The Best of Us (2/2)
“Fuck you!” Jared yelled. “What the fuck, man? I mean, seriously, what the fuck? How about you explain yourself?”
“I promised Jensen,” Chris explained, rubbing a hand across his jaw. For such a nice guy, Jared could sure pack a punch. “I told him I’d take care of you.”
Jared spluttered for a moment. “Take care of me? Are you kidding me? I’ve been taking care of myself for the most part since I was fifteen years old, and entirely for the past year, and you’re supposed to take care of me? What kind of bullshit is this?”
“If you let me ex-”
“What the hell is going on in here?” came a voice from the door. The two men turned and saw everyone else in the house standing in the hallway just outside, watching the spectacle from a safe distance. The only person getting up close was Donna Ackles, and she was livid. “You two boys will sit your asses down in opposite corners of the room quietly for five minutes, and then you will calmly explain what’s going on.” They gaped at her, causing her to growl, “Now.” As they slunk to their respective corners, Chris distinctly heard her mutter, “My god, it’s like they’re three years old again.”
Jared sat on the bed near the closet, his back to everyone. Chris sat on the floor in front of Jensen’s dresser and from their reflections in the mirror could see the families watching from the doorway. Nobody spoke. Everyone looked a bit scared at what could cause such a blow up between them, but Mackenzie and Jennifer were also excited that they were in trouble. Donna was still fuming. Chris was vaguely reminded of the time he brought a sixteen-year-old Jensen home extremely drunk, and was somewhat smashed himself. He sincerely hoped this ended better than that night.
“Now,” Donna said, a calm voice belying the tension Chris could still see. “What happened?”
“Chris asked me to marry him.”
The silence came back.
Chris had a strange, irresistible urge to call Jared a tattletale.
“What the fuck, Chris? Ow!” Mac rubbed the back of her head. “That hurt, Josh.”
“Watch your language, Mackenzie Ackles.” Josh turned his attention back to the men in the bedroom. “What the fuck, Chris?”
Over Mac’s grumblings about hypocritical big brothers, Chris turned to face the room at large, but addressed Jared, “I have not only Jensen’s permission, but his instruction to do so.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, Jared,” Chris ran a hand through his hair. “Jensen knew you wanted to go to Everman. I knew. The whole world knew. He knew you wouldn’t really be happy at Sherwood Community. And he knew about that scholarship. The one for the serviceman’s spouses? So he bought the ring before he left, and he was going to ask as soon as he came back, then run you to Vegas so you could get started on that paperwork for the payments. Because, above everything else, he wanted you to be happy. He was even talking about how he wished he’d already married you so you would get the benefits if something happened. He worried.” He took a deep breath. “So, I told him I’d marry you if something happened. You would have an active duty soldier to put down on your scholarship forms and get a quality education. And he said okay. Because it meant something to you and it meant something to him, and I wish to God it had been him in front of you on one knee with that box in his hands, but you’ve got me instead. If you don’t want me, fine. But I promised Jensen, so don’t say I didn’t try.”
Jared snorted. “Really? Jensen told you to do this. You’re gonna stick with that story?”
“Because it’s true!”
“Like hell it is!”
“BOYS!”
They both turned to face Donna. “Calm down. Now, Chris, while I don’t doubt your best intentions at the moment, it does seem a bit unreal if you think about it. None of us know anything about this.”
“He was- he never mentioned it in a call? Or a letter? Something?” Chris was grasping at straws. “He said he would make sure you knew.”
“No,” Jared spat. “Nothing. He never said anything like, ‘Oh, by the way, if I die, you should marry Chris.’ That message did not come through.”
A gasp came from the doorway, and all eyes turned to look at Mac. “He- he sent me the letter.”
“What?” Chris asked dumbly.
“I got a letter from Jensen about two months ago.”
“So?” Jared retorted. His eyes locked on Chris. “I bet you just couldn’t wait-”
“With another page inside for-”
“-for him to get out of the way-”
“-you if something happened!”
-so you could make your own move.”
Several shocked breaths came from around the room. Chris felt his hands curl into fists, and he wanted nothing more than to return the punch Jared had delivered earlier.
