Orizuru: Chapter Five
-FIVE-
By Saturday afternoon, all Jensen really wants is a break. He's spent the last four days buttoned up tighter than the Queen's guard at Buckingham, but even his best efforts hadn't been enough to satisfy the natives completely. So, of course, he'd exhausted most of those four days and himself trying to make the awkward glances tossed Misha's way seem less awkward and the stilted conversations he'd had with Jared less stilted.
As far as he knows, it worked. If not well, at least well enough for Jared to let him vacate the passenger seat without answering a barrage of questions. In Jensen's book, that counts as a win.
Right now, there are more important things to worry about. Namely, what he's going to say when he catches his friendly neighborhood folder with their proverbial pants down.
He feels good, might even say great. Certainly better than he has in a week, because tonight he's got the upper hand. Given the wildly different content concealed inside the cranes he'd found at the bar, Jensen can only assume they weren't meant for him. Whoever it is, he's pretty sure they're not expecting him and will therefore be easier to find, easier to pin down when he does.
Freshly showered and shaved, he gives himself one last head-to-toe in the mirror before slipping outside, locking the door behind him.
Answers, even the prospect of them, are distilled adrenaline, so Jensen spends most of the drive over tapping the steering wheel and laying on the accelerator a little harder than he should. When he turns into the lot, it's already half full. It's also well lit, which is an unexpected bonus, and he picks a pole to park under. As soon as he swings the door open he can hear the driving bass line, the twang of an electric acoustic hot on its tail.
He weathers a wave of unexpected longing, thinking of long summers and longer hours spent caught in the undertow of Steve's guitar with Chris and Jason tussling over who hummed up the better harmony like they were all still twelve and had eaten their way to the bottom of the box of Fruit-Roll-Ups.
It's been too long.
Up close the building looks just as squat and black as it did online Tuesday morning, but the neon's lit bright and beckoning, the thrum of life spilling over and into the street with an irreverence he's missed. Jensen doesn't catch a double-take from the bouncer when he pushes his way through the double doors, just a nod and that careful once over any good security guy would give a potential problem. He's good at looking unassuming when he wants to, so the quick flick is it.
Through a second set of double doors the music hits him hard, digging up through his heels, climbing his spine, the three quarters time well on its way to a full-on mindfuck when anchored by an electric bass with dirty pickups. And maybe it's just the fact that he's finally here, balanced on the cusp of all those answers he's been after, but Jensen thinks he might actually like it.
All the lights save the ones on the band are turned down low, muted with jewel tone gels that trend red and purple. To his right there's a long, well-stocked bar manned by three dudes in various stages of body modification, all of them wearing black T-shirts and giving each other shit above the hum of the amplifiers. There are tables scattered at random intervals, couples too, but most of the action's up front in the open area at the foot of the stage.
Jensen decides to play it safe, get a beer and try to blend before he combs the crowd for a familiar face. Like shooting fish in a barrel, all he has to do is aim true and pull the trigger. He's got all the time in the world for that.
In theory it works. In practice-
In practice the plan falls apart before it's even fully realized. Jensen might even go so far as to say it blows up in his face. Spectacularly.
Not five minutes after he props his elbows up on the bar, Cheyenne sidles in beside him, her face a profile of pink as she leans in to order a round. Jensen bites his lip to keep from saying the first thing that pops into his head. Without solid proof, calling a co-worker a liar and a stalker seems ever so slightly over the top. She chats with the bartender, giggling at some joke Jensen's not privy to, and he can't tell whether she's feigning nonchalance or if she really hasn't noticed him. Could be she's just buying herself time.
Jensen waits.
Drinks in hand, she twists towards him this time, presumably to make her way back to whatever table she's commandeered in a dark corner. He feels her eyes on him, the cursory catalog she does of his features and he's about to call bullshit when she stops two steps away and turns back.
"Jensen?"
His name gets lost in the sharp cadence of the snare, but he can read the shape of it on her lips. Her face is an even easier read, if considerably more confusing - no guilt, no concern, just surprise. Maybe her moral code works differently though and getting caught in a lie doesn't eat at her the way it would him. Doesn't really matter.
"In the flesh," he says and raises his beer to her in mock salute.
"Did Dan invite you?"
"No, I -" Jensen stops short and studies her. Like before, she seems genuine and it confuses things, makes him question his assumptions. "Which Dan?"
"Danny from sound. Danny that is currently kicking the shit out of that bass drum. I told him to at least say something to you about the gig, but he was being weird. The new kids usually are."
Jensen hears most of it, but latches onto the part about Danny being in the band the hardest. That little tidbit of information means the bar's probably crawling with crew and his master plan for narrowing his suspect pool down to one is now little more than a pipe dream.
He has to ask. "So who all showed?"
"Amy, Liz, and Brian from lighting. The whole sound crew minus the big dogs. Nate and Deb from production. Couple of prop monkeys. And Misha."
In retrospect, he shouldn't have expected any less, but it still makes him swallow hard and pick at the label on his bottle knowing Misha's here. Unlike every other dream he's ever had, he can't shake this one. Each time he's seen Misha since it takes him longer than he'd like to set aside the taste of his mouth, the feel of his tongue.
This, apparently, is no exception and he's lingered too long in silence for Cheyenne to ignore it.
"Trouble in paradise?" she asks, smirking like she knows more than she should.
It's too close to a truth he's not ready to recognize and too far from where they actually are for Jensen's comfort.
"Guess that depends on the definition of paradise," he says and takes a slow pull off his beer.
Cheyenne frowns at him, arched brows tugged together in a tight peak and blond streak falling in her eyes. "So, uh. Most of us are over there," she says, chin tipped over her shoulder. "If you want to join us, cool. If not, that's cool too. Haven't seen Misha for half an hour or so, but I think he's still around somewhere."
She's gone before he can say, "Sure" or "Thanks" or ask any one of the new questions swirling in the back of his mind.
Jensen follows her progress across the room, feels the extra eyes on him once she gets there. Doesn't matter how long he's been in the business, he'll never really get used to the weight of people watching when he's not inhabiting someone else's skin. In this case, it's a necessary evil, a means to an end. Two dozen potential suspects whittled down to eight.
It's better than nothing.
The edge of the bar digs into his back, a broad stripe of pressure that keeps him grounded as he pounds the rest of his beer and scans the floor for stragglers. There's a couple hovering near the back of the crowd that he thinks he recognizes, but their heads are tipped together so it's hard to be sure.
No Misha.
If Lady Luck's on his side, Misha's long gone. Lately though, he's been her bitch and fucked six ways from Sunday before he even opens his mouth. As such, Jensen's not the least bit surprised to find Misha on his second sweep. It's expected, like death and taxes and overtime. The where - well, that's something else altogether.
The alcove sits near enough the stage to provide a semi-obstructed view, but then Jensen figures it was never intended for serious aficionados, more like those who came for the atmosphere and music instead of the visuals. High-backed benches done in red velvet line all three walls, the squat table shoved in the center leaving little room for movement beyond what's required for the careful side-step around the edge.
It's not the corner Jensen would have picked, but then Misha routinely does stuff that flies in the face of conventional reality - like suck face with some coffeehouse douchebag turned punkster.
Colloquialism aside, Jensen thinks first impressions stand in this case. The unfortunate facts of the club's architectural details leave nothing to the imagination, six softball sized globes throwing the pair of them into sharp relief. Or sharp as it gets with Misha half-hidden by roving limbs and lips. They're pressed against the wall and each other so tight that Jensen couldn't begin to figure out where one ends and the other begins. It's all a blur of dark denim and black cotton, skin and ink, Misha's fingers twisted into the fabric stretched tight across the guy's shoulders. In and of himself, dude's not unattractive - lanky with broad shoulders and sharply defined features, longish dark hair that's just the right kind of mess that Jensen knows from experience it took half an hour to get right. From what he can tell, the ink is tasteful and custom, and he can see how Misha might be drawn even if he doesn't really want to.
