket, wrapped in a napkin and decorated in green frosting.
Misha smiles down at it, doesn’t look at Jensen but unconsciously steps a little closer. It looks like he’s remembering, thinking about last year and the year before and every year before. That’s not exactly what Jensen wants – he doesn’t want Misha to be with him because that’s the way it’s always been any more than Misha wants Jensen that way – but for now, he’ll take it.
“Thank you,” Misha finally says.
“My mom made it,” Jensen tells him, shrugging off the thanks.
“But you decorated it,” Misha says. “I can tell, because the star crosses at the bottom, not the top.”
“Just eat it.”
They walk for a few minutes, straight line, shoulder to shoulder and then Jensen hears a crunch as Misha bites down, and he grins.
There’s not really anywhere for them to go, not on Christmas night, so they take a left at the corner and wind up in the park. There’s a bench by the sandbox that isn’t too much trouble to wipe off with one of the mittens Misha pulls from his pocket, and they wordlessly agree to sit. There’s a light fall of snow over everything, some tiny footprints leading from the bottom of the slide to the swings and the blanket of snow on the field is sort of randomly kicked up and trampled.
There’s a faint glow from the streetlights that’s shadowed by the gold and silver garland strung around them. It sets a brilliant reflection off the blue tinsel snowmen stuck to the bases and casts a warm light over the nearby ground.
It’s pretty, quiet and wonderful in a way that makes Jensen a little more sad.
Jensen lasts about five minutes before he gives up and speaks first. Not that it’s a competition, just. Whatever. He’s never been good at uncomfortable silence and Misha knows that. Wouldn’t kill the guy to throw Jensen a bone here, but Jensen knows that it’s entirely and completely up to him to make things better.
“Fuckin’ freezing out here,” Jensen says, rubbing his hands together. That’s not really what he wants to say, but he’s only wearing a thin jacket and scarf and he hadn’t bothered with gloves. He’s starting to regret that.
“It is,” Misha agrees. “Jensen… what are we doing here?”
Good question. He knows it’s too soon, knows that Misha’s not ready to take him back yet. He’s had plenty of opportunity to let Jensen know, if that was what he wanted. No, the truth is, Jensen’s been going crazy, his skin doesn’t fit anymore, he sort of randomly forgets to do things like go to work and brush his teeth and being close to Misha again is the only thing that makes anything better.
No, he figures, feeling this way isn’t normal. It’s unhealthy and scary and bordering on co-dependent obsession, but sitting next to Misha again, he doesn’t care. The possibility that he could lose Misha forever freaks him the fuck out. He needs him back, the sooner the better.
“I got you…” Jensen starts, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket to pull out Misha’s gift. There’s a red bow on the purple paper, crinkled and flattened, and the corners of the tiny, rectangular box are scuffed. He hands it to Misha and lets his fingertips linger over Misha’s for as long as he can before Misha pulls back.
“Merry Christmas,” he says. “It’s not much, but…”
“It’s tickets to the Habitat for Humanity dinner in February,” Misha says, without even opening the box. He’s been talking about it since the dinner last February.
“Fuckin’ creepy how you can do that,” Jensen grumbles. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Thank you, Jensen,” Misha says. “Really. You didn’t have to. I wasn’t expecting anything.”
“Obviously,” Jensen answers, can’t keep a little bit of bitterness out of his tone. He’d sort of stupidly been hoping that Misha would have been expecting him, today.
“Jensen, really,” Misha says, and his tone changes, warm and soft and sorry and it feels like a hug, almost. “What are we doing here?”
Of course, Misha can see through his bullshit, knows Jensen didn’t come see him today just to give him a gift. Of course he won’t let Jensen get away with a lame excuse like that. Jensen bites his lip, bites the bullet.
“Mish,” he sighs, shifts on the seat. Not closer, not further, just… can’t quite figure where he should be. “I don’t want to pressure you, or rush you or anything. I swear, I don’t. Whatever you need, I want to give it to you. But… this break. I guess I need to know if I should start looking for someplace to stay that’s a little more permanent than Mike’s couch.”
Misha looks at him then, really looks and what Jensen sees nearly breaks him. Jensen almost wants to take the question back when Misha finally speaks.
“I wish I could answer that, Jensen. And I’m truly sorry that this is hurting you, because that honestly isn’t my intention. But right now I just… I don’t know.”
***
Jensen goes back to Mike’s place in Columbus two days after Christmas. He’s more miserable than ever and his awesomely supportive family is starting to get on his nerves. His brother is being extra nice, which Jensen hates, because it’s clearly only out of some sort of pity that Jensen doesn’t come close to deserving.
Plus, he’s getting married in a few months and Jensen is happy for the asshole, he really is, but Jensen can’t really deal with anymore talk about buying houses in decent school zones or joint long-term mutual funds. He wants to mope, alone.
He wants to sit on the couch and read The Hobbit for the tenth time and finally get around to watching Firefly and eat an entire bucket of chicken wings. And he wants to do it alone.
Well, no. What he wants is to do it with Misha sitting next to him, but he can’t.
Because Misha doesn’t know. Fuck. Misha doesn’t know. The one constant, the one fact that’s been inarguable for the past decade, is that Misha knows. Misha set his sights on Jensen when Jensen was fifteen years old and it might have taken Jensen a while to come around, Jensen might have experienced jealousy and confusion and uncertainty, but Misha never has.