“Jensen was my best friend,” he said slowly. “My brother. And I would never, even think of doing something like this unless he okayed it.” He drew himself up to his full height, which even below Jared’s was something intimidating. “The offer still stands. You read that letter, and if you want to take it, I’ll be at home.”
The people in the doorway parted and he slipped through them, trying not to brush any of them as he passed. He stalked through the house and out the front door, heading for his childhood home and the bedroom he grew up in.
Not much had changed since he was about thirteen years old. He threw himself onto the same navy comforter on the same twin bed that squeaked when you put pressure in just the right spot. Trophies from his brief stints in various extracurriculars lined the shelves and walls. He’d gone through so many emotional teenage “crises” in this room, but nothing compared to the hurt that he felt at that moment.
Part of him knew that Jared was upset, in denial that Jensen would say something like that ever. But another, angrier part of him couldn’t believe Jared had actually had the nerve to say that to him. He knew better, knew what Chris had seen, what they went through, and should know that he’d never do that. The fact that Jared could even come up with that theory was what hurt the most.
Chris stewed in his own thoughts for a while, knowing that Jared was being both coddled and reprimanded for everything that just happened. He honestly hoped Jared would agree to marry him, because he knew what that kid could accomplish if he set his mind to it, and this was the best way to give him a head start. Before anyone started writing vows though, he wanted an apology.
The clock ticked over to ten-seventeen and a knock sounded at the door. Chris called for whoever it was to come in and was only mildly surprised to see Jared standing there sheepishly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Good.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“Maybe.”
Jared came in all the way and sat down on the bed. “I just- I don’t know what possessed me to say that. All I know is that one minute, I’m pissed at you for trying to take Jensen’s place, and the next I’m saying all these things that I don’t mean.”
“I’m not trying to take Jensen’s place,” Chris said as he sat up next to Jared. “I know how much you love him.”
“I get that. Logically, anyway,” Jared said. “Emotionally on the other hand…”
“Too much too fast? Kind of overwhelming?”
“You could say that.”
Chris chuckled. “Imagine how I felt. All at once I’ve got the ring and the boy and the promise I’m supposed to keep and it felt like ‘now or never.’ So yeah, I probably could have made that proposal a bit smoother.”
“Just a bit,” Jared teased. He picked at a loose thread on the comforter, silent a moment. “I read the letter he sent through Mac.”
“Yeah? What’d it say?”
“That I wasn’t supposed to hit you.”
His left cheek burned slightly at the reminder of the punch. “Good job on that one. What else?”
“That he’ll always love me, but wanted me to be happy and move on with life. He wants me to do something besides sit around and mope, and a good school seemed like the best option. He also said something about staying in our sexless marriage as long as we want, so at least we would have each other for company. And that if I fall in love again, with anyone, I should go for it. I think he was worried about me getting lonely.”
“He was right to do that.” Jared looked at him, a question clear in his eyes. “Anyone could see it, with the way you looked at him. He was your whole world. And he had that same look right back at you.” He clapped Jared on the shoulder. “He just wanted what was best for you.”
Jared nodded and swiped his thumb under the edge of his eye. “So, we’re getting married?”
“We’re getting married.”
“I love you too, baby,” Jensen murmured into the phone. “Bye.” He hung up the phone to the sounds of “Awwwww”s from the guys in line behind him. He flipped them off, stepping out of the way so the next man could make his phone call to someone that was waiting for it. Joining Chris, who had waited after placing a call to his mama, they walked back to the bunkhouse for some relaxation time before lights out.
“So,” Chris began, “my mama wants to know if you’re ever gonna ask that boy to marry you. Or are you just waiting till he graduates? Because let me tell you, he’d run off to Vegas with you if you’d ask him already.”
Chris kept walking, waiting for an answer he was hoping would come. When they entered the bunker and Jensen still hadn’t spoken, he turned to see what the problem was. Jensen’s face was beet red, his eyes were on the ground, and his hand was rubbing the back of his neck like he did when he got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be.
“What?” Chris asked. Then the idea struck him. “Jenny, did you pop the question and not tell anyone?”
“Not officially?” Jensen hedged. “I mean, we’ve talked about it, and I’m pretty sure we both know it’s going to happen, but I haven’t actually asked him quite yet.”