If he was a little drunker or a lot more self-involved, Jensen might be inclined to believe this whole night had been designed to drive him up the fucking wall. Not that he cares. He doesn't. Misha's a grown ass man with no known romantic entanglements and has every right to screw around with whomever he wants.
Still.
Jensen smacks his bottle down a bit too hard and waves at the blond bartender with the snake crawling up the side of his neck.
"Whiskey. Double. Keep it coming."
"Any preference?"
Punk boy slides a hand up Misha's thigh and it takes more effort than it should for Jensen to keep his voice even as he grits out, "Whatever gets me to shitfaced faster."
"Can do," he says, and Jensen turns in time to catch the sly smile twisting the bartender's lips before he moves away.
It hits him wrong, like there's some great truth he keeps missing caught up behind all the weird smiles and knowing looks people have been lobbing his direction all week. The only thing worse than ignorance is getting your ignorance batted around like a chew toy, but he's never worked out how you ask a stranger what the fuck their problem is without actually asking. Jensen watches him stroll the length of the bar and flip a highball glass into hand, admiring the quick flick of wrist that sends the whiskey spilling after, smooth and honey-colored.
The glass sits at his elbow before he can reach to take it.
Disappointment makes Jensen reckless, always has, so he asks, "What's up?" without expecting an answer and turns back to watch the artsy little fuck with the turtle tattoo and skintight T-shirt molest Misha.
The answer he gets in return might actually go down in history as the weirdest ever, not to be disqualified by the fact that it's actually a question too.
"Your ex?"
Jensen coughs around a swallow of whiskey, both grateful for and irritated by the solid thump of the bartender's fist against his back.
"What makes you think that? Uh-"
"Noah."
"Noah. And what makes you think it's any of your business?"
Even the amber swirl and the liquid fire burning down his throat can't distract him completely. Jensen knows he should leave, knows like he knows the world is round and drunk isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. There's nothing keeping him here now that all the clues have been sifted through and cataloged. But he can't quite get past the way they're slotted together, the motion of Misha's jaw as he tongues at punk boy's mouth, the splay of his fingers between hem and waistband.
"Don't shoot the messenger, my man. I've seen pining aplenty. You're straight up panting after him."
"No. No, I'm... a concerned bystander. He's a friend."
"Bystand my ass."
Jensen sighs and tosses back the rest of the whiskey, mutters a "Seriously," he can't even bring himself to believe.
"Shit. So he's not into you?" Noah leans across the bar, forearms slapped flat against the scarred surface. Whiskey appears in Jensen's glass again as if wishing is all it takes.
The shrug comes naturally and before Jensen has a chance to change his mind.
"He blind or just a bastard?"
"Neither. Both. Fuck, I don't know. What do I care? Not like I'm hard up or anything," Jensen says, rolling his shoulders back slow and easy. It's the truth. He could charm his way into the pants of anyone in this bar if he applied himself, Misha included. It's one of the burdens of being so awesome.
Again, it's a plan that works in theory. What it doesn't take into account is the matched pair of elephants parked in the proverbial corner - one named 'You want more' and the other named 'Own it, you know what you want'. They're pachyderms of monstrous proportions, distracting and nerve-wracking and annoying as all fuck, because they won't let him forget or even substitute anymore.
He can sure as shit try though.
Noah settles chin to palm, elbow bent against the bar and Jensen watches him do it out of the corner of his eye.
"What about you," he asks. "Sure you get pretty aplenty in this line of work."
There's something in the way Noah smiles, the self-deprecating huff tacked onto his laugh that's almost but not quite perfect.
"I'm kind of a dick if you hadn't noticed," he says and taps his rings against the bar hard enough that Jensen feels it right between his shoulder-blades. "And I'm also-"
"Gay?" Jensen offers, because that feels like it might be Noah's elephant, if he's reading his signals right. He's not exactly operating on his most tactful cylinders tonight.
"Particular is what I was going to say," Noah answers, his smile drawn tight across his teeth like maybe he's afraid of being judged. "But then, I'm generally not a fan of stating the obvious."
Jensen smiles and tosses back a long swallow of whiskey, draining the glass a second time and savoring the burn, the tingle starting to lodge in his jaw and sing across shoulders. The silence stretches between them, full of unspoken promise and a challenge Jensen's not sure he wants to rise to. Noah fills his glass again without having to be asked, whiskey sloshing up past what any sane bartender would pour as a double.
Jensen could kiss him, might even sack up and do it under different conditions.
Because Noah's totally his type, if he could claim to have a type for dudes. He doesn't, but that's not a detail he's in any hurry to focus on right now considering the nature of his own previously alluded to elephants. No harm in appreciating aesthetics though - compact build, nice lips, slender without being scrawny, singular without being over-the-top weird, graceful in a way that proclaims to anyone with eyes that he knows how to use his body.
Jensen's perceptive enough to recognize it's on offer.
Of course, that's when Misha laughs, head tipped back and sideways, Mr. Rockabilly Coffeehouse whispering something in his ear with his fingers hooked into the collar of Misha's T-shirt. As it just so happens, that's also when Misha sees him, catches him staring for the second time in a week. And Jensen's gotten so settled in his undeniably perverse voyeur routine that he can't look away - doesn't want to because their eyes lock and his stomach sinks right down into his knees.
He's so fucked.
Impossibly and completely fucked.
Noah leans in again, fingers wrapped tight around Jensen's wrist, breath warm and wintermint-scented in his ear. It's enough of a shock to shift his balance and Jensen feels the stool rock off one of its legs then settle back with a solid thump.
"Relax, cowboy," he says when Jensen tries to jerk his arm away. "Two can play."
"If they're playing the same game, sure," Jensen says. "This is not what you think it is. Hell, I don't even know what it is."
Across the room, Misha's on the move, slipping what looks like a business card out of his wallet and scribbling furiously on it with a pen he produced from who-the-fuck knows where. He tucks the card in the punk boy's back pocket and pats his ass to send him on his way. Jensen can't quite parse the meaning of the moment three-quarters of the way to a whiskey drunk, but he thinks he should feel vindicated.
The view makes even less sense after another sinus-clearing gulp from his glass because when he opens his eyes Misha's occupying the stool to his left and Noah's fingers are no longer a firm, warm band of pressure circling his wrist.
"Misha."
"Jensen," Misha answers, and Jensen will never get over how many meanings he can pour into a single word. This time all Jensen can extract with any certainty is the frustration and humor. Whatever.
"Misha, Noah. Noah, Misha."
Jensen takes a long, slow sip of whiskey just to have something to occupy his mouth that doesn't require speech. This far down the neck of a bottle, he's way more likely to incriminate himself than he is anyone else. And it's not as if his input would do anything to disarm the full-on Animal Planet turf war raging silently between them. Neither even has the decency to be subtle and Jensen's not looking to get clubbed over the head and dragged anywhere by his hair. If Misha wasn't a part-time asshole and Noah was actually entitled to the overprotective insanity, Jensen might go so far as to call it sweet. As it stands now, the bullshit posturing's just annoying. Telling either one of them to step the fuck off would only make the situation worse though. That's a lesson Jensen learned a long, long time ago thanks to Welling.
The band wrapped their last encore what feels like an hour ago although the clock above the door seems to think it's only been fifteen minutes. Regardless, they've taken with them his last, best hope for distraction - the club clearing rapidly until all that's left is a handful of crew, the band and the staff. Seems a late start means a short set.
Jensen wants to fill the air with noise to keep his ears from ringing, but instead, he drinks his whiskey and waits.
