A little Ace excerpt because why not and also happy birthday, crimsonkitty88
For Heather, because apparently what I do around her birthday time is dig out old bits of writing.
Jensen never had a problem with wondering. He just didn't do it. Why hesitate?
He had knee surgery his junior year at the University of Arizona, scaring enough
teams away to drop him to the second round of the '94 draft despite the kind of
college career most guys only dream about. The book on him was: good face,
righty, plus-plus change, good heater, on the small side, smart, mouthy, dirt dog.
The first round pick was a high schooler from San Antonio, Jared something.
Tenth overall, must have really been something to be the Cleveland Indians'
reward for a truly awful season the year before.
Sometime in July, after both of them signed their first pro contracts, the ballclub
brought them up to Cleveland to show them off. It wasn't too long before the
Strike that ended that season and threatened to end baseball forever.
Jensen was alone, family back home in Texas, but that suited him just fine.
Padalecki had at least seven people with him, a dad who used to be a Major
League catcher and a granddad who used to scout the Texas League for the
Giants back before the War. He was big and gangly in a way scouts dream on,
dopey and cheerful like a big breed puppy, and showing enough enthusiasm for
the both of them.
"We're here now, Jared Padalecki," he said, shaking the kid's hand.
"I dreamed about this my whole life," Jared said, grinning.
"Yeah," Jensen echoed, squinting at him, suspicious of anybody that friendly.
Jensen wandered around with his camera, a beautiful old Rolleicord his
photographer grandfather gave him for being drafted. "Make sure you record
every minute of this ride you're on, boy," Granddad told him, patting his
shoulders with gnarled hands. "Don't wanna find yourself at forty with no
memories, do ya?"
He took pictures of anything. Cleveland had a pretty skyline that silhouetted
nicely against Lake Erie and made for great photographs. He stood quietly and
took shots of John Hart, the General Manager, talking to reporters and Jared
Padalecki's family, shots of the home clubhouse in this shiny brand new stadium,
the little plaques above the lockers with names on them like Belle and Alomar
and Murray.
"My name'll be there in a couple years," Jensen told Jared as they walked
around. He pointed to Dennis Martinez's locker and bumped his shoulder against
Jared's. "You, too. Someday me and you are going to come back here and we'll
have our names up there and on people's backs, okay? Deal?"
Jared grinned brightly and offered a hand to shake on it. "Deal."
He was half right.
They were both hard-throwing right-handers from Texas, which was enough
similarity that the ballclub threw them together a lot over the next few years.
Jensen found that he liked the kid, who was green and overenthusiastic but
dedicated to baseball. The club wanted Jensen to learn a third pitch, a slider
preferably, because the idea was that sure, a fastball/changeup combo is fine
in college, but pros are going to smack your ass around if you don't have a third
pitch.
They spent a little over three seasons together in the minors, the best of friends
and usually roommates. That last year, Jared won Minor League Pitcher of the
Year for his untouchable, lights-out beautiful season. The Indians were very
good, World Series-bound, and the two of them watched the postseason together
in Jensen's offseason home in Dallas.
Then '98 came around and Jared got hurt for the first time, a rotator cuff tear that
pretty much torpedoed his whole season. Jensen made it to Cleveland that year
but could barely enjoy it because Jared was back in Akron nursing an injury that
made him mean and surly. At first, he made an effort to go visit him down there
every spare moment he got, glad Jared was rehabbing in Akron and so close
to Cleveland. But he gave up on trying by June because Jared told him not to
bother.
"That's my job, fuckface," Jensen snapped at him over the phone one evening,
after a game in Seattle that Nagy won just barely, midsummer swoon hitting
everybody hard and all at once. "I'm the grumpy one."
"Fuck you," Jared shot back and then hung up.
Jensen was still mad three days later when they got back into Cleveland. It was
early morning of an off day, and Jensen got in his car and drove the thirty miles
to Akron.
The Aeros clubbies let him in, surprised to see him but not that
surprised. "Where is he?" he asked Big Al, who didn't even have to ask who he
meant. Al just pointed.
