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J2 Fic: Avalanche, Part Two
All ratings and warnings from Part One apply.
Avalanche, Part Two
After the previous year's short season this one had seemed especially grueling and at the March wrap party everyone was in good spirits and drunk off their ass but Jensen got drunker than any of them. Jared took his keys and said he'd take him home but he was drunk too and so they took the studio's car service back to Jensen's apartment, the three of them, Jared, Jensen and Genevieve. They staggered into Jensen's apartment with the clumsy joviality of drunkards and Genevieve threw herself down on Jensen's couch.
"I've never been in here, oh my God, what a view!"
"Yeah, it's really something," Jensen slurred. "See the whole harbor from here."
"It's gorgeous!" She gestured at Jared. "Maybe you can convince him to move out of the sticks."
"Hey, I like the sticks!"
"I like the sticks too," Jensen said. He was tottering on his feet and Jared had an arm around him. "I liked the sticks. I loved the sticks. Those fuckin sticks."
"Oookay, time for bed," Jared said. He began to steer Jensen to the bedroom.
"I loved them fuckin sticks!" Jensen hollered over his shoulder and Genevieve laughed.
"You'd better give him an Advil!" she called.
In the bedroom he deposited Jensen on the bed and turned on the nightstand light and Jensen sat there and looked up at him blearily.
"Man, you are wasted."
"Shut the door."
"We've gotta go..."
"Come on man, shut the door. Just...shut the door for two minutes."
Jared looked at him for a moment and then he turned and went out the door and poked his head into the living room and said, "I'm just gonna get him settled, okay. Make sure he doesn't pull a Hendrix on us."
She was flipping through a magazine and she said, "Sure, go ahead."
He went back down the hall and into the bedroom and closed the door quietly. Jensen was still on the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress as if he were about to pitch off it. He was wearing boots and he was futilely trying to kick them off.
"You need help with that?"
"Yeah. Yeah I need help with that."
Jared shook his head and got down on one knee and started to untie Jensen's boots and then he felt Jensen's hand on his face and he stopped. Jensen stroked his cheek with his thumb and turned Jared's face up to him. They stared at each other and then Jensen leaned down and kissed him.
He hadn't kissed Jensen since before winter hiatus, had barely even touched him except while shooting the show. The kiss was soft at first and then deeper and vertiginous and fraught with memory and need. He couldn't break it. Didn't want to break it. Jensen began to lean backward bringing Jared with him and Jared followed and then jerked back and pulled away and Jensen sat up and grabbed Jared's shirt.
"No no no, don't go..."
"What are you doing, Gen's right in the next room."
He twisted his hands in Jared's shirt. "I'm right here."
He began to loosen Jensen's fingers. "Yeah, I know man, but we put that behind us, remember?"
"You did."
"You're drunk, okay? It's cool. You just need to sleep it off."
"I love you. I'm not gonna sleep that off. I love you and I fuckin miss you and Jesus, Jared..."
He wrapped his arms around Jared's waist and pulled him in and Jared let him. Jensen pushed up his shirt and began kissing his stomach and Jared tipped his head back and let him do that too. He put his hand on the back of Jensen's head and ran it down to his neck and Jensen began undoing Jared's belt. He'd gotten it unfastened and was working on his fly when Jared said, "No," and pushed him away. He took a step back and stood there with his belt and top button undone and his shirt rucked up and Jensen sitting on the bed flushed and wide-eyed and panting and he wanted him. Wanted to tip him back onto that bed and strip him naked and love him. All night until they were sore and spent and sated the way they'd once done. He buttoned his jeans and fastened his belt.
"I thought we were over this. I thought we agreed."
Jensen started getting undressed.
"Don't do that."
He pulled his shirt over his head and he was naked to the waist and he started working on his jeans.
"Jensen..."
"Goddamnit. Goddamnit, can't you just fuck me one last time? I never even got that, I never even got a fuckin...farewell fuck outta you, you selfish fuckin prick ."
Jared put up his hands. "You're drunk and you're getting loud and I'm leaving."
He turned to go and Jensen said softly, "I'm sorry. Please just...send her home. Tell her I'm sick and you think you should stay with me and send her home. Please, Jay, please just spend the night with me."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"You know why."
"One night, Jay. I'm not askin you for a goddamn lifetime commitment. Just tonight and I swear to God I'll never ask you again I'll never mention it again, ever, please."
Jared stood there and stared at him, his heart hammering so hard he could feel it in his guts. He realized that he was seeing Jensen for the first time in months, since before Christmas. Jensen, himself. Wholly out of any character but his own.
He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. When he went into the living room Genevieve looked up and said, "All set?" and Jared looked at her and looked at the window and out at the night and the sparkling harbor and dark Pacific and the whole rest of his life.
He said, "Jensen's really sick. I don't think he should be alone."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I don't know, maybe he didn't eat enough or whatever but I don't want to leave him like this."
"Well...there's an extra bedroom, I guess we can stay there..."
"It's gonna be a pretty pukey night. I've seen him get like this, believe me it ain't pretty."
"You want me to go home? By myself?"
He grinned. "I really don't think you want to be here, and the car's still downstairs..."
"I've seen people puke before, Jared. I did go to college, you know."
"Gen...I know Jensen and he's a fetal position kind of guy when he's like this. He doesn't want people around."
"So then why are you staying?"
"Cause I don't want him cracking his skull open on the edge of the toilet, that's why."
"He's that bad off."
"He's not that bad off, I just...look, he's drunk and he's sick and he's a little bit moody about the show and I'd just feel like a real shit if I left him alone, okay? It's a guy thing, all right?"
"Oh, I see," she said. "Bros before hos?"
"No," he laughed. "Nothing like that. Just, you know...helping out my boy. Who's... probably puking up his bed right now."
"Eew," she said and finally stood up. "Okay, you do your little barfy male bonding thing. I just hope he doesn't get that loaded at the wedding."
"I'll keep an eye on him."
"Mmmm, you better," she said. She came up to him and stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. "You get a medal of honor for this, JP."
"I'll collect it when I get home," he said.
She kissed him again. "You sure will."
He walked her to the door and they kissed goodnight and at the elevator she waved to him and then she was gone. He closed the door and stood with his head against the doorjamb and his eyes closed. Then he locked the door and turned off the lights. The room shimmered in harborlight. He walked back to the bedroom and opened the door and thought Jensen might have passed out in the meantime but he was sitting exactly where Jared had left him.
"Is she gone?"
"Yeah."
Neither of them said anything. Then Jensen toed off his boots and stood up, steady on his feet. His jeans were already undone and he pushed them down with his briefs and pulled off jeans and underwear and socks at once and stepped out of them and kicked them backwards under the bed and stood there naked. Himself.
Jared pressed the lock on the door for no reason and then crossed the room and put his arms around Jensen and they kissed while Jared undressed. When he was naked Jensen lay down across the width of the bed on top of the covers and spread his legs and put his arms over his head. He was breathing heavily and his cock was hard and erect against his stomach.
"There's some of that KY stuff in the drawer."
Jared pulled open the drawer and took out the bottle and poured some in the palm of his hand. It was the kind that warmed at a touch but it still felt cold against the swollen heat of his dick. He put the bottle on the nightstand and climbed up on the bed between Jensen's legs. He put his hands down flat on the bed and bent down and kissed Jensen until they were both breathless. Then he sat back on his heels and put his hands under Jensen's knees and folded him up and leaned over and positioned himself and slid up into him. Jensen groaned and grabbed Jared's arm and Jared closed his eyes and thrust up into that close heat and remembered every time they'd ever been together in those few short months and he went on and was almost going to come when he pulled out.
"What?" Jensen said. "What is it?"
He turned over onto his back. "Like the first time," he said and Jensen sat up and straddled him and sank down onto him and Jared grasped his hips and set the pace.
He stroked Jensen's cock and then curled his hand around it and Jensen moaned and tried to go faster and Jared said, "Not yet," and Jensen went still with Jared's cock up inside him and his hands braced on his shoulders.
"We have to make it last," Jared said.
"I know."
"Jen..." he said. He reached up and touched his face and Jensen turned his head and kissed the palm of his hand. "Oh God, Jen."
Jensen was shaking and he started moving again and Jared didn't stop him. Jared came crying out loudly, one hand around Jensen's cock and the other digging into his thigh. Jensen gasping and arching himself back, rocking his hips. When Jensen was still, Jared opened his eyes and looked up at him. He traced his fingers over Jensen's eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, his lips. Then he lifted him off and turned him over onto his back and lay down on him and kissed him. He sank his head into the crook of Jensen's shoulder and Jensen crossed his hands together against Jared's back and they lay like that for a long time.
After a while they sat up and turned down the covers and Jared switched off the light and they covered themselves up and curled into each other and fell asleep. They woke in the middle of the night and made love quietly and half asleep with Jensen on his side and Jared pressed up behind him. When they were done Jared lay there with his eyes closed and neither of them said anything at all.
* * *
He woke at dawn when his cell phone went off and he fell out of bed and staggered across the room in the gray light and fumbled his phone out of his jeans and flipped it open and went out into the hall and closed the door behind him.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey. It's kind of early."
"I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay. How's Jensen?"
"He's still sleeping. Jesus, Genevieve, it's like...six o'clock."