By the time he reaches the bottom of the glass, they seem to have worked out their differences. Misha, unsurprisingly, emerges victorious if his body language's to be believed - his arm a warm, barely there presence along the edge of the bar and behind Jensen's back, fingers dangling way too close to his side for comfort.
Noah breaks the silence first, eyes narrowed down to slits, tone careful and professional when he asks Misha, "What'll it be?"
"Circumstances appear to dictate that I'm done for the night," Misha says, his tone sharp but smile wide.
Noah slings a towel over his shoulder and rubs his hands together, tops off Jensen's double one last time and says, "Great, I'll just go be elsewhere," then turns to move away.
Jensen blinks after him, the set of his shoulders as he slams together racks of dirty glasses and goes about the business of flushing the trap in the sink. It's not like he had any kind of attachment to Noah, but he can't help wondering what the fuck Misha's smoking to have treated another human being with such carelessness. That's not what he's about. Not usually anyway.
As expected, Misha reels himself back in as soon as Noah's out of earshot - heels hooked on the bottom rung of the stool, fingers laced together and shoved between his knees.
"No need to thank me," he says. "These things I do for the good of mankind."
And that - that is it.
"Fuck you, Misha," Jensen hisses under his breath, feels the venom work its way through his system chasing the whiskey, and slams back another swallow.
Misha huffs a laugh and it pisses Jensen off that he can tell the difference, that this flavor of self-deprecation is, like Goldilocks' porridge, just right. "Promises, promises," he says and tips forward on his stool to try to catch Jensen's eye.
Just. No.
Jensen finishes the last of his whiskey and shoves himself away from the bar, the stool, most of all Misha and his smug fucking face. The same face Jensen still seems to want to do things to, things he's not entirely comfortable with. He wobbles for a tenuous handful of seconds before he gets his knees under him and what was a totally workable buzz while he was sitting down turns nasty when he's on his feet. It makes him more determined, not less.
Noah's not ten feet away, bent down behind the bar stocking beer or lemons or whatever the fuck they're low on, his hair a shock of light against the dark woodgrain. A couple carefully measured steps and he's there.
"Hey," Jensen says, slurs, shouts. It sounds deafening in the relative quiet, hollow and off.
"Jensen? You good?" Noah asks. There's real concern in his eyes once Jensen can see them, bring them into a shaky focus, and that's enough to make his mind up.
Takes him two attempts to find a grip with Noah's T-shirt wet, but Jensen gets his hands where he wants them eventually, soft cotton crushed between his fingers and then the unmistakable taste of wintermint on his lips. Noah grabs back and Jensen feels his hands like boat anchors at his shoulder and across the back of his neck. One of them makes a noise, low and urgent, the kind that never really comes up all the way no matter how hard it tries and Jensen takes it as permission to lick into Noah's mouth for more. He wants more, needs it to quiet the ringing in his ears that's gone internal, to shut out the images that flash back unbidden. Misha's lips. Misha's tongue. Misha's hand on him, coaxing him with a sly certainty of purpose.
Fuck.
The "Jensen," comes from nowhere, but he feels it in his toes, Misha's breath on his neck, Misha's hand on his elbow. He tries to shake free, savoring the slick slide of Noah's lips as he fists his hands tighter, but Misha's like a fucking terrier tugging at him. It's distracting. Jensen breaks away to breathe, far enough but not too far, his nose still nudged up against Noah's cheek and heart racing. Misha's fingers flex harder, digging into muscle and tendon, but Jensen won't look, can't look if he has any hope of pulling this bullshit off.
Can't kid a kidder.
"Problem?" he asks, both surprised and grateful that it sounds about a thousand times more resolved than he actually feels. Jensen looks to Noah, trying to get back that sense of solidity because his head's beginning to swim. But the closeness clues him in to an unfortunate fact he hadn't yet realized - Noah's eyes are blue. The tide of the memory takes him then and he loses focus, Noah blurring down to fuzzy flesh-colored shapes.
"A word?" Misha says, and Jensen can't help himself. He looks. "Outside," Misha continues. "Preferably before I relocate your arm."
Noah sighs against his neck, hands already sliding like he's got some superhuman sense of insight, like he knows Jensen will go before Jensen does. It's a phenomenon that's starting to become a pattern and Jensen wonders if it should worry him.
Right now, he's too drunk to worry about much of anything.
So he says, "Yeah, okay," and tries to smooth flat the wrinkles he's put in the front of Noah's shirt.
When he shuffles away, it's on the tip of his tongue to say that he'll be back but Noah stops him with a beatific smile and a muttered, "No you won't."
Beyond the doors of the club, the night has cooled considerably, the gentle breeze catching in the trees enough to raise gooseflesh across the back of Jensen's neck. It also goes a long way in pulling his head out of the clouds even if it can't completely counteract his short-sighted decision to over-indulge.
The wall beside the entrance is far enough outside for him quite frankly, and Jensen leans against it, the red of the neon overhead turning the black paint a ruddy purple in the dark. At least it isn't spinning.
Misha, it seems, has other ideas about the wheres of outside, because he keeps walking - long, purposeful strides that eat up asphalt and only slow to a stop once he realizes there's no one following. Even with the distance, Jensen hears him curse, the wind taking the word in the opposite direction. He tries to follow it, but can't catch on, doesn't want to move because the black brick at his back is good. So good.
"Jesus, Jensen," Misha says, and Jensen opens his eyes not knowing when they closed, thoughts he should not be entertaining rooting fast in his brain.
Misha's close enough to kiss, not halfway across the parking lot or across the room tongue-fucking some other dude. He's standing a foot away with one hand on Jensen's chest and the other on his wrist, trying to wedge his shoulder under Jensen's arm and steal him away from his friend the wall. The whiskey sloshes in his stomach, a burning swill that makes him pitch forward enough for Misha to wrap an arm around his waist.
Then he's walking, the pavement beneath his feet pounding back up his legs, Misha's hip bumping against his on every other step because Jensen can't seem to find the right rhythm. Misha shifts against him, shrugging closer, holding tighter when he staggers and remembers that there were supposed to be words and that he's pissed.
"Not my keeper," he mumbles.
Misha laughs, shoulders shaking with it until his face softens into one of those unreadable expressions Jensen wants to kill him for making. "If you really want to embarrass yourself by passing out halfway through the blowjob your new friend Noah was going to give you in the back room, you're more than welcome to. Don't ask me to deliver you to him. Even I have limits."
Jensen glances back over his shoulder, the neon's still lit but it shines from what seems miles away. As awesome as a blowjob would be, it's probably not fair to either of them.
Instead he leans on Misha a little harder and says, "Limits? You?"
Part of him wants to throw caution to the wind, pull Misha down with him amongst the dried leaves and broken beer bottles to find out once and for all. It wouldn't take much, one misplaced step or turned ankle to tumble them both. But he can't, or won't. Instinct sends him on to safer trains of thought.
"So apparently I have a stalker," he says, groaning when Misha deposits him against the side of a familiar silver sedan.
"Only the one? How disappointing for you." Misha tugs the door open slowly, one hand pressed against Jensen's chest to keep him upright. It's a small thing, but it makes him hope. And panic.
"Love notes," he blurts out, his hand flying to the front of Misha's shirt before he thinks to pull it back. Misha looks at it, considering, then follows the line of his arm up to meet his eyes. It's strange, and again Jensen wants to do some very ill-advised things that would at least give him an idea whether Misha's interested or not, he's just too chickenshit to pull the trigger. Easier to talk about a whacknut stalker.
"Love notes," Misha repeats, and he looks down like the ground has suddenly become the most fascinating thing on the planet.
"Shaped like birds and turtles and ugly black bugs, but yeah. Love notes. And other stuff. This address for one."