Chris stared at him. “Not quite yet? But… You mean you’re planning to ask him soon?”
“As soon as I get back,” Jensen admitted. “I, uh, I even already bought the ring.”
“You… Jensen! That’s great! I’m- damn, that’s amazing. So, are you gonna take a lot of time and plan the perfect wedding, or what?”
Jensen looked nervous again. “Actually, I was going to do the whole running off to Vegas thing if my mama would let me. And after I explain it to her, she might.”
Jensen’s tone had Chris worried. “Explain what? What aren’t you telling me?”
“No, it’s nothing bad,” Jensen backtracked, knowing all too well what scenarios Chris could be dreaming up. “It’s just, there’s a scholarship. At Everman. Which, I know that’s where he wants to go, even if he says he’s okay at Sherwood.” Chris nodded, knowing the way Jared’s eyes had lit up every time he talked about his dream school. “Anyway, if you have the grades, which I know Jared does, and you’re an active military member or the spouse of one, you get full tuition payment. And then he could apply for a few more to cover housing and books and he has money saved up anyway that he’s planning on using for Sherwood this next year, but I know that he could be great at a real school, and I want this for him. I really do.”
“Does Jared know about the scholarship?”
“Yeah, and he said something about how maybe he’d go back and get a bachelor’s degree later when we were married, but he doesn’t know I’m planning on making him go while he’s still young. He thought I told him to apply for Everman now just to see if he could get in.” Jensen shook his head fondly. “He’s making plans for a mediocre life until his mid-twenties and I’m giving him a chance right out of the gate. The way I figure it, the sooner he gets his degree, the sooner he can start changing the world.”
“That, and you’ll take any reason to make it official as soon as possible,” Chris reminded him.
Jensen smiled. “Yeah, that too.”
Chris never thought he’d be twenty-six years old and marrying his best friend’s boyfriend the day he turned eighteen, but things happen.
Things like Jared bursting into his room a week before the so-called wedding apparently on a mission to understand something.
“You know you don’t have to marry me, right?”
Chris looked up from the book he was reading on his bed. “Yes, I know. I’m choosing to.”
“No, I mean, just because you promised Jensen, you don’t have to. What if you find someone and you fall in love with them, but you can’t really do anything because you’re married to me? I don’t want to take that away from you.”
“You’re not.”
“How do you know?” Jared ranted, pacing back and forth quickly across the room. “How do you know there’s not someone waiting out there for you to come sweep them off their feet or waiting to sweep you off your feet or something else? I wouldn’t trade what I had with Jensen for anything, and you deserve to have that kind of love too, and I don’t think I can give that to you, at least not anytime soon.”
“I’m not expecting you to.”
“We should just call it off. I’ll find some other way to pay for Everwood, or I’ll go to Sherman, and you can fall in love with someone who will love you back and-”
“Jared!” Chris interrupted. “Just calm down. We don’t need to call off the wedding. Trust me, I’m not looking to fall in love again anytime soon. I don’t really think I can.”
Jared half-sat, half-collapsed on the bed next to Chris, shock plain on his face. “What?”
“Do you remember, right after I graduated, I moved out to California to try and start a music career?” Jared nodded. “I waited tables for a few months, trying to get a gig. Then I ran across this amateur night in a coffee shop. It wasn’t my usual crowd, but exposure is exposure. So I sign up, and when the time comes around, I do my piece, then get off the stage for the next act. And this guy, he’s got this blonde ponytail and flip-flops, pure California material, he grabs me as he’s coming up and asks me if I know any George Strait. I tell him of course, so he has me sing with him. I don’t think that little coffee shop ever thought they’d hear a song like that, but they seemed like they enjoyed it.”
“What’d you play for them?” Jared asked, smile on his face.
“‘I Just Wanna Dance With You.’ The look on that one girl’s face when he started whistling, priceless. She was just so confused. Anyway, so we get off the stage, and he asks me if I want to go dancing with him. I figured, hey, why not, so tells me his homecoming dance is next Friday.”
Jared snickered. “Homecoming dance? You scored a date with a high schooler?”
“He was a senior!” Chris defended. “It’s not like you gave Jensen any grief for dating a high school student when he had already graduated.”
“Yeah, but I’m biased.”