Jared was in a trainer's room, taped up and not cooperating. Jensen banged on
the door until the trainer opened up, then demanded a moment alone with Jared.
The trainer threw his hands up and stormed off, sick of Jared's shit. "All yours!"
he tossed over his shoulder on the way.
Jensen stood in the doorway, fingers tucked into fists, and stared at somebody
who had gone from best friend to stranger in a disconcertingly tiny amount of
time.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked, voice desperate and ragged in a way he
hated instantly, which pissed him off enough that he was going to take that out
on Jared, too. "Tell me. What did I do to you? Is it because I can still pitch? Huh?
Tell me. Because if so, fuck you. So you got hurt once. Grow up."
Jared got to his feet and glared as fiercely as he probably could (which wasn't
really all that impressive, naturally friendly face like his). "This is the kind of shit
that ends careers!" he yelled back.
Jensen punched the door with his left hand then stepped inside and let the door
click closed behind him before responding. "So what, you're done? Fuck you.
You got too much talent to just give up."
Jared looked away, deflating a bit. "I'm not… I'm not giving up. I just… you don't
know how hard it is to be here, and you're out there doin' what you're doin', and
that's all that's on the news. What d'you think that's like for me?"
"Jared, I can't help that," Jensen said slowly.
"I know! Fuck, you think I like being all, like, resentful? You think it feels good?"
Jared was yelling again, face turning red, looking kind of sick.
"I don't know what I think!" Jensen hollers back before punching the door again
and letting himself fume for a moment before calming down. "You can't do it like
this, though, Jare. Please. It's not fair."
Jared sat down on the table again and shook his head so hard his hair fanned
out around him. Jensen stared at the poster above his head, an illustration of
the muscles of a man's body in a bunch of positions. Beside that, there was a
chart with a series of smiley and frowny faces asking, "How much does it hurt?
This much? This much? This much?" Jensen had a feeling his own expression
probably matched the grimacing face somewhere on the frowning end of the
spectrum. Jared's certainly matched the frowniest of all.
"I'm sorry," Jared said.
Jensen locked the door then went over and stood in front of him, resting a hand
on the side of his neck until he looked up and made eye contact. "Hey," he said
softly.
"Hey," Jared echoed sullenly.
He ducked his neck and rested their foreheads together. "You're going to be
awesome again soon, Jared. 'Cause I said so."
Jared put both hands on Jensen's hips, giant paws that spanned him like
plates. "Ain't something you can promise, Jen," Jared said.
"Yes, it is."
"No, it ain't. But I'mma be okay, I guess."
Jensen kissed him then, hard enough to cut his lip on Jared's teeth, hard enough
to bruise them both. If Jared was hurt, Jensen needed to be hurt, too. He kissed
him until he couldn't even taste the blood anymore, 'til he couldn't taste anything
but Jared and whatever shitty AA clubhouse coffee Jared had been drinking
earlier. Jared made a frightened animal noise in his throat, maybe panicking, but
Jensen kept kissing him and quickly Jared gave in and pressed up close and
kissed back.
"You have to," Jensen said after he broke back for air, kissing his way across
Jared's cheek and down behind his ear, a spot he knew from extensive
experience turned Jared into gelatin.
"I will," Jared gasped, a promise he'd deny ever making.
Jensen pushed him back on the table and then climbed on top of him, straddling
his lap and loving the burn in his muscles where he was still a little sore from
pitching eight innings the day before. Jared wrapped both arms around the small
of his back to hold him there, tilting his face up for a kiss as deep as Jensen
could make it.
His right arm wasn't as tight around him, the grip slack, and Jensen pulled back
enough to drop a kiss to the top of Jared's right shoulder. "Where's it hurt?" he
whispered.
"Everywhere," Jared whispered back.
"Don't have time to kiss you everywhere."