It's a relief to have it out in the open, for someone to know besides Jay and Cheyenne, and he's past caring whether Misha will mock him or not. Mockery's much easier to handle than the powder keg packing down behind his ribs, ready to explode.
His fingers slip free as Misha steps back to give him room. The passenger side door is the one hanging open, so Jensen guesses it's on him to get in. He tangles his arm in the seatbelt on the way, but eventually he manages to sit the fuck down without damaging himself or the car. Misha slams the door after him, and Jensen watches him in the rearview, the hand pushed haphazardly through his hair, the slow saunter around the ass end of the car before he slides into the driver's seat all smiles.
"Shall we?" he says, but doesn't wait for an answer before he coaxes the car to life and shifts her into reverse.
Vancouver whips past the window in a patchwork of shadow and light - neighborhoods sleeping behind closed doors and every so often a cluster littered with bars and clubs, restaurants that accommodate the often alternative lifestyle of her part-time HoNo residents. Jensen uses the silence and inebriation to his advantage, stripping down and sorting through the clues to see if something shakes out in his altered state. Misha's lost to thought anyway, one wrist strung lazily across the steering wheel, the other hand tapping at his lips, his knee, the gearshift like it has to be in motion in order for him to think clearly.
Up ahead the light flips to red and the car slides to a smooth stop.
"If I know you at all, there's a list," Misha says, his hands finally still and wrapped tight at ten and two like he's bracing himself.
"Sure there's a list," Jensen answers, puzzled. "How the hell else would you figure something like this out? It's driving me insane."
"And here I thought we were already there."
The car jolts back into motion as the light turns green and Jensen's stomach flips over then into his throat, whiskey swirling fast and furious and generally making him wish he wasn't alive.
"So?" Misha says, and Jensen feels like he missed something in trying too hard to not puke his guts out all over Misha or his car.
"So what?"
"Regale me with the fruits of your divine deductive labors," Misha says.
Jensen breathes carefully in through his nose and grips the dash as they take the turn into his neighborhood, swallowing hard around the "Eight," he grits out between his teeth.
"I'm sorry?"
"Got it narrowed down to eight," Jensen says.
From here he can see the halo of his porch light shining where he left it on, and he could swear it's the sweetest thing he's ever seen. Except now he has to decide if he's going to man up and ask Misha in or - not.
There's no reason to believe he'll get the answer he's after, no solid signs to indicate that Misha's even interested, much less willing or wanting. He still wants, though. Despite his best efforts and every last shred of common sense he ever possessed, he wants Misha.
Misha.
The burden of asking gets taken off his hands when he nearly sideswipes his face with the driveway on his way out of the car. He doesn't only because Misha's already there, arm looped across his chest and yanking him back.
"I could drop you right now," Misha says. "And still be a better friend than Jack."
Jensen blinks and steadies himself against the car. Perhaps consuming a fifth of whiskey in the space of an hour wasn't the best of ideas. Sometimes he can be a jealous bastard though, and that slim-hipped little pseudo-punk was grating his last nerve.
"That what his name was?" Jensen asks and pushes away from both car and Misha, aiming for the front door. He doesn't trip again, just scuffs the shit out of his boot because the first step seems to have migrated two feet further down the front walkway.
"Oh for fuck's sake," Misha sighs. "Let's get you to bed. If you break your face on my watch, I'll never hear the end of it."
While it's not exactly the most refined of propositions, it gets Misha inside, Misha's hand on his back or his hip whenever his balance fails him. But Jensen's not into games, playing or being played. He doesn't dangle carrots or hint at shit when he really wants something because it's a waste of time. He takes. So he doesn't stop moving once the door slams shut behind them, he lets the momentum carry him down the hall and into his room with Misha trailing after.
The bed bounces when he flops back on it still fully clothed, his stomach roiling at the sudden motion.
"Mission accomplished," he says, lacing his fingers behind his head with a smile, a smile Misha doesn't return.
Instead he says, "Jensen," and paints it up with all those subtle shades of inflection and meaning that neither of them have a reference for, says, "I didn't realize," and kneels to unknot the laces of Jensen's boots.
"What's there to realize? That I'm a sad fuck a little in love with a person I may never know?" Jensen asks. Misha's hands still for a second, but he holds his tongue.
And it's too much to have him so close but not be able to touch, stubble rasping at the knee of his jeans as Misha shifts to work the other set of laces loose. Somewhere in the back of his alcohol addled brain, there's a question he can't get a handle on. It feels important, like maybe he should chase it down, but the thud of his boots against the dresser chases it off.
"S'not even about that anymore, y'know? Solving the puzzle. I care who, but not for the reasons I thought," he says, looking down the line of his body to catch Misha's eye. "I want that. Who doesn't want that?"
Misha only hums, and Jensen realizes he's accidentally wandered into the maudlin portion of the program with Misha still in attendance. It doesn't bode well for him or his rapidly diminishing manhood. Then Misha's fingers - his long, clever fingers - are fumbling at Jensen's belt buckle, slipping leather through metal and Jensen's asking himself entirely different questions. Ones that make his face flush hot and his own fingers twitch with want, like whether Misha's hair is as soft as it looks and what kind of noises he makes when he's as straight-up fucking needy as Jensen is right now. Both questions he can't answer until he asks the first.
His body makes the decision for him when Misha unfastens the fly of his pants and hooks his thumbs under to ease them down. Misha doesn't ask if it's okay or if he should or can. He just smacks Jensen's hip and Jensen lifts up to let him do it.
It's so simple.
Jensen catches Misha's wrist at his ankle, feels the tendons twist against his palm as Misha works denim down over his foot. He whispers, "Stay," and Misha pretends he doesn't hear, rocks back on his heels to stand instead and tosses Jensen's pants alongside his boots.
Light from the hall lands on Misha's face, a soft gold glow that strikes in complete contrast to the studied stillness of Misha's features, too blank to be honest.
"Turn over," Misha says quietly and Jensen narrows his eyes.
"Or what?"
Misha doesn't answer, and in a flash he's gone, reduced to nothing more than a series of loud disembodied footsteps in the hallway and a muttered, "Fucking stubborn dickface," that makes Jensen smile wider.
He does as he's told, not because Misha asked, but because he's not stupid and has taken care of enough drunken idiots in his time to know that you can actually drown in your own vomit if you try hard enough. There was one night he'd almost had to sit on Kane to keep him from rolling over. Kane's not here right now though, thank all that is holy.
Misha is.
Jensen tries to focus on his movements, shutting his eyes tight to listen - the refrigerator opening and closing, plastic rattling in the master bath, water running. At some point, he must doze off, because Misha's voice in his ear brings him back around.
The "Hey," is just as soft as the earlier command and Jensen forgets himself, thinking, maybe even hoping he's back in that dream with Misha and his creepy smile, back where Misha wants him. So he reaches out to tangle his fingers in Misha's shirt, to pull him closer and kiss him quiet even though he's not actually saying anything. This Misha tastes like Red Hots from what Jensen can tell. Not that he's getting much of a sample yet because this Misha is also slow to respond, tentative instead of consuming and Jensen has to wonder what the fuck is wrong with his subconscious that it would feed him such a lameass dream.
When he tries to get a hand around the back of Misha's neck to pull him deeper, he finally gets it. His elbow catches against the bottle of water on the nightstand, tipping it over onto the Aleve beside it, sending them both tumbling into the trashcan below. The same trashcan that the real Misha has thoughtfully emptied of both garbage and bag to make the cleanup easier in case an unfortunate stomach evacuation is, in fact, imminent.
Fuck.
"Misha?"
Jensen feels the press of a cool washcloth against the back of his neck, Misha's breath warm against his cheek before he answers.
"Go to sleep, Jen," he says, and the last thing Jensen hears before he passes out is the solid click of the front door latching.