Misha has known from day one that they were meant to be, that they’d always be and he’s never been afraid to say so. Misha has always known.
But now? Now he just… doesn’t.
Jensen doesn’t read The Hobbit and he doesn’t watch Firefly and he doesn’t eat any chicken at all. He spends three days watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island and working on his thesis paper. He eats Beefaroni straight from the can, and cold peas and carrots, and he finishes off the Lucky Charms Mike hid behind the Special K.
He jerks off each morning the shower, thinking about Misha. Okay, Jude Law for about five minutes once, but mostly Misha.
***
His phone rings on New Year’s Eve.
He has to dig through the wadded up blankets and root around under the couch cushions to find it, but he manages to answer right before his voicemail picks up.
It’s Jared. He says some people in his dorm a throwing a party and he knows it’s last minute, but if Jensen isn’t busy he’s more than welcome to come.
Jensen wasn’t really aware that he and Jared were at the stage in their… what? Acquaintanceship? Friendship, maybe? Yeah, he’s going with Friendship. He’d like to be Jared’s friend, he thinks and he hopes he hasn’t screwed that up. Anyway, he wasn’t aware until just now that they were the kind of friends that call each other up and invite each other to parties.
Maybe they’re not, and Jared’s just trying to be nice, because Jensen is a great big boyfriendless loser who was planning on ringing in the new year with pizza delivery and a Planet of the Apes marathon.
He knows he’s going to regret it even as he agrees, but he’s feeling sorry for himself and it doesn’t matter at the moment that getting shit-faced around a guy he kinda sorta likes, when he’s still hoping to win back the boyfriend he fucked over is a bad, bad idea.
Jensen hasn’t been feeling like himself in weeks and booze, noise and a floor full of strangers sounds like exactly what he needs right now.
Jared greets him with a smile and a one-armed hug when he comes downstairs to meet him and he takes the bottle of rum that Jensen holds up for him.
“Thanks, man,” Jared says, leading him to the elevator. The doors open immediately and Jared hits the button for the seventh floor, once they step inside. Jensen’s breath sort of catches in his throat at that. He made some pretty great memories on the seventh floor, a long time ago. “But you didn’t have to. We’ve got plenty of alcohol here, believe me.”
“No worries,” Jensen tells him. “I stole it from a buddy of mine. He won’t miss it.” Mike will probably actually miss it a lot. At least, he’ll pretend to, which will be almost as funny.
The doors open and Jared steps out first, Jensen following a beat later. He takes a slow breath and waits for Jared to show him the way while he tries to calm the suddenly rapid beating of his heart. Shit, it’s been years since Jensen’s been in this building. Not since Misha was a freshman and Jensen came to visit him. It’s weird, being back. Everything seems smaller and sort of far away.
He shakes off the maudlin turn his thoughts are taking and starts walking where Jared points.
“My room’s down this hall, at the corner. My roommate is still at home for the break, so you can crash on his bed, if you want.”
Jensen’s not planning on drinking enough to have to sleep anywhere near Jared tonight.
“Thanks,” he says anyway, when Jared opens the door and they go in. Jared puts the bottle down on his desk and Jensen looks around. Misha had a single and Jensen never lived in campus housing, but this room looks just like he pictured, only bigger.
Jared leaves his door propped open with a giant art textbook and they can hear the sounds of music and laughter coming from the opposite hallway.
“I’m just waiting for a couple more friends to call up,” Jared explains, when they each take a seat on one of the beds. Jensen doesn’t know who the bed he’s sitting on belongs to, but he’d guess it’s Jared’s. There’s a shaggy pink throw pillow in the shape of a giant heart resting against the headboard and he doesn’t know Jared all that well, but it seems like his style. “Then we can head to the common room and get our party on.”
He’s smiling again and fuck, that smile is going to be Jensen’s undoing. He’s known that right from the start, since back in September, when Jared walked into his classroom and took a seat in the front row.
Jensen stiffens a little and there’s sort of an awkward silence while he tells himself again that coming here was a very, very bad idea, but then he remembers that he came here tonight to have a good time, not to wallow. He could be wallowing back on Mike’s couch, where it’s warm and dim and comfortable.
“So uh…” Jensen starts. He forces a smile and tries to make himself more comfortable on the bed, pushes back so he’s almost reclining against the giant pink heart. “Any good dorm life stories so far?”
“Oh, dude,” Jared says, smile growing wider as he pushes back to sit cross-legged on his roommate’s deep blue comforter. He looks like he might just start bouncing from sheer enthusiasm and Jensen’s belly feels warm. He likes the feeling, and he doesn’t at the same time. “My first week here. My roommate moved all his stuff in, right? But he was staying somewhere else with a friend who lives in town. Anyway, my best friend from back home, Chad. He came to see me and he spent the night, and we’d been drinking. A lot.”
“Is this a cautionary tale about teen pregnancy?” Jensen jokes, craning his neck to make a show of checking out Jared’s belly.
