Worse Than Being Blind Part 2
Part 2:
It had started as kind of a joke.
Misha had been off, doing things like staying with monks and walking through forests. He’d taken pictures with his cool new iPhone and stirred up the minions for fun. He’d called his mom and his sisters so they didn’t worry that he was going to get lost one day and they’ll find his body, decomposing and being eaten by wild dogs.
And he’d text Jensen.
Not just Jensen, but Jensen had been the only one who’d answered him. Jared made half-hearted attempts, saying that sting ray looked cool or that tree was really big, but mostly they had sounded uninterested and placating. Not that Misha had blamed him. There’s only so much uninterrupted time that Jared gets to spend with Genevieve and his family. He couldn’t be bothered by Misha’s “vision quest” as Jared had put it.
Jim had answered a few texts too, but most of the time it had been to say that Misha was a hippie and he better shower before coming on set.
But Jensen had answered texts with tidbits of his own.
Misha would text him about the monk who had a sense of humor like Eric’s- which just meant a really bad one- and Jensen would tell him about the girl at the Dairy Queen who couldn’t keep her excitement to herself. Misha would tell him about finding trees that reminded him of the ones that grew next to the house that burned down and Jensen would tell him about how he’s never felt as home as when he’s sleeping in his childhood room.
It had just become a thing.
Some way to pass time because he was taking pictures already and there are just some things that you can’t tell your twitter followers.
Jensen had been genuinely interested. He’d responded to every picture and text with a picture- something that had surprised Misha the first time because he’d been relatively sure Jensen hadn’t been able to work the camera on his new iPhone- and a text about how life in Texas was sweet and slow and perfect.
It had been nice.
And, the thing was, Misha had gotten over his little crush on Jensen. Sure, the first time they met, Misha was kind of stunned by how good looking he’d been. Misha had watched a few episodes of Supernatural before walking on set the first day, but he’d been too preoccupied with being scared shitless to really notice Jensen’s attractiveness.
Okay, that’s only partially true.
Still, seeing it onscreen and seeing it in real life is vastly different.
After meeting Jensen, Misha had even done the stalker, fangirl thing and checked out Jensen- and Jared too because Misha has to mask his stalker tendencies somehow. His credits were impressive enough, his pictures from his early on in his career kind of hilarious- though Misha totally owns the poster with him in the brick pants, standing against the brick wall purely for the humor value it adds to his life. There hadn’t been much on his personal life and all the interviews he’d ever done where the interviewer had broached the subject had been answered with the stock ‘I don’t like to talk about my personal life’ answer.
It can mean many things. Misha didn’t want to read too much between the lines.
And then there were the smattering of girlfriends. One or two and even Jessica Simpson- which was apparently a romance that ended badly, who knew- but nothing more concrete.
There was one long and screencapped piece of comedy gold on something called fandom wank where this girl tried to claim she was Jensen’s wife. Misha doesn’t bring it up mostly because he’s not sure Jensen even knows and it just seems like the kind of tacky thing that would make Jensen frown and wonder about humanity even more than he already does.
Other than that, Misha hadn’t found much and, after a few hours spent googling, he decided that maybe the crush was going too far.
Because, after two episodes, two very long tedious weeks of filming and horrendous hours had made Misha feel like he wanted to stay. It took those two episodes for Misha to say to himself that he was going to do everything in his power to stay on this show, even if it was actually too scary for him to watch. He was going to stay and he was going to make Castiel a real character, that the fan buzz that had already started when he had been on screening for a few minutes was going to amount to something.
A crush on Jensen would have made that extremely complicated.
So he’d been okay with friendship, okay with sitting at the same table during lunch while Jared made stupid jokes that made Jensen laugh and laugh. He was okay with pranks and Jared playing his episode of Nip/Tuck for all of the cast and crew to see, projected on the side of one of the set buildings at the studio lot.
