Mid-Afternoon Sun on Texas Sky (32/?)
Title: Mid-Afternoon Sun on Texas Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
This is a sequel to the previously ‘neverending story’, Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky. It finally ended.
Summary: Jensen and Jared go back to Texas for Christmas. Their relationship deepens and they take the next step… pr0n!
Spoilers: none to speak of
-------------------------
Chapter Thirty-Two: Tomorrow
Rating: NC-17 for graphic imagery, horror, rape, adult themes
Pairing: Jensen/Jared and a side of Jared/Eric Kripke
Word Count: 2,859
Chapter Thirty-Two: Tomorrow
Jared comes up behind me in the bathroom while I’ve got a mouthful of Listerine, slides his arms around my waist and links his hands in front of me. His chin comes to rest on my shoulder, and when I spit out the Listerine and look up, I see both of us reflected in the mirror, flushed and heavy-eyed, hair with sweat-soaked roots.
Jared kisses my neck, takes the washcloth from the rack and soaks it in hot water, touches it to my belly before dragging it upwards, working his palm into it, wiping the slow-drying cum from my skin. I shiver as the warm cloth passes over me, close my eyes and lean back against Jared. “So… you’re… you’re okay with this, Jen?” Jared asks, rinsing the cloth under hot tap water and starting the same trail up my abdomen, to my chest, across my nipples and to my shoulders.
I can’t answer him right away. The question echoes in my ears, and I’m not sure I have an answer. “I… I don’t… I… I think so…” I finally stammer.
He presses his lips to my shoulder, lets the cloth drop into the sink and moves his hands across my water-slicked skin. “You’ll tell me...” He starts. “You’ll tell me if you can’t do something… or don’t want to…” He looks at me hopefully.
I nod nervously, squeezing toothpaste on to my toothbrush. Sure. I can say something… My heart beats double-time in my chest and I swallow the lump in my throat. “Sure… I… I can do that…” I think I can. Truth is, I’m trying not to think too much, because I can already feel the uncertainty inside, the twinge of panic that comes with the feeling of not knowing what you’re doing, where you’re going, at top speed with brakes that have failed you in the past. Oh my God… what am I doing… what have I done…
I’ve just given head to my best friend. A man. I spit into the sink, continue brushing my teeth and spit again, and every time it’s like I’m spitting out Jared’s come, trying to brush the taste and the memory from my mouth.
I grip the sink tightly, close my eyes, spit a mouthful of foam into the sink once more before reaching to rinse my mouth. Jared’s hands are softly rubbing up and down the length of my arms. “You’ll tell me…” He whispers.
“Yeah… yeah… sure…” I can feel my heart, low in my chest and a sinking feeling in my stomach. I can’t do this. My knuckles turn white with how hard I’m gripping the ceramic edge of the sink.
“That sounds believable.” He murmurs into my flesh, working his mouth along the curve of my shoulder, back up and across my back, licking at the back of my neck. “C’mon… We should get to bed… Gotta be on set in the morning…” He says.
I stiffen suddenly, remembering. “Oh God… Jare! Do you have a copy of the script?” It takes precedence in my mind, and I’m grateful, because it keeps my mind off other things.
“For what we’re filming tomorrow?” He asks, a confused look in his eyes. “Yeah… for the first couple scenes...” There are two scenes in particular that I want to review. One being a highly emotionally charged scene between Jared and me-Sam and Dean-which will be one of the longest single scenes we’ve filmed in months, and the other is a more difficult action sequence which Jared and I have to do ourselves due to the close-up shots that are planned-they’d tried filming some of it with the doubles, but with the close-ups and the angles, it was too obvious, they thought.
He starts laughing then. “Tell me you forgot your lines.” He says.
I flush a deeper red and stammer out a reply that’s neither yes or no before rinsing my mouth out, spluttering around the water. It’s not quite that I forgot my lines-well, okay… one or two I did-but that I want to review the scenes, to see if there’s anything that’s going to be personally difficult for Jared and me.
“You did!” He exclaims. “Jensen! You forgot your lines!” He’s laughing now, as he puts toothpaste on his toothbrush and prepares to brush his teeth. I grumble, tearing a piece of floss from the container as he turns to me and says “…it’s in my pack… by the guest bed.”
