Fic: The Academy of Absent Fathers - Jensen/Misha - Chapter 10
Title: The Academy of Absent Fathers - Chapter 10
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Authors: qthelights & kriari
Rating: NC-17
Warnings & Notes See Chapter One for full warnings, disclaimers and notes. WIP.
Summary: As one of the premiere boarding schools on the east coast, Ellis Academy plays host to the preeminent financiers, businessmen, and politicians of tomorrow. The very dirt stinks of privilege and as a long-time foster child, Misha Collins has no idea how he ended up here. To make matters worse, he's stuck rooming with the equivalent of Ellis royalty. Jensen Ackles is a lifer - captain of the lacrosse team, do-gooder and textbook overachiever. And they hate each other. Mostly. But as they move from hate to something more, secrets from their unknown yet inextricably linked pasts threaten to destroy everything they've built. And the worst part? They have no idea what's coming...
Previous chapters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Until this moment, walking as fast as he can through a drizzly city he doesn’t know, biting his lip to keep from yelling, or worse, Misha is pretty sure he has never actually understood the phrase ‘seeing red’. Now, he does.
He’s sure the city around him is gray. Whether that’s from the dirty snow melting in the gutters, the storm blowing in across the coast, or the fact that he never wanted to come here in the first place, is a toss-up. Regardless, all he sees is crimson. Maroon. Vermillion. Scarlet. Ruby. Blood.
He concentrates on it, feels the pulse of his heart echoing behind his eyelids. As long as the anger drives him, one scuffed footstep after another, the acid roiling in his stomach can be ignored. The terror can be kept at bay.
Blindly, he turns a corner, slides into a side street and out of sight of the scene he’s left behind. If the scene is even still there. Perhaps Jensen has gone back inside the restaurant already, calmly ordering another meal to replace the one gone cold on his plate, or maybe he and his dad have left already, driven away from Misha and his brokenness. Left him to rot in the streets like his parents, like the ilk he’s so clearly derived from. It doesn’t matter either way - he’s not turning around to check. No, all he can do right now is get as far away from Jensen and his dad as possible. And maybe get lost in the meantime.
“The reason your mother is dead.” It echoes in Misha’s head, over and over, louder and louder with each step he takes. It can’t be true. He has no delusions about his parents, or thought he didn’t. They aren’t good people, he knows that. They were put away a couple of times, mostly for petty larceny and fraud. One time his dad went away for breaking and entering, Misha thinks so anyway; at some point all the stories became a blur of disenchantment. He had other things to think about, like where he was going to get his next meal, or whether or not to bail on the newest foster situation.
But as far as he remembers, the crimes were always ones of opportunity, of potential payoff. Murder is a whole other thing.
There was never any violence in the stories he heard from his aunt, nor from the various cops that showed up at front doors, or the notices of legal proceedings that made their way, pointlessly, to Misha. Maybe it’s some vestigial parental love that will be disproved with the last rending of his faith like tendon from bloody bone, but he just doesn’t, can’t, believe they would hurt anyone. Not... seriously.
But the look of hatred in Jensen’s father’s eyes, the look of betrayal and pain in Jensen’s, surely that could only be borne of something terrible.
Whatever the reality, Jensen’s father, and now Jensen, certainly believe Misha’s parents are responsible for the death of Jensen’s mother. He tries to remember the details of the stories Jensen told him about what happened, but his head is too chaotic to focus in on anything. All he remembers is that Jensen was five and his mom committed suicide. There’s more to the story, tantalisingly out of reach, but he can’t recall it, and even if he could, he’s consumed with the need to flee. His pace quickens as he puts more distance between himself and the Ackles family. What’s left of it.
Jensen’s dad might be an asshole, and everything Misha knows about him says it’s true: the way he’d abandoned Jensen to Ellis as soon as his mom was in the ground; the times upon times he hadn’t shown up; the look of sadness and anger that flitted over Jensen’s face when he’d get the call that he wasn’t as important as Mr Ackles’ work, but Misha doubts, even with all that, that he’d cause Jensen such overt pain as to bring up his mom’s death.
Thinking about Jensen causes Misha’s breath to catch in an ugly hiccup. A phantom pain slices through his side. He stumbles on the toe of his shoe and rights himself with a palm to the gritty wet wall of a antebellum era building.
Jensen.
Misha has filled a lifetime distancing. He’s poured his emotions and wounds into calluses and sarcasm. It’s easy to appear disaffected when you are. But Jensen changed all that, or if Misha is realistic, he changed some of that, and some is a lot more than none. Jensen, fucking Jensen, got in under the walls and lies and stories and bravado.
Only to be a chimera.
He can’t believe how much it hurts. A dull throbbing is beginning to ache through his chest, and the anger at what he’s lost sinks in. Jensen’s chuckling laugh, the seriousness reflected in his eyes when he stares at Misha, strong legs that would wrap around Misha and anchor him to earth, a companion he doesn’t have to be wary of. Most of all, someone who was trusted enough to be allowed close, to be intimate with in a way Misha’s never had before.
Tears sting at the back of his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall. He needs to get home, for whatever value of home there is left. He can’t go back to their dorm room, but at least if he can get back to Ellis he can find somewhere safe to be alone. Somewhere alone to be safe.
He makes another turn into a side street, and then again into what seems to be a main road. The rain is beginning in earnest now, light but persistent. It make his hair droop in readiness of being plastered to his scalp. Misha could get around New York with his eyes closed, no matter the alley or suspect subway station, but in Charleston he has no idea. Do they even have public transport here? He figures it’s a good six miles back to Ellis and his fitness regime consists solely of the mandatory P.E. sessions twice a week and, well, Jensen. He doesn’t have money for a cab, even if his frugal upbringing would allow him to take one without guilt at the waste.
Fumbling with cold fingers, he manages to liberate his phone from his pocket. Praying for 3G, he opens up Google Maps and tries to work out where he is. Charleston does indeed at least have buses, and not far from where he is. His world might be ending, but at least he’ll be able to get back to school.