Jensen had put his hand on his shoulder that day, turned to Misha slightly and smiled. It had been the first real smile Misha had ever seen on Jensen’s face and the genuine nature of it had almost freaked Misha out a little bit.
The fact that it had been pointed at Misha at the time had just been a bonus.
So Misha’s settled for friendship and an odd texting relationship.
He likes it. It’s easy. It’s easy to talk to Jensen, even if the subject matter is inane. He saves a lot of Jensen’s text messages to show other people. He shows his mom and she gives him a small smile. He shows his sisters and they declare Jensen ‘too hot for this world’. He shows his brother and he rolls his eyes. He shows his friends and they tease him and even that’s okay.
“But why an armadillo?” Hill had asked when Misha had shown him and, by close proximity, Torri one of Jensen’s first texts when he’d gotten onto the set of Stonehenge Apocalypse.
It had been a picture of a stuffed armadillo at some hokey novelty shop that Jensen’s sister had dragged him too. The text attached had said ‘saw this and thought of you’.
“Maybe it’s the state love animal in Texas,” Torri had said, waggling her eyebrows.
Misha had rolled his eyes.
“That’s just the kind of person he is,” Misha had said.
“Weird?” Hill had said, confused look on his face.
Misha had shaken his head.
“Different.”
Because Jensen is different. He has a lot of the same qualities that Misha likes in people, but they’re just different enough that they keep Misha intrigued. It’s not so bad that he’s sitting on his bed every night waiting for that one text from Jensen, but they do make him happy, make him smile when his day has just been weird.
Today they’re shooting the scene where Misha tries to explain to Torri, Peter and David’s characters that Stonehenge is actually going to kill them all and Jensen is standing off to the side with a group of PAs.
He’s got a large plate of snacks and Misha can’t wait for the break that will inevitably come when someone realizes the LEDs from the fake computers are messing with the shot so he can grill Jensen about the fact that he can woo any craft service cart, not matter the location.
The break isn’t called until twenty minutes later when they’ve all finally got their lines down, their cues marked and Misha thinks Peter might have actually growled at that. Misha’s not too upset, though.
“So, did you steal the food or did you have your wicked way with the server girl?”
Jensen snorts.
“Character bleed much.”
Misha shrugs and steals a few chips off of Jensen’s plate.
“It’s your character.”
Jensen rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, it is and no, I just politely asked if I could have a plate. They were more than happy to let me have some.”
“You know that stuff is only supposed to be for people in the actual movie.”
Jensen shrugs.
“I told them I wasn’t. They still gave me the food. Torri even gave me a doughnut.”
Misha nods because of course she did. Torri had taken one look at Jensen and grabbed his arm and looped it with her own when they’d gone to dinner. She’d asked him all these questions about The Young and the Restless and his modeling career and Jensen had blushed the whole time. She’d also done a fair amount of leering.
She had lost at I Win, though, which Misha hadn’t been expecting. She had made a good effort of it, but Jared had started talking about some website with crazy, disgusting goatses and Torri had been done.
“It’s your charming face. Who can say no?”
Jensen smile, but it’s one of those forced ones again and Misha has to keep himself from frowning.
“Look, I’m starving. Wanna come and score some sandwiches?” Misha says.
Jensen shrugs.
“Sure.”
They start to walk off the set and towards the long table of sandwiches laid out for the actors. Misha looks around for a turkey on wheat, but all the sandwiches seem to be made on white and that’s just unhealthy. He sighs and grabs a turkey one with a lot of vegetables and so what if it’s on white. It’s not like he’s a huge nazi about his food intake.
He picks up an apple and a bottle of water too.
“So, where’s Jared?” Misha asks.
“He didn’t want to come today. And I just had to see if you were going to get out of that cleverly crafted prison they put you in yesterday. I mean, it would take a genius to crack that impenetrable fortress.”