Jared keeps a messenger bag. It’s his man purse. He carries the script in it usually, a book, his cell phone and his wallet, along with a bottle of water, his inhaler, laptop, chap stick and hand lotion (don’t ask)… and more recently, his Zoloft as well as a container of my prescription Xanax-he doesn’t want to get caught in a situation where I might need it and didn’t shove it in my pocket before we left, or we’re not on set (I keep a bottle in my trailer).
I get the script, a sheaf of plain white printing paper, worn smooth and curved around the edges, bound with a piece of hemp rope through a jagged-edged hole in the top left corner, another in the bottom left. I flip through the episode, grab the other sheaf of papers, the next episode, and take both back to the bedroom with me, curl up under the covers in bed and split time between reviewing the script and staring out the window at snow that swirls-I’m unsure as to whether it’s from wind and the drifts of what already fell on the sill and the roof, or new precipitation. I find myself glad that all our scenes are to be filmed inside the heated comfort of the reformed warehouse tomorrow.
I’m halfway through my third reading of the scene I’m most concerned with when Jared sits down tentatively on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap, looking at me sideways. When I look up at him, he turns to stare out the window. “You know…” He whispers. “Now… it’s like I’m just waiting…”
I close the script, put it on the bedside table, relatively comfortable with what’s being filmed tomorrow, and sit up from the pillows I’d been leaning on. “…waiting, for what?” I ask softly.
He glances at me before returning his eyes to the window, the white snow beyond. He offers a quick half-smile that does nothing to reassure me, quickly looks down at his hands, then back out the window. “…just waiting…” He repeats.
I want to ask again, ‘waiting for what’, but I remain silent, hoping he’ll continue talking. After several minutes where the silence hangs heavy in the air, he does.
He shrugs, holds his hands palms up as he does so before re-folding them in his lap as his shoulders slump forward. “Waiting.” He says, like I should know what he’s waiting for. “…for it to hurt… for you to hurt me…”
And I do know, then. All he knows from same-sex relationships is pain. From the poor break-up with Ryan-it wasn’t even so much a break up as it was... a separation. He’d just stopped everything with Ryan after the assault, and Ryan hadn’t called or gone to see him at the hospital, so it seemed a foregone conclusion that they were no longer together-to the assault itself and the failed attempts at purchased intimacy after...
“Waiting… maybe I have another month… two… until we...” He shrugs again, helplessly. “…the wondering… if you’ll just never come again, like Ryan… or if it’ll just fall apart… I wonder if a big fight would be easier…”
I slide across the bed, rest one hand on his arm, expecting the flinch that I get. My other hand comes up, fingers resting gently on his lips, silencing him. “Shhh… Jared…” I whisper. “Don’t… don’t talk like that…”
His lips move beneath my fingers as if he’s about to say something, argue with me, but no sound comes from him. He looks at me with eyes that plead for something, are asking me questions I don’t have the answers to. “Jare…” I whisper. “…I won’t… I’ll try not to…” I correct myself. “I’ll try not to hurt you…”
He laughs sardonically. “You’ll try not to…” He repeats.
“Jare… I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep! I don’t.. .want to tell you I’ll never hurt you and then… whether it be on purpose or by accident, hurt you later… if… if this doesn’t work, it could hurt you…” There are a million things I could do that would hurt him. And I know even now, I’m not one hundred percent comfortable with being with him. The thought of doing more than what we did tonight… scares me. The thought of being with a man the rest of my life… scares me more than the thought of being with a woman for the rest of my life. The thought of one day having to explain to my mother why I’ll never make her a grandmother… or why she’ll maybe have another son-in-law, but no daughter-in-law scares me… What if people find out? That’s one of the worst… We could lose our careers… everything. “I can’t… I can’t promise you that, Jared... I won’t.”