They went back to Jared's place, Jared driving, and Jensen was feeling delirious
and desperate enough that he went down on him in the car, too, not even
waiting 'til he reached his exit. "What're you-oh, my God. I'm going to crash.
What are you doing? Stop it."
But Jensen kept going. Jared always drove with his seat too far back, claiming
his long legs justified it, but it was really just because he liked to slouch. Jensen
liked that it gave him plenty of room for his head.
Jared had to pull into a parking lot of a strip mall with a record store and a bank
and an empty storefront. He parked in front of that and put a hand on the back of
Jensen's head and moaned. "I hate you," he managed to grit out. "I hate you so
much. Fuck, what are you doing?" and he came with a groan Jensen wanted to
lick right out of his mouth.
He sat up when he was finished and wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand. "Nobody died," he said. Jared stared at him dumbly, which made him
laugh. "Okay, so apparently I just killed you. Sorry." He grinned and got out of the
car. "C'mon, man. Tuck your dick back in and let's go see if they have the new
Chili Peppers CD."
And things were better after that. Jensen stayed the night and drove back to
Cleveland in the morning. He won his next start because of an Omar Vizquel
over-the-shoulder catch. Jared was throwing again by July and pitching in games
by August, although the club declined to bring him up when rosters expanded in
September.
"They want me to rest," he told Jensen, sounding disappointed.
"Well, come rest at my house," Jensen told him, so he did.
Jensen almost won Rookie of the Year, losing to Ben Grieve by three votes.
They still celebrated like he had, holing up in Jensen's Dallas house with a case
of champagne and even more condoms.
They got to Spring Training the next year ready to take on the world, and then
Jared got hurt again just before camp ended, back on the shelf. The club sent
him to AAA this time, at least, but that meant moving up to Buffalo, which is a hell
of a lot farther from Cleveland than Jensen liked. They got very good at phone
sex.
The guys who knew, Milo and Chad Murray and Mike Rosenbaum, mocked
Jensen mercilessly for being in love, but that's what he was.
JUNE
The first roadtrip in June is a family trip, which means a week of Jensen having
to be nice to wives and trying to remember whose kid is whose. It also means he
won't have to be in a room next to somebody who's banging a screaming cleat
chaser, which means he might actually get some sleep.
He goes temporarily insane and invites Danneel to come along with Brett.
They're divorced but amicable. She just couldn't compete with baseball.
When he calls to extend the invitation, he's in Arizona with the team. He left with
a lead and lost by bullpen, Affeldt letting both inherited runners score, and nope,
the offense just can't fucking pitcher up once in a while. It's been a rough few
weeks. They all walk around with these apologetic hangdog fucking looks that
are almost worse than the actual losing. The saddest thing in the world is a sad
Pablo Sandoval.
Lincecum can't win either, mired in a funk of ineffectiveness that has the media
anxious and penning stories speculating about what might be wrong with San
Francisco's young ace. No one expects anything from Jensen, which is actually
kind of nice. Jensen mostly thinks that it must suck a lot to be Matt Cain, who's
the only guy on the team actually pitching well lately, who still can't add a W to
the standings because the hitters seem to actively hate him.
Then again, Jensen is pitching like total shit, too. Three runs in the first to the
fucking Diamondbacks. It's just regression, he knows the writers are saying.
This is the real Jensen Ackles, not that guy who pitched like Bob Gibson
the first six weeks of the season. Zito claps him on the back and says with an
insane grin, "Welcome to my world," which is amazingly unhelpful.
Jensen's ERA is still under two and a half, though. His peripherals are even
better.
"Welcome to San Francisco," Bengie says sheepishly, the two of them sitting in
the hotel bar and watching Wilson try to find a slump-buster among the crowd
of fake tits and hair extensions. "We can't hit for shit. We just biding time 'til the
Messiah arrive."
He means Buster Posey, who's tearing up AAA, clearly bored in Fresno. Bengie
has an overactive sense of his own mortality, Jensen thinks, but Bengie is the
one back on an unpopular one-year deal that blocks Posey. It suits Jensen just
fine, but the writers are anxious and the fanbase is getting angry.