“Oh, fuck you!” Jared laughs. “No. Anyway, he was sleeping in Brian’s bed and he’s completely naked and at, like, four in the morning, he decides he really has to take a piss…”
Jensen laughs while Jared finishes his story and launches into another and then things aren’t even close to awkward anymore.
Part 3
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Jensen/Misha, implied Misha/Sebastian Roche, slight Jensen/Jared (mostly friendship)
Summary: Jensen and Misha were high school sweethearts, now they’re college sweethearts and they’re well on their way to being sweethearts through finishing grad school, to joining the workforce, to becoming little old men, screaming at kids to get off their lawn. A few weeks ago, though, Jensen messed up. Big time. He let flattery and curiosity and base desire get the better of him and he crossed a line. He cheated.
Now he has to deal with the repercussions of what he’s done, and the possibility that Misha might not be as able to forgive him as he’d hoped.
MASTERPOST
“Maybe you were right.”
It’s been two weeks since they had sex and they’ve barely even spoken since then, so Jensen can’t really imagine what it is he was right about. Maybe Misha finally thinks they should spring for that widescreen HD TV Jensen’s been telling him they need for years now, but Jensen kind of doubts it.
“About?” Jensen asks. His breath catches and his chest gets tight when Misha grabs the remote off the coffee table and hits pause, Paul Newman frozen with his yoyo raised high overhead, ready to swing. Whatever it is, it’s serious then, which at the moment can’t possibly be a good thing.
Cool Hand Luke has been one of Jensen’s favourite movies since he first watched it with Misha back in tenth grade, but he has a sinking feeling he won’t be able to watch it again, after tonight.
“About us,” Misha answers, putting the remote back down on the table. He sits back on the couch, settles in a little further from Jensen than he was before. “We’ve been together since we were kids and maybe you were right, maybe we just… got comfortable. Maybe we need some… I don’t know, space? Time? Something.”
“What?” Jensen asks, because seriously, what? He’s pretty sure he’d remember saying something like that. Because that sounds pretty much exactly like a break-up speech, not that he’s had one directed at him before. Still. That’s what they sound like in books and movies and he’s damn sure that he’d never in a million years suggest that he and Misha break up. Fuck.
“What you did…” Misha starts.
“What I did was wrong, Misha. A huge fucking mistake, that’s it. It wasn’t… I was wrong.”
Misha tilts his head a smiles a crooked smile.
“Maybe it was what you needed. Jensen…” he sighs and his voice is strained, like maybe this is as hard for Misha to say as it is for Jensen to hear. “I feel like maybe this was your way of telling me you need to see what else is out there. I feel like… Like I didn’t give you the chance to grow on your own. Like I wanted you and I won you and now I’m all you’ve ever known and maybe that’s the only reason you’re still with me.”
“No, that’s not…” Jensen starts, but Misha just talks right over him.
“And now I’m wondering if I didn’t give me the chance to see who I would be, on my own. I think maybe we could both do with a break. A chance to breathe.”
Except Jensen can’t breathe, suddenly. The prospect of not being with Misha, of not seeing him every day and coming home to him every night, of Misha out there, dating other people… It makes him sick, makes the air heavy and sticky and he has to fight to get it into his lungs. Being away from Misha won’t help him breathe at all. It will suffocate him.
“Misha, no. Don’t. Please don’t. I love you.” He knows he sounds desperate, his voice cracked. His fingers are digging into his thighs so hard his knuckles turn white. He doesn’t care.
“I love you, too,” Misha tells him with a slight, sad smile. “But I think this will be good for us.”
“No. It…”
“Jensen,” Misha cuts him off again and Jensen’s mouth snaps shut. “This is what I need right now.”
It takes all the strength Jensen has in him, including some he didn’t even know about, not too keep arguing, not to tackle Misha and tie him up and make him stay. It’s what Misha needs. And Jensen can be one selfish son of a bitch on occasion, but he’s not lying when he tells Misha he loves him.
And no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much Jensen knows Misha is wrong, when Misha tells Jensen he needs something, Jensen will give it to him. His heart, his body, the right side of the bedroom closet and first choice in colours when they play RISK. He’ll give him anything, even this.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” Jensen tells him, because even though he’s lost, he can’t just keep his mouth shut. He’s not that graceful.
“Maybe,” Misha doesn’t quite agree. “But I owe it to myself to find out.”
And Jensen… Jensen can’t disagree with that, much as he wants to. He doesn’t say anything, stays quiet for long enough that Misha knows the conversation is over.
“I’ll go pack,” Misha says. “I’ll stay with Justin for a while, I think.”
Jensen just nods, watches dumbly as Misha stands and walks down the hall, blinks when he hears the bedroom door shut behind him. It’s another minute or two before Jensen picks up the remote and turns the movie back on.
Paul swings and Jensen flinches.
***
In the end, it’s Jensen who moves out.
He figures he’s the one that should leave, given he’s the one who broke them.
He stays with Mike.
He doesn’t have much of a choice, really. He doesn’t have a lot of friends. Not close ones, anyway. Not friends he’d want to spill his guts to, admit to why it is he’s suddenly homeless. He’s not like Misha.
But he’s known Mike since his first year in Columbus and Mike’s a good guy. Besides Misha, Jensen has only had a handful of what he’d consider to be really good friends. Mainly Rob and Julie, back in high school, Lenny, when he was a kid. There were a couple of guys from the football team a few years ago he really came to care about, and there’s Mike.