"I was thinking I could come over later and bring some breakfast. Something nice and salty and greasy, soak up all that booze."
He was in the living room now and it was still dark enough outside for him to see his own ghostly reflection in the tall windows that overlooked the harbor. To see himself standing there naked with the phone to his ear.
"I think it's gonna be a Coke and saltines kinda morning."
"Well, our flight's at three o'clock so..."
"Don't worry, I'll make it."
"We need to be at the airport by one."
"I'll be at the house by noon. Probably before that."
"Okay," she said. "I love you."
"Love you too," he said.
"See you later."
"Okay, bye."
He snapped the phone shut and stood there. He heard a low hissing sound behind him and he knew that Jensen was up and in the shower. For a second he thought about going down there and climbing into the shower with him but he knew that he wouldn't. The sun was coming up and it was a whole new day and what had happened last night would not happen again. Other people had done those things.
He went into the bedroom and gathered up his clothes. He stood there for a minute and looked at the bed with its rumpled sheets. He walked over and put his hand on the bed where Jensen had been sleeping. It was still warm. He straightened up and turned and went into the other bathroom and took a shower and got dressed. When he came out he smelled coffee and Jensen was sitting at the kitchen counter dressed with his hair wet and his face still flushed from the hot shower.
"Hey," he said.
Jared said, "Hey," and poured himself a cup of coffee and stood next to the counter and drank it.
"So, you pop the question yet?"
"Um...no, not yet, but we've got the ring picked out."
Jensen nodded. "You set a date?"
"She wanted to get married on Valentine's Day, but the resort's already booked for that weekend, so it's looking like a couple weeks after that."
"Next February?"
"Um, yeah, no...this coming February. 2010."
"Wow. That's close."
"Yeah."
"And the resort is..."
"In Sun Valley. Where her parents live. It's gorgeous."
"Yeah, I've never been there but I've heard. Danneel will like that. We can go skiing."
"Oh yeah. The skiing's amazing."
He stood there for a moment without saying anything and the coffee machine hissed. He thought of all the mornings he'd been up first and made coffee and brought it in to Jensen because Jensen could never get out of bed without it. How he'd loved doing that.
"I can't leave her, Jen."
"I didn't ask you to."
"Would you leave Danneel for me?" Jensen took a swallow of coffee and didn't answer. "You love her, right?"
Jensen smiled. Then he said, "She's great. She's funny and gorgeous and I love her whole crazy family. They're like something out of Faulkner. Or maybe...True Blood," he said and laughed. "She's great," he repeated. "It'll be great."
"Yeah," Jared said. He put his cup down on the counter. "I really have to go. Our flight's at three."
"Okay, well...guess I'll see you at the thing in L.A., huh?"
"Sounds like fun."
"It always is."
He turned in the kitchen doorway and looked back. Jensen was gazing down into his cup.
"Jen."
Jensen looked up and for a moment they just stared at each other.
"We're cool, right?"
"Yeah," Jensen said and smiled. "We're cool."
He might have kissed Jensen goodbye but he didn't because he couldn't. That was all over with. He turned away and walked to the door and saw himself out.
* * *
He saw Jensen at the convention in L.A. and then again in London. In London Jensen looked sick and unkempt but he'd just had surgery on his eyes and Jared chalked it up to that. Danneel and Genevieve were with them at both conventions and in London when the girls went downstairs together to one of the evening events Jared called Jensen's room to find out how he was feeling and Jensen said he was jet-lagged and felt like shit and just needed to get some sleep and then he hung up.
They returned to Vancouver in June and Jensen looked like he'd lost weight but much better than he'd looked in London and in makeup and costume he didn't look any different. Jared lived in his house with Genevieve coming up often and hanging around the set and Jensen lived in his apartment with Danneel coming up when she could and by autumn of that year the two of them were engaged. The ratings were good and the series was renewed for a sixth season and at the end of January they celebrated the show's hundredth episode and all they could talk about at the party was how none of them had ever imagined it would last this long. He and Jensen took pictures with their arms around each other and both of them grinning so wide their molars showed.
A month later Jared married Genevieve in a lavish, weekend-long wedding that she had planned almost entirely on her own. The rehearsal dinner alone was bigger than many weddings Jared had attended. Jensen was first groomsman and so he made the toast and he looked much better than he had over the summer and he made everyone laugh, and when he sat down Danneel rubbed his back and kissed him with her hand on his shoulder and her engagement diamond glinting in the candlelight. Jared remembered that it would be Jensen's birthday in two days and he stood up and toasted Jensen and when he sat down Genevieve squeezed his arm and told him it had been so thoughtful of him to remember Jensen's birthday on the night before his own wedding.
The next day Genevieve walked down the aisle in a pearl-studded organza ballgown that Jared's sister had told him cost seventeen thousand dollars and with her bridal cortege of ten bridesmaids plus her maid of honor the event seemed more suited to Westminster Cathedral than a ski resort in Idaho. The bride's attendants wore ruby dresses, not red but ruby, as a little joke, and the groomsmen wore matching cravats. Jared was already at the altar when the wedding party processed up the aisle and Jensen was first groomsman and so first in line and in his dark morning coat and striped ruby cravat he was beautiful. But then he'd always been. They smiled at each other like old friends and Jared ran a finger under his collar in a pantomime of nervousness and Jensen grinned.
After the ceremony they gave each other the sort of shoulder-bumping, back-slapping hug that men exchange on big days and then Jensen was swallowed up by the crowd. Jared felt dazed by the whole thing and the day and evening seemed to pass almost without him there and the entire world swirled around Genevieve who glided through the event like a seraph wreathed in white clouds and orbited by a ruby nebula of lesser angels. There were so many people that he felt as if he were at a con or at one of the network's awful parties and he kept losing Jensen. He saw him once when the entire bridal party posed for pictures and then again when they all sat down to dinner but Genevieve had wanted to keep the tables down to ten people apiece and Jensen was not seated with them.
At three o'clock in the morning the after-after-party was still continuing in one of the hotel's more intimate lounges, a dark and masculine room with a beamed wooden ceiling and a massive fieldstone fireplace and a wall of arched windows that looked out to the snowy mountains. To preserve the nighttime view the only light in the room came from the fire and the bar at the other end of the room. There were guests chatting and laughing on leather couches drawn up before the fire and at last he saw Jensen and he crossed the room grinning and a little unsteady on his feet from being toasted for hours and laid his hand down on Jensen's shoulder but when Jensen looked up it was not him but some other groomsman. Some cousin of Genevieve's, recruited so that the bridesmaids and groomsmen would not be unevenly matched.
"Hey, congratulations, buddy!"
"Yeah," Jared said. "Yeah, thanks."
"Amazing wedding!"
"I know, it's unbelievable," he said. "Say, have you seen Jensen?"
"Who?"
"Jensen, Jensen Ackles, he was first groomsman."
The guy shook his head and then some woman that Jared also didn't know said, "Oh, he went upstairs at least an hour ago. With the girl who's on that show, right?"
"Yeah," Jared said. "That was him."
Then someone took his arm and he looked down and saw Genevieve beside him in her white cloud of a dress and her glittering headpiece and her upswept hair gleaming lustrous in the firelight.
"Everybody," she said, "It's snowing!"
An aah! went up from these few hardy and tireless guests and Genevieve led Jared to the window and the last remnants of the wedding party joined them and they stood there in hushed silence and watched the snow fall. It drifted and sparkled like diamond dust in the hotel's light. His wife stood in front of him and leaned her head against his chest and wrapped his arms around her.
"It's magic," she said. "Everything is just magic."
The mountains rose up against the night sky all shrouded in white and the silence was like the moment after an avalanche when the snow has settled and buried everything in its wake and left nothing behind.
* * *
On a sultry day that June between the fifth and sixth seasons of the show, Jensen and Danneel were married in a white clapboard church in St. Landry Parish where the bride had been christened some thirty years before. Danneel wore strapless white silk embroidered with blue flowers and her red hair was curled into loose waves and woven with blue forget-me-nots. Jensen and the groomsmen, himself included, wore pale blue ties and light beige linen that they sweated through before the ceremony even began.
The reception was held outside at Chretien Plantation and they ate steamed crawfish and gumbo washed down with sweet tea in Mason jars and Pabst Blue Ribbon and Dom Perignon and everyone danced and ate and drank and laughed on the lawn in the steaming bayou heat until they were all sweating and mosquito-bitten and cheerfully exhausted. Round midnight the new bride shook the flowers out of her hair and danced with her shoes off and her skirts up and Jensen went out to her, now with his jacket off and his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up, and dipped her in his arms and kissed her and a round of applause and whistles and hollers went up that shook that whole southern night and it was all just as it should have been and no other way.
Jared felt a boozy arm fall heavy on his shoulders and Chris Kane was there bellowing in his ear.
"Boy, that's the one that got away, hey Padalecki? And I don't mean the redhead!"
Jared laughed and shook him off. By now other couples had joined the bride and groom on the dancefloor and Genevieve led him out and wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him.
"That joke's gotten really old," she said. She cast a glance at the newlyweds and laid her head on Jared's chest and sighed. "God, I just can't stop looking at them. There's nothing more beautiful than two people in love."