Jensen tells Bengie not to worry about it too much. Nobody ever hits as well in
the majors as they do in AAA.
"Go call your wife before you get drunk and forget," Bengie replies, shaking his
head.
He goes upstairs and sits on his balcony, looking out over the glitter of downtown
Phoenix. Her assistant, Carly, answers on the third ring.
"Hi, Jensen. We're still on set, but we'll be home in a little while. Dani's in the
shower."
He sighs and leans back in his chair. "Yeah, okay." He rubs his forehead. "So
how's things?" he asks, because he likes Carly. She has a heavy Texan twang
and a booming laugh, both of which remind him of home.
She shares some on-set gossip about Ryan Gosling, like Jensen's supposed to
know who that is, then tells him about her own mother. At least Jensen's met the
woman. He always leaves her tickets any time his team is in Houston.
Danneel is the star of one of the best shows on TV, a well-written satire about a
stay-at-home mom and political blogger who ends up hired by the Washington
Post to cover Capitol Hill. She's brilliant in it and it's made her a star. She's
filming a movie over summer hiatus, something she described to Jensen as
a "romantic comedy in space."
"She was offered a part in a remake of Bull Durham," Carly adds. "It's not,
like, even a sure thing they'll make the film, but they offered her the role. She was
pissed. She even yelled at poor George, 'Just because I was married to a fucking
ballplayer doesn't mean I want to play Annie fucking Savoy in a movie!' I thought
he was going to cry. We were proud of him when he didn't."
George, Danneel's agent, cries a lot. He always puts Jensen in mind of Tobias
from Arrested Development, which is not a particularly flattering comparison.
Jensen laughs. "It's kinda sacrilege to remake that," he says.
"You're telling me. She had a fit about that, too. Don't think George saw it
coming, the poor fella."
He hears Danneel's voice in the background and Carly excuses herself. "Good to
talk to you, Jensen," she says. "You should call more often."
"If you're calling to talk to Brett, you'll have to wait 'til we get home, Jensen,"
Danneel says once she's on the line.
"I'm going to write a memoir," he says immediately. He blinks, surprised. "That's
not what I meant to say."
"Um… okay," she says, taffy-pulling each syllable into three. He can see her
forehead wrinkling in confusion. He likes that she refuses to Botox.
He sighs. "I mean, it's true, I guess. I'm kicking the idea around."
"But why?"
"Because I have a story to tell," he says, blinking hard as the truth of it hits him
for the first time. Suddenly, he knows exactly what he's going to write about.
"You have a story to tell," she repeats, sounding skeptical. "All right. Let's hear
it."
He tells her that isn't how it works. "I have to write it down. Talking doesn't mean
anything."
Used to Jensen asserting things like that, she tries a different tactic. She's
known him far too long and is far too aware of his shit. "Are you going to include
pictures?" She always liked when he took her picture.
"I don't know," he says, but that does give him an idea.
"You should," she continues as though she hadn't heard him. "Oh, speaking of
which, you left one of your cameras at my place when you visited last time. The
big one with the big lens?"
This is entirely unspecific and doesn't help Jensen at all. He owns a lot of
cameras. He hadn't even noticed one of them was missing. "The reason I called
was to invite you and the spawn on the family trip in two weeks. You know
you love Pittsburgh in the summer," he wheedles. "Humidity, haze, endless
construction, Midwesterners. C'mon, Dani. You can even bring my camera then."
"You are a terrible salesman," she says dryly.
"If I was still in Chicago, you'd go, wouldn't you?"
"Of course. If you were still in Chicago, you'd still be teammates with 'Fonso."
Alfonso Soriano, that is, who had always looked at Jensen like he was glad of
his presence. Jensen's ineffectiveness deflected a lot of attention from Soriano's
own failure to perform up to expectations.
"Your crush on him will always make me uncomfortable."
"His thighs are bigger than my head, Jensen. I never stood a chance," she says
airily.