There’s a reason Mike makes the short list.
He doesn’t even ask why Jensen needs to crash on his couch, just gives him an extra key and a commiserating hug and tells Jensen to make himself at home.
Jensen doesn’t.
He sleeps lightly and he doesn’t unpack the one duffle bag he brought with him and he doesn’t buy any groceries. He eats out and he does laundry every four days and he spends more time at the library than he ever did before. Misha said he needed a break, he didn’t say he wanted to break up. There’s a very distinct difference and whatever Misha needs at the moment, whatever he needs to get out of his system, Jensen plans on making Misha his again.
He can’t make himself at home here, or anywhere else. His hands are tied.
Misha is home.
***
Misha’s phone goes straight to voicemail, all three times he tries to call.
It’s not surprising. One week apart probably isn’t the time and space Misha said he needed, but Jensen has to try.
***
Sixteen days since he started bunking with Mike, and Jensen lets himself get dragged to a Delta Phi party by a few of the guys in his physiology class.
It’s not his usual scene, not at all, but Mike can be persuasive after a few beers. Besides, it’s the first day of Christmas break and he needs some fun, something to distract him and get his thoughts on anything that’s not his broken heart. And anywhere frat boys are getting hammered is somewhere you can pretty much guarantee Misha will not be.
He feels dull when he stands next to the keg and asks the guy with ridiculously perfect teeth for a drink. He drinks it in one long pull before he hands back the empty plastic cup and asks for another.
They guy smiles, tells him “That’s the spirit!”, claps him on the back and hands him two more.
He wanders around for a while and gives one of his new drinks to Brian, who joined the football team the last year Jensen was on it. Jensen hates small talk, but he’s good at it, so he talks about classes and the weather and asks how the team is holding up. Brian talks about his plans for Christmas and asks if Jensen is still queer, then immediately looks horrified.
“Shit, man,” he apologises. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just, there are some quality honeys here tonight, so I could hook you up. I mean, if you’re into that.”
Jensen barely resists rolling his eyes. Most people have always just assumed that Jensen is gay because Misha is the only one he’s ever been with. Truth is, Jensen experimented a little when he was a teenager and it’s become even more clear over the years that girls do it for him, too.
And while he doesn’t hide that fact, he doesn’t make a point of advertising it, either. What would be the point?
“Thanks, I’m good,” Jensen tells him, instead and heads off in search of his third drink.
Later, there’s a girl with dark brown hair and a stark red tank that shares her mickey of red label with him on one of the couches. She tells him how she wants to work with Doctors Without Borders, once she finishes med school and he listens quietly while her breasts rub lightly, accidentally-on-purpose against his arm.
She’s pretty, sweet. She’s warm when he leans closer and she smiles at him and her fingers dance over his thigh. She wants him. He’s lightheaded and it feels good.
He kisses her.
It’s nice.
He hasn’t thought about Misha in almost an hour.
Except, now he has, so he tells her his friends are waiting for him and leaves her with a lopsided smile and kiss to her forehead.
There’s another girl sometime in the night, with blond hair tied up in a bun and she doesn’t give the impression she’s drinking any booze at all, but she sits in Jensen’s lap and lets his hand wander under her skirt a little too high.
He doesn’t really know what he’s doing. This isn’t him. He’s never been the guy who drunkenly fucks around with strangers at parties. He’s never had the chance. And maybe that was kind of Misha’s point. They need to see who Jensen and Misha are when they’re not Jensen and Misha. Jensen doesn’t like it so far.
There’s a cute guy with black hair that catches Jensen’s eye when he comes out of the bathroom and Jensen’s pretty sure he could get him on his back by the end of the night. He’s a little tipsy and he misses Misha like fuck and he’s seriously considering it because Misha’s probably off somewhere doing the same and Jensen’s hating himself almost about enough that a cheap hookup sounds like a good idea at the moment. But someone taps him on the shoulder and when he turns around he loses eye contact with the guy.
And just like that, screwing around with someone who isn’t Misha seems like the worst idea ever. It’s kinda funny, he figures, when he sees who’s standing behind him.
“Jared,” he says, snorting a little. He hasn’t seen Jared since… Yeah. He was kind of hoping to never run into him again. He doesn’t want to make the guy feel any more uncomfortable than he already has. “Shit. I’m sorry. I can leave, if you want.”
“I’m that disgusting?” Jared asks, eyebrow cocked and mouth turned up at the corner. He’s teasing. Jared’s teasing him. Like they do that. Like they’re friends or something, which is so far from the case it’s not even funny.
“No!” Jensen answers. “God, no. Just… I know we didn’t exactly part on the best terms.”
Actually, Jared was remarkably cool about the whole thing. He was pissed as hell at Jensen – of course he fucking was. Jensen led Jared on. Unintentionally, perhaps, but he did it. And when Jared pushed for more, Jensen didn’t stop him, not when it mattered. And he did it all without ever telling Jared he had a boyfriend.
But Jared didn’t make any trouble for him; a fact for which Jensen is eternally grateful. Even if it might have ended up costing him Misha, at least he still has a job.