What he’ll do once he gets there, he has no idea.
* * *
He has to wait an hour for the bus. Sunday timetable. He’s freezing, shivering lightly and hugging himself to keep warm by the time it pulls into view. He hands over his last dollars to the bus driver and takes a seat up back. The windows are grimy with dust and things Misha doesn’t want to think about. He hunkers down and watches the rain fall down the outside of the glass. There’s a woman with a baby that screams for most of the forty-five minutes it takes for the bus to wind its way inefficiently through the city and into the suburbs. The old man in front of him keeps coughing like he’s from a 19th century tuberculosis ward. Two teenagers make out up the front.
A headache forms in the middle of Misha’s forehead and he wants nothing more than to close his eyes. But he won’t know where he is until he sees familiar terrain outside, and so he forces himself awake and his thoughts idle.
The bus doesn’t make it all the way to the school grounds, instead stopping at the little strip of buildings that houses the bar, a convenience store, and a dilapidated fast food chicken place. Rain is pouring down as the bus rumbles off in a cloud of gas fumes, and Misha decides he can’t face the walk back to Ellis in it. He heads for the bar.
Inside it’s dark, and the heaters that are on full bore pump humidity around the room as it mixes with the cold wet coming through the door.
Misha lets his eyes adjust before heading for the booths at the back. He orders a bourbon from the flat-chested waitress with the limp hair who comes by perfunctorily. She doesn’t ask for ID, but Misha doesn’t worry; without Rob in tow there’s much less risk for them, and they’d have a much easier story of believing him to be over 21. Much better to take his money and not ask.
The liquid burns as it goes down, matching counterpoint to the heat of his eyes from holding back emotion. Misha never cried. Not for any of the places, nor for any of the ‘siblings’ he left at foster homes. Not when his parents were hauled off to jail, not even when he was beaten for standing up for one of the younger kids at the one house in Astoria. But right now, he knows that, given the slightest provocation, he could end up losing his shit in an incredibly embarrassing way.
He stares morosely at the tabletop, nursing the glass between cupped hands. There are sticky rings where beer bottles have left their trail of condensation on the wood.
Another sip, another grimace, another breath that feels like it’s being flayed off his spine.
The thought of going back to Ellis fills him with dread. He was stupid to trust, to care. Going back will just embarrass him further, prove what a stupid idiot he was to let down his guard. By now Jensen and his father must surely be halfway through dessert, if not pulling up the sweeping white-gravel drive at Ellis, finished planning his eventual removal from Ellis. It’s not that much of a stretch. Even the Petersons won’t want to be associated with Misha once they’re informed his parents are not the down-on-their-luck lower-class trash they thought them to be, but actually, an unforgivable and much less poetic pair of murderers whose son must surely be shunned.
What he knows for sure is that he doesn’t want to see anyone. He doesn’t even want to crash in Rob’s room. The pitying glances - or worse, open disdain - would be too much to bear. Depending on where Sam is, he could maybe sneak into the library and spend the night in a deceivingly uncomfortable chair, but eventually it will be tomorrow and it won’t stay quiet for long.
What he should do is just leave. Leave Ellis, leave the Petersons, leave the ridiculous idea that he might become something. Leave Jensen.
But he isn’t eighteen yet. There’s still another month to go. Any act of escape will surely bring the wrong kind of attention. Misha isn’t sure how the system works across state lines, but in any case, if he were to leave he’d go straight back to New York and back into their territory.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. He throws the last of his drink down and glances up to see if he can see the waitress. But instead of someone who can bring him alcohol, he catches sight of Julie making her way over to Misha’s table. Her red hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail, her clothing consists of simple jeans and a sweatshirt. She’s not working, then. She isn’t the last person Misha wants to talk to right now, but he’d rather be alone all the same.
“Hi,” she greets, sitting across from him at the table, pretentious micro-brewed beer in hand.
“Hey,” Misha answers morosely.
Julie raises an eyebrow. “What’s up?”
Misha snorts, finally catches the eye of the waitress and indicates for another drink. “What isn’t?”
“Trouble in paradise with our Mr Ackles, then,” Julie surmises.
“Paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Misha says before realising the import of what she’s said. “Wait, what? You know about me and Jensen?”
Julie laughs, but it isn’t malicious. “Mish, anyone with a brain can see the two of you are besotted. It’s adorable. Jensen hasn’t been this happy in years,” she notes matter-of-factly, takes a swig of her beer.
“Were,” he replies as the waitress arrives with his glass. He takes a grateful sip, grimacing as it burns down his throat. “Past tense.”
Julie puts the bottle down on the table and reaches out to cover his hand where it cradles his glass. Her fingers are cool and wet from the beer’s condensation. “You broke up?”
Misha actually laughs at that, but the sound is bitter and wrong. “Hardly. That would be too mundane.”
“Well, what happened?”
“Oh, apparently I killed Jensen’s mother. No big deal.”
To her credit, Julie doesn’t pull away. “What? That doesn’t even make sense.”
He shrugs. “No. But it hardly matters. Jensen’s dad thinks so and thus, Jensen thinks so.”
Julie’s brow furrows, confused. “I know Jen’s dad is an asshole, but seriously, what on earth do you have to do with his mother’s death?”
“Didn’t stick around to find out. Seems my parents were involved. And as far as the Ackles family is concerned, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Oh,” Julie says, digesting. “Well I’m sure Jensen won’t-”
Misha cuts her off. “Jensen does, and has.”
Her fingers tighten around his. “Misha, if anyone can work it out, I know it’s you. Someone doesn’t turn another person upside down and inside out without a fair amount of tenacity.”
Misha pulls out of her grip to take another mouthful of bourbon. Fuck, but it tastes awful. The numb heat suffusing his limbs tells him it’s doing its job, though. Another few and he won’t even remember this fucked up day. That’s the plan, anyway.
“It’s not like we argued about who left the cap of the toothpaste, Jules. It’s over. End of.”
Julie sighs, but remains quiet.