She agrees to come to Pittsburgh, though. She tells him she wants to hear more
about his memoir.
Jensen never had a problem with wondering. He just didn't do it. Why hesitate?
He had knee surgery his junior year at the University of Arizona, scaring enough
teams away to drop him to the second round of the '94 draft despite the kind of
college career most guys only dream about. The book on him was: good face,
righty, plus-plus change, good heater, on the small side, smart, mouthy, dirt dog.
The first round pick was a high schooler from San Antonio, Jared something.
Tenth overall, must have really been something to be the Cleveland Indians'
reward for a truly awful season the year before.
Sometime in July, after both of them signed their first pro contracts, the ballclub
brought them up to Cleveland to show them off. It wasn't too long before the
Strike that ended that season and threatened to end baseball forever.
Jensen was alone, family back home in Texas, but that suited him just fine.
Padalecki had at least seven people with him, a dad who used to be a Major
League catcher and a granddad who used to scout the Texas League for the
Giants back before the War. He was big and gangly in a way scouts dream on,
dopey and cheerful like a big breed puppy, and showing enough enthusiasm for
the both of them.
"We're here now, Jared Padalecki," he said, shaking the kid's hand.
"I dreamed about this my whole life," Jared said, grinning.
"Yeah," Jensen echoed, squinting at him, suspicious of anybody that friendly.
Jensen wandered around with his camera, a beautiful old Rolleicord his
photographer grandfather gave him for being drafted. "Make sure you record
every minute of this ride you're on, boy," Granddad told him, patting his
shoulders with gnarled hands. "Don't wanna find yourself at forty with no
memories, do ya?"
He took pictures of anything. Cleveland had a pretty skyline that silhouetted
nicely against Lake Erie and made for great photographs. He stood quietly and
took shots of John Hart, the General Manager, talking to reporters and Jared
Padalecki's family, shots of the home clubhouse in this shiny brand new stadium,
the little plaques above the lockers with names on them like Belle and Alomar
and Murray.
"My name'll be there in a couple years," Jensen told Jared as they walked
around. He pointed to Dennis Martinez's locker and bumped his shoulder against
Jared's. "You, too. Someday me and you are going to come back here and we'll
have our names up there and on people's backs, okay? Deal?"
Jared grinned brightly and offered a hand to shake on it. "Deal."
He was half right.
They were both hard-throwing right-handers from Texas, which was enough
similarity that the ballclub threw them together a lot over the next few years.
Jensen found that he liked the kid, who was green and overenthusiastic but
dedicated to baseball. The club wanted Jensen to learn a third pitch, a slider
preferably, because the idea was that sure, a fastball/changeup combo is fine
in college, but pros are going to smack your ass around if you don't have a third
pitch.
They spent a little over three seasons together in the minors, the best of friends
and usually roommates. That last year, Jared won Minor League Pitcher of the
Year for his untouchable, lights-out beautiful season. The Indians were very
good, World Series-bound, and the two of them watched the postseason together
in Jensen's offseason home in Dallas.
Then '98 came around and Jared got hurt for the first time, a rotator cuff tear that
pretty much torpedoed his whole season. Jensen made it to Cleveland that year
but could barely enjoy it because Jared was back in Akron nursing an injury that
made him mean and surly. At first, he made an effort to go visit him down there
every spare moment he got, glad Jared was rehabbing in Akron and so close
to Cleveland. But he gave up on trying by June because Jared told him not to
bother.
"That's my job, fuckface," Jensen snapped at him over the phone one evening,
after a game in Seattle that Nagy won just barely, midsummer swoon hitting
everybody hard and all at once. "I'm the grumpy one."
"Fuck you," Jared shot back and then hung up.
Jensen was still mad three days later when they got back into Cleveland. It was
early morning of an off day, and Jensen got in his car and drove the thirty miles
to Akron.
The Aeros clubbies let him in, surprised to see him but not that
surprised. "Where is he?" he asked Big Al, who didn't even have to ask who he
meant. Al just pointed.
