We Carved Our Love In Oak: Part 2
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Except, it does. It does happen.
Two days after Mrs Padalecki agrees, Jared shakes Jensen awake with his truck running outside and a wide grin on his face. It’s 6am and the birds are singing.
“Are you shitting me?”
Jared throws his head back and laughs with his entire body, dimples and floppy hair and stretch of pink lips.
“Come on, Jen. I promise to buy you some coffee on the road.”
It’s difficult to say no to Jared.
The sun is only starting to rise as they make it onto the road, and it’s already a hot, and hard sun above them. It’s going to be another summer day in Texas, but soon they will be in New Mexico, and wherever they end up after that.
Jared’s driving with a soft smile on his lips and Jensen finds himself watching him more than the long stretch of road that lies ahead.
People in their slow, tiny town begin to wake up, moving about in the oppressive summer heat, and Jensen thinks of all the faces he knows and all the new ones they’re going to meet.
They're both in good moods as they set off, Jared singing loud over the stereo and Jensen sitting beside him, watching him with a smile on his face. He's not sure where they're going to end up, what there even is to do with the insignificant amount of money they have, or how far they'll be able to get. It doesn't seem to matter when they stop at a small roadside café a couple of hours later, buy coffees, eat sandwiches with stale bread and share a chocolate bar.
There’s a group of motorcyclists sitting a few tables away from them, a couple who look like they're in their forties buying food, and other than that it's just them. Jared has his pocket map spread in front of him and he's sucking on a square of the chocolate bar, the rest of it on the table beside him.
"I think we should head towards LA," he mumbles around the chocolate in his mouth, before finally swallowing it. "Go towards California and see where we end up on the way. Maybe go to San Francisco. How'd you feel about that? Sounds good, right?"
Jensen doesn't really care where they go. Jared knows this, but likes to include him anyway, likes to ask Jensen's opinion and always takes it into account if Jensen offers up his thoughts.
"Sounds good to me, Jay," is what he says, before finishing off the rest of his coleslaw and cheese sandwich.
"Great," Jared says, haphazardly folding the map back up and shoving it into his pocket. After finishing up the rest of his chocolate, he says, "I think we should leave our mark. Everywhere we go."
"How?" Jensen asks, taking a sip of coke from the plastic bottle.
They're both silent, thinking, until Jensen finally gets an idea.
"How about scratching our initials into a tree? Like the oak down by the lake."
Jared grins at him and shoves his hand into his pocket, pulls out his keys and the penknife that's on a keychain. "How about this table? Think they'll mind?"
"Go on then," Jensen says. "Make it small though. We're not fucking vandals."
Jared carves a small J into the table top and then passes it to Jensen who carves his own J next to it.
J+J.
"There we are," Jared says, rubbing the pad of his thumb over it. "Jared and Jensen."
They drive for the rest of the day in alternate turns, Jared driving for a couple of hours and then Jensen for a couple more, stopping to eat potato chips and packed sandwiches from Jared’s bags.
When the stars begin to come out they park up at the side of a long, deserted road and settle down on the dry, yellowing grass. Jared lies on his front, watching Jensen with a lopsided smile as he tries to get comfortable on the hard ground.
Jared grins with his beautiful, crooked teeth and Jensen absently starts pulling the grass from the earth and smiles back.
“This everything you dreamed it would be, Jay?”
“Better.”
They fall asleep together beneath the stars and Jensen is able to forget all about home and Texas and breathe easy again.
***
The next morning they’re woken early by the sounds of birds. Jared’s already waking up with a smile and Jensen glares at him, wanting to crawl into the truck and go to sleep.
“Come on, Jen,” Jared prods. “We’ve got a lot of driving to do.”
Jensen stands up and stretches, clothes rumpled and hair a mess on the top of his head.
“Pass me the keys then,” Jensen says, holding his hand out, staring up at the summer sky that last night was filled with thousands of stars.