They sit in silence, Julie picking at the label on her beer bottle and Misha trying not to swig down his bourbon and ask for another.
“What are you going to do?” she says, softly.
Misha shrugs. “Don’t know.”
“You’ll have to go back to school eventually.”
“Going to tattle on me?” Misha snaps, and it’s meaner than it should be, but he just can’t.
Julie rolls her eyes. Her pony tail swings, a copper slash of colour behind her head. “No. But you can’t just hang out at a bar for the rest of your life.”
“Says the girl having a beer in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday,” he mutters.
“Funny,” she deadpans. “I was having lunch with girlfriends when I saw your sorry ass. You looked like you could use the company.” She pauses. “You should go back, though. To Ellis.”
Misha stares down into the liquid in his glass and says nothing.
“If nothing else, Jeff will look after you.”
It’s fairly well known, or so Misha has gathered from Chris and Dave and Jensen, that Julie has had a massive crush on the dean since she got the job as his secretary. For a moment, Misha feels like throwing it back in her face, making a mean comment about unrequited crushes and how she isn’t in any better off a situation than he is. But being a bastard isn’t going to help any. He sighs and tells her what she wants to hear.
“I’ll go back, don’t worry. If nothing else, I have to pick up my stuff before Jensen’s dad has me kicked out.”
It’s a lie. He isn’t going back to that dorm room ever again if he can help it. And there’s nothing there, not any more, that means anything. The only things that do are all because of Jensen. Ruined now. No matter if Julie says she won’t tattle on him, he knows that, if it comes to it, she will have to. She may not be a teacher or bound to the same ethics as them, but if people are worried, she’ll say something about him. Because she cares. Hell, she may even say it to Jensen. Not that he’d be worried.
“Jeff won’t let you be kicked out,” she says reassuringly. Misha knows better. Money talks in that school, and the Ackles’ have more of it than the Petersons. Blood too.
He says nothing in reply to her and they sit in silence.
* * *
When Julie leaves the bar, buying the drinks Misha hadn’t even considered the ability to pay for, he decides to do the same. He’s not nearly drunk enough, but for some reason the idea of sitting in there alone until he’s paralytic doesn’t sound so great a plan anymore. Besides, if he gets that drunk someone might check his ID, call the school. Which ends with him in the dean’s office, and then in his room - with Jensen.
Before she leaves, Julie hugs him and double checks he’s going back to the school. He says yes to stop her looking at him with eyes full of sadness, but in the end it isn’t as much of a lie as he’d thought it was. In case she’s watching him he ends up heading back in the direction of Ellis. He follows the route he took with Jensen that first night they became friends and fell asleep against the tree. He avoids the spot completely.
It’s still drizzling lightly, and the ground underfoot is squelchy. Mud and sand coat the bottom of his shoes and rain seeps in, soaking his socks. Instead of providing cover, the trees drip larger drops of water down on him, hitting his neck and sliding, cold, under the collar of his shirt and down his back.
When he reaches the outer boundary of the school’s property, he finds himself metaphorically lost. He can’t go back in there. He’s about to turn around and go back the way he came - maybe he can find a bus shelter to spend the night in or something - when he spots the staff cottages down by the far side of the grounds.
Alona would absolutely let him sleep on her floor. Hell, she’d probably let him spend the night in her bed with him. Platonically, of course. But Jared and Alona are still off on holiday, something about visiting their grandmother or great aunt or whomever.
With relief, Misha realises it means the Padalecki house is vacant, and he knows from following Alona home on rare occasions exactly where the spare key is kept.
Most of the faculty is away on holidays, so he figures as long as he’s careful, he won’t be seen. Slipping through the trees, he stops by the compound. No one’s around; the day is too drizzly and wet for people to be out wandering. If he gets caught, he’ll say something about seeing if Jared was back.
It’s an unnecessary excuse, as he makes it to the Padalecki house unquestioned. The key is exactly where he’d seen Alona use it, tucked under the eaves in a little nook. Ten seconds flat and he’s inside, staring into the dark afternoon gloom and not daring to turn on a light.
It’s still a vast improvement to a bus shelter.
He carefully takes off his now squelchy shoes, places them by the door, and pads through the dark house. Upstairs and first door to the right, and he’s in Alona’s room. There are posters on the wall of celebrities he doesn’t know, and a desk in front of the window with her stereo and a neat pile of school books, abandoned for the winter break. The bed has been made and no clothes litter the floor. He guesses the Padalecki children were made to clean house before they went away because he’s never seen Alona’s room this clean. Usually it’s a whirlwind of destruction: undergarments, books, dirty plates and CDs all haphazardly tumbled on top of each other.
He closes the door behind him even though there’s no one in the house. It feels safer that way. Old habits - sometimes confined spaces are easier to hide in. He doesn’t put the chair up against the door knob, though. Ellis has managed to break some of the habits, though whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.
He sits down on Alona’s bed. The navy-blue bedspread is soft under his fingers and he’s suddenly so overwhelmingly fucking tired. He shudders as a hiccuping sob breaks out of his chest and it’s all too much and too hard. He lets the tears fall, hot rivulets down his rain-chilled face. He wants to be stronger than this, hates himself because he isn’t.
It’s all Jensen’s fucking fault. He was safe before Jensen, he had his walls up and no one could touch him. Not his parents, not his foster parents, not the Petersons and certainly not Ellis Fucking Academy.
Jensen swept in and got under his skin and now Misha’s been flayed open. Alone, sitting in the dark in the house of a boy who hates him, with wet socks and a gaping hole where it feels like his heart has been torn out.
And despite it all, despite the fact that it’s Jensen who has done this to him, who has inflicted this wound, all his stupid fucking heart wants is to have him back. To have Jensen walk in the door and say it was all a mistake, that he wants him and that everything is okay.
Only he won’t. Because Misha’s parents murdered Jensen’s mom. And there’s no getting over that.