* * *
The sixth season of the show was also its last and they celebrated the end with a tremendous party in Vancouver and everyone laughed and cried and told stories and by the end of the week they had all gone their separate ways. In 2012 Jared and Genevieve were divorced after they had been married for just over two years. That same year Jensen and Danneel had a daughter and two years later they had a little boy. By then Jared was a regular on a USA series about lawyers and he found himself back in Vancouver but he had sold his old house after Supernatural ended its run. He rented a smaller house and he lived there with his aging dogs and his twenty-three-year-old co-star, a Disney Channel alum named Amber Lopez. When they were out together people sometimes mistook her for Jessica Alba.
He would drive by the old place sometimes. Sometimes he would park the car and sit there. The new owners had planted trees and purple rhododendron bushes that screened the house from the street. The streetlamp was still there on the side of the house where Jensen's room had been and when he went there at night he could see it casting a pool of light over the house but the new greenery kept him from seeing if it still shone into that room. Probably it didn't.
Once he told himself that he wanted to see if the new owners had changed anything inside the house and he made it halfway up the walk and then turned around and got back in his car and left.
* * *
Jensen gave up television and concentrated on feature films and he did a few that were released with very little fanfare until he landed the role of Mac in a movie based on Cormac McCarthy's Cities of the Plain. It was a small part in a big movie but Jensen made enough of an impression that critics called it his breakout role and talked about him as if he were an overnight success.
Jared went to see the movie by himself. It had been nearly two years since Jared had seen Jensen in person. He was closing in on forty now and his face showed every one of those years but he was no less beautiful for it. Jared sat in the dark and looked at him and he remembered a night from nearly ten years before when Jensen had asked him what he would do when the show was over and he had understood that the day would come when he only saw Jensen this way. When Jensen would not be a part of his life. They had slept together for the first time not more than two weeks after that night and yet the future he'd first imagined then had come all the same. Had maybe come sooner and more assuredly than if they'd never laid a hand on each other.
He dreamt that night of the old house in Vancouver and he walked through the rooms and they were empty every one, the walls whitewashed and the floors bare and a merciless glare of arctic light at every window.
* * *
Jensen won the part of Claude in the adaptation of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and while the story revolved around the fourteen-year-old lead it was Jensen who got the notice. In 2018 he was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actor and everyone said he'd probably get an Oscar nod as well. Jared's show was nominated for Best Dramatic Series and they both attended the awards ceremony that January. Jensen won and Jared's show didn't but when they found each other Jensen congratulated him all the same.
"Think you'll get that Oscar nom?" Jared shouted. The room was very loud.
"I dunno, man, I'm not placing any bets!"
"What?"
"Bets! Not placing any!"
"Oh!"
A woman appeared behind Jensen and said something in his ear and he turned to Jared and shouted that he had to go.
"Okay! Hey, congratulations!"
"Yeah man, you too!"
He was making his way through the crowd when he heard someone calling his name and he turned around and saw Danneel waving at him.
"Don't move!" she hollered. "Stay right over there!"
She shouldered her way towards him, balanced like a circus performer on golden heels and she looked nothing like a mother of two in her late thirties. When she finally reached him she fell into him and he caught her and they embraced and she stood there holding onto him.
"Oh my God, this is crazy!"
"Yeah, it's something else!"
"It's so good to see you, why don't you ever come over?"
"I don't know, you know! Vancouver and all!"
"Oh, I know all about Vancouver!" she shouted and laughed. "I'm so glad Jen's not up there anymore!"
"I'll bet he is too!"
"He said it took him two years just to dry out! Listen...I wanted to catch you to let you know!"
"Know what?"
"I haven't sent out the official invitations yet but I'm throwing a party for Jensen's fortieth birthday...he doesn't know anything about it yet! Last weekend in February at our Texas place! Nothing splashy, you know how he hates that! Just good friends and family...you have to come!"
"Oh yeah, of course!"
"And then two weeks later it's the Oscars and oh my God! Wouldn't that be a birthday present!"
"Unbelievable!"
"Save the date!" she shouted. "Bring Amber!" She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek and then started to surge away. "Invitation to follow," she called over her shoulder. Then she was gone in the crowd and he watched her as she found Jensen and looped her arm through his. He realized that in more than two years of marriage Genevieve had not once asked him why Jensen never came over.
* * *
He didn't know this part of Texas well but there wasn't much chance of getting lost in a place with only one main road. At Alpine he turned off Route 90 onto Highway 118 headed south. The country here was ridged with low mountain ranges yet the land was so wide open that it had the appearance of being endless and flat, a place so scoured by wind that nothing taller than grass could rise up out of the red clay. The sky was shockingly blue, unbroken, infinite. The road itself and the few cars he passed were dwarfed and made meaningless by all that immensity and the one desert fox he saw trotting by the side of the road seemed to belong there far more than he did. Yet it was beautiful country, quiet and vast and empty. He knew the silence of it must have attracted Jensen, and the lack of people and the realness of it compared to the necessary artifice in which he spent so much of his time. He couldn't picture Danneel out here but then he remembered her dancing barefoot at her wedding and imagined that she might fit in with the place after all. The thought made him realize that the anniversary of his own wedding was in two days. He hadn't thought of it in a long time.
Now and then a line of fence would parallel the road, at times just fenceposts with the wire between them long gone. There were still a few real cattle ranches out here but the biggest spreads had been broken up and sold off and Jensen lived on one of these. No one could have found the place if they didn't know it was there. An unmarked turnoff from Highway 118 led to a dirt road and a small sign on a wooden post, something they'd probably only put up so that the FedEx truck would be able to find them. The road did not belong to the county so the sign was white letters hammered into black tin and the name was one Jensen and Danneel had made up themselves. Texiana Road, after their two home states. Underneath that sign was a smaller one. Private, it read.
He wondered if all this land belonged to Jensen and thought that it probably did. It was a cold day and the dry grass on both sides of the road was rimed with frost and stretched to the horizon. He drove for more than three miles before he came to a gated fence and this was the first sign that someone actually lived on Texiana Road, and that they needed to live behind a gate. There was an intercom call box and a security camera but the gates were thrown wide open and tied with bright ribbons for the party. They were snapping sharply in the wind and from here Jared still couldn't see any house and so the scene had a dreamlike and faintly unsettling quality to it. As if the party had come and gone in some other time and the guests had all quit the place long ago and here he was, alone and too late. He rolled to a stop and sat there staring at the gate and for a moment he thought about turning around and driving away.
We're friends, he thought. We're still friends, for God's sake.
Still he sat. After a while he eased off the brake and drove on.
* * *
The house when it finally hove into view seemed startlingly new on that ancient floodplain. A craftsman house of stone and cherrywood and wide windows, two levels, sprawling, beautiful. A stand of young cottonwoods planted in front. The porch pillars festooned in ribbons. He was late and there were cars and trucks and SUVs parked everywhere and he found himself a space and slid into it and turned off the ignition and sat there for half a minute and then got out and took Jensen's present from the back seat and closed the door and walked up the drive.
In the house were people that he hadn't seen in years. Jensen's parents, his brother and sister. People from the show, Jim, Eric, Misha. Raelle, who ran up and kissed him. Wives and husbands and children and dogs. He was handed a beer and hugged and kissed and slapped on the back. They asked him why he didn't bring Amber and he said that she couldn't get away. A lie. He had never asked her. Danneel went up on tiptoes and threw her arms around him and said she was so happy he had come and that Jensen was around there somewhere.
Jared didn't need her to tell him that. Jensen was everywhere in that house. He had felt it the moment he'd stepped through the door, so strong it had made his heart clench. That quality that Jensen had, so particular to him. That had filled his own house in those few months when they had lived together. He had all but forgotten what it was like but now it was here and along with it a torrent of memories. Some of them bad, many of them so good and so, much more painful.
Jensen everywhere. Beneath the obvious trappings and busyness of the family that lived here, Jensen. That quiet of his. That warmth. The lack of it had made a cold place inside him that he had first felt when he'd begun seeing Genevieve and that he had long ago schooled himself to ignore, yet it was the cold that made him park outside his old house and wonder if the streetlamp still cast light into one room. That made him go to Jensen's movies by himself, that made him dream of that house in Vancouver and of Jensen more than he would ever admit to anyone. Always cold. A seed of ice in his heart that he had planted there himself.
Something crashed into his leg and he looked down and saw a little girl goggling up at him.
"You're tall," she said.
"Yeah," Jared said. "Yeah, I know." He crouched down on his heels, as close to her level as his height would allow. She had her father's face in perfect childish miniature. The shape, the dimple in her chin, even the pattern of freckles already sprayed across her nose. Eyes the same jeweled green. "You must be Maren." He had never seen her in person, only in the Christmas cards Danneel sent out. She was wearing a New Orleans Saints t-shirt and a skirt of layered pink tulle and cowboy boots. There were wings of sheer white nylon strapped onto her back.
"I'm an angel," she corrected.
"Oh," he said and looked at the wings. "I can see that."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Jared. I'm a friend of your dad's."
"This is Daddy's party."
"I know, it's very nice."
"We're going to have cake later."
"Wow, that sounds great."
"Justin ate too much and threw up."
"Did he?"
"Daddy took him upstairs to wash his face."