Chris considered this for a moment. “Yeah, you are. So he gives me directions to the school and tells me to meet him there at seven, tie optional but he thinks I’d look hot in one. Then he leaves, and I’m left wondering what just happened.”
“But you went anyway.”
“Curiosity killed the cat.” Chris shrugged. “I couldn’t not go. I wanted to find out his name, and that was the only way I could think of to get it.”
“He didn’t even tell you his name?”
“He told me later that he thought it would grab my interest. Now shut up for a second and let me tell the story.”
Jared held his hands up in placating gesture and motioned for Chris to continue.
“I show up at this high school in Pasadena, and he’s waiting right outside. He tells me about how the last guy he was seeing, the one who he’d been planning on going with, had dropped him a week before because he got the homecoming queen to say yes when he asked her. And he wasn’t trying to get the guy jealous to get him back, because they weren’t serious, but he had already bought the ticket and wanted a hot guy on his arm when he walked in. I told him I’d do it, but I only went to dances with someone if I knew their name. So Steve and I went to the dance.”
“Steve? Is that the Steve that came to visit a few times when you came home?”
“Yeah,” Chris admitted.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was your boyfriend?”
“Because my parents had warned me against telling your parents since they didn’t know how they’d react. It wasn’t that they cared what your parents thought, but they knew I’d want to still see you once in a while, and if your parents knew I was seeing a guy, they’d probably forbid me hanging with you for fear of scarring your impressionable mind or some shit.”
“Well that worked out great, didn’t it?” Jared said, an unpleasant twist to his smile.
“Worked out just fine from my view,” Chris said. “Steve and I dated all through his senior year. I kept up my job as a waiter and picked up gigs when I could, and he worked on passing his classes. His parents were always inviting me over for dinner, think they were worried I didn’t feed myself right when I was working all the time. They appreciated that I let Steve focus on school and was supporting myself because apparently he’d brought some real dicks home to meet them. He used to tease me that if we broke up, they’d keep me instead of him.” Chris chuckled to himself for a moment at the memory. “When he graduated, he moved out of his parents’ house in Pasadena and into my craphole apartment in LA, got a job at some little office filing papers during the day while I waited tables, and we got gigs together every chance we got.”
“Sounds good.”
“It was good,” Chris said, smiling as he thought about those days. “We fought sometimes, usually over our latest music project, and we were living paycheck to paycheck, but it was good. I don’t know how else to say it, but it felt like happily ever after. We both wanted more, but if we ended up staying nobodies together, I would have been okay with that.”
Both men were silent for a while, lost in thought. Eventually, Jared piped up. “What happened?”
Chris took a deep shuddering breath. “We had been together about three years. Heading home after a late show where we’d killed it. This guy had come up to us afterward and said he worked for a producer and if we had a demo, he’d put in a good word for us. I’d had a few beers, but Steve was still underage so he was driving back. About ten miles from home, an SUV came out of nowhere, lights off, and slammed into us as we drove through an intersection. I woke up in the ambulance, passed out, then woke up again in the hospital. Steve’s dad was sitting there, said something about not knowing who to contact for my family and who needed to be called. I just wanted to know how Steve was and they had to come in and sedate me so I would calm down. The next time, it was Steve’s mom who was waiting. She told me that Steve and I were lucky to have been wearing our seat belts because otherwise we’d probably be dead. The drunk driver that hit us hadn’t and had been thrown into his windshield. I asked her where Steve was, and she-” His breath caught, and he felt an arm slide around his shoulders, Jared trying to comfort him with his presence. “She said that the car had been completely crushed around him, that he was in a coma. There had been some internal bleeding, but the doctors were optimistic. I just remember that I hurt all over and all I needed was Steve, to see for myself that he was still breathing.” Chris swiped at his tears, still angry over what had happened. “I had a few bruises from being knocked around and some cuts from the windows shattering, but nothing bad, so they released me after two days. I sat next to Steve’s bed for three weeks. Waiting. I stayed with the Carlsons because their house was closer to the hospital. One night, we got a call. They lost him. Out of nowhere, gone.”
He had been trying to fight off the overwhelming feeling of loss at relating the events again. The only other person he told was Jensen, and that had been right after he came home from California. He had just told his family that Steve was dead, but he had a feeling that Jensen had filled them in on the rest. Chris felt his heart breaking all over again, but he held it together as best he could.