He sighs quietly, like he understands but doesn’t want to. “…then just tell me… lie to me…” He whispers, shifting so he can rest his head on my shoulder. “…tell me you’ll never hurt me… and I’ll believe you…”
I wrap my arms around him, realize he’s still shaking, small tremors wracking his body, almost like he’s shivering from cold, but different in some tangible way. I hold him close, lie down and take him with me, shift until we’re both comfortable on the bed, heads on the pillow and warm beneath the covers. His hand reaches from beneath the comforter to turn the light off, then retreats back to my hip. His head is cradled in the crook of my neck, I can feel his breath on my shoulder.
I turn my head to lay a kiss on his forehead, letting my lips linger on his skin. “…I’ll never hurt you, Jared…” I whisper, squeezing him as I say it, and making sure my fingers are crossed. He knows I’m lying… he asked me to. I don’t know why I cross my fingers.
I can feel him smile against the curve of my neck. “I trust you, Jen…” He whispers.
But I don’t trust myself.
“I trust you…” It’s a warm breath against cool skin, and it warms my heart to hear. I still wonder sometimes… if I’m ready for this, if it’s what I want.
When we get up in the morning, it’s sunny and warm-the sun shines through clear skies, warming pavement and urging flowers into bloom. Jared and I shower and pick up coffee at Starbucks on the way to the set. Eric greets us as we’re getting our make up done in the makeup trailer. “Morning boys.”
“Morning, Eric.” Jared mumbles around a swallow of coffee and some mumbled curses at Cindy as she starts applying a cream foundation to Jared’s chin, carefully blending it with some powder to his neck and his cheeks. I can’t blame him for cursing-I hate that stuff she uses. It dries like mud though it doesn’t cake or flake, it just tightens over your skin… and it’s cold when she puts it on, feels somewhat slimy and then it stings when it dries. It works, but it’s a pain in the ass.
“Ready for today’s shoot?” That’s directed at me. Cindy’s left Jared with the hairdresser for the moment, and comes to me, quickly powdering some oily areas on my face, applying an eyeliner that’s almost invisible on camera but makes my eyes look just a bit darker than they usually are.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I quip with a smile. They’re working on Jared’s unkempt hair, trying to get it just-so with the gel, so I get up to leave when Cindy finishes putting a hydrating gel on my lips and returns her attention to Jared, catch Eric as we’re walking out. “Hey… Eric… can I uh… talk to you a minute?”
“Sure, Jensen. What do you want to talk about?”
I guide him to a secluded area, where we won’t be interrupted. “Jared… He’s um…” I run my hand through my hair. This is hard to say. “Man… this is hard, Eric… you know… I promised him I wouldn’t say anything… but…”
“What’s going on, Jensen?”
“Jared’s gay.” I blurt out. “He’s gay and… he’s been sorta… well… coming on to me… and I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with it… I told him… you know… I was okay with it… as long as it didn’t… well, as long as he didn’t…”
“As long as it didn’t affect your work together.” Eric supplies, and I smile, glad that he just… gets it.
“Right.” I swallow. “But… he’s been making advances… and… it’s really… I’m not comfortable with it… and I… I didn’t want to say anything…”
“Jensen, it’s okay.” Eric says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you worry. We’ll… I’ll have a talk with Jared. We’ll get this straightened out.”
I shove my hands into the pockets of Dean’s jacket, stare at the ground and scuff my boots into the dirt. “Right… okay…” I turn, Jared’s coming out of the makeup trailer, a grin on his face and a piece of candy hanging from his lips. “Uh… thanks, Eric.”
“No problem.” Eric turns and yells something to the cameraman, and waves towards Jared. We all follow Eric into the warehouse, and when the door clangs shut behind us, it feels like it’s closing the door on a lifetime. I’m nervous around Jared, and even getting into character is difficult. The scenes don’t flow, the script seems stilted and our ad libbing doesn’t do enough to smooth it out. Eric cuts before lunch, tells us to take an hour to get lunch and a break, do something to relax and come back ready to work.
After lunch, it’s me who’s still screwing up, so I excuse myself, duck behind the camera and director’s curtain to talk to Eric. “I’m sorry, Eric… this is just… it’s hard right now…”
“Okay okay…” Eric walks out from behind the black material. “Alright folks… that’s it for today… I don’t want to waste more film on things that aren’t going right… pack it up, call it a day. Padalecki, I want you in my trailer in fifteen.” He taps his watch and heads out, ahead of cast and crew.