( SIX)
By Saturday afternoon, all Jensen really wants is a break. He's spent the last four days buttoned up tighter than the Queen's guard at Buckingham, but even his best efforts hadn't been enough to satisfy the natives completely. So, of course, he'd exhausted most of those four days and himself trying to make the awkward glances tossed Misha's way seem less awkward and the stilted conversations he'd had with Jared less stilted.
As far as he knows, it worked. If not well, at least well enough for Jared to let him vacate the passenger seat without answering a barrage of questions. In Jensen's book, that counts as a win.
Right now, there are more important things to worry about. Namely, what he's going to say when he catches his friendly neighborhood folder with their proverbial pants down.
He feels good, might even say great. Certainly better than he has in a week, because tonight he's got the upper hand. Given the wildly different content concealed inside the cranes he'd found at the bar, Jensen can only assume they weren't meant for him. Whoever it is, he's pretty sure they're not expecting him and will therefore be easier to find, easier to pin down when he does.
Freshly showered and shaved, he gives himself one last head-to-toe in the mirror before slipping outside, locking the door behind him.
Answers, even the prospect of them, are distilled adrenaline, so Jensen spends most of the drive over tapping the steering wheel and laying on the accelerator a little harder than he should. When he turns into the lot, it's already half full. It's also well lit, which is an unexpected bonus, and he picks a pole to park under. As soon as he swings the door open he can hear the driving bass line, the twang of an electric acoustic hot on its tail.
He weathers a wave of unexpected longing, thinking of long summers and longer hours spent caught in the undertow of Steve's guitar with Chris and Jason tussling over who hummed up the better harmony like they were all still twelve and had eaten their way to the bottom of the box of Fruit-Roll-Ups.
It's been too long.
Up close the building looks just as squat and black as it did online Tuesday morning, but the neon's lit bright and beckoning, the thrum of life spilling over and into the street with an irreverence he's missed. Jensen doesn't catch a double-take from the bouncer when he pushes his way through the double doors, just a nod and that careful once over any good security guy would give a potential problem. He's good at looking unassuming when he wants to, so the quick flick is it.
Through a second set of double doors the music hits him hard, digging up through his heels, climbing his spine, the three quarters time well on its way to a full-on mindfuck when anchored by an electric bass with dirty pickups. And maybe it's just the fact that he's finally here, balanced on the cusp of all those answers he's been after, but Jensen thinks he might actually like it.
All the lights save the ones on the band are turned down low, muted with jewel tone gels that trend red and purple. To his right there's a long, well-stocked bar manned by three dudes in various stages of body modification, all of them wearing black T-shirts and giving each other shit above the hum of the amplifiers. There are tables scattered at random intervals, couples too, but most of the action's up front in the open area at the foot of the stage.
Jensen decides to play it safe, get a beer and try to blend before he combs the crowd for a familiar face. Like shooting fish in a barrel, all he has to do is aim true and pull the trigger. He's got all the time in the world for that.
In theory it works. In practice-
In practice the plan falls apart before it's even fully realized. Jensen might even go so far as to say it blows up in his face. Spectacularly.
Not five minutes after he props his elbows up on the bar, Cheyenne sidles in beside him, her face a profile of pink as she leans in to order a round. Jensen bites his lip to keep from saying the first thing that pops into his head. Without solid proof, calling a co-worker a liar and a stalker seems ever so slightly over the top. She chats with the bartender, giggling at some joke Jensen's not privy to, and he can't tell whether she's feigning nonchalance or if she really hasn't noticed him. Could be she's just buying herself time.
Jensen waits.
Drinks in hand, she twists towards him this time, presumably to make her way back to whatever table she's commandeered in a dark corner. He feels her eyes on him, the cursory catalog she does of his features and he's about to call bullshit when she stops two steps away and turns back.
"Jensen?"
His name gets lost in the sharp cadence of the snare, but he can read the shape of it on her lips. Her face is an even easier read, if considerably more confusing - no guilt, no concern, just surprise. Maybe her moral code works differently though and getting caught in a lie doesn't eat at her the way it would him. Doesn't really matter.
"In the flesh," he says and raises his beer to her in mock salute.
"Did Dan invite you?"
"No, I -" Jensen stops short and studies her. Like before, she seems genuine and it confuses things, makes him question his assumptions. "Which Dan?"
"Danny from sound. Danny that is currently kicking the shit out of that bass drum. I told him to at least say something to you about the gig, but he was being weird. The new kids usually are."
Jensen hears most of it, but latches onto the part about Danny being in the band the hardest. That little tidbit of information means the bar's probably crawling with crew and his master plan for narrowing his suspect pool down to one is now little more than a pipe dream.
He has to ask. "So who all showed?"
"Amy, Liz, and Brian from lighting. The whole sound crew minus the big dogs. Nate and Deb from production. Couple of prop monkeys. And Misha."
In retrospect, he shouldn't have expected any less, but it still makes him swallow hard and pick at the label on his bottle knowing Misha's here. Unlike every other dream he's ever had, he can't shake this one. Each time he's seen Misha since it takes him longer than he'd like to set aside the taste of his mouth, the feel of his tongue.
This, apparently, is no exception and he's lingered too long in silence for Cheyenne to ignore it.
"Trouble in paradise?" she asks, smirking like she knows more than she should.
It's too close to a truth he's not ready to recognize and too far from where they actually are for Jensen's comfort.
"Guess that depends on the definition of paradise," he says and takes a slow pull off his beer.
Cheyenne frowns at him, arched brows tugged together in a tight peak and blond streak falling in her eyes. "So, uh. Most of us are over there," she says, chin tipped over her shoulder. "If you want to join us, cool. If not, that's cool too. Haven't seen Misha for half an hour or so, but I think he's still around somewhere."
She's gone before he can say, "Sure" or "Thanks" or ask any one of the new questions swirling in the back of his mind.
Jensen follows her progress across the room, feels the extra eyes on him once she gets there. Doesn't matter how long he's been in the business, he'll never really get used to the weight of people watching when he's not inhabiting someone else's skin. In this case, it's a necessary evil, a means to an end. Two dozen potential suspects whittled down to eight.
It's better than nothing.
The edge of the bar digs into his back, a broad stripe of pressure that keeps him grounded as he pounds the rest of his beer and scans the floor for stragglers. There's a couple hovering near the back of the crowd that he thinks he recognizes, but their heads are tipped together so it's hard to be sure.
No Misha.
If Lady Luck's on his side, Misha's long gone. Lately though, he's been her bitch and fucked six ways from Sunday before he even opens his mouth. As such, Jensen's not the least bit surprised to find Misha on his second sweep. It's expected, like death and taxes and overtime. The where - well, that's something else altogether.
The alcove sits near enough the stage to provide a semi-obstructed view, but then Jensen figures it was never intended for serious aficionados, more like those who came for the atmosphere and music instead of the visuals. High-backed benches done in red velvet line all three walls, the squat table shoved in the center leaving little room for movement beyond what's required for the careful side-step around the edge.
It's not the corner Jensen would have picked, but then Misha routinely does stuff that flies in the face of conventional reality - like suck face with some coffeehouse douchebag turned punkster.
Colloquialism aside, Jensen thinks first impressions stand in this case. The unfortunate facts of the club's architectural details leave nothing to the imagination, six softball sized globes throwing the pair of them into sharp relief. Or sharp as it gets with Misha half-hidden by roving limbs and lips. They're pressed against the wall and each other so tight that Jensen couldn't begin to figure out where one ends and the other begins. It's all a blur of dark denim and black cotton, skin and ink, Misha's fingers twisted into the fabric stretched tight across the guy's shoulders. In and of himself, dude's not unattractive - lanky with broad shoulders and sharply defined features, longish dark hair that's just the right kind of mess that Jensen knows from experience it took half an hour to get right. From what he can tell, the ink is tasteful and custom, and he can see how Misha might be drawn even if he doesn't really want to.