“Yeah,” Jared says, ducks his head and fucking blushes, Jesus Christ. The world is wholly unfair to Jensen. Turns out, after everything, he’s still attracted to the guy.
“So how was… I mean… You look good.”
Jensen laughs.
He can’t help it. He doesn’t even think he should help it, because it’s a funny fucking thing. Jensen looks good. He feels terrible.
“It uh… It didn’t work out like I wanted,” Jensen says, shakes his empty cup and looks around quickly to exchange it for a full one, but doesn’t find anything nearby. Which is a good thing, really. He should probably stop drinking. “Shockingly enough.”
“Yeah,” Jared agrees, but he doesn’t go on. It’s big of him, Jensen figures. Because Jared has a fuckin’ barrel full, here. If anyone was in a position to tell Jensen just exactly how much he deserves what he’s gotten, and if anyone ever had the moral high ground over him, it’s Jared, now.
“You want to get out of here?” Jared asks, and Jensen doesn’t really know what to say to that.
“I really don’t think…”
“Not like that!” Jared says, pulling a face. “Dude, please. I’m completely over you.” Jensen smiles a little at that. He hopes so. “I just… You look like you could use a friend.”
“That bad, huh?” Jensen asks. He pictures the bags under his eyes and rubs a hand over his stomach to smooth out the wrinkles he knows are all over his shirt. His other hand combs through his hair to flatten down the disarray of tufts and spikes. He showered this morning, but it’s been days since he’s styled it. Jared was lying; he obviously looks like hell.
Jared’s smile gets a little smaller.
“Nah, not really. You look good, like I said. Just a little… out of place.”
Jensen can’t really argue with that, so they go. A coffee shop down the road and Jensen buys them each a hot chocolate and a raised maple. Jared looks at him a little funny but he smiles and digs in and Jensen feels like an asshole for buying Jared Misha’s favourite.
“So I’m getting my little sister a pair of skis for Christmas,” Jared starts. His mouth is full and his bottom lip is dotted with candied maple and Jensen grins along with him. He hasn’t given much thought to Christmas yet, but Jared’s excitement is infectious. “They’re used, but the guy I’m getting them from says they’re really good and my sister has always wanted a pair of her own. Her friend has a pass for this place up north and my sister always wants to go…”
Jensen settles into his seat and he listens to Jared talk.
For the first time in a long time, Jensen shakes off all his bullshit. For the first time in a long time, Jensen means it when he smiles.
He doesn’t know Jared well, hasn’t known Jared long, but Jensen thinks he might soon be adding one more to his very short list of friends.
***
Two days later, Jensen heads home for Christmas. For a split second he wonders if Misha gassed up the car or whether they’ll get to stop at the gas station along the way with the really awesome microwave burritos. But then he remembers that their car is really Misha’s car, and it’s back at their apartment with Misha, and Misha is probably planning on driving home to Cicero without him. If he hasn’t already.
He wants to call and ask, but he’s already called Misha six times since he moved out and if Misha wanted to talk to him, he’d have answered by now.
It’s the twenty-first and he’s already done all his Christmas shopping – started and finished it yesterday – so he tosses the gifts in his suitcase and hops on a bus. There’s a PS3 controller and a 3D copy of Terminator for his brother, Ben. There’s a gift certificate for a weekend at a Niagara Falls hotel for his parents and there’s a copy of A Clockwork Orange on DVD for Rob and the latest Game of Thrones book for Julie. There’s something there for Misha, too, something he bought months ago, but it’s hidden under his laundry and it’s entirely possible it’ll stay that way.
When the bus turns north on I65, Jensen gets a text from Misha asking if he needs a ride home. Jensen laughs a little and texts back Thanks, I’m good. He hesitates for a minute before he adds I miss you. He figures that’s not too pathetic. Misha contacted him, offered to spend hours in a car with him, alone. That’s a good sign, right?
He doesn’t hear anything back from Misha after that, but that’s okay.
His parents hug him when he gets home, Ben too. Ben’s fiancée isn’t coming until Christmas day, so for now, it’s just the four of them. It hasn’t been just the four of them in years, and it would be better if Misha was around, absolutely, but it’s also kind of nice.
For three whole days, Jensen has nothing to do but sleep in and watch cartoons and play Call of Duty with his brother. For three days he does nothing but sleep in and watch cartoons and play Call of Duty with his brother, and his fingers kind of itch every time he looks at his cell phone. He hasn’t called Misha, Misha hasn’t called him and it’s starting to make him a little twitchy. On the fourth day, on Christmas Eve, after he gets home from lunch with Rob and Julie, his parents call him on it.
“Jensen,” his mother says, over peanut butter cookies after his brother fucks off to do some last minute shopping. “Isn’t Misha going to stop by?”
“We’ve got a gift for him,” Jensen’s dad adds. “But we can return it, if…”
Jensen’s mom elbows him in the side and sends him a scowl and Jensen snorts. It’s not funny, but it sort of is. His dad likes Misha, always has, and he’s never been anything but supportive. But no matter how hard he tries, he can never quite hide the fact that he’d be happier if Jensen was with a girl.
“No, mom, it…” Jensen says. He stops and bites his lip and fuck, he can’t believe he’s about to cry, here in front of his parents. He swallows down the tears and tries again. “I mean, yeah. We’re kind of… on hiatus. But don’t go returning anything. It’s not like that.”