“I came home. Nobody knew anything, just that I had stopped calling for a month, and then I was moving back in. I told Jensen everything and he took me to some party held by someone on the high school basketball team. Plenty of alcohol. I got really drunk, trying to forget. You know how Jensen just didn’t like Sandy most of the time?” Jared nodded, confusion showing in his eyes. “It’s because I got drunk enough to tell her what happened with Steve, and then drunk enough to ask her to sleep with me, and she did.”
Jared’s eyes widened. “Really? That’s why?”
“Yeah. We woke up the morning after, and I was upset with myself, and she couldn’t believe she’d done that, but we knew it was just a stupid mistake on both our parts and left it at that. She’s Jennifer’s best friend, so we knew she’d be around the house and neither of us wanted it to be awkward. Jensen just… never forgave her. He had this idea that she took advantage of me.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. If nothing else, Jensen was a damn good friend, always looking out for people.”
Jared was silent for a while, then said, “Did Jensen ever tell you about our someday book?”
“No,” Chris said, both bemused and relieved at the change of subject. “What is it?”
“It was this notebook that we kept, with all the things we planned to do someday, big and little. Only about half of them were actually doable, but some of them we were serious about. Getting married, getting another dog, putting together one piece of Ikea furniture. That kind of thing.”
“Did you make much headway on it?”
“A few things,” Jared said. “We got the weekend away together, and the camping on the living floor in a pillow fort.” Chris laughed at the mental image of the two of them curled up in pile of blankets and couch cushions watching movies. “But there’s so many things we’ll never do. And that’s the worst part.”
“I know. I was going to take Steve ring shopping the next day and ask what he wanted me to use to propose. And that producer that ended up with our demo called me a few weeks after I got home, wanted us to come in and record another one for him.” Jared grabbed Chris and wrapped his arms around him, nestling his face into the crook of his neck.
“It sucks, you know?” Jared said, tears dampening Chris’ shirt. “It really does. You and I, we fell in love and we don’t get to have them. We get each other instead. Not that I’m saying I don’t like you, it’s just… You’re not him.”
“Yeah,” Chris said, pulling him closer and clutching on to what he still had. “I know exactly how you feel.”
It was dark when Chris woke up. Whether it was early or late was hard to tell, but he knew it was dark. And dark meant he should be sleeping, so he rolled over in his bunk to continue doing just that, when he heard the noise again. He sat up, scrubbing his eyes as he tried to peer through the blackness. Tuning his ears to the noise, he found it repeating and coming directly from his right, nearby. His soldier brain catalogued all this, but then the human part of him kicked in, recognizing the sound as the muffled crying that occasionally happened when the stress hit an all-time high for someone. And from his right meant-
“Shit, Jen…” Chris crawled out of his bunk and sat on Jensen’s. “What’s wrong?”
“I miss him.” Barely a whisper in the quiet room, not nearly loud enough to be heard beyond the confines of the bunk, but plain as day to Chris, who had expected something like this.
He quickly put his plan into motion. “Budge over.” When Jensen didn’t move, Chris repeated the command and lay down on top of the blanket as soon as there was space, face-to-face with Jensen. “Okay, so when you’re upset about whatever, what does Jared do to calm you down?” Even in the pitch black, Chris knew the other man well enough to know that he was getting an I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look. “Cut the crap, I know Jared has some secret power over you that I could never hope to have that always keeps you chill, even after that incident with Sandy last time when you were about to go tear her head off.” He felt Jensen flinch slightly at the reminder of how he had acted that time. “So, what does he do?” Jensen was silent a while, then mumbled something. “What? Didn’t catch that.”
Jensen straightened up looked Chris dead in the approximation of his eyes. “I said, he sings to me.”
Chris remembered at the last moment that they were in the bunk house and laughing loudly during lights out was a good way to get your ass kicked come morning. So it was with greatly restrained mirth that he responded, “You mean tries to sing, right?”
Jensen smacked Chris’s shoulder, but Chris knew he was smiling that smile, the one he only got for Jared. “Yeah. He can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but he tries. That or he tells me stories. His day, favorite memories, something made up on the spot, pretty much anything to get my mind off things.”