When the tears subside and the shivering sets in, Misha decides he’s had enough of this consciousness thing. He strips off his wet clothes, a fresh ache as he pulls off the blue striped shirt he’d borrowed from Jensen’s closet, and leaves them in a pile on Alona’s floor. He slips under the covers and pulls them tight around him. The bed smells like Alona and he lets it comfort him as he wills himself to sleep.
Later, he’ll think about how he’s going to get out of this mess. Where he’s going to go or how he’s going to get there. For now, though, he’s had enough. He doesn’t want to think or see or cry or emote. There’s only so much a person can take in the way of life-altering revelations for one day.
* * *
When he wakes up, he has a terrifying moment of not knowing where he is. Night has fallen and the rain continues to patter down on the roof. When it floods back to him where he is, and why, he groans and pulls the covers back up over his head.
Now that he’s a bit more clear-headed, he has to figure out what he’s going to do. He certainly can’t stay where he is for more than a night or two. Eventually the school will figure out he isn’t in the dorm anymore, if Jensen doesn’t tell them first. He has two options, as far as he can see. He stays, figures out a way to move dorm rooms and suffers through seeing Jensen every day of his life until he’s free. Or, he flees now.
In the back of his mind, the dean’s offer is sitting patiently, waiting for him to make a decision. He’s never had an opportunity like that handed to him before. One that would greatly improve his future prospects. Internship or ticket to an Ivy League college, either one will give him a chance he could never hope to get on his own with his background. Assuming the offer is still there. He thinks it is. Morgan might be a young dean, but he’s fair. Even if he favours Jensen, Misha doesn’t think he’ll take it out on him. Anyway, that’s a hurdle best dealt with when and if he decides to vault it.
To run... well, it was always his plan, wasn’t it? Granted, he was planning on waiting until he hit eighteen, to make it legal. He’s close now. If he ran and remained off the grid for a month or so, then they’d be forced to stop looking. If he makes it back to New York he’ll at least be on familiar ground. He knows where to get free food, where to make some quick money, and he’s amassed enough connections, shady though they may be, to at least not be sleeping on the streets at night.
If he can get back to the city. He has no money and is in ass-fuck nowhere. It’s not something he’s thought about for awhile, but there’s probably stuff he could ‘liberate’ from the dorms to sell for a Greyhound fair. With most of the boys gone for vacation, it wouldn’t be as easy as boosting the cash that would normally be laying around as casually as if it grew on trees. Which for some of the boys, it probably does.
For a brief, insane moment, he thinks about calling the Petersons, making up some story to see if they’ll wire him some money. He dismisses it almost as soon as it enters his thoughts. They’d call the dean first thing.
Thinking about the Petersons makes him think of his own parents. He can’t understand how they were involved in Jensen’s mom’s murder, though he’s sure, with a heavy sick feeling in his stomach, that it’s true. He tries again to remember what Jensen told him. Jensen was five. Something about his dad working in oil, his mother being the one from money. There was fraud, or a collapse or something? His parents definitely could have been involved in that. Any way for a dollar. But there was something else Jensen had said. Try as he might, Misha can’t zero in on it.
With a sigh, he pushes the covers back down and contemplates the risk factor of taking a shower. His skin is clammy and his face is tight with salt. Plus, he’s cold. The heating is turned off while the Padalecki’s are away, and although he’s inside, the chill is seeping into the house’s bones from outside. A shower would be fucking awesome. He wouldn’t turn the light on, of course, but it’s possible someone might hear the water. It depends on what the time is. Leaning out of Alona’s bed, he searches for the pile of clothes on the ground. It takes a second, but he locates his phone in the pocket of the dress pants and manages to extract it.
No missed messages. No call from Jensen explaining it was all a horrible mistake, an unfunny joke, a dare. Despite it all, he wants to call him. To thumb down to the little icon of Jensen and press it into calling. But there’s no point calling him, he thinks, with numb resignation. That’s not a thing he can do anymore. One of many things he can’t do with Jensen ever again.
Glancing at the time, he finds it’s 11 PM. He’d been out a long time. Booze and crying like a fucking girl will do that to a person. Using the light from his phone as a flashlight, he makes his way out of bed and Alona’s room, pausing on the landing to make triple sure there’s no one home.
Misha leaves the lights off in the bathroom, feels his way to the shower and turns the water on as hot as he can stand. Lets the water rinse the dirtiness of the day off him. He uses the shampoo that’s sitting in the rack, something that smells like roses or peonies or some other flower Misha wouldn’t know if he put it in a posy himself. Tilting his face up into the stream, he lets it sting, burn at the flesh of his cheeks and eyes.
What a fucked-up day. It had started so innocuously, him and Jensen discussing a fucking book in bed, waiting to get a brunch over and done with so they could head back to their room and fuck; Misha planning to hold his hand over Jensen’s mouth to stop the moans from travelling into the corridor where a random kid stuck with them over the break might pass by and hear them.
The image stings at his eyes as much as the water and he blinks furiously, keeping the stupid tears at bay by force of will. No more. He isn’t an eight-year-old in a new foster home that smells funny with foster parents who aren’t his real parents. He wouldn’t cry then, and he won’t cry now.
He’s reaching for the soap when Jensen’s dad’s words to Jensen echo in his mind, unbidden. “His mother is the reason your mother is dead.”
His mother.
Hadn’t Jensen said something about an affair? Oh god. Misha feels sick, falls to his knees on the tile and retches. Dry heaves of nothing but anguish.
Had his mother seduced Jensen’s father? For money? Had Misha’s dad encouraged her? The images fly through Misha’s head faster than he can process them. His mom coming on to Jensen’s dad, investigations of fraud and embezzlement, the Feds taking boxes of files out of the offices, Jensen’s mom with her long flowy skirts and seventies hair catching them in the act, her crying, distraught. Jensen’s mom and a bottle of pills. A five-year-old Jensen holding onto his father’s hand as they stand by a coffin.
He can’t know if it happened that way, but it fits. It all fits. And his parents, the sorry excuses for human beings that brought him into this world - and oh, but how he wishes they hadn’t - did it all. They killed Jensen’s mom.
And now Misha is dead to Jensen.