"Mmm, that was probably a good idea."
"There he is," she said and pointed over Jared's shoulder and he turned and looked up and saw Jensen. Coming down the stairs with his son in his arms. At the bottom he put the little boy down and swatted him on the rear and the kid took off, none the worse for wear. Maren said something else but he didn't know what. She went clomping away in her boots with all her dramatic five-year-old urgency and he crouched there and stared at Jensen.
Jensen was talking to his sister and she must have said that Jared was there because she pointed in some direction where he had been and then he stood up and Jensen turned and saw him. They had seen each other just a month before at the Golden Globes but that was work and this was Jensen's home where Jared had never been. Neither of them moved. Then Jensen started walking towards him with a broad smile on his face and the two of them embraced in the middle of the room and for a moment it was more real than anything that had passed between them in years.
Jensen pulled back and looked up at him, his hands on Jared's arms. "I didn't think you were gonna come, you're really late."
"Yeah, I kinda got lost."
"Lost on what?" he laughed. "The one road down here?"
"I guess I'm just not as Texas as you anymore. And this...this is some hardcore Texas."
"Yeah, no shit. We have actual tumbleweeds rolling by the place. It's like Gunsmoke."
"It's amazing, though. It's just..."
"Yeah, yeah it is. Hey, did you bring Amber?"
"No, I didn't, she couldn't get away."
"Oh," Jensen said. "Oh well, okay." He clapped Jared on the arm. "We should talk later, really catch up."
"Yeah, we should."
"I've missed you," he said. They were quiet for a few seconds.
Then Jared said, "Me too. I've really missed you."
* * *
Jensen was the host and the birthday boy and the Golden Globe winner and the likely Oscar nominee and he was never alone at any moment. There was a brick cookhouse built off the kitchen and later in the afternoon Jensen disappeared into it to barbecue. Eric said that only a Texan would do all the cooking at his own party and everyone laughed because Jensen was damn good at it and no one would have had it any other way. They ate at picnic tables outside in a heated tent, ribs and burgers and chicken and potato salad and coleslaw and biscuits and sweet tea and beer. His eyes found their way to Jensen the whole time. He was as beautiful as ever. He looked so happy.
At sunset the wind picked up and even with the heaters the tent was cold and they moved back into the house where a fire was now blazing in the great room. The westering sun hit the big windows of that room and filled it with copper light and the country outside was so empty that the house might have been the last outpost at the end of the world and the loneliness without only made the fellowship within that much greater.
There was a galvanized bucket in the dining room that had been full of beer and ice but it was empty and Jared took it into the kitchen to dump out the icewater and refill it and he found Danneel in there by herself. She told him there was more ice and beer in the cookhouse and he carried the bucket out there and emptied it in the deep utility sink.
"You should fill that up in the kitchen so you don't have to carry it so far," she said from the doorway. "Let me help you."
They carried ice and sixpacks into the kitchen and put the bucket on the floor and Jared tore open the icebags and started emptying them while Danneel took the beer out of the cartons. He felt suddenly awkward at being alone with her and to break the silence he said, "I can't believe you didn't have this thing catered."
She shrugged and smiled. "I didn't feel like having a bunch of strangers running around the house all day asking where stuff was. Besides this is more family-like, isn't it? Are you having fun?"
"Oh yeah, great time. I never knew Jensen was such a cook."
"He does a mean barbecue but that's about it. I'm sure he wasn't whipping up any gourmet specials when you two lived together."
"Nooo, it was all Chinese and pizza. He didn't even..." He paused for a moment before he could go on. "He didn't even make coffee in the morning."
"How're those dogs of yours?"
"They're good, they're good...getting old."
"Aren't we all," she said and then said, "And how's Genevieve? You ever talk to her?"
"No. Not really. Actually not at all."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that didn't work out for you two. It was such a beautiful wedding."
Jared laughed. He shoved beer bottles down into the ice. "I think the wedding was the high point of the whole marriage. I guess that's what you get when you rush into things."
"Well, you never know about something like that. You could marry someone you've known for two weeks and be happy with them for the rest of your life and then you could know each other for years and still not make a go of it. Like you and Sandy. Hell, like me and Jensen, almost."
"What?" Jared laughed, "You guys are the perfect couple."
"It was pretty over there for a while, though," she said and he stopped and looked up at her.
"Really?"
"Oh yeah, that Christmas, it was...God almost ten years ago. 2008. We had the worst fight. It was over. We were over. I thought I'd never speak to him again. I didn't even think I wanted to."
"Christmas. 2008. You broke up with each other?"
"He broke up with me. I'd been feeling like something was wrong for months but that still hit me outta the blue."
"Did he...did he say why?"
"He said he still loved me but he was out of love with me. I was sure there was someone else but he said there wasn't. He just said it wasn't gonna work and it wasn't fair to me to stay together. Oh, I had a fit. I'm surprised I didn't put him in the hospital."
Jared thought of that Christmas. The first one Genevieve had spent at his parents' house. Then they'd gone skiing in Sun Valley for New Year's. A week later he'd stood in his kitchen in Vancouver and told Jensen that she'd be moving in.
He swallowed and said, "How did you patch things up?"
She smiled. She crossed her elbow over one knee and leaned in to him. "I feel kinda bad about saying this, since it didn't work out with you and Genevieve, but Jay...it was because of you and Gen that we patched things up."
Jared stared at her. A part of him wanted to laugh. He always seemed to be having important conversations in some kitchen. Life-changing conversations.
"Jensen called me his first day back in Vancouver and we talked for at least an hour and he said he was sorry and that he'd just gotten scared and he loved me. He said if you could make a commitment to Genevieve after just a few months, then he didn't know what the hell he was waiting for. I think it was just the nudge he needed."
"Just the nudge."
"Mm-hm." She reached out and rubbed his arm. Her hands were freezing from the ice. "It's funny. We might never have gotten back together if not for you."
"Oh," he said. He looked away for a second and then back at her and he nodded and smiled. "I'm glad. You belong together."
She squeezed his arm. "Let's get this beer in there before the natives get restless," she said and she nestled the last few bottles in the ice and Jared picked up the bucket and carried it out.
* * *
He took a beer and uncapped it and poured a long swallow down his dry throat. Jensen was not in the great room. Maren was on the floor stringing beads with one of her cousins and Justin was asleep on his grandmother's lap so he didn't think Jensen was upstairs. He thought about looking for him but didn't want to. The room was too hot and too full of other people who shared Jensen's life and he wanted to be outside. In that cold wind and empty space.
He let himself out the front door and onto the porch. The house was built on the only high ground on the land and the wind was blowing in out of the west and it was bitingly cold. The sky was all red now. The porch wrapped around the house and he put his back to the west and walked towards the darkening east. When he turned the corner he saw Jensen at the far end of the porch, looking out at the dark purple shadow of the mountains. He almost retreated and then Jensen turned his head and saw him.
"Hey," he called.
"Hey."
"Come down and get outta that wind."
He walked down the length of the porch. Sheltered from the wind it was so quiet on this side of the house. His own footsteps were jarringly loud.
"I like this time of day," Jensen said. "The way the mountains turn that color."
"What mountains are those?"
"Those are the Del Nortes over there." He pointed to the right with his beer bottle. "And those to the south are the Santiagos."
"It's a hell of pretty spot."
"Yeah. Cities filmed about an hour from here. It was great, I could go to work and be home for dinner every night. Sawtelle was way up in Minnesota. I felt like I was back in friggin Canada."
"Sawtelle was... everyone's right what they say, you're incredible. I mean, they're comparing you to Paul Newman and you deserve it."
Jensen grinned and gestured at his face. "That's just because of this."
"No it isn't," Jared said and Jensen just laughed.
They seemed out of conversation. They stood there and drank and watched the sky grow dark. Two nighthawks wheeled overhead and called out into the dusk.
"Danneel sure knows how to throw a party."
"She does. She's amazing. I've wondered why the hell she puts up with me sometimes."
A minute passed. Two. Then Jared said, "She told me you two broke up. That Christmas." He hadn't meant to say it but it came out anyway.
Jensen looked at him. Then he looked away.
"I wish she hadn't told you that."
"Why?"
"Cause I didn't want you to know."
"Is that really what happened? Did you really break up with her?"
Jensen took a drink and held it in his mouth and swallowed it hard. "Yes."
"Jesus, Jen. Why didn't you tell me?"
Jensen put his head down and smiled. He began to peel the label off his beer. The wind whistled around the house and under the craftsman eaves. It rattled through the dry and wintry grass.
"Jen?"
"When would I have told you that, Jared?" he finally said. Jared had to lean in to hear him. "After you said that bein with me would ruin your life?"
Jared didn't say anything. He stood there frozen and Jensen went on. "Or maybe right after you said that all we had was two months of fuckin around. Is that when I should've told you that I'd left her for you?" Jensen looked up at him.
He wanted to say something but his throat caught and he looked down and swallowed and then he shook his head and looked up.
"I was scared," he said. "I was scared, and I'd just had this crazy conversation with my mother and I was freaked out..."
"I was scared too. I was fuckin terrified. But more than that I was in love with you. Enough to break the heart of someone who loved me. While you were off makin weddin plans with some girl you just met just so you could get the hell away from me."
"It wasn't like that."