“Well then, how about earlier today, when I taught a few guys here a thing or two about poker?” Chris launched into a tale of his antics, starting with a nugget of truth about winning the round and embellishing greatly as he felt the situation called for it until it seemed unreal. He would have done any fisherman proud. “Did that help?”
“Not really,” Jensen replied. “But thanks for trying. That means a lot to me.”
“Anytime, darlin’.” He pressed a kiss to Jensen’s forehead, something he’d been doing to comfort him since Jensen fell off his bike at age six, tore his knees up, and couldn’t stop crying. Jensen had decided then that if his mom could do that and it made him feel better, why couldn’t Chris? Chris had given in, despite his ten year old indignation at having to kiss it better. But when Jensen slipped again on the walk home and landed on his bad knees, Chris wiped his tears and kissed his forehead just to shut him up.
Fifteen years later and he found it was a habit not easily broken.
Chris pulled away from Jensen and climbed back into his own bed, pulling his blanket up for a few more hours of shut-eye. Before he could sleep, though, he had to know, had to make sure Jensen would really be okay. “Was it the story? Because I could try my hand at singing horribly if that would help.”
“Nah,” Jensen said, his voice still tight. “You’re just not him.”
The picture on top of the entertainment center was simple. Jared and Chris were holding hands, smiles on their faces, both wearing white dress shirts and jeans. While their mothers would have rather had a real wedding, they convinced them that time was of the essence for the scholarship and had a short ceremony in front of a Justice of the Peace.
Jared was sitting at the table in the living room, filling out the last parts of the scholarship application. He had talked with the ladies on the committee often, gathering as much information as he could. It turned out that he had to have the marriage certificate in order to get the application in the first place, but he sweet-talked the secretary into at least telling him how much competition he had. There were ten spots open, but when he first asked for information, only five applications had been turned in. Considering that the applications were available year-round, Jared figured he had a very good shot at being granted one of the spots. He just had to get the application turned in sometime in the next three days.
Chris was working around the room, trying to move his stuff into Jared’s apartment. He felt that it was time to get out of his childhood home again, hopefully for good this time. Besides, if they were married, it would look better for all the people on the outside if they lived in the same place. There was some question of where Chris would sleep and keep his stuff, especially since they knew certain appearances would have to be kept for company. Most of Chris’ clothes had been put in with Jared’s but he planned on sleeping in the other bedroom unless they had someone stay the night. Even in that case, Jared’s bed was huge, and they had shared a few times recently anyway, usually when one of them had a nightmare or just couldn’t sleep.
“Three more boxes,” Chris groaned. “Remind me again why I decided to bring all this crap?”
“You wanted all the comforts of home?” Jared said, not even bothering to look up from the papers. Chris had been complaining most of the day and Jared had reached a point where it was easy to tune him out.
“What was I thinking?” he muttered, lifting the next box to move it from right inside the door to Jared’s room. As soon as he lifted it, he saw the name scrawled on top of the box under it. He’d forgotten he brought this one, too. “Hey, Jared?”
“Yeah.”
“I think you should do this one,” Chris said, switching his box with the one labelled for Jared. He carried the reminders of Jensen over to the table and set it down gently. “Anything specific for these?”
Jared reopened the box that he hadn’t seen since Chris proposed to him. That was a month ago, and he still wasn’t any more ready to see the contents than he had been the previous time. A teddy bear, a badly sewn blanket, a stack of movie tickets paper clipped together, all with no significance to him, but meaning everything to the man sitting across from him. Jared and Jensen’s love for each other, condensed into a cardboard box. Chris picked up the three ring binder, turning it over in his hands.
“That’s the someday book,” Jared said.
Chris held it up in question. “Can I-”
“Go ahead.”
Chris started flipping pages, occasionally chuckling at what he found there, and often feeling his heart clench at what should have been. “A chicken ranch in Idaho? Why in the hell would you want a chicken ranch in Idaho?”
“Why wouldn’t we want a chicken ranch in Idaho?” Jared deadpanned. Chris stopped and thought, utterly nonplussed at this turn of logic. “I barely even remember. Like I said, only about half of them are actually doable, the other half are just wild fantasies we came up with when we were bored. You should see the one where we’re actors on a TV show that shoots in Vancouver.”
