Take 512: Act One, Part 1b
When Jared walks into the Room, Mike and Tom, Justin, Steve and Katie are already there. Tom's sunk so deep into the couch his spine's a perfect 'c', staring up at the ceiling.
Mike sees him first. "Jay-Bird!" he sings, his eyes lighting up. He holds up his beer in salute. Tom unfolds himself fully to appraise him, grinning. "Didn't think you'd make it."
Katie rolls her eyes expressively and turns a page of the magazine she's reading. "Guys, could you just hug and scream over each other’s hair and get it over with already?"
Mike smiles smarmily. Mike is the only person Jared knows with a look in his repertoire that can only be described as smarmy. "Don't worry, honey, we're real glad to see you, too." his expression grows pseudo-thoughtful. "Though speaking of hair, yours looks like an albino swamp rat living on top of your head."
"Fuck you very much," Katie says sweetly.
Tom turns to Jared, smile curving his lips. "Good to see you, man. What's up?"
Tom, being part of the cast, theoretically isn't supposed to be here. But as Manners has observed, don't think there's enough money in the budget for surgery to separate you two muttonheads where you're attached at the hip.
Jared tries not to remember who Manners actually addressed that comment to. He's having trouble not bolting as it is.
"Same old, man," he tells Tom, who nods. "Bit slow without Shakes, but what else is new?"
Tom reaches out a fist and Jared bumps it automatically. “Amen, brother.”
“Good to see you boys,” Manners says and Jared starts, turning around wildly. He’s not quite sure what it is about the room that always makes him so nervy, but there it is. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Katie make a show of clearing her throat, which Manners pointedly ignores. “You better be in one piece and all that. Michael, I hope you’re able to wire the stage left-handed because I will break your right if it goes anywhere near my cabinet again, are we clear?”
“Right on, cap’n” Mike grins and tips his beer towards Manners.
Manners looks at him steadily, his mouth curled in bemusement. Then he lets his gaze drift around the room, nodding in greeting at each of the old crew. Kim Manners is technically a drama teacher, but his duties seem to be restricted to directing the annual Shakes comp, like a dragon summoned on eve of battle. Last year, when Mike, Jared and Tom beat the shit out of Chad on the overhead rafters, it was Manners who bailed them all out, arguing with Kripke until he came out of the Principal’s office with his mouth in a grim line and told them to get the fuck out of his sight.
“Alright,” Manners cracks his knuckles. “Listen up, kids. We’re doing Hamlet. It’s supposed to be familiar and shit, but half of you here can't read let alone understand classic literature, so let's run through it real fast," Manners says, pacing the short length of the room."Prince Hamlet sees the ghost of his dead father, former king. The ghost tells him to kill the current king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet sits with his thumb up his ass until it's gone numb, and after that he kills the wrong-"
Everyone turns to see what the commotion is. Manners' expression goes sharp and polite, sarcasm puddling at his feet. "Well, if it isn't the tortured artist. We're so grateful you put in an appearance, you've no idea how much it means to us."
Misha smirks in reply, his blue eyes burning. He looks so familiar Jared actually doesn't recognize him for a second. "I have a vague idea of how much you idolize me; it's what keeps me coming."
"That, and the fact that you get all your sick fantasies acted out on a stage." Katie points out and Misha bows with flourish. They're both grinning.
Tom tilts his head slightly to catch Jared's eye. He looks wary.
There's a painful, nauseating knot low down in his stomach, and it's making his skin crawl and his mouth taste sour. He knows what’s coming next.
Right on cue, Misha gets shoved aside and Jensen walks in.
Jared makes a choked noise, gasping for air. Dimly, he’s aware that Mike has shot to his feet instantly; the couch he and Jared have been sharing dips and straightens. There's shattered glass in his voice when he speaks. "What. The fuck."
Jared stares at Jensen helplessly, his limbs pinned to the cushions by invisible forces. His breathing, he realizes, has stopped entirely, making his mind go numb.
He takes a long, steadying breath. Then he takes another.
When he risks looking up again, Jensen's talking to Manners and Mike, who both look respectively irritated and murderous. He doesn't seem to be victim to this weird magnetism Jared's feeling, immune to the electricity that hums in the air now that he's here, the blinding edge of tension that Jared and Jensen have always taken with them everywhere. It’s just the nervous flick of his eyes around the room- as if hunting for concealed weaponry, maybe a dragon lurking behind one of the ratty couches- that gives away any hint of discomfiture.