The sun is low and heavy, casting a white glow across the tarmac of the highway. Jensen’s got one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh, feeling his shirt stick to the small of his back. The windows are rolled down and Jared’s sunglasses are on his head to pull back his hair, to keep it from his face in the rush of the wind.
He’s in control of the music, is setting their soundtrack and singing along loud and off-key and it makes Jensen smile.
The next song begins to play and Jensen recognizes it as Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles. He snorts and looks over at Jared for a brief second before returning his eyes to the road. “Really? Do you ever listen to anything that isn’t older than you?”
“What?” Jared says, his voice rising over the sound of the music and the rushing wind. He sounds offended and Jensen cocks an eyebrow at him.
“Dude, don’t sound so scandalized. I was just wondering if you listened to anything that wasn’t -- you know.” He pauses, not sure where he’s going with this. “I don’t know, I guess they always seemed a little overrated?”
He lets his sentence hang like a question and flicks his eyes back over to Jared. His mouth is agape and eyes are wide like fishbowls, and Jensen tries not to laugh.
Jared comes back to himself with a snap, and he says, “The Beatles, Jensen -- The Beatles! Everything awesome about music today can be traced back to them!”
“I mean, yeah,” Jensen says, feeling like he’s stepped into a war zone with no idea how he ended up there. “It’s good music. Just - dated, I guess.”
“No, Jensen. No. The stuff they talked about? The stuff they sung about is still so fucking relevant. First love and heartbreak and simple stuff like wanting to hold the hand of the person you like. They talked politics into their music in a way that made people listen. And world tours, right? Name any band before them that did world tours like The Beatles. They changed everything. They got people excited over music.”
“Evidently,” Jensen says with a grin, catching flashes of Jared in the corner of his eye, the way he talks with his entire body, his hands.
“And - most importantly - they made it fashionable for guys to grow long hair.”
Jensen laughs then, figures that’s something Jared would know about.
“Dated?” Jared scoffs and shakes his head. “Jesus, Jensen. And this is coming from the guy who listens to Johnny Cash’s first records.”
“That’s good shit,” Jensen says.
“Hell yeah it is.”
When the song ends Jared changes it to Folsom Prison Blues and Jensen sings along, Jared laughing beside him.
“Dude, look,” Jared exclaims, once the song is ending and mixing into something else. “Pull over, look!”
There’s a guy standing at the side of the road with a backpack at his feet and his thumb sticking out. He’s got a tie-dye bandana around his head and grins at them when Jensen starts to pull over.
“I don’t think this is such a good idea, Jay,” Jensen says.
“Jen, he’s just a hitchhiker - hey, man!”
The guy comes up to the window and grins at them. “Awesome. You bitches gonna give me a ride?”
“Uh,” Jensen says.
“Yeah, get in!” Jared says and Jensen sighs as Jared gets squashed up beside him, tries to will his pulse to stay steady at the warmth that he feels pressed up against his right side.
The three of them squeeze together with Jared in the middle.
“Name’s The Chad,” the hitchhiker offers.”But you can call me Chadmeister.”
“I’m Jared,” Jared says, as Jensen gets the engine started. “That’s Jensen.”
“Hi,” Jensen says.
"Where are you from, Chadmeister?" Jared asks, offering him a Red Bull from the glove box. The guy takes it and pops the cap before answering.
"New York."
Jared’s eyes widen. "Wow."
Jensen recognizes the wistful tone in his voice, has heard it many times before.
"Jared's got a bad case of wanderlust," Jensen says. "We're from a small town in Texas."
"No shit," Chad says, raising an eyebrow at them both. “Where are you guys off to?”
“LA,” Jared says. “And then anywhere the road takes us after that.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Eight-hundred miles to go,” Jensen says, catching Jared’s gaze and his soft smile before putting his eyes back on the road. He pulls away and they’re back onto the tarmac, driving onwards.
***
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