Jared looks at me, wide eyed for a minute from the set I’d recently vacated to talk to our director/producer/creator (Eric does a bit of everything for us behind the scenes… I’m never sure what to call him other than Eric…), and I can’t hold his gaze, tearing my eyes from his before trudging out of the converted warehouse, nearly tripping down the steps and hurrying to my own trailer.
When I’ve finished showering and I’m leaving for the day, I notice Jared’s truck, parked still in its customary place, at the far end of the lot. The only other cars are mine and Eric’s. I drop my duffel into my trunk and prepare to leave, but linger with my hand just about to turn the key in the ignition, finally taking the key with me, and going to Eric’s trailer. I’m hoping he didn’t take to Jared too badly-after all, we’re still going to have to work together.
“So is it good for you, Jared?” Eric’s voice rings loud and clear from the trailer, stopping me in my tracks. “…you know it’s all you’ll get… and in case you were wondering, yes, this does mean you’re fired. I’ve already put a call into Zachary’s agent and your stunt double’s agent, to see if they’re interesting in taking on your role here.”
“Jen…” Jared’s voice is strangled.
“Jensen doesn’t care, Jared. You’ve alienated him. You’re nothing but a cocksucking faggot.”
“Jensen…”
“He’s not going to save you. He told me. Told me about how you were coming on to him. How uncomfortable he was, how he didn’t want to ruin your career so he put up with it for as long as he could. But you…”
There’s another strangled whimper from Jared, and I raise up on my toes on the first step-up to Eric’s trailer, peek through the window and immediately swallow bile rising up my throat at the sight of Jared, beaten down and face down in the sheets, blood in spreading stains beneath him, thicker and darker between his legs. Eric’s got a broom handle and he’s hurting Jared…
“Jensen… how could you…” Jared sobs. “I trusted you… trusted you…”
And I betrayed him. “No!!! Jared… I didn’t mean this… No!!!” But Eric can’t hear me, and it doesn’t stop, and Jared’s still crying my name in desperation, asking why… asking how…
-------------------------
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
This is a sequel to the previously ‘neverending story’, Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky. It finally ended.
Summary: Jensen and Jared go back to Texas for Christmas. Their relationship deepens and they take the next step… pr0n!
Spoilers: none to speak of
-------------------------
Chapter Thirty-Two: Tomorrow
Rating: NC-17 for graphic imagery, horror, rape, adult themes
Pairing: Jensen/Jared and a side of Jared/Eric Kripke
Word Count: 2,859
Chapter Thirty-Two: Tomorrow
Jared comes up behind me in the bathroom while I’ve got a mouthful of Listerine, slides his arms around my waist and links his hands in front of me. His chin comes to rest on my shoulder, and when I spit out the Listerine and look up, I see both of us reflected in the mirror, flushed and heavy-eyed, hair with sweat-soaked roots.
Jared kisses my neck, takes the washcloth from the rack and soaks it in hot water, touches it to my belly before dragging it upwards, working his palm into it, wiping the slow-drying cum from my skin. I shiver as the warm cloth passes over me, close my eyes and lean back against Jared. “So… you’re… you’re okay with this, Jen?” Jared asks, rinsing the cloth under hot tap water and starting the same trail up my abdomen, to my chest, across my nipples and to my shoulders.
I can’t answer him right away. The question echoes in my ears, and I’m not sure I have an answer. “I… I don’t… I… I think so…” I finally stammer.
He presses his lips to my shoulder, lets the cloth drop into the sink and moves his hands across my water-slicked skin. “You’ll tell me...” He starts. “You’ll tell me if you can’t do something… or don’t want to…” He looks at me hopefully.
I nod nervously, squeezing toothpaste on to my toothbrush. Sure. I can say something… My heart beats double-time in my chest and I swallow the lump in my throat. “Sure… I… I can do that…” I think I can. Truth is, I’m trying not to think too much, because I can already feel the uncertainty inside, the twinge of panic that comes with the feeling of not knowing what you’re doing, where you’re going, at top speed with brakes that have failed you in the past. Oh my God… what am I doing… what have I done…
I’ve just given head to my best friend. A man. I spit into the sink, continue brushing my teeth and spit again, and every time it’s like I’m spitting out Jared’s come, trying to brush the taste and the memory from my mouth.