* * *
Chapter 11
Also posted at dreamwidth. Please comment wherevs.
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Authors: qthelights & kriari
Rating: NC-17
Warnings & Notes See Chapter One for full warnings, disclaimers and notes. WIP.
Summary: As one of the premiere boarding schools on the east coast, Ellis Academy plays host to the preeminent financiers, businessmen, and politicians of tomorrow. The very dirt stinks of privilege and as a long-time foster child, Misha Collins has no idea how he ended up here. To make matters worse, he's stuck rooming with the equivalent of Ellis royalty. Jensen Ackles is a lifer - captain of the lacrosse team, do-gooder and textbook overachiever. And they hate each other. Mostly. But as they move from hate to something more, secrets from their unknown yet inextricably linked pasts threaten to destroy everything they've built. And the worst part? They have no idea what's coming...
Previous chapters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Until this moment, walking as fast as he can through a drizzly city he doesn’t know, biting his lip to keep from yelling, or worse, Misha is pretty sure he has never actually understood the phrase ‘seeing red’. Now, he does.
He’s sure the city around him is gray. Whether that’s from the dirty snow melting in the gutters, the storm blowing in across the coast, or the fact that he never wanted to come here in the first place, is a toss-up. Regardless, all he sees is crimson. Maroon. Vermillion. Scarlet. Ruby. Blood.
He concentrates on it, feels the pulse of his heart echoing behind his eyelids. As long as the anger drives him, one scuffed footstep after another, the acid roiling in his stomach can be ignored. The terror can be kept at bay.
Blindly, he turns a corner, slides into a side street and out of sight of the scene he’s left behind. If the scene is even still there. Perhaps Jensen has gone back inside the restaurant already, calmly ordering another meal to replace the one gone cold on his plate, or maybe he and his dad have left already, driven away from Misha and his brokenness. Left him to rot in the streets like his parents, like the ilk he’s so clearly derived from. It doesn’t matter either way - he’s not turning around to check. No, all he can do right now is get as far away from Jensen and his dad as possible. And maybe get lost in the meantime.
“The reason your mother is dead.” It echoes in Misha’s head, over and over, louder and louder with each step he takes. It can’t be true. He has no delusions about his parents, or thought he didn’t. They aren’t good people, he knows that. They were put away a couple of times, mostly for petty larceny and fraud. One time his dad went away for breaking and entering, Misha thinks so anyway; at some point all the stories became a blur of disenchantment. He had other things to think about, like where he was going to get his next meal, or whether or not to bail on the newest foster situation.
But as far as he remembers, the crimes were always ones of opportunity, of potential payoff. Murder is a whole other thing.
There was never any violence in the stories he heard from his aunt, nor from the various cops that showed up at front doors, or the notices of legal proceedings that made their way, pointlessly, to Misha. Maybe it’s some vestigial parental love that will be disproved with the last rending of his faith like tendon from bloody bone, but he just doesn’t, can’t, believe they would hurt anyone. Not... seriously.
But the look of hatred in Jensen’s father’s eyes, the look of betrayal and pain in Jensen’s, surely that could only be borne of something terrible.
Whatever the reality, Jensen’s father, and now Jensen, certainly believe Misha’s parents are responsible for the death of Jensen’s mother. He tries to remember the details of the stories Jensen told him about what happened, but his head is too chaotic to focus in on anything. All he remembers is that Jensen was five and his mom committed suicide. There’s more to the story, tantalisingly out of reach, but he can’t recall it, and even if he could, he’s consumed with the need to flee. His pace quickens as he puts more distance between himself and the Ackles family. What’s left of it.
Jensen’s dad might be an asshole, and everything Misha knows about him says it’s true: the way he’d abandoned Jensen to Ellis as soon as his mom was in the ground; the times upon times he hadn’t shown up; the look of sadness and anger that flitted over Jensen’s face when he’d get the call that he wasn’t as important as Mr Ackles’ work, but Misha doubts, even with all that, that he’d cause Jensen such overt pain as to bring up his mom’s death.
Thinking about Jensen causes Misha’s breath to catch in an ugly hiccup. A phantom pain slices through his side. He stumbles on the toe of his shoe and rights himself with a palm to the gritty wet wall of a antebellum era building.
Jensen.
Misha has filled a lifetime distancing. He’s poured his emotions and wounds into calluses and sarcasm. It’s easy to appear disaffected when you are. But Jensen changed all that, or if Misha is realistic, he changed some of that, and some is a lot more than none. Jensen, fucking Jensen, got in under the walls and lies and stories and bravado.
Only to be a chimera.
He can’t believe how much it hurts. A dull throbbing is beginning to ache through his chest, and the anger at what he’s lost sinks in. Jensen’s chuckling laugh, the seriousness reflected in his eyes when he stares at Misha, strong legs that would wrap around Misha and anchor him to earth, a companion he doesn’t have to be wary of. Most of all, someone who was trusted enough to be allowed close, to be intimate with in a way Misha’s never had before.
Tears sting at the back of his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall. He needs to get home, for whatever value of home there is left. He can’t go back to their dorm room, but at least if he can get back to Ellis he can find somewhere safe to be alone. Somewhere alone to be safe.
He makes another turn into a side street, and then again into what seems to be a main road. The rain is beginning in earnest now, light but persistent. It make his hair droop in readiness of being plastered to his scalp. Misha could get around New York with his eyes closed, no matter the alley or suspect subway station, but in Charleston he has no idea. Do they even have public transport here? He figures it’s a good six miles back to Ellis and his fitness regime consists solely of the mandatory P.E. sessions twice a week and, well, Jensen. He doesn’t have money for a cab, even if his frugal upbringing would allow him to take one without guilt at the waste.
Fumbling with cold fingers, he manages to liberate his phone from his pocket. Praying for 3G, he opens up Google Maps and tries to work out where he is. Charleston does indeed at least have buses, and not far from where he is. His world might be ending, but at least he’ll be able to get back to school.
What he’ll do once he gets there, he has no idea.