Jared was in a trainer's room, taped up and not cooperating. Jensen banged on
the door until the trainer opened up, then demanded a moment alone with Jared.
The trainer threw his hands up and stormed off, sick of Jared's shit. "All yours!"
he tossed over his shoulder on the way.
Jensen stood in the doorway, fingers tucked into fists, and stared at somebody
who had gone from best friend to stranger in a disconcertingly tiny amount of
time.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked, voice desperate and ragged in a way he
hated instantly, which pissed him off enough that he was going to take that out
on Jared, too. "Tell me. What did I do to you? Is it because I can still pitch? Huh?
Tell me. Because if so, fuck you. So you got hurt once. Grow up."
Jared got to his feet and glared as fiercely as he probably could (which wasn't
really all that impressive, naturally friendly face like his). "This is the kind of shit
that ends careers!" he yelled back.
Jensen punched the door with his left hand then stepped inside and let the door
click closed behind him before responding. "So what, you're done? Fuck you.
You got too much talent to just give up."
Jared looked away, deflating a bit. "I'm not… I'm not giving up. I just… you don't
know how hard it is to be here, and you're out there doin' what you're doin', and
that's all that's on the news. What d'you think that's like for me?"
"Jared, I can't help that," Jensen said slowly.
"I know! Fuck, you think I like being all, like, resentful? You think it feels good?"
Jared was yelling again, face turning red, looking kind of sick.
"I don't know what I think!" Jensen hollers back before punching the door again
and letting himself fume for a moment before calming down. "You can't do it like
this, though, Jare. Please. It's not fair."
Jared sat down on the table again and shook his head so hard his hair fanned
out around him. Jensen stared at the poster above his head, an illustration of
the muscles of a man's body in a bunch of positions. Beside that, there was a
chart with a series of smiley and frowny faces asking, "How much does it hurt?
This much? This much? This much?" Jensen had a feeling his own expression
probably matched the grimacing face somewhere on the frowning end of the
spectrum. Jared's certainly matched the frowniest of all.
"I'm sorry," Jared said.
Jensen locked the door then went over and stood in front of him, resting a hand
on the side of his neck until he looked up and made eye contact. "Hey," he said
softly.
"Hey," Jared echoed sullenly.
He ducked his neck and rested their foreheads together. "You're going to be
awesome again soon, Jared. 'Cause I said so."
Jared put both hands on Jensen's hips, giant paws that spanned him like
plates. "Ain't something you can promise, Jen," Jared said.
"Yes, it is."
"No, it ain't. But I'mma be okay, I guess."
Jensen kissed him then, hard enough to cut his lip on Jared's teeth, hard enough
to bruise them both. If Jared was hurt, Jensen needed to be hurt, too. He kissed
him until he couldn't even taste the blood anymore, 'til he couldn't taste anything
but Jared and whatever shitty AA clubhouse coffee Jared had been drinking
earlier. Jared made a frightened animal noise in his throat, maybe panicking, but
Jensen kept kissing him and quickly Jared gave in and pressed up close and
kissed back.
"You have to," Jensen said after he broke back for air, kissing his way across
Jared's cheek and down behind his ear, a spot he knew from extensive
experience turned Jared into gelatin.
"I will," Jared gasped, a promise he'd deny ever making.
Jensen pushed him back on the table and then climbed on top of him, straddling
his lap and loving the burn in his muscles where he was still a little sore from
pitching eight innings the day before. Jared wrapped both arms around the small
of his back to hold him there, tilting his face up for a kiss as deep as Jensen
could make it.
His right arm wasn't as tight around him, the grip slack, and Jensen pulled back
enough to drop a kiss to the top of Jared's right shoulder. "Where's it hurt?" he
whispered.
"Everywhere," Jared whispered back.
"Don't have time to kiss you everywhere."
They went back to Jared's place, Jared driving, and Jensen was feeling delirious
and desperate enough that he went down on him in the car, too, not even
waiting 'til he reached his exit. "What're you-oh, my God. I'm going to crash.