I grip the sink tightly, close my eyes, spit a mouthful of foam into the sink once more before reaching to rinse my mouth. Jared’s hands are softly rubbing up and down the length of my arms. “You’ll tell me…” He whispers.
“Yeah… yeah… sure…” I can feel my heart, low in my chest and a sinking feeling in my stomach. I can’t do this. My knuckles turn white with how hard I’m gripping the ceramic edge of the sink.
“That sounds believable.” He murmurs into my flesh, working his mouth along the curve of my shoulder, back up and across my back, licking at the back of my neck. “C’mon… We should get to bed… Gotta be on set in the morning…” He says.
I stiffen suddenly, remembering. “Oh God… Jare! Do you have a copy of the script?” It takes precedence in my mind, and I’m grateful, because it keeps my mind off other things.
“For what we’re filming tomorrow?” He asks, a confused look in his eyes. “Yeah… for the first couple scenes...” There are two scenes in particular that I want to review. One being a highly emotionally charged scene between Jared and me-Sam and Dean-which will be one of the longest single scenes we’ve filmed in months, and the other is a more difficult action sequence which Jared and I have to do ourselves due to the close-up shots that are planned-they’d tried filming some of it with the doubles, but with the close-ups and the angles, it was too obvious, they thought.
He starts laughing then. “Tell me you forgot your lines.” He says.
I flush a deeper red and stammer out a reply that’s neither yes or no before rinsing my mouth out, spluttering around the water. It’s not quite that I forgot my lines-well, okay… one or two I did-but that I want to review the scenes, to see if there’s anything that’s going to be personally difficult for Jared and me.
“You did!” He exclaims. “Jensen! You forgot your lines!” He’s laughing now, as he puts toothpaste on his toothbrush and prepares to brush his teeth. I grumble, tearing a piece of floss from the container as he turns to me and says “…it’s in my pack… by the guest bed.”
Jared keeps a messenger bag. It’s his man purse. He carries the script in it usually, a book, his cell phone and his wallet, along with a bottle of water, his inhaler, laptop, chap stick and hand lotion (don’t ask)… and more recently, his Zoloft as well as a container of my prescription Xanax-he doesn’t want to get caught in a situation where I might need it and didn’t shove it in my pocket before we left, or we’re not on set (I keep a bottle in my trailer).
I get the script, a sheaf of plain white printing paper, worn smooth and curved around the edges, bound with a piece of hemp rope through a jagged-edged hole in the top left corner, another in the bottom left. I flip through the episode, grab the other sheaf of papers, the next episode, and take both back to the bedroom with me, curl up under the covers in bed and split time between reviewing the script and staring out the window at snow that swirls-I’m unsure as to whether it’s from wind and the drifts of what already fell on the sill and the roof, or new precipitation. I find myself glad that all our scenes are to be filmed inside the heated comfort of the reformed warehouse tomorrow.
I’m halfway through my third reading of the scene I’m most concerned with when Jared sits down tentatively on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap, looking at me sideways. When I look up at him, he turns to stare out the window. “You know…” He whispers. “Now… it’s like I’m just waiting…”
I close the script, put it on the bedside table, relatively comfortable with what’s being filmed tomorrow, and sit up from the pillows I’d been leaning on. “…waiting, for what?” I ask softly.
He glances at me before returning his eyes to the window, the white snow beyond. He offers a quick half-smile that does nothing to reassure me, quickly looks down at his hands, then back out the window. “…just waiting…” He repeats.
I want to ask again, ‘waiting for what’, but I remain silent, hoping he’ll continue talking. After several minutes where the silence hangs heavy in the air, he does.