Jensen looks beautiful...like he's somehow managed to wipe away those glorious five years on Supernatural where he was so fucked up, and grown into the clean-cut American ideal Jared and everyone else who knew him before he joined Supernatural knew he would be.
And that pisses Jared off, more than anything else. He clenches his fists and feels the anger curl all through him, pushing the serrated edge of pain unceremoniously to the background.
Jensen has no fucking right to look like he's at peace when Jared spent the majority of the past year getting stoned and getting kicked out of classes for not paying attention; when Jared still gets the breath knocked out of his lungs as soon as he walks into a room; when Jared, goddammit, is still totally fucking gone on Jensen Ackles.
Then, something shifts. Maybe unable to ignore Jared's unwavering attention, Jensen looks away from his death glare against Mike and looks around. Their eyes crash against each other and Jared all but hears the steady rhythm of an approaching drum, tastes the copper in the air. Jensen's eyes widen like he senses it too. Jared has no doubt he does.
Jared smiles in open challenge, no trace of humor. Jensen wants to move on? Jared'll show him just how much easier it's said than done.
Manners smiles, all teeth. "You boys better not fuck up this year."
After the tech meeting-where Jared put his name down as costume designer for the fourth consecutive year- they all bundle up in Jensen and Tom's cars and head down to Susan's. They lock the green -mauve, if you're humoring the idiosyncrasies of the crew- room behind them and stand in a loose circle, mildly confused.
The sky’s overcast above them, an unexpected conclusion to a sunny, cheerful day. Jared can almost taste the storm coming, and for a crazy, brief second, looking at Mike and Tom, Misha, Katie and Jensen, he believes that they’re the cause of the electricity in the air.
It's more than a little awkward. Mike absolutely, point-blank refuses to acknowledge that they even have a stage manager, and Jared gets a hollow, echo-y feeling in his stomach when he looks at Jensen for longer than a second. He supposes that he'll have to learn to deal with that eventually.
For the time being, he and Mike make do riding with Tom and Katie while Justin and Steve climb into Jensen's big brother's old truck. Jared can't help but feel apprehensive about that. It feels too much like a boundary line. The nausea in his stomach rolls over and intensifies with each passing building; the unshakable certainty that some seriously ugly shit is about to go down.
The way it used to be, Jen would be in the backseat with Jared, trash-talking with Mike and criticizing Tom's driving, all the while letting his fingertips glide over the back of Jared's hand like he's not even aware he's doing it. Jensen would lean in in the privacy of the backseat and run his hands down Jared’s thigh, just the tease of a touch, just enough to get him hard.
Mike seethes openly all throughout the drive and Tom, aside from flicking a few irritated glares sideways when it gets too loud, lets him. Katie's bent over her phone, blonde hair looking ethereal in the feeble light of the screen. Jared's mind vaguely notes the effect and stores it away for later. He's got no idea what Misha's got planned, but logic tells him that spirits and ghosts are definitely on the table
Jared sighs as they pull up in the parking lot and Tom kills the engine. Mike leaps out immediately, giving the door the requisite slam.
He walks in front with Katie, Tom and Jared hanging back slightly. The others are waiting by the entrance, and once more, Jared's eyes gravitate towards Jensen, picked out in the light of the diner and looking like the best thing he's seen in months.
They seat themselves in their old table out of habit, all of them scooting around on the muscle memory of doing this for years. Somehow, impossibly, Jared finds himself in the middle of Katie and Jensen in the same booth the three of them had sat in two years ago. To his credit, Jensen looks thoroughly disoriented, looking around with a furrow in his forehead. He offers Jared a tentative smile which he ignores.
"Do we actually have a theme, or is that what you want Manners to think?" Justin's smiling crookedly, speaking to Misha.
"It all comes down to the same." Misha winks conspiratorially and Justin grins, blushes a little. Misha has that effect on people. It lets him get away with the craziest shit.
Mike says, loudly, "Oh my God."
Misha's instantly defensive, which says a lot for his survival instinct. "What?"
"You, dickface, do not get to waltz in and start hitting on the extras. Not when you thought no way am I working with that asshole Murray as a legitimate reason to walk out of a responsibility. And you," he turns to Jensen. Jared feels a flinch shake the arm that's touching his, and is viciously glad. "You nearly tore Supernatural to the ground. No matter how much Manners is willing to suck up to you and kiss and make up, you damn near disabled us entirely. You don't get to pretend it's all good, that we'll all be best buddies again. There's just no fucking way, man."