“Jensen, if you need to talk about…”
“Mom, seriously. We’re... Can you just leave it for now? Please?”
“Of course, baby,” his mom says. His dad doesn’t say anything, just stands and puts his hand on Jensen’s shoulder, but it speaks a hell of a lot.
***
“Want me to kick his ass?” his brother asks later on, seemingly out of nowhere, after their parents have gone to bed for the night.
It’s Christmas already, just past midnight. They’re sitting on the couch in front of the tree, eating the cookies they still put out for Santa. Last year, the year before, every year since twelfth grade, Misha was here with them.
“You know,” Ben goes on. “It could be my Christmas present to you. Since I was too cheap to get you a real one.”
“Asshole,” Jensen mumbles, slamming his fist into Ben’s thigh. He’s smiling though; he can’t help it. His family is really pretty great. Jensen sort of hates them for being so cool about it.
They’d probably be acting very differently if they knew the truth. They sure as hell wouldn’t be on his side if he admitted to them that he’s a lying, cheating bastard. That it’s all his fault Misha can’t stand to look at him right now.
He knows he doesn’t deserve their support in this, but he wants it anyway. He’s never felt this alone before and he really kind of needs them right now. Besides, he’s still sort hoping that if he doesn’t talk about anything out loud, it won’t be true.
“Nah. He’d probably win.”
“Oh, ouch,” Ben says, feigning insult. “Just for that…”
Then he twists around and lunges, grabs Jensen’s wrist in his hand and leans in to lick the side of the cookie he’s been holding.
“You fucker!” Jensen laughs and bends forward, goes for the three cookies remaining on the coffee table in front of them. Ben beats him there, though and picks up the plate, shovelling all three into his mouth at once.
“Ha!” he says, peanut butter crumbs and chunks of chocolate flying out and spilling all over his lap and the couch. And the brand new carpet his parents just put down a month ago. He looks pretty pleased with himself, for a dead man.
“Mom’s gonna kill you,” Jensen says with a smirk, looking down at the floor. Ben follows his line of sight and his eyes go wide when he realises he’s stepped on a piece of chocolate and ground it into the cream-coloured fibres.
“Fwwf!” he mumbles and some more crumbs fall. He spits the half-chewed cookies back out onto the plate and tries again. “Shit. Dude, Mom’s gonna kill me.”
Jensen rolls his eyes, but Ben just looks so damn horrified that he takes pity.
“I’ll get the vacuum,” he says as he stands, careful not to step on any more crumbs. “You get the soap.”
***
Nobody asks him where he’s going when he leaves the house right after Christmas supper, two sugar cookies tucked into his side coat pocket and a small package wrapped in shiny purple slotted into the inside. He stops by the corner store and buys two cups of hot chocolate, brown plastic lids fitted tightly over orange paper. They help keep his hands warm in the chill.
Hooper’s makes some damn good hot chocolate, and him and Misha have been going there for years, even in the summer. It’s close to Misha’s house and Mrs. Hooper always gives them two for one, because she thinks they’re cute.
The walk from the store to Misha’s place isn’t nearly as long as he remembers it being and he’s standing on the sidewalk at the edge of the driveway before he’s really ready for it.
He takes a dozen more steps and then spends a full minute kicking at the chipped ice patch outside the Collins’ front walk before the curtains flutter and Jensen knows he’s been spotted.
“Shit,” he curses, because that means he can’t chicken out now, can’t turn around and go back home. He doesn’t want to chicken out, just… now he can’t and that’s fucking with him. This whole situation is fucking with him. He’s nervous. He’s actually fucking nervous to knock on Misha’s front door. He hasn’t been nervous around Misha since he was sixteen years old and awkwardly fumbling his way through his first blow job.
God, nothing makes any fucking sense, anymore. He wonders if it’s normal to feel this way, like there’s something important he’s forgetting about, like everything seems backwards and completely unreal. Like everything he needs to make things right again is just a few feet away, but it’s thick and fuzzy, like a dream, like he can’t quite reach it. This can’t be his life, now.
He makes his way up the steps to the front porch and just as he lifts his foot to kick at the door (no, he wasn’t raised in a barn, but his hands are full) it opens wide from the inside.
“Jensen,” Misha greets. His voice isn’t warm, not really and he’s not smiling, but his eyes are happy. If you didn’t know him like Jensen does you wouldn’t be able to tell, but they’re happy. Misha is happy to see him. It’s a good start.
Jensen holds up one hand, shows Misha the dark orange paper cup with the brown lid and cocks his head.
“You want to go for a walk?”
Misha’s mouth turns up at the corner. A smile. An honest to God smile, but it’s gone even faster than it formed.
“Uh, sure,” Misha answers. He takes a few seconds to throw on a coat and a hat and a pair of boots and then he steps outside and follows Jensen down the steps to the sidewalk.
“Mrs. Hooper give you the discount?” he asks, when Jensen hands him the hot chocolate. Jensen grunts in answer and passes Misha one of the cookies from his pocket, wrapped in a napkin and decorated in green frosting.