Jensen’s voice is dripping in sarcasm and Misha knows it’s because set design screwed up and forgot to add a wall where there really, really need to be one. The tiny, little, looks like they’re made out of blind material bars also probably didn’t happen.
“Jacob Glaser is a genius. They call him a prodigy numerous times in the movie.”
Jensen shakes his head.
“You know, you referring to your characters as if they’re real people never gets any less creepy.”
Misha waves his free hand at Jensen.
“I blame it on cons. The fangirls always have me saying Castiel this and Cas that. How do you expect to go back from that?”
“Right, blame it on the poor, abused fangirls. What would the minions think?”
Misha smiles. It took forever to convince Jensen that his twitter followers actually liked being called minions, that they made shirts and did his bidding willingly. Jensen’s still a little leery of the fangirls and he can’t seem to comprehend how Misha seemingly lets them into his life. Now that he’s got Jensen referring to them as such, the minions will totally help Jensen and Misha take over the world.
Jensen can totally be talked into world domination.
“They’d think I was talking about all the other fangirls. They’re good at denial that way.”
Jensen shakes his head.
“Okay, I’ll pretend that that’s the truth. Anyway, before you have to get back to pretending you’re an actor and not just being yourself out there, I wanted to ask you about that dude’s pants. Or, I guess lack of pants.”
Misha doesn’t let him know it, but Jensen’s getting very good at reading Misha. At this point in the film, Misha’s just being himself, letting his lines roll off his tongue like he’s really speaking them, maybe like he’s talking to the minions and how, even though they should all totally hide in the pyramid, they are not going to let Stonehenge win the battle for Earth like that.
That’s the minions and Misha’s job.
Also, Jensen had asked a question.
“Oh, you mean David? He who is the wearer of the long shorts.”
“Yeah. His shorts practically go down to his ankles. So, why not, you know, pants?”
“They thought his long shorts fit the tragic nature of his character.”
Jensen frowns.
“Really?”
Misha shrugs.
“No. I actually think he came in dressed that way.”
Jensen shakes his head.
“You said they had a wardrobe department.”
“I did. I never said it was a good wardrobe department.”
Jensen snorts, the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkling and there, that’s a real Jensen smile, open and unabashed. Misha loves that smile and the way it lights up Jensen’s face, the way it makes him look young and old at the same time.
Misha’s possibly spent too much time cataloguing Jensen’s smiles.
“Yeah, okay. You got me there. Seriously, though. Did they even think that through?” Jensen says as he turns to the set.
It’s not much, but then it’s not like the budget on this is anywhere near some of the budgets that Jensen’s seen. Misha know s Jensen appreciates it because he works on smaller sets too, all the time. Misha knows this one is a little more makeshift than the ones from Supernatural, but he also knows it’ll look pretty decent on the small screen.
He leans into Jensen, briefly and no one’s watching- not that it matters because this is not Supernatural even if they both are inexplicably here- and he sighs.
“They don’t seem to be thinking a lot of things through. Like the actress that plays Marla,” Misha whispers so only Jensen can hear.
Jensen frowns and turns his head to stare at Misha, disapproving and totally Jensen.
“Dude, that’s not cool.”
“What can I say? Sometimes I can be very catty.”
Jensen snorts.
“Among other things,” he mutters.
Misha’s about to ask Jensen what he means by that when a PA comes up to him and taps him on the shoulder.
“Mister Collins, they think they’ve got the lights right now. They want you at your cue to do a test for it.”
Misha smiles, but inside he’s groaning because those tests are hell and it’s all blinking lights in his eyes for maybe hours. He turns to Jensen and Jensen is giving him that reassuring, sorry you have to go through hell, but maybe you’ll learn something face.
Misha thinks it’s possibly weird that he knows that. He also thinks it’s weird that Jensen gave it to him without any prompting.
“Guess it’s back to the salt mine.”
“Or the coal mine and I’m the canary about to die a possibly epileptic related death.”
“You’re not even mildly epileptic.”