Half a minute passes and it's still silent. Around them, Jared can hear the patter of conversation and knives and forks, the rest of the world not heeding the thick, strangling vine of silence that's tying down everyone at their table. He focuses on keeping his breathing even
Mike's glaring at Jensen and Misha, sitting back in his chair. Jensen's gone completely still, his knuckles white where he's gripping the edge of the table, and Jared wishes he could see his face. Katie's eyes are wide, darting from Misha to Mike.
"Are you sure you want to do this here, Rosenbaum?"
Mike laughs through gritted teeth. "Oh, pretty sure, Collins."
Misha opens his mouth, eyes a twisted shade of blue, but Jensen raises a hand to stop him. "I'm sorry I left." Jensen grits out. Jared suddenly wishes that the booth were a lot bigger, because he can feel the steel under Jensen's words, the razor-sharp edge. "Okay? I left with enough time for you to find a new manager, hell, I trained a new manager, but I know it was fucked-up for me to walk out like that."
Jared has a sudden memory of last year, then; Katie with tear-tracks down her eyes, holding his hand. Pain, so much of it, his body one sore bruise, and her saying, I wish Jensen was here.
I wish, I wish.
Katie's currently placating Mike and a still-silent Tom. Mike still has murder in his eyes.
Jared's throat tastes of dust. "It's fine." he says, his voice sounding rusty with disuse. He clears his throat, ignoring the pure shock written over Mike and Misha's faces, making them look bizarrely identical for a second. All the strength in the world couldn't make him meet Jensen's eye, so he addresses Mike instead. "Everyone's gotta leave eventually."
Katie elbows him lightly. Everyone else looks like Jared just confessed his favorite pastime was disemboweling puppies. Jared briefly wonders why the fuck everything’s so goddamn dramatic around here, whether it’s got something to do with them all being from a production group.
"Dude. That's depressing," Katie says, a small hopeful smile tugging at her lips.
Tom catches his eye, a smirk playing on his face. "Nicely put, though, Jay."
The unbearable weight of the silence lets up slowly, and Mike nods, a small tight jerk of his head.
Misha says steadily, "I was thinking, rockstar theme." He meets Jared's eye. "Lots of symbolism and shit. Hamlet could be the son of a rock god, and his uncle could be a rip-off making a shitload off covers. Substance abuse, obviously."
Tom smiles with no visible animosity. Jared knows no one really trusts that smile, but it's the most they're getting. "Obviously."
A change is sweeping over the table, a speculative silence as they all adjust to the circumstances. A slow process of the pieces coming together in one mechanism: all of them wary but getting with the program. It's familiar in an elemental way; this is how they each identify in the crew, as cogs of the same machine.
Jared figures that that's the most anyone can reasonably ask for.
The atmosphere thus loosened, everyone falls into semi-casual conversation and trash talk that comes as easy as breathing. Jensen relaxes midway into an argument between Mike and Misha as to how to bring in a fucking duel in a rockstar universe; Jared feels it as the tension eases out of him.
The waitress shows up then like she'd heard the cue. After the lengthy process of ordering -Misha wants, as he always does, a meatball sub and the diner, as they always have, doesn't have it on the menu and Misha grudgingly settles for a burger, muttering darkly while the rest of the crew sigh in gusty relief- they get down to talking detail. Jensen sketches rough diagrams on a napkin with a pen he digs out of the pocket of his jeans; props and platforms, basic set decoration. He and Justin get into the standard passive-aggressive bitchfight about flats, Jensen emphasizing his points by sketching furiously and using up all the extra napkins. Despite his best efforts, Jared's kind of enthralled.
Misha taps his fork against his plate, chink-chink-chink of steel against ceramic, as he speaks. "So I'm thinking, Hamlet's this whiny little bitch who goes around angsting on everyone, right?"
"That depends on who you're talking to," Mike says around a mouthful of fries, and Katie grimaces and punches him on the arm. Jared smirks in satisfaction when Mike winces, because Katie's right, Mike's fucking disgusting.
Misha tosses them an unimpressed look. "Whatever. Point is, we'll need him to be all mopey and moany. Most of his angst is directed straight at Horatio, so we'll have to..." he trails off.
They all wait expectantly.
"Gay vibes." Misha says, in the reverent tones of an acolyte.
Jared rolls his eyes, and catches Jensen doing the same. He quickly looks away.
"Gay is pretty much the status quo, Mish." Jensen says, voice dry and amused. "I mean, even Shakespeare himself probably slipped in the lines 'and they recede to fuck' or something in there."
Misha pouts.
"No, I think I see where Misha's going," Tom offers unexpectedly. "I mean, there's gotta be a reason Horatio puts up with Hamlet's bitching, right?"