"Then how was it?"
Jared shook his head. He remembered standing in that kitchen and those words spilling out of his mouth. He'd played them over in his head how many times since then. He'd never imagined Jensen had been doing the same. No, he hadn't let himself imagine it. The way he hadn't let himself think about Jensen punching him on the set or the things he'd said and done after the wrap party or how bad Jensen had looked all that summer or about so many things he knew but didn't want to know.
"I thought I was doing the right thing. For both of us."
"Naw, Jared. You saw an escape route and you went for it. I couldn't've stopped you, didn't even bother tryin." He laughed. "If I told you I'd left Danneel, you'd probably've run screamin outta the house. Ah well," he said. "It's all water under the bridge by now, isn't it?"
Jared's eyes were burning and he looked out to the mountains without seeing them and a long time passed in silence.
"I didn't mean it," Jared finally said. "None of that stuff about how we were just fooling around or having a good time or whatever. I was in love with you. I said those things because I was in love with you and it scared the shit out of me. I think I knew...no, I knew, I knew that you were ready to risk it all for me and that scared the shit out of me too. I never loved anyone the way I loved you but I was too fucking scared to be with you. I wish I'd been a better man Jensen, because I loved you and I still love you and I am so goddamn sorry I hurt you. You have every right in the world to hate my guts and I deserve it but I hope...I just hope you can forgive me someday."
He felt as if he had no right to stay any longer so he turned to go and then Jensen said, "Jay," and he stopped and looked back.
"I don't hate you," Jensen said. "Thought I did for a long time, but I don't." He sighed. "You know what's hell about all this? That you weren't wrong. There's no way either of us would be where we are if that'd gotten out. And I mean really gotten out, not just some joke on the internet. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said if I said I wouldn't have cared what that would've done to my work. I didn't go into this business planning to wind up some Brokeback Mountain punchline on Leno, neither did you. You saw that better than I did. Maybe you could've been a little..." He smiled. "A little less of an SOB about it. But you were thinking, back then, and I wasn't. I was just goddamn stupid in love."
He paused and looked out at the desert. The mountains were almost of a piece with the dark sky. The wind was still up and it whispered unceasing over the plain.
"And now look at my life. Look at my work, my family. No one gets this much without paying for it." He turned away from the desert. "You broke my heart, Jay. Some part of it's always gonna be broken. But that was how I paid for all this. Hell, most people get their heart broken and don't get shit. So I forgive you, Jay. I forgave you a long time ago. I just wanted you to know that."
"Okay," Jared said. "Okay."
"What the hell's the matter with you, 'okay?' Get over here," he said and then they had their arms around each other. It was the first time they had touched without being in the middle of a crowd in nearly ten years and Jared buried his face against Jensen's neck and almost wept out loud. The sky darkened to night and the first stars began to shine and they stood there and held on to each other.
There were clomping footsteps on the porch and they stepped apart and Jensen turned around and wiped his face and laughed.
"Whoa, here's my angel!" He reached down and scooped his daughter up in his arms.
"Are you crying?"
"No, it's just real windy out here. Makes my eyes water. And what're you doin out here with no coat on?"
"Mommy said to come inside. She said we're gonna have cake and unwrap your presents."
"Oh well, cake and presents, I can't miss that."
She was wearing some golden circlet now and she took it off and put it on her father's head.
"You should wear the crown. It's your birthday."
"What, don't I get any wings?"
She laughed. "Only girls are angels, Daddy," she said
"Ohh, that's right. I forgot. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she said and she wrapped her arms around his neck and he turned around with the little girl balanced on his hip and told Jared to come inside and Jared nodded and said he would be there in a minute.
When he crossed to the backdoor he found the circlet on the floor at the threshold. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands and almost put it in his pocket. He laid it on the kitchen counter instead and left it there.
* * *
It was not late but it was snowing now in dry windblown flurries and the guests began to leave. For a while there was a commotion of engines and headlights out in front of the house and then it was quiet. The party was reduced to family and a few friends. Maren was asleep with her head on her father's knee. When Danneel picked up Justin to take him to bed, Jared stood up and said he was leaving too, that he wanted to drive back to San Antonio that night.
"Oh, you should stay. That's a five-hour drive!"
"I can do it in four."
She turned to Jensen. "Jen, tell him to stay."
Jensen said, "Jared, you really should. We've got plenty of room. And plenty of leftovers."
"No really, I should go before it gets any later." He leaned down and kissed Danneel. "It was an incredible party. Thanks so much for inviting me."
She hoisted Justin on her shoulder. "You're welcome, though I don't know why you can't stay. Just promise me you won't be such a stranger."
"I won't. I promise."
"All right. Well, goodnight...and drive safe," she said and she turned and went up the stairs.
Jensen eased Maren off his knee and walked Jared to the door.
"You sure you don't want to stay?"
"Yeah. I'm sure."
"All right. Thanks for the guitar, it's a beauty, it's...way outta my league."
"You'll just have to get better then."
"At least I was always better than you."
"I know you were," he said. "You still are."
Jensen rubbed his arm and opened the door. They went out onto the front porch and Jensen closed the door behind them.
"I guess I'll see you at the Oscars," Jared said. "I mean...I'll see you on television at the Oscars."
"I'll try not to mouth the f-word when I don't win."
"I don't think you have to worry about that."
They were quiet for a moment. It was very cold.
"I'm really glad you came."
"I am too."
They embraced and Jared said, "Happy birthday, Jen," against Jensen's neck.
Jensen nodded. "Thanks, Jay. Get home safe."
Jensen didn't walk him to his car. When he was down the porch steps and halfway across the yard, Jensen called, "Danneel's right. Don't be such a stranger."
He turned. "I'll try not to." Jensen waved and he waved back. When Jared made it to his car he turned to wave again but Jensen had gone back inside. The house was all lit up and it was warm and beautiful in that dark desert and the endless black sky above it and Jensen within it. He stood in the cold and the dark and stared at it and the snow stung his face.
He got in the car and keyed the ignition. The engine was blasphemously loud. He turned the car around and when he reached the end of the driveway he stopped and looked back at the house. Then he sat back in his seat and watched it in the rearview mirror. He wished for Jensen to come back out on the porch and it seemed that if he only stayed there long enough that would happen but it didn't. He stepped on the gas and drove out onto the dirt road. For miles the house glowed behind him like the nimbus of a candle and then the desert night swallowed it up and it was gone.
By the time he reached the security gate he was crying. The bright ribbons were a blur of colors in his headlights and then he was past them. When he came to the paved road he stopped the car and stared at the sign. Texiana Road. Private. The snow fell heavier and he thought of avalanches both real and imagined and of things left behind that could not be recovered and he felt the coldness inside him again and knew it would always be there. He sat for a long time at the crossroads of Texiana and some unnamed Brewster County route and the snow swirled down and the night was so dark. After a while he wiped his face and put the car in gear and went on until he reached Highway 118 where he swung north towards Alpine and San Antonio and Vancouver and the rest of his life.
The End
Jensen in glasses icon courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lovelylora. Highway 118 icon courtesy of the Texas Department of Transportation.
Avalanche, Part Two
After the previous year's short season this one had seemed especially grueling and at the March wrap party everyone was in good spirits and drunk off their ass but Jensen got drunker than any of them. Jared took his keys and said he'd take him home but he was drunk too and so they took the studio's car service back to Jensen's apartment, the three of them, Jared, Jensen and Genevieve. They staggered into Jensen's apartment with the clumsy joviality of drunkards and Genevieve threw herself down on Jensen's couch.
"I've never been in here, oh my God, what a view!"
"Yeah, it's really something," Jensen slurred. "See the whole harbor from here."
"It's gorgeous!" She gestured at Jared. "Maybe you can convince him to move out of the sticks."
"Hey, I like the sticks!"
"I like the sticks too," Jensen said. He was tottering on his feet and Jared had an arm around him. "I liked the sticks. I loved the sticks. Those fuckin sticks."
"Oookay, time for bed," Jared said. He began to steer Jensen to the bedroom.
"I loved them fuckin sticks!" Jensen hollered over his shoulder and Genevieve laughed.
"You'd better give him an Advil!" she called.
In the bedroom he deposited Jensen on the bed and turned on the nightstand light and Jensen sat there and looked up at him blearily.
"Man, you are wasted."
"Shut the door."
"We've gotta go..."
"Come on man, shut the door. Just...shut the door for two minutes."
Jared looked at him for a moment and then he turned and went out the door and poked his head into the living room and said, "I'm just gonna get him settled, okay. Make sure he doesn't pull a Hendrix on us."
She was flipping through a magazine and she said, "Sure, go ahead."
He went back down the hall and into the bedroom and closed the door quietly. Jensen was still on the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress as if he were about to pitch off it. He was wearing boots and he was futilely trying to kick them off.
"You need help with that?"
"Yeah. Yeah I need help with that."
Jared shook his head and got down on one knee and started to untie Jensen's boots and then he felt Jensen's hand on his face and he stopped. Jensen stroked his cheek with his thumb and turned Jared's face up to him. They stared at each other and then Jensen leaned down and kissed him.