Misha shrugs.
“I could be.”
Jensen takes a deep breath.
“Seriously. Work. You can give me the rest of your sandwich.”
Misha frowns.
“Are you gonna stick around some more?”
Jensen shakes his head.
“Probably not. Got our first scripts for Supernatural this morning,” Jensen says.
“Yeah, I know.”
Jensen rolls his eyes and it’s a look that says ‘don’t be a smartass’.
“Don’t be a smartass. Anyway, I should probably go over it some with Jared. There are some scenes in there that break down Sam and Dean’s relationship some.”
“I have like five lines. I didn’t really read past that.”
Jensen stares at him blankly.
“Of course you didn’t. Anyway, I’ll head out. Let you get back to work while I eat your sandwich,” Jensen says, tipping Misha’s half eaten sandwich at Misha.
Misha almost doesn’t mind, but he gives Jensen a death glare just so he doesn’t get complacent.
“You’re still not going to tell me the reason you were here in the first place? And why you keep coming back?”
Jensen stops, face blank and neutral again and it’s a look Misha can’t understand. He’s tried. He’s studied it enough times on Jensen’s face, but he just can’t decipher it. He doesn’t have the key or something and no one’s bending over backwards to hand him one.
“I told you. I wanted to see how it played out. And you invited me first.”
“Yeah, but I figured once would be enough. Are you sure…”
“Mister Collins,” one of the PAs shouts from Misha’s cue on set.
“You better get back to work, Misha,” Jensen says.
He walks away before Misha can get any more words in edgewise.
But Misha’s certainly going to be thinking about it all day. Thinking about what it means and what Jensen’s hiding and how much candy it would take to bribe the answer out of Jared because Jared has to know. He likes Jensen because he’s different. Loves the way he can’t seem to decipher all of Jensen and that’s because that’s the way Jensen wants it. It’s the perfect puzzle.
Of course, that will have to wait. He’s not saying lines, just standing at his cue while they test lights, but it might be fun to do it as Jacob Glaser, slip into Jacob’s skin and headspace and be there for the rest of the day because he’s not sure he’s going to get anything out of his Jensen puzzle today.
Besides, it’ll be really fun to yell at people for not getting it and not understanding the very important fact that it wasn’t aliens. It was, in fact, a robot head.
~*~
Jensen and Jared keep showing up.
Misha stops questioning why sometime around the second week. It’s not like anyone cares. The PAs love it and Torri likes pinching Jared’s arms and Hill doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.
He keeps calling Jensen Misha’s boyfriend, but Misha just figures that’s a thing.
Sometimes Jensen shows up alone. It’s always for a couple of hours and there’s always that feeling like there’s something more that Jensen isn’t saying. Still, Misha doesn’t really care because they rarely get this much time off together where they can talk about something other than the show and how long the lightings taking and how many cameras Kripke is going to need for the season five finale. Sure, he gets to talk to Jensen over the phone, via text, but it’s just not the same as hearing Jensen’s voice, seeing Jensen’s face when he says the words.
The times that Jared is there, he keeps making these really unsubtle jokes about Misha and Jensen having sex, which isn’t really new except that their intensity and frequency is kind of increasing over time. They’re also getting kind of creepy in their details and the fact that Jared knows the mechanics of some of the things he’s talking about is just dangerous on so many levels.
There’s this face Jared makes, this sort of half disappointed, half frustrated face that just appears on his face when Misha shrugs it off and moves on to something else. Misha’s not sure if it’s because he’s not playing the game right or what, but Misha can’t know for sure because Jared, while the most unsubtle human being, doesn’t like it when jokes have to be explained. Jensen makes these weird pinched and uncomfortable faces so Misha thinks maybe Jared’s growing as a person.
It’s close to the last week of filming when Jared throws his arms up in the air and says he quits.
“Quit what?” Misha asks.
Jared shakes his head.
“Just quit.”