Misha smiles down at it, doesn’t look at Jensen but unconsciously steps a little closer. It looks like he’s remembering, thinking about last year and the year before and every year before. That’s not exactly what Jensen wants – he doesn’t want Misha to be with him because that’s the way it’s always been any more than Misha wants Jensen that way – but for now, he’ll take it.
“Thank you,” Misha finally says.
“My mom made it,” Jensen tells him, shrugging off the thanks.
“But you decorated it,” Misha says. “I can tell, because the star crosses at the bottom, not the top.”
“Just eat it.”
They walk for a few minutes, straight line, shoulder to shoulder and then Jensen hears a crunch as Misha bites down, and he grins.
There’s not really anywhere for them to go, not on Christmas night, so they take a left at the corner and wind up in the park. There’s a bench by the sandbox that isn’t too much trouble to wipe off with one of the mittens Misha pulls from his pocket, and they wordlessly agree to sit. There’s a light fall of snow over everything, some tiny footprints leading from the bottom of the slide to the swings and the blanket of snow on the field is sort of randomly kicked up and trampled.
There’s a faint glow from the streetlights that’s shadowed by the gold and silver garland strung around them. It sets a brilliant reflection off the blue tinsel snowmen stuck to the bases and casts a warm light over the nearby ground.
It’s pretty, quiet and wonderful in a way that makes Jensen a little more sad.
Jensen lasts about five minutes before he gives up and speaks first. Not that it’s a competition, just. Whatever. He’s never been good at uncomfortable silence and Misha knows that. Wouldn’t kill the guy to throw Jensen a bone here, but Jensen knows that it’s entirely and completely up to him to make things better.
“Fuckin’ freezing out here,” Jensen says, rubbing his hands together. That’s not really what he wants to say, but he’s only wearing a thin jacket and scarf and he hadn’t bothered with gloves. He’s starting to regret that.
“It is,” Misha agrees. “Jensen… what are we doing here?”
Good question. He knows it’s too soon, knows that Misha’s not ready to take him back yet. He’s had plenty of opportunity to let Jensen know, if that was what he wanted. No, the truth is, Jensen’s been going crazy, his skin doesn’t fit anymore, he sort of randomly forgets to do things like go to work and brush his teeth and being close to Misha again is the only thing that makes anything better.
No, he figures, feeling this way isn’t normal. It’s unhealthy and scary and bordering on co-dependent obsession, but sitting next to Misha again, he doesn’t care. The possibility that he could lose Misha forever freaks him the fuck out. He needs him back, the sooner the better.
“I got you…” Jensen starts, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket to pull out Misha’s gift. There’s a red bow on the purple paper, crinkled and flattened, and the corners of the tiny, rectangular box are scuffed. He hands it to Misha and lets his fingertips linger over Misha’s for as long as he can before Misha pulls back.
“Merry Christmas,” he says. “It’s not much, but…”
“It’s tickets to the Habitat for Humanity dinner in February,” Misha says, without even opening the box. He’s been talking about it since the dinner last February.
“Fuckin’ creepy how you can do that,” Jensen grumbles. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Thank you, Jensen,” Misha says. “Really. You didn’t have to. I wasn’t expecting anything.”
“Obviously,” Jensen answers, can’t keep a little bit of bitterness out of his tone. He’d sort of stupidly been hoping that Misha would have been expecting him, today.
“Jensen, really,” Misha says, and his tone changes, warm and soft and sorry and it feels like a hug, almost. “What are we doing here?”
Of course, Misha can see through his bullshit, knows Jensen didn’t come see him today just to give him a gift. Of course he won’t let Jensen get away with a lame excuse like that. Jensen bites his lip, bites the bullet.
“Mish,” he sighs, shifts on the seat. Not closer, not further, just… can’t quite figure where he should be. “I don’t want to pressure you, or rush you or anything. I swear, I don’t. Whatever you need, I want to give it to you. But… this break. I guess I need to know if I should start looking for someplace to stay that’s a little more permanent than Mike’s couch.”
Misha looks at him then, really looks and what Jensen sees nearly breaks him. Jensen almost wants to take the question back when Misha finally speaks.
“I wish I could answer that, Jensen. And I’m truly sorry that this is hurting you, because that honestly isn’t my intention. But right now I just… I don’t know.”
***
Jensen goes back to Mike’s place in Columbus two days after Christmas. He’s more miserable than ever and his awesomely supportive family is starting to get on his nerves. His brother is being extra nice, which Jensen hates, because it’s clearly only out of some sort of pity that Jensen doesn’t come close to deserving.
Plus, he’s getting married in a few months and Jensen is happy for the asshole, he really is, but Jensen can’t really deal with anymore talk about buying houses in decent school zones or joint long-term mutual funds. He wants to mope, alone.
He wants to sit on the couch and read The Hobbit for the tenth time and finally get around to watching Firefly and eat an entire bucket of chicken wings. And he wants to do it alone.
Well, no. What he wants is to do it with Misha sitting next to him, but he can’t.
Because Misha doesn’t know. Fuck. Misha doesn’t know. The one constant, the one fact that’s been inarguable for the past decade, is that Misha knows. Misha set his sights on Jensen when Jensen was fifteen years old and it might have taken Jensen a while to come around, Jensen might have experienced jealousy and confusion and uncertainty, but Misha never has.