“Like that would ever happen,” Chris teased. “They like to put pretty faces on TV.”
“Ouch,” Jared said, handing resting over his heart in mock surprise. “That really hurt me. Cut me to the core, it did.”
“You know you’re hot stuff, Padalecki.”
“Padalecki-Kane,” Jared corrected. “God, it’ll take some getting used to that. Imagine me having to go back and rewrite my name on every paper I turn in because I forget the dash-Kane part.”
Chris stuck his tongue out at Jared. “I didn’t have to change my name,” he said. “I’m so glad I’m the man in this relationship.”
Jared crumpled up one of the spare pages he’d been using to draft his application essay and tossed it at Chris. “Ass.”
“Sticks and stones, o husband mine,” he said, continuing through the someday book. One page toward the end caught his attention. “Start a family. You and Jen wanted kids?”
“At this point, it was still kind of in the abstract sense, but yeah, we thought about it. Talked over potential options. We both liked the idea of having the kid be ours, but supposedly having a surrogate can make things complicated, so we decided to adopt instead.”
“I see, very abstract.”
Jared blushed. “Shut up. It was something we both wanted, so we gave serious thought to it. We wanted a little girl, preferably a baby so we could raise her, or even something where the mom decides with plenty of time to go that she wants to give it up so we can meet her. But really, we just wanted a kid to call our own.”
Chris looked at the page bearing the dream. “You two would have been great dads.” Jared smiled sadly, and Chris closed the notebook, setting it to the side of the box. He grabbed a movie with a young brunette girl and two Buckingham guards on the cover and examined it. “‘What a Girl Wants’? What’s this about? Doesn’t really seem like your kind of movie.”
“It’s not,” Jared admitted. “But it’s kinda special to us.” Chris gave him a look that made it clear he needed some elaboration. “Jensen had rented some action movie and brought it over here, but when we opened the case, it had this movie instead. He was all set to take it back, but I told him there was no point when we could watch this one, then take it back and get the other one and watch it too. Two for the price of one, you know? So we sat on the couch, and about halfway through, he kissed me for the first time. We both missed the rest of the movie, me because I was so excited, and he told me later that he was freaking out that I was freaking out. After we actually got together, we watched it again to see what we missed, and again, and it just became ours. There’s this one part, where the mom and daughter have a special way of saying ‘I love you,’ so we took that and made it for us.”
He looked at the fond smile on Jared’s face. “You two were such girls, you know that right?”
“What-the-fuck-ever, Chris,” Jared said. “You and I both know you’re a sucker for a good love story.”
“Only in a country song,” Chris said. “The right lyrics and the right melody, that’s magic. And I’ll deny I ever said that if anyone asks.”
“Your mushy side is safe with me,” Jared promised. He looked at the box. “Just put it in my room for now. I’ll sort it all out before I go to bed tonight.” Chris nodded and loaded everything back in, carrying the box into the bedroom that Jared had slept in since he was fifteen and suddenly on his own. He set it on the bed and looked at the walls, pictures of Jared’s teenage years pinned up everywhere. There were some of the three of them, and one of a much larger group at Jensen’s high school graduation. On the bedside table, a framed photo of Jared and Jensen with their foreheads together, looking into each other’s eyes as they sat on the concrete of the tennis courts at the high school. Neither of them had ever played tennis, but the courts were always unlocked and made for a great place to hang out when they just needed to get away. Chris had been with them that time and taking an intro to photography class at Sherwood, so he was toting his camera everywhere for potential shots. He had given each of them a framed copy of that shot when he passed the class, and he knew that Jensen had kept his in the same spot in his own room, as well as a shrunk down photocopy in his wallet when they were overseas. Chris turned his back on the force of the memory and left the room.
“Hey,” Jared said from the door as he unhooked a leash from the wall. “I finished the application, so I’m going to take Raybud for a walk and drop it in the mail on the way. I’ll be back in about an hour.”