If he was a little drunker or a lot more self-involved, Jensen might be inclined to believe this whole night had been designed to drive him up the fucking wall. Not that he cares. He doesn't. Misha's a grown ass man with no known romantic entanglements and has every right to screw around with whomever he wants.
Still.
Jensen smacks his bottle down a bit too hard and waves at the blond bartender with the snake crawling up the side of his neck.
"Whiskey. Double. Keep it coming."
"Any preference?"
Punk boy slides a hand up Misha's thigh and it takes more effort than it should for Jensen to keep his voice even as he grits out, "Whatever gets me to shitfaced faster."
"Can do," he says, and Jensen turns in time to catch the sly smile twisting the bartender's lips before he moves away.
It hits him wrong, like there's some great truth he keeps missing caught up behind all the weird smiles and knowing looks people have been lobbing his direction all week. The only thing worse than ignorance is getting your ignorance batted around like a chew toy, but he's never worked out how you ask a stranger what the fuck their problem is without actually asking. Jensen watches him stroll the length of the bar and flip a highball glass into hand, admiring the quick flick of wrist that sends the whiskey spilling after, smooth and honey-colored.
The glass sits at his elbow before he can reach to take it.
Disappointment makes Jensen reckless, always has, so he asks, "What's up?" without expecting an answer and turns back to watch the artsy little fuck with the turtle tattoo and skintight T-shirt molest Misha.
The answer he gets in return might actually go down in history as the weirdest ever, not to be disqualified by the fact that it's actually a question too.
"Your ex?"
Jensen coughs around a swallow of whiskey, both grateful for and irritated by the solid thump of the bartender's fist against his back.
"What makes you think that? Uh-"
"Noah."
"Noah. And what makes you think it's any of your business?"
Even the amber swirl and the liquid fire burning down his throat can't distract him completely. Jensen knows he should leave, knows like he knows the world is round and drunk isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. There's nothing keeping him here now that all the clues have been sifted through and cataloged. But he can't quite get past the way they're slotted together, the motion of Misha's jaw as he tongues at punk boy's mouth, the splay of his fingers between hem and waistband.
"Don't shoot the messenger, my man. I've seen pining aplenty. You're straight up panting after him."
"No. No, I'm... a concerned bystander. He's a friend."
"Bystand my ass."
Jensen sighs and tosses back the rest of the whiskey, mutters a "Seriously," he can't even bring himself to believe.
"Shit. So he's not into you?" Noah leans across the bar, forearms slapped flat against the scarred surface. Whiskey appears in Jensen's glass again as if wishing is all it takes.
The shrug comes naturally and before Jensen has a chance to change his mind.
"He blind or just a bastard?"
"Neither. Both. Fuck, I don't know. What do I care? Not like I'm hard up or anything," Jensen says, rolling his shoulders back slow and easy. It's the truth. He could charm his way into the pants of anyone in this bar if he applied himself, Misha included. It's one of the burdens of being so awesome.
Again, it's a plan that works in theory. What it doesn't take into account is the matched pair of elephants parked in the proverbial corner - one named 'You want more' and the other named 'Own it, you know what you want'. They're pachyderms of monstrous proportions, distracting and nerve-wracking and annoying as all fuck, because they won't let him forget or even substitute anymore.
He can sure as shit try though.
Noah settles chin to palm, elbow bent against the bar and Jensen watches him do it out of the corner of his eye.
"What about you," he asks. "Sure you get pretty aplenty in this line of work."
There's something in the way Noah smiles, the self-deprecating huff tacked onto his laugh that's almost but not quite perfect.
"I'm kind of a dick if you hadn't noticed," he says and taps his rings against the bar hard enough that Jensen feels it right between his shoulder-blades. "And I'm also-"
"Gay?" Jensen offers, because that feels like it might be Noah's elephant, if he's reading his signals right. He's not exactly operating on his most tactful cylinders tonight.
"Particular is what I was going to say," Noah answers, his smile drawn tight across his teeth like maybe he's afraid of being judged. "But then, I'm generally not a fan of stating the obvious."
Jensen smiles and tosses back a long swallow of whiskey, draining the glass a second time and savoring the burn, the tingle starting to lodge in his jaw and sing across shoulders. The silence stretches between them, full of unspoken promise and a challenge Jensen's not sure he wants to rise to. Noah fills his glass again without having to be asked, whiskey sloshing up past what any sane bartender would pour as a double.
Jensen could kiss him, might even sack up and do it under different conditions.
Because Noah's totally his type, if he could claim to have a type for dudes. He doesn't, but that's not a detail he's in any hurry to focus on right now considering the nature of his own previously alluded to elephants. No harm in appreciating aesthetics though - compact build, nice lips, slender without being scrawny, singular without being over-the-top weird, graceful in a way that proclaims to anyone with eyes that he knows how to use his body.
Jensen's perceptive enough to recognize it's on offer.
Of course, that's when Misha laughs, head tipped back and sideways, Mr. Rockabilly Coffeehouse whispering something in his ear with his fingers hooked into the collar of Misha's T-shirt. As it just so happens, that's also when Misha sees him, catches him staring for the second time in a week. And Jensen's gotten so settled in his undeniably perverse voyeur routine that he can't look away - doesn't want to because their eyes lock and his stomach sinks right down into his knees.
He's so fucked.
Impossibly and completely fucked.
Noah leans in again, fingers wrapped tight around Jensen's wrist, breath warm and wintermint-scented in his ear. It's enough of a shock to shift his balance and Jensen feels the stool rock off one of its legs then settle back with a solid thump.
"Relax, cowboy," he says when Jensen tries to jerk his arm away. "Two can play."
"If they're playing the same game, sure," Jensen says. "This is not what you think it is. Hell, I don't even know what it is."
Across the room, Misha's on the move, slipping what looks like a business card out of his wallet and scribbling furiously on it with a pen he produced from who-the-fuck knows where. He tucks the card in the punk boy's back pocket and pats his ass to send him on his way. Jensen can't quite parse the meaning of the moment three-quarters of the way to a whiskey drunk, but he thinks he should feel vindicated.
The view makes even less sense after another sinus-clearing gulp from his glass because when he opens his eyes Misha's occupying the stool to his left and Noah's fingers are no longer a firm, warm band of pressure circling his wrist.
"Misha."
"Jensen," Misha answers, and Jensen will never get over how many meanings he can pour into a single word. This time all Jensen can extract with any certainty is the frustration and humor. Whatever.
"Misha, Noah. Noah, Misha."
Jensen takes a long, slow sip of whiskey just to have something to occupy his mouth that doesn't require speech. This far down the neck of a bottle, he's way more likely to incriminate himself than he is anyone else. And it's not as if his input would do anything to disarm the full-on Animal Planet turf war raging silently between them. Neither even has the decency to be subtle and Jensen's not looking to get clubbed over the head and dragged anywhere by his hair. If Misha wasn't a part-time asshole and Noah was actually entitled to the overprotective insanity, Jensen might go so far as to call it sweet. As it stands now, the bullshit posturing's just annoying. Telling either one of them to step the fuck off would only make the situation worse though. That's a lesson Jensen learned a long, long time ago thanks to Welling.
The band wrapped their last encore what feels like an hour ago although the clock above the door seems to think it's only been fifteen minutes. Regardless, they've taken with them his last, best hope for distraction - the club clearing rapidly until all that's left is a handful of crew, the band and the staff. Seems a late start means a short set.
Jensen wants to fill the air with noise to keep his ears from ringing, but instead, he drinks his whiskey and waits.