* * *
He has to wait an hour for the bus. Sunday timetable. He’s freezing, shivering lightly and hugging himself to keep warm by the time it pulls into view. He hands over his last dollars to the bus driver and takes a seat up back. The windows are grimy with dust and things Misha doesn’t want to think about. He hunkers down and watches the rain fall down the outside of the glass. There’s a woman with a baby that screams for most of the forty-five minutes it takes for the bus to wind its way inefficiently through the city and into the suburbs. The old man in front of him keeps coughing like he’s from a 19th century tuberculosis ward. Two teenagers make out up the front.
A headache forms in the middle of Misha’s forehead and he wants nothing more than to close his eyes. But he won’t know where he is until he sees familiar terrain outside, and so he forces himself awake and his thoughts idle.
The bus doesn’t make it all the way to the school grounds, instead stopping at the little strip of buildings that houses the bar, a convenience store, and a dilapidated fast food chicken place. Rain is pouring down as the bus rumbles off in a cloud of gas fumes, and Misha decides he can’t face the walk back to Ellis in it. He heads for the bar.
Inside it’s dark, and the heaters that are on full bore pump humidity around the room as it mixes with the cold wet coming through the door.
Misha lets his eyes adjust before heading for the booths at the back. He orders a bourbon from the flat-chested waitress with the limp hair who comes by perfunctorily. She doesn’t ask for ID, but Misha doesn’t worry; without Rob in tow there’s much less risk for them, and they’d have a much easier story of believing him to be over 21. Much better to take his money and not ask.
The liquid burns as it goes down, matching counterpoint to the heat of his eyes from holding back emotion. Misha never cried. Not for any of the places, nor for any of the ‘siblings’ he left at foster homes. Not when his parents were hauled off to jail, not even when he was beaten for standing up for one of the younger kids at the one house in Astoria. But right now, he knows that, given the slightest provocation, he could end up losing his shit in an incredibly embarrassing way.
He stares morosely at the tabletop, nursing the glass between cupped hands. There are sticky rings where beer bottles have left their trail of condensation on the wood.
Another sip, another grimace, another breath that feels like it’s being flayed off his spine.
The thought of going back to Ellis fills him with dread. He was stupid to trust, to care. Going back will just embarrass him further, prove what a stupid idiot he was to let down his guard. By now Jensen and his father must surely be halfway through dessert, if not pulling up the sweeping white-gravel drive at Ellis, finished planning his eventual removal from Ellis. It’s not that much of a stretch. Even the Petersons won’t want to be associated with Misha once they’re informed his parents are not the down-on-their-luck lower-class trash they thought them to be, but actually, an unforgivable and much less poetic pair of murderers whose son must surely be shunned.
What he knows for sure is that he doesn’t want to see anyone. He doesn’t even want to crash in Rob’s room. The pitying glances - or worse, open disdain - would be too much to bear. Depending on where Sam is, he could maybe sneak into the library and spend the night in a deceivingly uncomfortable chair, but eventually it will be tomorrow and it won’t stay quiet for long.
What he should do is just leave. Leave Ellis, leave the Petersons, leave the ridiculous idea that he might become something. Leave Jensen.
But he isn’t eighteen yet. There’s still another month to go. Any act of escape will surely bring the wrong kind of attention. Misha isn’t sure how the system works across state lines, but in any case, if he were to leave he’d go straight back to New York and back into their territory.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. He throws the last of his drink down and glances up to see if he can see the waitress. But instead of someone who can bring him alcohol, he catches sight of Julie making her way over to Misha’s table. Her red hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail, her clothing consists of simple jeans and a sweatshirt. She’s not working, then. She isn’t the last person Misha wants to talk to right now, but he’d rather be alone all the same.
“Hi,” she greets, sitting across from him at the table, pretentious micro-brewed beer in hand.
“Hey,” Misha answers morosely.
Julie raises an eyebrow. “What’s up?”
Misha snorts, finally catches the eye of the waitress and indicates for another drink. “What isn’t?”
“Trouble in paradise with our Mr Ackles, then,” Julie surmises.
“Paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Misha says before realising the import of what she’s said. “Wait, what? You know about me and Jensen?”
Julie laughs, but it isn’t malicious. “Mish, anyone with a brain can see the two of you are besotted. It’s adorable. Jensen hasn’t been this happy in years,” she notes matter-of-factly, takes a swig of her beer.
“Were,” he replies as the waitress arrives with his glass. He takes a grateful sip, grimacing as it burns down his throat. “Past tense.”
Julie puts the bottle down on the table and reaches out to cover his hand where it cradles his glass. Her fingers are cool and wet from the beer’s condensation. “You broke up?”
Misha actually laughs at that, but the sound is bitter and wrong. “Hardly. That would be too mundane.”
“Well, what happened?”
“Oh, apparently I killed Jensen’s mother. No big deal.”
To her credit, Julie doesn’t pull away. “What? That doesn’t even make sense.”
He shrugs. “No. But it hardly matters. Jensen’s dad thinks so and thus, Jensen thinks so.”
Julie’s brow furrows, confused. “I know Jen’s dad is an asshole, but seriously, what on earth do you have to do with his mother’s death?”
“Didn’t stick around to find out. Seems my parents were involved. And as far as the Ackles family is concerned, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Oh,” Julie says, digesting. “Well I’m sure Jensen won’t-”
Misha cuts her off. “Jensen does, and has.”
Her fingers tighten around his. “Misha, if anyone can work it out, I know it’s you. Someone doesn’t turn another person upside down and inside out without a fair amount of tenacity.”
Misha pulls out of her grip to take another mouthful of bourbon. Fuck, but it tastes awful. The numb heat suffusing his limbs tells him it’s doing its job, though. Another few and he won’t even remember this fucked up day. That’s the plan, anyway.
“It’s not like we argued about who left the cap of the toothpaste, Jules. It’s over. End of.”
Julie sighs, but remains quiet.
They sit in silence, Julie picking at the label on her beer bottle and Misha trying not to swig down his bourbon and ask for another.