“But what…”
“I just quit, Misha,” he says.
Jensen doesn’t seem to know what caused the fit and Misha had been too busy acting to really pay attention to whatever Jensen and Jared had been doing.
Jared comes the next day with Gen in tow.
“Dude, they’re bringing more people?” Hill asks.
Misha shakes his head.
“I guess.”
Hill shakes his head and Torri throws an arm around Misha’s shoulders.
“Maybe they’re just trying to make Misha here feel at home and comfortable,” Torri says.
“I feel at home and comfortable here,” Misha says.
He’s only half surprised to realize he actually means it.
“Maybe that’s what’s bugging them. It’s like marking their territory, even if they don’t say anything outright. I keep asking Jensen about his intentions towards you, but he keeps shrugging it off,” Torri says.
Misha rolls his eyes.
“You’ll like Gen.”
They do like Gen. She and Torri start talking about things that Misha can’t even begin to figure out and Hill just slowly introduces himself. He’s got scenes in the pyramid and he’s so not looking forward to them. Misha can’t spend too long with them because he has to work, but they promise to maybe be there for Misha’s lunch.
Only Gen’s at the tables when he gets there.
“Where’s Jensen and Jared?” Misha says.
He sits down on the bench across from her and places his plate on the table, watching as she points towards his trailer.
“They’re playing some kind of shooting game in your trailer. Jared brought his Playstation and me.”
Misha nods.
“Cool, I guess. We don’t often get a chance to hang out.”
“Yeah, well, the only reason we get to now is because the both of them are twelve year old boys stuck in men’s bodies. Do you know Jared stood outside at midnight for that thing? Or, well, he had his assistant stand out at midnight for that thing.”
Misha snorts.
“He’s so Hollywood.”
Gen laughs.
“I know right. It’s freaking annoying sometimes.”
Misha laughs and he’s never really had as much time with Gen as he’d like. They’ve been on the same episodes of Supernatural, but the amount of scenes they’ve actually had together is almost non-existent. They’ve hung out, all four of them at the house or at a bar or just on set when they’ve had so much time between scenes. He’s never hung out with just Gen, though, and he guesses, now, they have some time.
He picks up his sandwich and takes a big bite of it, watching as Gen watches him with this amused look on her face and he smiles after he’s done chewing.
“An angel and a demon, eating lunch together. The Heavens would weep.”
Gen rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, so would the pope, but you don’t see him here. And I’m not a demon, I only play one on TV. Sorry to ruin your television watching experience,” Gen says dryly.
This is one of the reasons Misha can’t believe she’s with Jared. She’s smart and funny, dry and sarcastic. Jared likes fart jokes. Not that Misha doesn’t think they totally deserve each other, because they do. They both seem to be that sickening kind of happy that Misha’s only sees in Hallmark cards, but can’t ever remember really seeing in real life.
“You’ve completely destroyed the magic,” Misha says.
Gen rolls her eyes again.
“It’s not like you’re not doing a bit of that destroying on your own. What with the totally non-angelic act of leaving a porno, assfucking message on your male co-workers cell phone.”
Misha frowns.
“Huh?”
“Jensen’s phone. The night you drunk dialed him. I mean, I assume it was drunk dialed. Jared said you sounded so wasted he was afraid you couldn’t hold yourself up. Or drive. But, since you’re sitting right across from me, I think it’s safe to say you didn’t end up a skidmark on the road.”
Misha’s frown deepens.
“Huh?” he says again.
Gen laughs.
“Oh this is great. Jared said you probably didn’t have any clue you left that message because you were so bombed out of your mind. He tried to talk Jensen out of coming to Vancouver after, but Jensen was completely out of his mind with the idea. It was all he could think about.”
Misha bites his lip and doesn’t think he can frown any harder.
“Okay, I think you need to start at the beginning. The very beginning.”
Gen sighs.
“Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this. Jared said to try and be subtle. That was his approach. Obviously, it didn’t work.”