He shrugs, holds his hands palms up as he does so before re-folding them in his lap as his shoulders slump forward. “Waiting.” He says, like I should know what he’s waiting for. “…for it to hurt… for you to hurt me…”
And I do know, then. All he knows from same-sex relationships is pain. From the poor break-up with Ryan-it wasn’t even so much a break up as it was... a separation. He’d just stopped everything with Ryan after the assault, and Ryan hadn’t called or gone to see him at the hospital, so it seemed a foregone conclusion that they were no longer together-to the assault itself and the failed attempts at purchased intimacy after...
“Waiting… maybe I have another month… two… until we...” He shrugs again, helplessly. “…the wondering… if you’ll just never come again, like Ryan… or if it’ll just fall apart… I wonder if a big fight would be easier…”
I slide across the bed, rest one hand on his arm, expecting the flinch that I get. My other hand comes up, fingers resting gently on his lips, silencing him. “Shhh… Jared…” I whisper. “Don’t… don’t talk like that…”
His lips move beneath my fingers as if he’s about to say something, argue with me, but no sound comes from him. He looks at me with eyes that plead for something, are asking me questions I don’t have the answers to. “Jare…” I whisper. “…I won’t… I’ll try not to…” I correct myself. “I’ll try not to hurt you…”
He laughs sardonically. “You’ll try not to…” He repeats.
“Jare… I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep! I don’t.. .want to tell you I’ll never hurt you and then… whether it be on purpose or by accident, hurt you later… if… if this doesn’t work, it could hurt you…” There are a million things I could do that would hurt him. And I know even now, I’m not one hundred percent comfortable with being with him. The thought of doing more than what we did tonight… scares me. The thought of being with a man the rest of my life… scares me more than the thought of being with a woman for the rest of my life. The thought of one day having to explain to my mother why I’ll never make her a grandmother… or why she’ll maybe have another son-in-law, but no daughter-in-law scares me… What if people find out? That’s one of the worst… We could lose our careers… everything. “I can’t… I can’t promise you that, Jared... I won’t.”
He sighs quietly, like he understands but doesn’t want to. “…then just tell me… lie to me…” He whispers, shifting so he can rest his head on my shoulder. “…tell me you’ll never hurt me… and I’ll believe you…”
I wrap my arms around him, realize he’s still shaking, small tremors wracking his body, almost like he’s shivering from cold, but different in some tangible way. I hold him close, lie down and take him with me, shift until we’re both comfortable on the bed, heads on the pillow and warm beneath the covers. His hand reaches from beneath the comforter to turn the light off, then retreats back to my hip. His head is cradled in the crook of my neck, I can feel his breath on my shoulder.
I turn my head to lay a kiss on his forehead, letting my lips linger on his skin. “…I’ll never hurt you, Jared…” I whisper, squeezing him as I say it, and making sure my fingers are crossed. He knows I’m lying… he asked me to. I don’t know why I cross my fingers.
I can feel him smile against the curve of my neck. “I trust you, Jen…” He whispers.
But I don’t trust myself.
“I trust you…” It’s a warm breath against cool skin, and it warms my heart to hear. I still wonder sometimes… if I’m ready for this, if it’s what I want.
When we get up in the morning, it’s sunny and warm-the sun shines through clear skies, warming pavement and urging flowers into bloom. Jared and I shower and pick up coffee at Starbucks on the way to the set. Eric greets us as we’re getting our make up done in the makeup trailer. “Morning boys.”
“Morning, Eric.” Jared mumbles around a swallow of coffee and some mumbled curses at Cindy as she starts applying a cream foundation to Jared’s chin, carefully blending it with some powder to his neck and his cheeks. I can’t blame him for cursing-I hate that stuff she uses. It dries like mud though it doesn’t cake or flake, it just tightens over your skin… and it’s cold when she puts it on, feels somewhat slimy and then it stings when it dries. It works, but it’s a pain in the ass.
“Ready for today’s shoot?” That’s directed at me. Cindy’s left Jared with the hairdresser for the moment, and comes to me, quickly powdering some oily areas on my face, applying an eyeliner that’s almost invisible on camera but makes my eyes look just a bit darker than they usually are.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I quip with a smile. They’re working on Jared’s unkempt hair, trying to get it just-so with the gel, so I get up to leave when Cindy finishes putting a hydrating gel on my lips and returns her attention to Jared, catch Eric as we’re walking out. “Hey… Eric… can I uh… talk to you a minute?”