He hadn't kissed Jensen since before winter hiatus, had barely even touched him except while shooting the show. The kiss was soft at first and then deeper and vertiginous and fraught with memory and need. He couldn't break it. Didn't want to break it. Jensen began to lean backward bringing Jared with him and Jared followed and then jerked back and pulled away and Jensen sat up and grabbed Jared's shirt.
"No no no, don't go..."
"What are you doing, Gen's right in the next room."
He twisted his hands in Jared's shirt. "I'm right here."
He began to loosen Jensen's fingers. "Yeah, I know man, but we put that behind us, remember?"
"You did."
"You're drunk, okay? It's cool. You just need to sleep it off."
"I love you. I'm not gonna sleep that off. I love you and I fuckin miss you and Jesus, Jared..."
He wrapped his arms around Jared's waist and pulled him in and Jared let him. Jensen pushed up his shirt and began kissing his stomach and Jared tipped his head back and let him do that too. He put his hand on the back of Jensen's head and ran it down to his neck and Jensen began undoing Jared's belt. He'd gotten it unfastened and was working on his fly when Jared said, "No," and pushed him away. He took a step back and stood there with his belt and top button undone and his shirt rucked up and Jensen sitting on the bed flushed and wide-eyed and panting and he wanted him. Wanted to tip him back onto that bed and strip him naked and love him. All night until they were sore and spent and sated the way they'd once done. He buttoned his jeans and fastened his belt.
"I thought we were over this. I thought we agreed."
Jensen started getting undressed.
"Don't do that."
He pulled his shirt over his head and he was naked to the waist and he started working on his jeans.
"Jensen..."
"Goddamnit. Goddamnit, can't you just fuck me one last time? I never even got that, I never even got a fuckin...farewell fuck outta you, you selfish fuckin prick ."
Jared put up his hands. "You're drunk and you're getting loud and I'm leaving."
He turned to go and Jensen said softly, "I'm sorry. Please just...send her home. Tell her I'm sick and you think you should stay with me and send her home. Please, Jay, please just spend the night with me."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"You know why."
"One night, Jay. I'm not askin you for a goddamn lifetime commitment. Just tonight and I swear to God I'll never ask you again I'll never mention it again, ever, please."
Jared stood there and stared at him, his heart hammering so hard he could feel it in his guts. He realized that he was seeing Jensen for the first time in months, since before Christmas. Jensen, himself. Wholly out of any character but his own.
He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. When he went into the living room Genevieve looked up and said, "All set?" and Jared looked at her and looked at the window and out at the night and the sparkling harbor and dark Pacific and the whole rest of his life.
He said, "Jensen's really sick. I don't think he should be alone."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I don't know, maybe he didn't eat enough or whatever but I don't want to leave him like this."
"Well...there's an extra bedroom, I guess we can stay there..."
"It's gonna be a pretty pukey night. I've seen him get like this, believe me it ain't pretty."
"You want me to go home? By myself?"
He grinned. "I really don't think you want to be here, and the car's still downstairs..."
"I've seen people puke before, Jared. I did go to college, you know."
"Gen...I know Jensen and he's a fetal position kind of guy when he's like this. He doesn't want people around."
"So then why are you staying?"
"Cause I don't want him cracking his skull open on the edge of the toilet, that's why."
"He's that bad off."
"He's not that bad off, I just...look, he's drunk and he's sick and he's a little bit moody about the show and I'd just feel like a real shit if I left him alone, okay? It's a guy thing, all right?"
"Oh, I see," she said. "Bros before hos?"
"No," he laughed. "Nothing like that. Just, you know...helping out my boy. Who's... probably puking up his bed right now."
"Eew," she said and finally stood up. "Okay, you do your little barfy male bonding thing. I just hope he doesn't get that loaded at the wedding."
"I'll keep an eye on him."
"Mmmm, you better," she said. She came up to him and stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. "You get a medal of honor for this, JP."
"I'll collect it when I get home," he said.
She kissed him again. "You sure will."
He walked her to the door and they kissed goodnight and at the elevator she waved to him and then she was gone. He closed the door and stood with his head against the doorjamb and his eyes closed. Then he locked the door and turned off the lights. The room shimmered in harborlight. He walked back to the bedroom and opened the door and thought Jensen might have passed out in the meantime but he was sitting exactly where Jared had left him.
"Is she gone?"
"Yeah."
Neither of them said anything. Then Jensen toed off his boots and stood up, steady on his feet. His jeans were already undone and he pushed them down with his briefs and pulled off jeans and underwear and socks at once and stepped out of them and kicked them backwards under the bed and stood there naked. Himself.
Jared pressed the lock on the door for no reason and then crossed the room and put his arms around Jensen and they kissed while Jared undressed. When he was naked Jensen lay down across the width of the bed on top of the covers and spread his legs and put his arms over his head. He was breathing heavily and his cock was hard and erect against his stomach.
"There's some of that KY stuff in the drawer."
Jared pulled open the drawer and took out the bottle and poured some in the palm of his hand. It was the kind that warmed at a touch but it still felt cold against the swollen heat of his dick. He put the bottle on the nightstand and climbed up on the bed between Jensen's legs. He put his hands down flat on the bed and bent down and kissed Jensen until they were both breathless. Then he sat back on his heels and put his hands under Jensen's knees and folded him up and leaned over and positioned himself and slid up into him. Jensen groaned and grabbed Jared's arm and Jared closed his eyes and thrust up into that close heat and remembered every time they'd ever been together in those few short months and he went on and was almost going to come when he pulled out.
"What?" Jensen said. "What is it?"
He turned over onto his back. "Like the first time," he said and Jensen sat up and straddled him and sank down onto him and Jared grasped his hips and set the pace.
He stroked Jensen's cock and then curled his hand around it and Jensen moaned and tried to go faster and Jared said, "Not yet," and Jensen went still with Jared's cock up inside him and his hands braced on his shoulders.
"We have to make it last," Jared said.
"I know."
"Jen..." he said. He reached up and touched his face and Jensen turned his head and kissed the palm of his hand. "Oh God, Jen."
Jensen was shaking and he started moving again and Jared didn't stop him. Jared came crying out loudly, one hand around Jensen's cock and the other digging into his thigh. Jensen gasping and arching himself back, rocking his hips. When Jensen was still, Jared opened his eyes and looked up at him. He traced his fingers over Jensen's eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, his lips. Then he lifted him off and turned him over onto his back and lay down on him and kissed him. He sank his head into the crook of Jensen's shoulder and Jensen crossed his hands together against Jared's back and they lay like that for a long time.
After a while they sat up and turned down the covers and Jared switched off the light and they covered themselves up and curled into each other and fell asleep. They woke in the middle of the night and made love quietly and half asleep with Jensen on his side and Jared pressed up behind him. When they were done Jared lay there with his eyes closed and neither of them said anything at all.
* * *
He woke at dawn when his cell phone went off and he fell out of bed and staggered across the room in the gray light and fumbled his phone out of his jeans and flipped it open and went out into the hall and closed the door behind him.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey. It's kind of early."
"I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay. How's Jensen?"
"He's still sleeping. Jesus, Genevieve, it's like...six o'clock."
"I was thinking I could come over later and bring some breakfast. Something nice and salty and greasy, soak up all that booze."
He was in the living room now and it was still dark enough outside for him to see his own ghostly reflection in the tall windows that overlooked the harbor. To see himself standing there naked with the phone to his ear.
"I think it's gonna be a Coke and saltines kinda morning."
"Well, our flight's at three o'clock so..."
"Don't worry, I'll make it."
"We need to be at the airport by one."
"I'll be at the house by noon. Probably before that."
"Okay," she said. "I love you."
"Love you too," he said.
"See you later."
"Okay, bye."
He snapped the phone shut and stood there. He heard a low hissing sound behind him and he knew that Jensen was up and in the shower. For a second he thought about going down there and climbing into the shower with him but he knew that he wouldn't. The sun was coming up and it was a whole new day and what had happened last night would not happen again. Other people had done those things.
He went into the bedroom and gathered up his clothes. He stood there for a minute and looked at the bed with its rumpled sheets. He walked over and put his hand on the bed where Jensen had been sleeping. It was still warm. He straightened up and turned and went into the other bathroom and took a shower and got dressed. When he came out he smelled coffee and Jensen was sitting at the kitchen counter dressed with his hair wet and his face still flushed from the hot shower.
"Hey," he said.
Jared said, "Hey," and poured himself a cup of coffee and stood next to the counter and drank it.
"So, you pop the question yet?"
"Um...no, not yet, but we've got the ring picked out."
Jensen nodded. "You set a date?"
"She wanted to get married on Valentine's Day, but the resort's already booked for that weekend, so it's looking like a couple weeks after that."
"Next February?"
"Um, yeah, no...this coming February. 2010."
"Wow. That's close."
"Yeah."
"And the resort is..."
"In Sun Valley. Where her parents live. It's gorgeous."
"Yeah, I've never been there but I've heard. Danneel will like that. We can go skiing."
"Oh yeah. The skiing's amazing."
He stood there for a moment without saying anything and the coffee machine hissed. He thought of all the mornings he'd been up first and made coffee and brought it in to Jensen because Jensen could never get out of bed without it. How he'd loved doing that.
"I can't leave her, Jen."
"I didn't ask you to."