By the time he reaches the bottom of the glass, they seem to have worked out their differences. Misha, unsurprisingly, emerges victorious if his body language's to be believed - his arm a warm, barely there presence along the edge of the bar and behind Jensen's back, fingers dangling way too close to his side for comfort.
Noah breaks the silence first, eyes narrowed down to slits, tone careful and professional when he asks Misha, "What'll it be?"
"Circumstances appear to dictate that I'm done for the night," Misha says, his tone sharp but smile wide.
Noah slings a towel over his shoulder and rubs his hands together, tops off Jensen's double one last time and says, "Great, I'll just go be elsewhere," then turns to move away.
Jensen blinks after him, the set of his shoulders as he slams together racks of dirty glasses and goes about the business of flushing the trap in the sink. It's not like he had any kind of attachment to Noah, but he can't help wondering what the fuck Misha's smoking to have treated another human being with such carelessness. That's not what he's about. Not usually anyway.
As expected, Misha reels himself back in as soon as Noah's out of earshot - heels hooked on the bottom rung of the stool, fingers laced together and shoved between his knees.
"No need to thank me," he says. "These things I do for the good of mankind."
And that - that is it.
"Fuck you, Misha," Jensen hisses under his breath, feels the venom work its way through his system chasing the whiskey, and slams back another swallow.
Misha huffs a laugh and it pisses Jensen off that he can tell the difference, that this flavor of self-deprecation is, like Goldilocks' porridge, just right. "Promises, promises," he says and tips forward on his stool to try to catch Jensen's eye.
Just. No.
Jensen finishes the last of his whiskey and shoves himself away from the bar, the stool, most of all Misha and his smug fucking face. The same face Jensen still seems to want to do things to, things he's not entirely comfortable with. He wobbles for a tenuous handful of seconds before he gets his knees under him and what was a totally workable buzz while he was sitting down turns nasty when he's on his feet. It makes him more determined, not less.
Noah's not ten feet away, bent down behind the bar stocking beer or lemons or whatever the fuck they're low on, his hair a shock of light against the dark woodgrain. A couple carefully measured steps and he's there.
"Hey," Jensen says, slurs, shouts. It sounds deafening in the relative quiet, hollow and off.
"Jensen? You good?" Noah asks. There's real concern in his eyes once Jensen can see them, bring them into a shaky focus, and that's enough to make his mind up.
Takes him two attempts to find a grip with Noah's T-shirt wet, but Jensen gets his hands where he wants them eventually, soft cotton crushed between his fingers and then the unmistakable taste of wintermint on his lips. Noah grabs back and Jensen feels his hands like boat anchors at his shoulder and across the back of his neck. One of them makes a noise, low and urgent, the kind that never really comes up all the way no matter how hard it tries and Jensen takes it as permission to lick into Noah's mouth for more. He wants more, needs it to quiet the ringing in his ears that's gone internal, to shut out the images that flash back unbidden. Misha's lips. Misha's tongue. Misha's hand on him, coaxing him with a sly certainty of purpose.
Fuck.
The "Jensen," comes from nowhere, but he feels it in his toes, Misha's breath on his neck, Misha's hand on his elbow. He tries to shake free, savoring the slick slide of Noah's lips as he fists his hands tighter, but Misha's like a fucking terrier tugging at him. It's distracting. Jensen breaks away to breathe, far enough but not too far, his nose still nudged up against Noah's cheek and heart racing. Misha's fingers flex harder, digging into muscle and tendon, but Jensen won't look, can't look if he has any hope of pulling this bullshit off.
Can't kid a kidder.
"Problem?" he asks, both surprised and grateful that it sounds about a thousand times more resolved than he actually feels. Jensen looks to Noah, trying to get back that sense of solidity because his head's beginning to swim. But the closeness clues him in to an unfortunate fact he hadn't yet realized - Noah's eyes are blue. The tide of the memory takes him then and he loses focus, Noah blurring down to fuzzy flesh-colored shapes.
"A word?" Misha says, and Jensen can't help himself. He looks. "Outside," Misha continues. "Preferably before I relocate your arm."
Noah sighs against his neck, hands already sliding like he's got some superhuman sense of insight, like he knows Jensen will go before Jensen does. It's a phenomenon that's starting to become a pattern and Jensen wonders if it should worry him.
Right now, he's too drunk to worry about much of anything.
So he says, "Yeah, okay," and tries to smooth flat the wrinkles he's put in the front of Noah's shirt.
When he shuffles away, it's on the tip of his tongue to say that he'll be back but Noah stops him with a beatific smile and a muttered, "No you won't."
Beyond the doors of the club, the night has cooled considerably, the gentle breeze catching in the trees enough to raise gooseflesh across the back of Jensen's neck. It also goes a long way in pulling his head out of the clouds even if it can't completely counteract his short-sighted decision to over-indulge.
The wall beside the entrance is far enough outside for him quite frankly, and Jensen leans against it, the red of the neon overhead turning the black paint a ruddy purple in the dark. At least it isn't spinning.
Misha, it seems, has other ideas about the wheres of outside, because he keeps walking - long, purposeful strides that eat up asphalt and only slow to a stop once he realizes there's no one following. Even with the distance, Jensen hears him curse, the wind taking the word in the opposite direction. He tries to follow it, but can't catch on, doesn't want to move because the black brick at his back is good. So good.
"Jesus, Jensen," Misha says, and Jensen opens his eyes not knowing when they closed, thoughts he should not be entertaining rooting fast in his brain.
Misha's close enough to kiss, not halfway across the parking lot or across the room tongue-fucking some other dude. He's standing a foot away with one hand on Jensen's chest and the other on his wrist, trying to wedge his shoulder under Jensen's arm and steal him away from his friend the wall. The whiskey sloshes in his stomach, a burning swill that makes him pitch forward enough for Misha to wrap an arm around his waist.
Then he's walking, the pavement beneath his feet pounding back up his legs, Misha's hip bumping against his on every other step because Jensen can't seem to find the right rhythm. Misha shifts against him, shrugging closer, holding tighter when he staggers and remembers that there were supposed to be words and that he's pissed.
"Not my keeper," he mumbles.
Misha laughs, shoulders shaking with it until his face softens into one of those unreadable expressions Jensen wants to kill him for making. "If you really want to embarrass yourself by passing out halfway through the blowjob your new friend Noah was going to give you in the back room, you're more than welcome to. Don't ask me to deliver you to him. Even I have limits."
Jensen glances back over his shoulder, the neon's still lit but it shines from what seems miles away. As awesome as a blowjob would be, it's probably not fair to either of them.
Instead he leans on Misha a little harder and says, "Limits? You?"
Part of him wants to throw caution to the wind, pull Misha down with him amongst the dried leaves and broken beer bottles to find out once and for all. It wouldn't take much, one misplaced step or turned ankle to tumble them both. But he can't, or won't. Instinct sends him on to safer trains of thought.
"So apparently I have a stalker," he says, groaning when Misha deposits him against the side of a familiar silver sedan.
"Only the one? How disappointing for you." Misha tugs the door open slowly, one hand pressed against Jensen's chest to keep him upright. It's a small thing, but it makes him hope. And panic.
"Love notes," he blurts out, his hand flying to the front of Misha's shirt before he thinks to pull it back. Misha looks at it, considering, then follows the line of his arm up to meet his eyes. It's strange, and again Jensen wants to do some very ill-advised things that would at least give him an idea whether Misha's interested or not, he's just too chickenshit to pull the trigger. Easier to talk about a whacknut stalker.
"Love notes," Misha repeats, and he looks down like the ground has suddenly become the most fascinating thing on the planet.
"Shaped like birds and turtles and ugly black bugs, but yeah. Love notes. And other stuff. This address for one."