“Sure, Jensen. What do you want to talk about?”
I guide him to a secluded area, where we won’t be interrupted. “Jared… He’s um…” I run my hand through my hair. This is hard to say. “Man… this is hard, Eric… you know… I promised him I wouldn’t say anything… but…”
“What’s going on, Jensen?”
“Jared’s gay.” I blurt out. “He’s gay and… he’s been sorta… well… coming on to me… and I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with it… I told him… you know… I was okay with it… as long as it didn’t… well, as long as he didn’t…”
“As long as it didn’t affect your work together.” Eric supplies, and I smile, glad that he just… gets it.
“Right.” I swallow. “But… he’s been making advances… and… it’s really… I’m not comfortable with it… and I… I didn’t want to say anything…”
“Jensen, it’s okay.” Eric says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you worry. We’ll… I’ll have a talk with Jared. We’ll get this straightened out.”
I shove my hands into the pockets of Dean’s jacket, stare at the ground and scuff my boots into the dirt. “Right… okay…” I turn, Jared’s coming out of the makeup trailer, a grin on his face and a piece of candy hanging from his lips. “Uh… thanks, Eric.”
“No problem.” Eric turns and yells something to the cameraman, and waves towards Jared. We all follow Eric into the warehouse, and when the door clangs shut behind us, it feels like it’s closing the door on a lifetime. I’m nervous around Jared, and even getting into character is difficult. The scenes don’t flow, the script seems stilted and our ad libbing doesn’t do enough to smooth it out. Eric cuts before lunch, tells us to take an hour to get lunch and a break, do something to relax and come back ready to work.
After lunch, it’s me who’s still screwing up, so I excuse myself, duck behind the camera and director’s curtain to talk to Eric. “I’m sorry, Eric… this is just… it’s hard right now…”
“Okay okay…” Eric walks out from behind the black material. “Alright folks… that’s it for today… I don’t want to waste more film on things that aren’t going right… pack it up, call it a day. Padalecki, I want you in my trailer in fifteen.” He taps his watch and heads out, ahead of cast and crew.
Jared looks at me, wide eyed for a minute from the set I’d recently vacated to talk to our director/producer/creator (Eric does a bit of everything for us behind the scenes… I’m never sure what to call him other than Eric…), and I can’t hold his gaze, tearing my eyes from his before trudging out of the converted warehouse, nearly tripping down the steps and hurrying to my own trailer.
When I’ve finished showering and I’m leaving for the day, I notice Jared’s truck, parked still in its customary place, at the far end of the lot. The only other cars are mine and Eric’s. I drop my duffel into my trunk and prepare to leave, but linger with my hand just about to turn the key in the ignition, finally taking the key with me, and going to Eric’s trailer. I’m hoping he didn’t take to Jared too badly-after all, we’re still going to have to work together.
“So is it good for you, Jared?” Eric’s voice rings loud and clear from the trailer, stopping me in my tracks. “…you know it’s all you’ll get… and in case you were wondering, yes, this does mean you’re fired. I’ve already put a call into Zachary’s agent and your stunt double’s agent, to see if they’re interesting in taking on your role here.”
“Jen…” Jared’s voice is strangled.
“Jensen doesn’t care, Jared. You’ve alienated him. You’re nothing but a cocksucking faggot.”
“Jensen…”
“He’s not going to save you. He told me. Told me about how you were coming on to him. How uncomfortable he was, how he didn’t want to ruin your career so he put up with it for as long as he could. But you…”
There’s another strangled whimper from Jared, and I raise up on my toes on the first step-up to Eric’s trailer, peek through the window and immediately swallow bile rising up my throat at the sight of Jared, beaten down and face down in the sheets, blood in spreading stains beneath him, thicker and darker between his legs. Eric’s got a broom handle and he’s hurting Jared…
“Jensen… how could you…” Jared sobs. “I trusted you… trusted you…”
And I betrayed him. “No!!! Jared… I didn’t mean this… No!!!” But Eric can’t hear me, and it doesn’t stop, and Jared’s still crying my name in desperation, asking why… asking how…
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