Misha has known from day one that they were meant to be, that they’d always be and he’s never been afraid to say so. Misha has always known.
But now? Now he just… doesn’t.
Jensen doesn’t read The Hobbit and he doesn’t watch Firefly and he doesn’t eat any chicken at all. He spends three days watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island and working on his thesis paper. He eats Beefaroni straight from the can, and cold peas and carrots, and he finishes off the Lucky Charms Mike hid behind the Special K.
He jerks off each morning the shower, thinking about Misha. Okay, Jude Law for about five minutes once, but mostly Misha.
***
His phone rings on New Year’s Eve.
He has to dig through the wadded up blankets and root around under the couch cushions to find it, but he manages to answer right before his voicemail picks up.
It’s Jared. He says some people in his dorm a throwing a party and he knows it’s last minute, but if Jensen isn’t busy he’s more than welcome to come.
Jensen wasn’t really aware that he and Jared were at the stage in their… what? Acquaintanceship? Friendship, maybe? Yeah, he’s going with Friendship. He’d like to be Jared’s friend, he thinks and he hopes he hasn’t screwed that up. Anyway, he wasn’t aware until just now that they were the kind of friends that call each other up and invite each other to parties.
Maybe they’re not, and Jared’s just trying to be nice, because Jensen is a great big boyfriendless loser who was planning on ringing in the new year with pizza delivery and a Planet of the Apes marathon.
He knows he’s going to regret it even as he agrees, but he’s feeling sorry for himself and it doesn’t matter at the moment that getting shit-faced around a guy he kinda sorta likes, when he’s still hoping to win back the boyfriend he fucked over is a bad, bad idea.
Jensen hasn’t been feeling like himself in weeks and booze, noise and a floor full of strangers sounds like exactly what he needs right now.
Jared greets him with a smile and a one-armed hug when he comes downstairs to meet him and he takes the bottle of rum that Jensen holds up for him.
“Thanks, man,” Jared says, leading him to the elevator. The doors open immediately and Jared hits the button for the seventh floor, once they step inside. Jensen’s breath sort of catches in his throat at that. He made some pretty great memories on the seventh floor, a long time ago. “But you didn’t have to. We’ve got plenty of alcohol here, believe me.”
“No worries,” Jensen tells him. “I stole it from a buddy of mine. He won’t miss it.” Mike will probably actually miss it a lot. At least, he’ll pretend to, which will be almost as funny.
The doors open and Jared steps out first, Jensen following a beat later. He takes a slow breath and waits for Jared to show him the way while he tries to calm the suddenly rapid beating of his heart. Shit, it’s been years since Jensen’s been in this building. Not since Misha was a freshman and Jensen came to visit him. It’s weird, being back. Everything seems smaller and sort of far away.
He shakes off the maudlin turn his thoughts are taking and starts walking where Jared points.
“My room’s down this hall, at the corner. My roommate is still at home for the break, so you can crash on his bed, if you want.”
Jensen’s not planning on drinking enough to have to sleep anywhere near Jared tonight.
“Thanks,” he says anyway, when Jared opens the door and they go in. Jared puts the bottle down on his desk and Jensen looks around. Misha had a single and Jensen never lived in campus housing, but this room looks just like he pictured, only bigger.
Jared leaves his door propped open with a giant art textbook and they can hear the sounds of music and laughter coming from the opposite hallway.
“I’m just waiting for a couple more friends to call up,” Jared explains, when they each take a seat on one of the beds. Jensen doesn’t know who the bed he’s sitting on belongs to, but he’d guess it’s Jared’s. There’s a shaggy pink throw pillow in the shape of a giant heart resting against the headboard and he doesn’t know Jared all that well, but it seems like his style. “Then we can head to the common room and get our party on.”
He’s smiling again and fuck, that smile is going to be Jensen’s undoing. He’s known that right from the start, since back in September, when Jared walked into his classroom and took a seat in the front row.
Jensen stiffens a little and there’s sort of an awkward silence while he tells himself again that coming here was a very, very bad idea, but then he remembers that he came here tonight to have a good time, not to wallow. He could be wallowing back on Mike’s couch, where it’s warm and dim and comfortable.
“So uh…” Jensen starts. He forces a smile and tries to make himself more comfortable on the bed, pushes back so he’s almost reclining against the giant pink heart. “Any good dorm life stories so far?”
“Oh, dude,” Jared says, smile growing wider as he pushes back to sit cross-legged on his roommate’s deep blue comforter. He looks like he might just start bouncing from sheer enthusiasm and Jensen’s belly feels warm. He likes the feeling, and he doesn’t at the same time. “My first week here. My roommate moved all his stuff in, right? But he was staying somewhere else with a friend who lives in town. Anyway, my best friend from back home, Chad. He came to see me and he spent the night, and we’d been drinking. A lot.”
“Is this a cautionary tale about teen pregnancy?” Jensen jokes, craning his neck to make a show of checking out Jared’s belly.
“Oh, fuck you!” Jared laughs. “No. Anyway, he was sleeping in Brian’s bed and he’s completely naked and at, like, four in the morning, he decides he really has to take a piss…”
Jensen laughs while Jared finishes his story and launches into another and then things aren’t even close to awkward anymore.
Part 3