It's a relief to have it out in the open, for someone to know besides Jay and Cheyenne, and he's past caring whether Misha will mock him or not. Mockery's much easier to handle than the powder keg packing down behind his ribs, ready to explode.
His fingers slip free as Misha steps back to give him room. The passenger side door is the one hanging open, so Jensen guesses it's on him to get in. He tangles his arm in the seatbelt on the way, but eventually he manages to sit the fuck down without damaging himself or the car. Misha slams the door after him, and Jensen watches him in the rearview, the hand pushed haphazardly through his hair, the slow saunter around the ass end of the car before he slides into the driver's seat all smiles.
"Shall we?" he says, but doesn't wait for an answer before he coaxes the car to life and shifts her into reverse.
Vancouver whips past the window in a patchwork of shadow and light - neighborhoods sleeping behind closed doors and every so often a cluster littered with bars and clubs, restaurants that accommodate the often alternative lifestyle of her part-time HoNo residents. Jensen uses the silence and inebriation to his advantage, stripping down and sorting through the clues to see if something shakes out in his altered state. Misha's lost to thought anyway, one wrist strung lazily across the steering wheel, the other hand tapping at his lips, his knee, the gearshift like it has to be in motion in order for him to think clearly.
Up ahead the light flips to red and the car slides to a smooth stop.
"If I know you at all, there's a list," Misha says, his hands finally still and wrapped tight at ten and two like he's bracing himself.
"Sure there's a list," Jensen answers, puzzled. "How the hell else would you figure something like this out? It's driving me insane."
"And here I thought we were already there."
The car jolts back into motion as the light turns green and Jensen's stomach flips over then into his throat, whiskey swirling fast and furious and generally making him wish he wasn't alive.
"So?" Misha says, and Jensen feels like he missed something in trying too hard to not puke his guts out all over Misha or his car.
"So what?"
"Regale me with the fruits of your divine deductive labors," Misha says.
Jensen breathes carefully in through his nose and grips the dash as they take the turn into his neighborhood, swallowing hard around the "Eight," he grits out between his teeth.
"I'm sorry?"
"Got it narrowed down to eight," Jensen says.
From here he can see the halo of his porch light shining where he left it on, and he could swear it's the sweetest thing he's ever seen. Except now he has to decide if he's going to man up and ask Misha in or - not.
There's no reason to believe he'll get the answer he's after, no solid signs to indicate that Misha's even interested, much less willing or wanting. He still wants, though. Despite his best efforts and every last shred of common sense he ever possessed, he wants Misha.
Misha.
The burden of asking gets taken off his hands when he nearly sideswipes his face with the driveway on his way out of the car. He doesn't only because Misha's already there, arm looped across his chest and yanking him back.
"I could drop you right now," Misha says. "And still be a better friend than Jack."
Jensen blinks and steadies himself against the car. Perhaps consuming a fifth of whiskey in the space of an hour wasn't the best of ideas. Sometimes he can be a jealous bastard though, and that slim-hipped little pseudo-punk was grating his last nerve.
"That what his name was?" Jensen asks and pushes away from both car and Misha, aiming for the front door. He doesn't trip again, just scuffs the shit out of his boot because the first step seems to have migrated two feet further down the front walkway.
"Oh for fuck's sake," Misha sighs. "Let's get you to bed. If you break your face on my watch, I'll never hear the end of it."
While it's not exactly the most refined of propositions, it gets Misha inside, Misha's hand on his back or his hip whenever his balance fails him. But Jensen's not into games, playing or being played. He doesn't dangle carrots or hint at shit when he really wants something because it's a waste of time. He takes. So he doesn't stop moving once the door slams shut behind them, he lets the momentum carry him down the hall and into his room with Misha trailing after.
The bed bounces when he flops back on it still fully clothed, his stomach roiling at the sudden motion.
"Mission accomplished," he says, lacing his fingers behind his head with a smile, a smile Misha doesn't return.
Instead he says, "Jensen," and paints it up with all those subtle shades of inflection and meaning that neither of them have a reference for, says, "I didn't realize," and kneels to unknot the laces of Jensen's boots.
"What's there to realize? That I'm a sad fuck a little in love with a person I may never know?" Jensen asks. Misha's hands still for a second, but he holds his tongue.
And it's too much to have him so close but not be able to touch, stubble rasping at the knee of his jeans as Misha shifts to work the other set of laces loose. Somewhere in the back of his alcohol addled brain, there's a question he can't get a handle on. It feels important, like maybe he should chase it down, but the thud of his boots against the dresser chases it off.
"S'not even about that anymore, y'know? Solving the puzzle. I care who, but not for the reasons I thought," he says, looking down the line of his body to catch Misha's eye. "I want that. Who doesn't want that?"
Misha only hums, and Jensen realizes he's accidentally wandered into the maudlin portion of the program with Misha still in attendance. It doesn't bode well for him or his rapidly diminishing manhood. Then Misha's fingers - his long, clever fingers - are fumbling at Jensen's belt buckle, slipping leather through metal and Jensen's asking himself entirely different questions. Ones that make his face flush hot and his own fingers twitch with want, like whether Misha's hair is as soft as it looks and what kind of noises he makes when he's as straight-up fucking needy as Jensen is right now. Both questions he can't answer until he asks the first.
His body makes the decision for him when Misha unfastens the fly of his pants and hooks his thumbs under to ease them down. Misha doesn't ask if it's okay or if he should or can. He just smacks Jensen's hip and Jensen lifts up to let him do it.
It's so simple.
Jensen catches Misha's wrist at his ankle, feels the tendons twist against his palm as Misha works denim down over his foot. He whispers, "Stay," and Misha pretends he doesn't hear, rocks back on his heels to stand instead and tosses Jensen's pants alongside his boots.
Light from the hall lands on Misha's face, a soft gold glow that strikes in complete contrast to the studied stillness of Misha's features, too blank to be honest.
"Turn over," Misha says quietly and Jensen narrows his eyes.
"Or what?"
Misha doesn't answer, and in a flash he's gone, reduced to nothing more than a series of loud disembodied footsteps in the hallway and a muttered, "Fucking stubborn dickface," that makes Jensen smile wider.
He does as he's told, not because Misha asked, but because he's not stupid and has taken care of enough drunken idiots in his time to know that you can actually drown in your own vomit if you try hard enough. There was one night he'd almost had to sit on Kane to keep him from rolling over. Kane's not here right now though, thank all that is holy.
Misha is.
Jensen tries to focus on his movements, shutting his eyes tight to listen - the refrigerator opening and closing, plastic rattling in the master bath, water running. At some point, he must doze off, because Misha's voice in his ear brings him back around.
The "Hey," is just as soft as the earlier command and Jensen forgets himself, thinking, maybe even hoping he's back in that dream with Misha and his creepy smile, back where Misha wants him. So he reaches out to tangle his fingers in Misha's shirt, to pull him closer and kiss him quiet even though he's not actually saying anything. This Misha tastes like Red Hots from what Jensen can tell. Not that he's getting much of a sample yet because this Misha is also slow to respond, tentative instead of consuming and Jensen has to wonder what the fuck is wrong with his subconscious that it would feed him such a lameass dream.
When he tries to get a hand around the back of Misha's neck to pull him deeper, he finally gets it. His elbow catches against the bottle of water on the nightstand, tipping it over onto the Aleve beside it, sending them both tumbling into the trashcan below. The same trashcan that the real Misha has thoughtfully emptied of both garbage and bag to make the cleanup easier in case an unfortunate stomach evacuation is, in fact, imminent.
Fuck.
"Misha?"
Jensen feels the press of a cool washcloth against the back of his neck, Misha's breath warm against his cheek before he answers.
"Go to sleep, Jen," he says, and the last thing Jensen hears before he passes out is the solid click of the front door latching.
( SIX)