"Unrequited gay love." Mike shoots Tom a look that's all raised eyebrows and twisted mouth. "Maybe you can get some onstage action with Milo fucking Ventimiglia."
"Hamlet could be flirty, in a manically depressed way." Katie interjects. "Pull that off, Tom?"
Tom rolls his eyes. "I hang out with you guys. Flirty and manically depressing is like Supernatural in a nutshell."
Misha thumps his back. "That's the spirit, Tommy, my son." Then he gets a look on his face, a look Jared associates directly with constipation. "How the fuck am I gonna write that in? Jesus Christ."
A beat passes. Then, in perfect unison, the whole table choruses, "Superstar."
Misha rolls his eyes. “Real cute." He turns to Jared, a glint in his eyes. “You know what this means, right?”
Jared blinks. “That you’re an overdramatic pothead with self-control issues?”
Misha makes a face. “No, smartass. Means that you’ve gotta work the rock royalty thing in without costumes that fuck with mobility. Not much emphasis on black, either. Fucks with the lighting, says the bitch in charge,” he points a thumb at Mike, who leers.
Jared licks his lips."How many colors are we talking?"
Misha shrugs. "Go crazy. Just next to no black."
Jared realizes two things at once. One, that the entire table's paused in their conversation to listen into theirs. Two, that he needs a pen.
"I mean, not wacky like that time for Midsummer Night's Dream, but..." Mike trails off as Jensen quietly passes Jared his pen. He apparently mistook the reason for Jared's inaction as confusion, because he shuts up after that.
They watch in silence as Jared sketches on the last two napkins left, his and Mike's. Jared finds their attention unnerving and mildly irritating. From seemingly far off, he hears Jensen tell someone, "Yeah, just a minute."
When he's done, he pushes them forward to the middle of the table. Katie leans over him to peer before Mike snatches them, and whistles. "Damn, son." Her admiration looks sincere. She flicks his ear affectionately.
Misha grabs at the fragile paper, predictably tearing it halfway up in the middle. Steve rolls his eyes.
"So you're going with the impression that rock stars are in a special shiny cool club." Misha says dryly. "That an albatross?"
Mike and Steve peer in.
"Crow." Jared offers. "Don't want the audience to drown in the symbolism."
Misha grins, wide and cat-like. "Well said, grasshopper. Stick with us, maybe you'll learn something after all."
"Gee, thanks."
Tom's eyes take on a very specific glint when he takes in the figure that, even on paper, looks uncannily like him. "Man, I could get ink for this. Fuckin' sweet."
Jared shrugs. "Or I could fiddle around with some makeup or something."
"Or something." Misha says firmly. He's just had one of those silent conversations with Jensen, the silent language of stage managers and directors. "You're not that dumb, you seriously don't wanna mark yourself up permanently for this."
Mike opens his mouth, expression twisted, but Tom gives him a warning look before smiling sweetly at Misha. "Look at you, all grown up and shit."
They leave it at that. Eventually, his sketch gets passed back to Jared, in mutilated bits and pieces. Only the crow's eye stands out, and he thinks he'll paint it red and bloody on Tom's pale chest.
Mike's obviously thinking the same thing. "Did Manners actually talk cash, or did he make that bullshit comment about food for the soul again?"
"Money's low," Jensen says briefly. Everyone, even Jared, looks at him uneasily. "But we'll make it stretch. We always do."
Jared's aware that their school has the lowest theatre budget out of the state, despite being the state champions for eight years running (that is, if you're not
counting last year, which Jared most definitely isn't) It's a touchy subject with Jensen, always has been. As the result of relentless frugality in the competition, it's bled into Jensen's personal life as well, making him snap at Jared for leaving the lights and radio on in his room while he’s watching TV elsewhere.
"Fuck," Justin breathes. Jared blinks at him, weirdly disoriented. He realizes that he's never actually heard Justin swear before. He's never actually heard Justin say more than ten words, period. Justin appeared in his life when he was far from chatty; perpetually hung over with a bleeding bullet wound in his chest each time he turned to say something to Jensen and it hit him all over again: gone.
Sometimes he can't figure out how he survived last year.
"We’re gonna need so many crazy colored gels," Mike says with relish and Tom chuckles. "Neon purple is the new black. Revolutionary stuff, Padalecki."
Katie bumps her shoulder against his once everyone else goes back to arguing. "Think you can pull off the real thing?"
Jared's aware of Jensen listening in even as Justin once again tries to draw him back into conversation. He tries to ignore the burn in his chest, deep blinding residual pain and this sense of expectation.
He tells Katie, "You bet I can."
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