“What are you going to do?” she says, softly.
Misha shrugs. “Don’t know.”
“You’ll have to go back to school eventually.”
“Going to tattle on me?” Misha snaps, and it’s meaner than it should be, but he just can’t.
Julie rolls her eyes. Her pony tail swings, a copper slash of colour behind her head. “No. But you can’t just hang out at a bar for the rest of your life.”
“Says the girl having a beer in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday,” he mutters.
“Funny,” she deadpans. “I was having lunch with girlfriends when I saw your sorry ass. You looked like you could use the company.” She pauses. “You should go back, though. To Ellis.”
Misha stares down into the liquid in his glass and says nothing.
“If nothing else, Jeff will look after you.”
It’s fairly well known, or so Misha has gathered from Chris and Dave and Jensen, that Julie has had a massive crush on the dean since she got the job as his secretary. For a moment, Misha feels like throwing it back in her face, making a mean comment about unrequited crushes and how she isn’t in any better off a situation than he is. But being a bastard isn’t going to help any. He sighs and tells her what she wants to hear.
“I’ll go back, don’t worry. If nothing else, I have to pick up my stuff before Jensen’s dad has me kicked out.”
It’s a lie. He isn’t going back to that dorm room ever again if he can help it. And there’s nothing there, not any more, that means anything. The only things that do are all because of Jensen. Ruined now. No matter if Julie says she won’t tattle on him, he knows that, if it comes to it, she will have to. She may not be a teacher or bound to the same ethics as them, but if people are worried, she’ll say something about him. Because she cares. Hell, she may even say it to Jensen. Not that he’d be worried.
“Jeff won’t let you be kicked out,” she says reassuringly. Misha knows better. Money talks in that school, and the Ackles’ have more of it than the Petersons. Blood too.
He says nothing in reply to her and they sit in silence.
* * *
When Julie leaves the bar, buying the drinks Misha hadn’t even considered the ability to pay for, he decides to do the same. He’s not nearly drunk enough, but for some reason the idea of sitting in there alone until he’s paralytic doesn’t sound so great a plan anymore. Besides, if he gets that drunk someone might check his ID, call the school. Which ends with him in the dean’s office, and then in his room - with Jensen.
Before she leaves, Julie hugs him and double checks he’s going back to the school. He says yes to stop her looking at him with eyes full of sadness, but in the end it isn’t as much of a lie as he’d thought it was. In case she’s watching him he ends up heading back in the direction of Ellis. He follows the route he took with Jensen that first night they became friends and fell asleep against the tree. He avoids the spot completely.
It’s still drizzling lightly, and the ground underfoot is squelchy. Mud and sand coat the bottom of his shoes and rain seeps in, soaking his socks. Instead of providing cover, the trees drip larger drops of water down on him, hitting his neck and sliding, cold, under the collar of his shirt and down his back.
When he reaches the outer boundary of the school’s property, he finds himself metaphorically lost. He can’t go back in there. He’s about to turn around and go back the way he came - maybe he can find a bus shelter to spend the night in or something - when he spots the staff cottages down by the far side of the grounds.
Alona would absolutely let him sleep on her floor. Hell, she’d probably let him spend the night in her bed with him. Platonically, of course. But Jared and Alona are still off on holiday, something about visiting their grandmother or great aunt or whomever.
With relief, Misha realises it means the Padalecki house is vacant, and he knows from following Alona home on rare occasions exactly where the spare key is kept.
Most of the faculty is away on holidays, so he figures as long as he’s careful, he won’t be seen. Slipping through the trees, he stops by the compound. No one’s around; the day is too drizzly and wet for people to be out wandering. If he gets caught, he’ll say something about seeing if Jared was back.
It’s an unnecessary excuse, as he makes it to the Padalecki house unquestioned. The key is exactly where he’d seen Alona use it, tucked under the eaves in a little nook. Ten seconds flat and he’s inside, staring into the dark afternoon gloom and not daring to turn on a light.
It’s still a vast improvement to a bus shelter.
He carefully takes off his now squelchy shoes, places them by the door, and pads through the dark house. Upstairs and first door to the right, and he’s in Alona’s room. There are posters on the wall of celebrities he doesn’t know, and a desk in front of the window with her stereo and a neat pile of school books, abandoned for the winter break. The bed has been made and no clothes litter the floor. He guesses the Padalecki children were made to clean house before they went away because he’s never seen Alona’s room this clean. Usually it’s a whirlwind of destruction: undergarments, books, dirty plates and CDs all haphazardly tumbled on top of each other.
He closes the door behind him even though there’s no one in the house. It feels safer that way. Old habits - sometimes confined spaces are easier to hide in. He doesn’t put the chair up against the door knob, though. Ellis has managed to break some of the habits, though whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.
He sits down on Alona’s bed. The navy-blue bedspread is soft under his fingers and he’s suddenly so overwhelmingly fucking tired. He shudders as a hiccuping sob breaks out of his chest and it’s all too much and too hard. He lets the tears fall, hot rivulets down his rain-chilled face. He wants to be stronger than this, hates himself because he isn’t.
It’s all Jensen’s fucking fault. He was safe before Jensen, he had his walls up and no one could touch him. Not his parents, not his foster parents, not the Petersons and certainly not Ellis Fucking Academy.
Jensen swept in and got under his skin and now Misha’s been flayed open. Alone, sitting in the dark in the house of a boy who hates him, with wet socks and a gaping hole where it feels like his heart has been torn out.
And despite it all, despite the fact that it’s Jensen who has done this to him, who has inflicted this wound, all his stupid fucking heart wants is to have him back. To have Jensen walk in the door and say it was all a mistake, that he wants him and that everything is okay.
Only he won’t. Because Misha’s parents murdered Jensen’s mom. And there’s no getting over that.
When the tears subside and the shivering sets in, Misha decides he’s had enough of this consciousness thing. He strips off his wet clothes, a fresh ache as he pulls off the blue striped shirt he’d borrowed from Jensen’s closet, and leaves them in a pile on Alona’s floor. He slips under the covers and pulls them tight around him. The bed smells like Alona and he lets it comfort him as he wills himself to sleep.