“Or Jared just really sucks at being subtle.”
Gen smirks.
“Yeah, well, that too. But here’s the thing. A couple of weeks back, you got really, really drunk. Am I right so far?”
Misha nods.
“Okay, so, in your drunken state, you drunk dialed Jensen. You said some things that made Jensen think you were ready for the hearts and candy stage of your relationship and he rushed here to be with you. Only to sort of find out that you had no clue what was going on or why he was here.”
Misha’s eyebrows knit together. He remembers that night. How could he not remember that night? He’s let it go in a hazy glow of too drunk to remember, but, apparently, he did something monumentally stupid that night and no one bothered to tell him. He can’t blame it on Hill because he knows Hill had gotten almost as drunk that night on Torri’s special blend.
Still, he sort of wishes someone would have told him about his drunk dialing Jensen.
Or that Jensen could have had the same reaction AJ has every time they do it to him. He wishes Jensen would have called him or said something or been put out in some way so that Misha could know that he talked to Jensen’s machine about lube preferences.
He’s making that last part up because he just doesn’t remember what he said.
He tries and he still can’t remember past the Jell-O shots. He thinks maybe there was a flag involved or some kind of tap dance, but it’s all just lost in the recesses of his mind that get flushed away by alcohol.
He’s also apparently in deep.
“What did I say? Did I really talk about assfucking?”
Gen smiles and this time it looks apologetic, that same sweet look she gets on her face when she can’t save puppies, but really, really wants too.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear it. I’m not even supposed to know about it, but you know Jared. He can’t keep things to himself.”
Misha nods.
“How come Jensen hasn’t said anything?”
“Because it’s Jensen? Because he tricked himself into believing you weren’t drunk at the time? You two kind of have this pen pal thing going on and it’s cute. Really. But it’s also what people do in middle school.”
“I don’t…”
“It’s really obvious that you like him. Like the first scene we all had together I could see it. Sure, you sucked it up for the cameras, but it was there. It was there every time Charlie called cut because you couldn’t stop laughing at the dorky face Jared was making.”
Misha feels himself frown again.
“I thought I was being subtle.”
Gen laughs.
“All men apparently suck at subtle. Or don’t know what it means.”
“And Jensen…”
“I think it’s there. You’re both so closed off in different ways. Jared says Jensen’s been hurt a lot. You know, bad experiences that made him not really get close. I mean he’s nice and warm and charming and extremely friendly to crew and guest stars, but there’s always that wall, that something that he puts up without meaning to. Still, I’m pretty sure he feels the same way.”
“He couldn’t just say something?”
“And talk about his feelings? Surely you jest?”
Misha shakes his head and Gen giggles a little bit.
“He’s not Dean Winchester.”
“Yeah and thank God for that. I’m just saying, Jensen’s closed off about these things. I don’t know many details. I don’t actually know any of the details, but I do know that he cares about you. I do know that he likes you. Maybe even that way.”
“So what should I do?”
Gen looks at him, pointed and like the next words out of her mouth are going to be something along the lines of are you really that stupid. Misha really hopes she keeps the editorializing out because it’s just now sinking in that he left some sort of incriminating message on Jensen’s machine and it’s been weeks and Jensen hasn’t said anything and he probably thinks Misha isn’t interested.
He sincerely needs Gen’s help.
“I don’t know. Talk to him? It usually does wonders.”
Misha rolls his eyes.
“And say?”
“Say what you said in the message.”
“That’s not helpful because I don’t remember what I said in the message.”
Gen shrugs.
“Then keep it simple. Say you want to be more than friends. That you’ve wanted to be more than friends for awhile. And that you hope he feels the same way.”
Misha nods, but he feels a little lost.
“Should I write this down?”
Apparently that feeling was showing on his face.
“No. Look. I’ll handle it.”
Gen snorts.
“You better.”
He nods.
He’ll handle it.
Part 3