"Would you leave Danneel for me?" Jensen took a swallow of coffee and didn't answer. "You love her, right?"
Jensen smiled. Then he said, "She's great. She's funny and gorgeous and I love her whole crazy family. They're like something out of Faulkner. Or maybe...True Blood," he said and laughed. "She's great," he repeated. "It'll be great."
"Yeah," Jared said. He put his cup down on the counter. "I really have to go. Our flight's at three."
"Okay, well...guess I'll see you at the thing in L.A., huh?"
"Sounds like fun."
"It always is."
He turned in the kitchen doorway and looked back. Jensen was gazing down into his cup.
"Jen."
Jensen looked up and for a moment they just stared at each other.
"We're cool, right?"
"Yeah," Jensen said and smiled. "We're cool."
He might have kissed Jensen goodbye but he didn't because he couldn't. That was all over with. He turned away and walked to the door and saw himself out.
* * *
He saw Jensen at the convention in L.A. and then again in London. In London Jensen looked sick and unkempt but he'd just had surgery on his eyes and Jared chalked it up to that. Danneel and Genevieve were with them at both conventions and in London when the girls went downstairs together to one of the evening events Jared called Jensen's room to find out how he was feeling and Jensen said he was jet-lagged and felt like shit and just needed to get some sleep and then he hung up.
They returned to Vancouver in June and Jensen looked like he'd lost weight but much better than he'd looked in London and in makeup and costume he didn't look any different. Jared lived in his house with Genevieve coming up often and hanging around the set and Jensen lived in his apartment with Danneel coming up when she could and by autumn of that year the two of them were engaged. The ratings were good and the series was renewed for a sixth season and at the end of January they celebrated the show's hundredth episode and all they could talk about at the party was how none of them had ever imagined it would last this long. He and Jensen took pictures with their arms around each other and both of them grinning so wide their molars showed.
A month later Jared married Genevieve in a lavish, weekend-long wedding that she had planned almost entirely on her own. The rehearsal dinner alone was bigger than many weddings Jared had attended. Jensen was first groomsman and so he made the toast and he looked much better than he had over the summer and he made everyone laugh, and when he sat down Danneel rubbed his back and kissed him with her hand on his shoulder and her engagement diamond glinting in the candlelight. Jared remembered that it would be Jensen's birthday in two days and he stood up and toasted Jensen and when he sat down Genevieve squeezed his arm and told him it had been so thoughtful of him to remember Jensen's birthday on the night before his own wedding.
The next day Genevieve walked down the aisle in a pearl-studded organza ballgown that Jared's sister had told him cost seventeen thousand dollars and with her bridal cortege of ten bridesmaids plus her maid of honor the event seemed more suited to Westminster Cathedral than a ski resort in Idaho. The bride's attendants wore ruby dresses, not red but ruby, as a little joke, and the groomsmen wore matching cravats. Jared was already at the altar when the wedding party processed up the aisle and Jensen was first groomsman and so first in line and in his dark morning coat and striped ruby cravat he was beautiful. But then he'd always been. They smiled at each other like old friends and Jared ran a finger under his collar in a pantomime of nervousness and Jensen grinned.
After the ceremony they gave each other the sort of shoulder-bumping, back-slapping hug that men exchange on big days and then Jensen was swallowed up by the crowd. Jared felt dazed by the whole thing and the day and evening seemed to pass almost without him there and the entire world swirled around Genevieve who glided through the event like a seraph wreathed in white clouds and orbited by a ruby nebula of lesser angels. There were so many people that he felt as if he were at a con or at one of the network's awful parties and he kept losing Jensen. He saw him once when the entire bridal party posed for pictures and then again when they all sat down to dinner but Genevieve had wanted to keep the tables down to ten people apiece and Jensen was not seated with them.
At three o'clock in the morning the after-after-party was still continuing in one of the hotel's more intimate lounges, a dark and masculine room with a beamed wooden ceiling and a massive fieldstone fireplace and a wall of arched windows that looked out to the snowy mountains. To preserve the nighttime view the only light in the room came from the fire and the bar at the other end of the room. There were guests chatting and laughing on leather couches drawn up before the fire and at last he saw Jensen and he crossed the room grinning and a little unsteady on his feet from being toasted for hours and laid his hand down on Jensen's shoulder but when Jensen looked up it was not him but some other groomsman. Some cousin of Genevieve's, recruited so that the bridesmaids and groomsmen would not be unevenly matched.
"Hey, congratulations, buddy!"
"Yeah," Jared said. "Yeah, thanks."
"Amazing wedding!"
"I know, it's unbelievable," he said. "Say, have you seen Jensen?"
"Who?"
"Jensen, Jensen Ackles, he was first groomsman."
The guy shook his head and then some woman that Jared also didn't know said, "Oh, he went upstairs at least an hour ago. With the girl who's on that show, right?"
"Yeah," Jared said. "That was him."
Then someone took his arm and he looked down and saw Genevieve beside him in her white cloud of a dress and her glittering headpiece and her upswept hair gleaming lustrous in the firelight.
"Everybody," she said, "It's snowing!"
An aah! went up from these few hardy and tireless guests and Genevieve led Jared to the window and the last remnants of the wedding party joined them and they stood there in hushed silence and watched the snow fall. It drifted and sparkled like diamond dust in the hotel's light. His wife stood in front of him and leaned her head against his chest and wrapped his arms around her.
"It's magic," she said. "Everything is just magic."
The mountains rose up against the night sky all shrouded in white and the silence was like the moment after an avalanche when the snow has settled and buried everything in its wake and left nothing behind.
* * *
On a sultry day that June between the fifth and sixth seasons of the show, Jensen and Danneel were married in a white clapboard church in St. Landry Parish where the bride had been christened some thirty years before. Danneel wore strapless white silk embroidered with blue flowers and her red hair was curled into loose waves and woven with blue forget-me-nots. Jensen and the groomsmen, himself included, wore pale blue ties and light beige linen that they sweated through before the ceremony even began.
The reception was held outside at Chretien Plantation and they ate steamed crawfish and gumbo washed down with sweet tea in Mason jars and Pabst Blue Ribbon and Dom Perignon and everyone danced and ate and drank and laughed on the lawn in the steaming bayou heat until they were all sweating and mosquito-bitten and cheerfully exhausted. Round midnight the new bride shook the flowers out of her hair and danced with her shoes off and her skirts up and Jensen went out to her, now with his jacket off and his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up, and dipped her in his arms and kissed her and a round of applause and whistles and hollers went up that shook that whole southern night and it was all just as it should have been and no other way.
Jared felt a boozy arm fall heavy on his shoulders and Chris Kane was there bellowing in his ear.
"Boy, that's the one that got away, hey Padalecki? And I don't mean the redhead!"
Jared laughed and shook him off. By now other couples had joined the bride and groom on the dancefloor and Genevieve led him out and wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him.
"That joke's gotten really old," she said. She cast a glance at the newlyweds and laid her head on Jared's chest and sighed. "God, I just can't stop looking at them. There's nothing more beautiful than two people in love."
* * *
The sixth season of the show was also its last and they celebrated the end with a tremendous party in Vancouver and everyone laughed and cried and told stories and by the end of the week they had all gone their separate ways. In 2012 Jared and Genevieve were divorced after they had been married for just over two years. That same year Jensen and Danneel had a daughter and two years later they had a little boy. By then Jared was a regular on a USA series about lawyers and he found himself back in Vancouver but he had sold his old house after Supernatural ended its run. He rented a smaller house and he lived there with his aging dogs and his twenty-three-year-old co-star, a Disney Channel alum named Amber Lopez. When they were out together people sometimes mistook her for Jessica Alba.
He would drive by the old place sometimes. Sometimes he would park the car and sit there. The new owners had planted trees and purple rhododendron bushes that screened the house from the street. The streetlamp was still there on the side of the house where Jensen's room had been and when he went there at night he could see it casting a pool of light over the house but the new greenery kept him from seeing if it still shone into that room. Probably it didn't.
Once he told himself that he wanted to see if the new owners had changed anything inside the house and he made it halfway up the walk and then turned around and got back in his car and left.
* * *
Jensen gave up television and concentrated on feature films and he did a few that were released with very little fanfare until he landed the role of Mac in a movie based on Cormac McCarthy's Cities of the Plain. It was a small part in a big movie but Jensen made enough of an impression that critics called it his breakout role and talked about him as if he were an overnight success.
Jared went to see the movie by himself. It had been nearly two years since Jared had seen Jensen in person. He was closing in on forty now and his face showed every one of those years but he was no less beautiful for it. Jared sat in the dark and looked at him and he remembered a night from nearly ten years before when Jensen had asked him what he would do when the show was over and he had understood that the day would come when he only saw Jensen this way. When Jensen would not be a part of his life. They had slept together for the first time not more than two weeks after that night and yet the future he'd first imagined then had come all the same. Had maybe come sooner and more assuredly than if they'd never laid a hand on each other.
He dreamt that night of the old house in Vancouver and he walked through the rooms and they were empty every one, the walls whitewashed and the floors bare and a merciless glare of arctic light at every window.