“Sounds good,” Chris said as Jared clipped the leash to the old dog’s collar. He handed the envelope to Jared and waved as he shut the door behind him. He knew Jared would walk Raybud straight to the cemetery, a fifteen minute walk at most. He’d spend half an hour sitting with his back against Jensen’s headstone, talking about his day. Part of Chris knew that it probably wasn’t healthy for Jared to keep doing that. Jared probably knew it too, or would after he started classes for his psychology degree so he could be a therapist. But he also knew that it kept Jared from losing it completely. He may never be truly happy again, but Chris would make sure he was okay.
Chris tossed his bag into the cargo hold of the bus, shoving it as far back as it would go to make room for the ones that still needed loading. He knew the rules for packing: only take what you have to and nothing you can’t bear to leave behind, if necessary. As a result, his bag was fairly small compared to some of the others. A few decks of cards, a well-worn paperback novel, and a photo of his family from a stack of identical copies back home. He figured that would keep him sane for the twelve months they’d be over in that hell-hole.
Keeping Jensen sane would take an entirely different bag of tricks.
He wandered around the back end of the bus to the other side, finding Jared and Jensen standing inches apart, Jensen’s duffel at their feet. Their voices were low, not that much could be heard in the chaos of the surrounding area, but he could understand the need for the added level of privacy. Even so, he had a good feeling what the conversation was about. It was probably along the same lines as the one he had with his mama before he left that morning, as well as the dozens of exchanges happening around them.
The talking part of the conversation stopped abruptly when Jared threw himself at Jensen, wrapping his arms tight around him. Jensen responded in kind, hands coming up to soothingly rub Jared’s back. They stayed like that for several long moments, then pulled slightly apart. Foreheads pressed together, they exchanged a few more words, followed by a short kiss, then looked over to where Chris was standing, patiently allowing them their time.
Jared broke away and opened his arms, yelling, “Come on, Kane! You’re not so ugly I’d deny you a proper good-bye.” His smile was bright, but not quite as genuine as when he was truly happy.
Chris strode forward and accepted the hug, clapping Jared on the back. “Well, Padalecki, we can’t all be pretty like Jenny over here, now can we?” That got the desired laugh out of Jared, as well as a sharp poke to his ribs from Jensen. Chris pulled away and gave Jensen a look. “What? We all know it’s true.”
“Shut up,” Jensen complained good-naturedly. “Can’t believe I’m stuck with your ass for the next twelve months. Gonna drive me crazy two weeks in.”
“Jensen, you’ve known him for twenty-one years,” Jared reminded him. “If he hasn’t driven you crazy already, I doubt it’ll happen anytime soon.”
Chris reached up to ruffle Jared’s hair. “Knew there was a reason I liked you.”
As Jared tried to smooth his hair down, the officer in charge called for final load-up within the next five minutes. Chris knew that meant they had to get on board in the next four minutes, and Jared and Jensen both showed the same understanding. Chris nodded to Jared and grabbed Jensen’s bag to stow it, giving the two a few more moments alone before leaving. He got it shoved in the cargo space mere seconds before it closed, then headed back over to pull his friends apart if need be.
The first thing he heard when he rounded the end was Jensen’s earnest statement of, “I’ll be back, I promise.”
Jared shook his head vehemently. “No. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. This isn’t basic. There will be people shooting back at you, and crazies trying to blow you up, and-”
Jared was cut off when Jensen kissed him firmly. Chris had walked in on them in all states of indecency, including once at the moment of climax, but this seemed more intimate than all of them, and he had to look away. He knew it was over when he heard a barely suppressed sob come from Jared. He looked back to see Jensen cupping Jared’s face in his hands.
“I love you a million Twizzlers, okay?”
Jared chuckled wetly. “And I love you a million rainbow stripes.” Jensen wiped the tears running down Jared’s cheeks with his thumbs and placed a final kiss on his forehead.
Chris stepped forward to pull Jensen away, nodding a final good-bye at Jared. The motion was returned, but Jared’s gaze quickly returned to Jensen, who was practically walking sideways as he attempted to move onto the bus and keep an eye on Jared at the same time. By the time they got settled and on the road, Jensen had been staring out the window for a good ten minutes.
“So,” Chris started, “a million Twizzlers.”
Jensen let out a short laugh, and turned to Chris. “No,” he responded, his eyes shinier than usual. “There aren’t enough Twizzlers in the world.”
Masterpost