Later, he’ll think about how he’s going to get out of this mess. Where he’s going to go or how he’s going to get there. For now, though, he’s had enough. He doesn’t want to think or see or cry or emote. There’s only so much a person can take in the way of life-altering revelations for one day.
* * *
When he wakes up, he has a terrifying moment of not knowing where he is. Night has fallen and the rain continues to patter down on the roof. When it floods back to him where he is, and why, he groans and pulls the covers back up over his head.
Now that he’s a bit more clear-headed, he has to figure out what he’s going to do. He certainly can’t stay where he is for more than a night or two. Eventually the school will figure out he isn’t in the dorm anymore, if Jensen doesn’t tell them first. He has two options, as far as he can see. He stays, figures out a way to move dorm rooms and suffers through seeing Jensen every day of his life until he’s free. Or, he flees now.
In the back of his mind, the dean’s offer is sitting patiently, waiting for him to make a decision. He’s never had an opportunity like that handed to him before. One that would greatly improve his future prospects. Internship or ticket to an Ivy League college, either one will give him a chance he could never hope to get on his own with his background. Assuming the offer is still there. He thinks it is. Morgan might be a young dean, but he’s fair. Even if he favours Jensen, Misha doesn’t think he’ll take it out on him. Anyway, that’s a hurdle best dealt with when and if he decides to vault it.
To run... well, it was always his plan, wasn’t it? Granted, he was planning on waiting until he hit eighteen, to make it legal. He’s close now. If he ran and remained off the grid for a month or so, then they’d be forced to stop looking. If he makes it back to New York he’ll at least be on familiar ground. He knows where to get free food, where to make some quick money, and he’s amassed enough connections, shady though they may be, to at least not be sleeping on the streets at night.
If he can get back to the city. He has no money and is in ass-fuck nowhere. It’s not something he’s thought about for awhile, but there’s probably stuff he could ‘liberate’ from the dorms to sell for a Greyhound fair. With most of the boys gone for vacation, it wouldn’t be as easy as boosting the cash that would normally be laying around as casually as if it grew on trees. Which for some of the boys, it probably does.
For a brief, insane moment, he thinks about calling the Petersons, making up some story to see if they’ll wire him some money. He dismisses it almost as soon as it enters his thoughts. They’d call the dean first thing.
Thinking about the Petersons makes him think of his own parents. He can’t understand how they were involved in Jensen’s mom’s murder, though he’s sure, with a heavy sick feeling in his stomach, that it’s true. He tries again to remember what Jensen told him. Jensen was five. Something about his dad working in oil, his mother being the one from money. There was fraud, or a collapse or something? His parents definitely could have been involved in that. Any way for a dollar. But there was something else Jensen had said. Try as he might, Misha can’t zero in on it.
With a sigh, he pushes the covers back down and contemplates the risk factor of taking a shower. His skin is clammy and his face is tight with salt. Plus, he’s cold. The heating is turned off while the Padalecki’s are away, and although he’s inside, the chill is seeping into the house’s bones from outside. A shower would be fucking awesome. He wouldn’t turn the light on, of course, but it’s possible someone might hear the water. It depends on what the time is. Leaning out of Alona’s bed, he searches for the pile of clothes on the ground. It takes a second, but he locates his phone in the pocket of the dress pants and manages to extract it.
No missed messages. No call from Jensen explaining it was all a horrible mistake, an unfunny joke, a dare. Despite it all, he wants to call him. To thumb down to the little icon of Jensen and press it into calling. But there’s no point calling him, he thinks, with numb resignation. That’s not a thing he can do anymore. One of many things he can’t do with Jensen ever again.
Glancing at the time, he finds it’s 11 PM. He’d been out a long time. Booze and crying like a fucking girl will do that to a person. Using the light from his phone as a flashlight, he makes his way out of bed and Alona’s room, pausing on the landing to make triple sure there’s no one home.
Misha leaves the lights off in the bathroom, feels his way to the shower and turns the water on as hot as he can stand. Lets the water rinse the dirtiness of the day off him. He uses the shampoo that’s sitting in the rack, something that smells like roses or peonies or some other flower Misha wouldn’t know if he put it in a posy himself. Tilting his face up into the stream, he lets it sting, burn at the flesh of his cheeks and eyes.
What a fucked-up day. It had started so innocuously, him and Jensen discussing a fucking book in bed, waiting to get a brunch over and done with so they could head back to their room and fuck; Misha planning to hold his hand over Jensen’s mouth to stop the moans from travelling into the corridor where a random kid stuck with them over the break might pass by and hear them.
The image stings at his eyes as much as the water and he blinks furiously, keeping the stupid tears at bay by force of will. No more. He isn’t an eight-year-old in a new foster home that smells funny with foster parents who aren’t his real parents. He wouldn’t cry then, and he won’t cry now.
He’s reaching for the soap when Jensen’s dad’s words to Jensen echo in his mind, unbidden. “His mother is the reason your mother is dead.”
His mother.
Hadn’t Jensen said something about an affair? Oh god. Misha feels sick, falls to his knees on the tile and retches. Dry heaves of nothing but anguish.
Had his mother seduced Jensen’s father? For money? Had Misha’s dad encouraged her? The images fly through Misha’s head faster than he can process them. His mom coming on to Jensen’s dad, investigations of fraud and embezzlement, the Feds taking boxes of files out of the offices, Jensen’s mom with her long flowy skirts and seventies hair catching them in the act, her crying, distraught. Jensen’s mom and a bottle of pills. A five-year-old Jensen holding onto his father’s hand as they stand by a coffin.
He can’t know if it happened that way, but it fits. It all fits. And his parents, the sorry excuses for human beings that brought him into this world - and oh, but how he wishes they hadn’t - did it all. They killed Jensen’s mom.
And now Misha is dead to Jensen.
* * *
Chapter 11
Also posted at dreamwidth. Please comment wherevs.