What are you doing? Stop it."
But Jensen kept going. Jared always drove with his seat too far back, claiming
his long legs justified it, but it was really just because he liked to slouch. Jensen
liked that it gave him plenty of room for his head.
Jared had to pull into a parking lot of a strip mall with a record store and a bank
and an empty storefront. He parked in front of that and put a hand on the back of
Jensen's head and moaned. "I hate you," he managed to grit out. "I hate you so
much. Fuck, what are you doing?" and he came with a groan Jensen wanted to
lick right out of his mouth.
He sat up when he was finished and wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand. "Nobody died," he said. Jared stared at him dumbly, which made him
laugh. "Okay, so apparently I just killed you. Sorry." He grinned and got out of the
car. "C'mon, man. Tuck your dick back in and let's go see if they have the new
Chili Peppers CD."
And things were better after that. Jensen stayed the night and drove back to
Cleveland in the morning. He won his next start because of an Omar Vizquel
over-the-shoulder catch. Jared was throwing again by July and pitching in games
by August, although the club declined to bring him up when rosters expanded in
September.
"They want me to rest," he told Jensen, sounding disappointed.
"Well, come rest at my house," Jensen told him, so he did.
Jensen almost won Rookie of the Year, losing to Ben Grieve by three votes.
They still celebrated like he had, holing up in Jensen's Dallas house with a case
of champagne and even more condoms.
They got to Spring Training the next year ready to take on the world, and then
Jared got hurt again just before camp ended, back on the shelf. The club sent
him to AAA this time, at least, but that meant moving up to Buffalo, which is a hell
of a lot farther from Cleveland than Jensen liked. They got very good at phone
sex.
The guys who knew, Milo and Chad Murray and Mike Rosenbaum, mocked
Jensen mercilessly for being in love, but that's what he was.
JUNE
The first roadtrip in June is a family trip, which means a week of Jensen having
to be nice to wives and trying to remember whose kid is whose. It also means he
won't have to be in a room next to somebody who's banging a screaming cleat
chaser, which means he might actually get some sleep.
He goes temporarily insane and invites Danneel to come along with Brett.
They're divorced but amicable. She just couldn't compete with baseball.
When he calls to extend the invitation, he's in Arizona with the team. He left with
a lead and lost by bullpen, Affeldt letting both inherited runners score, and nope,
the offense just can't fucking pitcher up once in a while. It's been a rough few
weeks. They all walk around with these apologetic hangdog fucking looks that
are almost worse than the actual losing. The saddest thing in the world is a sad
Pablo Sandoval.
Lincecum can't win either, mired in a funk of ineffectiveness that has the media
anxious and penning stories speculating about what might be wrong with San
Francisco's young ace. No one expects anything from Jensen, which is actually
kind of nice. Jensen mostly thinks that it must suck a lot to be Matt Cain, who's
the only guy on the team actually pitching well lately, who still can't add a W to
the standings because the hitters seem to actively hate him.
Then again, Jensen is pitching like total shit, too. Three runs in the first to the
fucking Diamondbacks. It's just regression, he knows the writers are saying.
This is the real Jensen Ackles, not that guy who pitched like Bob Gibson
the first six weeks of the season. Zito claps him on the back and says with an
insane grin, "Welcome to my world," which is amazingly unhelpful.
Jensen's ERA is still under two and a half, though. His peripherals are even
better.
"Welcome to San Francisco," Bengie says sheepishly, the two of them sitting in
the hotel bar and watching Wilson try to find a slump-buster among the crowd
of fake tits and hair extensions. "We can't hit for shit. We just biding time 'til the
Messiah arrive."
He means Buster Posey, who's tearing up AAA, clearly bored in Fresno. Bengie
has an overactive sense of his own mortality, Jensen thinks, but Bengie is the
one back on an unpopular one-year deal that blocks Posey. It suits Jensen just
fine, but the writers are anxious and the fanbase is getting angry.
Jensen tells Bengie not to worry about it too much. Nobody ever hits as well in
the majors as they do in AAA.
"Go call your wife before you get drunk and forget," Bengie replies, shaking his
head.
He goes upstairs and sits on his balcony, looking out over the glitter of downtown
Phoenix. Her assistant, Carly, answers on the third ring.
"Hi, Jensen. We're still on set, but we'll be home in a little while. Dani's in the
shower."
He sighs and leans back in his chair. "Yeah, okay." He rubs his forehead. "So
how's things?" he asks, because he likes Carly. She has a heavy Texan twang
and a booming laugh, both of which remind him of home.
She shares some on-set gossip about Ryan Gosling, like Jensen's supposed to
know who that is, then tells him about her own mother. At least Jensen's met the
woman. He always leaves her tickets any time his team is in Houston.
Danneel is the star of one of the best shows on TV, a well-written satire about a
stay-at-home mom and political blogger who ends up hired by the Washington
Post to cover Capitol Hill. She's brilliant in it and it's made her a star. She's
filming a movie over summer hiatus, something she described to Jensen as
a "romantic comedy in space."
"She was offered a part in a remake of Bull Durham," Carly adds. "It's not,
like, even a sure thing they'll make the film, but they offered her the role. She was
pissed. She even yelled at poor George, 'Just because I was married to a fucking
ballplayer doesn't mean I want to play Annie fucking Savoy in a movie!' I thought
he was going to cry. We were proud of him when he didn't."
George, Danneel's agent, cries a lot. He always puts Jensen in mind of Tobias
from Arrested Development, which is not a particularly flattering comparison.
Jensen laughs. "It's kinda sacrilege to remake that," he says.
"You're telling me. She had a fit about that, too. Don't think George saw it
coming, the poor fella."
He hears Danneel's voice in the background and Carly excuses herself. "Good to
talk to you, Jensen," she says. "You should call more often."
"If you're calling to talk to Brett, you'll have to wait 'til we get home, Jensen,"
Danneel says once she's on the line.
"I'm going to write a memoir," he says immediately. He blinks, surprised. "That's
not what I meant to say."
"Um… okay," she says, taffy-pulling each syllable into three. He can see her
forehead wrinkling in confusion. He likes that she refuses to Botox.
He sighs. "I mean, it's true, I guess. I'm kicking the idea around."
"But why?"
"Because I have a story to tell," he says, blinking hard as the truth of it hits him
for the first time. Suddenly, he knows exactly what he's going to write about.
"You have a story to tell," she repeats, sounding skeptical. "All right. Let's hear
it."
He tells her that isn't how it works. "I have to write it down. Talking doesn't mean
anything."
Used to Jensen asserting things like that, she tries a different tactic. She's
known him far too long and is far too aware of his shit. "Are you going to include
pictures?" She always liked when he took her picture.
"I don't know," he says, but that does give him an idea.
"You should," she continues as though she hadn't heard him. "Oh, speaking of
which, you left one of your cameras at my place when you visited last time. The
big one with the big lens?"
This is entirely unspecific and doesn't help Jensen at all. He owns a lot of
cameras. He hadn't even noticed one of them was missing. "The reason I called
was to invite you and the spawn on the family trip in two weeks. You know
you love Pittsburgh in the summer," he wheedles. "Humidity, haze, endless
construction, Midwesterners. C'mon, Dani. You can even bring my camera then."
"You are a terrible salesman," she says dryly.
"If I was still in Chicago, you'd go, wouldn't you?"
"Of course. If you were still in Chicago, you'd still be teammates with 'Fonso."
Alfonso Soriano, that is, who had always looked at Jensen like he was glad of
his presence. Jensen's ineffectiveness deflected a lot of attention from Soriano's
own failure to perform up to expectations.
"Your crush on him will always make me uncomfortable."
"His thighs are bigger than my head, Jensen. I never stood a chance," she says
airily.
She agrees to come to Pittsburgh, though. She tells him she wants to hear more
about his memoir.