* * *
Jensen won the part of Claude in the adaptation of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and while the story revolved around the fourteen-year-old lead it was Jensen who got the notice. In 2018 he was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actor and everyone said he'd probably get an Oscar nod as well. Jared's show was nominated for Best Dramatic Series and they both attended the awards ceremony that January. Jensen won and Jared's show didn't but when they found each other Jensen congratulated him all the same.
"Think you'll get that Oscar nom?" Jared shouted. The room was very loud.
"I dunno, man, I'm not placing any bets!"
"What?"
"Bets! Not placing any!"
"Oh!"
A woman appeared behind Jensen and said something in his ear and he turned to Jared and shouted that he had to go.
"Okay! Hey, congratulations!"
"Yeah man, you too!"
He was making his way through the crowd when he heard someone calling his name and he turned around and saw Danneel waving at him.
"Don't move!" she hollered. "Stay right over there!"
She shouldered her way towards him, balanced like a circus performer on golden heels and she looked nothing like a mother of two in her late thirties. When she finally reached him she fell into him and he caught her and they embraced and she stood there holding onto him.
"Oh my God, this is crazy!"
"Yeah, it's something else!"
"It's so good to see you, why don't you ever come over?"
"I don't know, you know! Vancouver and all!"
"Oh, I know all about Vancouver!" she shouted and laughed. "I'm so glad Jen's not up there anymore!"
"I'll bet he is too!"
"He said it took him two years just to dry out! Listen...I wanted to catch you to let you know!"
"Know what?"
"I haven't sent out the official invitations yet but I'm throwing a party for Jensen's fortieth birthday...he doesn't know anything about it yet! Last weekend in February at our Texas place! Nothing splashy, you know how he hates that! Just good friends and family...you have to come!"
"Oh yeah, of course!"
"And then two weeks later it's the Oscars and oh my God! Wouldn't that be a birthday present!"
"Unbelievable!"
"Save the date!" she shouted. "Bring Amber!" She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek and then started to surge away. "Invitation to follow," she called over her shoulder. Then she was gone in the crowd and he watched her as she found Jensen and looped her arm through his. He realized that in more than two years of marriage Genevieve had not once asked him why Jensen never came over.
* * *
He didn't know this part of Texas well but there wasn't much chance of getting lost in a place with only one main road. At Alpine he turned off Route 90 onto Highway 118 headed south. The country here was ridged with low mountain ranges yet the land was so wide open that it had the appearance of being endless and flat, a place so scoured by wind that nothing taller than grass could rise up out of the red clay. The sky was shockingly blue, unbroken, infinite. The road itself and the few cars he passed were dwarfed and made meaningless by all that immensity and the one desert fox he saw trotting by the side of the road seemed to belong there far more than he did. Yet it was beautiful country, quiet and vast and empty. He knew the silence of it must have attracted Jensen, and the lack of people and the realness of it compared to the necessary artifice in which he spent so much of his time. He couldn't picture Danneel out here but then he remembered her dancing barefoot at her wedding and imagined that she might fit in with the place after all. The thought made him realize that the anniversary of his own wedding was in two days. He hadn't thought of it in a long time.
Now and then a line of fence would parallel the road, at times just fenceposts with the wire between them long gone. There were still a few real cattle ranches out here but the biggest spreads had been broken up and sold off and Jensen lived on one of these. No one could have found the place if they didn't know it was there. An unmarked turnoff from Highway 118 led to a dirt road and a small sign on a wooden post, something they'd probably only put up so that the FedEx truck would be able to find them. The road did not belong to the county so the sign was white letters hammered into black tin and the name was one Jensen and Danneel had made up themselves. Texiana Road, after their two home states. Underneath that sign was a smaller one. Private, it read.
He wondered if all this land belonged to Jensen and thought that it probably did. It was a cold day and the dry grass on both sides of the road was rimed with frost and stretched to the horizon. He drove for more than three miles before he came to a gated fence and this was the first sign that someone actually lived on Texiana Road, and that they needed to live behind a gate. There was an intercom call box and a security camera but the gates were thrown wide open and tied with bright ribbons for the party. They were snapping sharply in the wind and from here Jared still couldn't see any house and so the scene had a dreamlike and faintly unsettling quality to it. As if the party had come and gone in some other time and the guests had all quit the place long ago and here he was, alone and too late. He rolled to a stop and sat there staring at the gate and for a moment he thought about turning around and driving away.
We're friends, he thought. We're still friends, for God's sake.
Still he sat. After a while he eased off the brake and drove on.
* * *
The house when it finally hove into view seemed startlingly new on that ancient floodplain. A craftsman house of stone and cherrywood and wide windows, two levels, sprawling, beautiful. A stand of young cottonwoods planted in front. The porch pillars festooned in ribbons. He was late and there were cars and trucks and SUVs parked everywhere and he found himself a space and slid into it and turned off the ignition and sat there for half a minute and then got out and took Jensen's present from the back seat and closed the door and walked up the drive.
In the house were people that he hadn't seen in years. Jensen's parents, his brother and sister. People from the show, Jim, Eric, Misha. Raelle, who ran up and kissed him. Wives and husbands and children and dogs. He was handed a beer and hugged and kissed and slapped on the back. They asked him why he didn't bring Amber and he said that she couldn't get away. A lie. He had never asked her. Danneel went up on tiptoes and threw her arms around him and said she was so happy he had come and that Jensen was around there somewhere.
Jared didn't need her to tell him that. Jensen was everywhere in that house. He had felt it the moment he'd stepped through the door, so strong it had made his heart clench. That quality that Jensen had, so particular to him. That had filled his own house in those few months when they had lived together. He had all but forgotten what it was like but now it was here and along with it a torrent of memories. Some of them bad, many of them so good and so, much more painful.
Jensen everywhere. Beneath the obvious trappings and busyness of the family that lived here, Jensen. That quiet of his. That warmth. The lack of it had made a cold place inside him that he had first felt when he'd begun seeing Genevieve and that he had long ago schooled himself to ignore, yet it was the cold that made him park outside his old house and wonder if the streetlamp still cast light into one room. That made him go to Jensen's movies by himself, that made him dream of that house in Vancouver and of Jensen more than he would ever admit to anyone. Always cold. A seed of ice in his heart that he had planted there himself.
Something crashed into his leg and he looked down and saw a little girl goggling up at him.
"You're tall," she said.
"Yeah," Jared said. "Yeah, I know." He crouched down on his heels, as close to her level as his height would allow. She had her father's face in perfect childish miniature. The shape, the dimple in her chin, even the pattern of freckles already sprayed across her nose. Eyes the same jeweled green. "You must be Maren." He had never seen her in person, only in the Christmas cards Danneel sent out. She was wearing a New Orleans Saints t-shirt and a skirt of layered pink tulle and cowboy boots. There were wings of sheer white nylon strapped onto her back.
"I'm an angel," she corrected.
"Oh," he said and looked at the wings. "I can see that."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Jared. I'm a friend of your dad's."
"This is Daddy's party."
"I know, it's very nice."
"We're going to have cake later."
"Wow, that sounds great."
"Justin ate too much and threw up."
"Did he?"
"Daddy took him upstairs to wash his face."
"Mmm, that was probably a good idea."
"There he is," she said and pointed over Jared's shoulder and he turned and looked up and saw Jensen. Coming down the stairs with his son in his arms. At the bottom he put the little boy down and swatted him on the rear and the kid took off, none the worse for wear. Maren said something else but he didn't know what. She went clomping away in her boots with all her dramatic five-year-old urgency and he crouched there and stared at Jensen.
Jensen was talking to his sister and she must have said that Jared was there because she pointed in some direction where he had been and then he stood up and Jensen turned and saw him. They had seen each other just a month before at the Golden Globes but that was work and this was Jensen's home where Jared had never been. Neither of them moved. Then Jensen started walking towards him with a broad smile on his face and the two of them embraced in the middle of the room and for a moment it was more real than anything that had passed between them in years.
Jensen pulled back and looked up at him, his hands on Jared's arms. "I didn't think you were gonna come, you're really late."
"Yeah, I kinda got lost."
"Lost on what?" he laughed. "The one road down here?"
"I guess I'm just not as Texas as you anymore. And this...this is some hardcore Texas."
"Yeah, no shit. We have actual tumbleweeds rolling by the place. It's like Gunsmoke."
"It's amazing, though. It's just..."
"Yeah, yeah it is. Hey, did you bring Amber?"
"No, I didn't, she couldn't get away."
"Oh," Jensen said. "Oh well, okay." He clapped Jared on the arm. "We should talk later, really catch up."
"Yeah, we should."
"I've missed you," he said. They were quiet for a few seconds.
Then Jared said, "Me too. I've really missed you."
* * *
Jensen was the host and the birthday boy and the Golden Globe winner and the likely Oscar nominee and he was never alone at any moment. There was a brick cookhouse built off the kitchen and later in the afternoon Jensen disappeared into it to barbecue. Eric said that only a Texan would do all the cooking at his own party and everyone laughed because Jensen was damn good at it and no one would have had it any other way. They ate at picnic tables outside in a heated tent, ribs and burgers and chicken and potato salad and coleslaw and biscuits and sweet tea and beer. His eyes found their way to Jensen the whole time. He was as beautiful as ever. He looked so happy.
At sunset the wind picked up and even with the heaters the tent was cold and they moved back into the house where a fire was now blazing in the great room. The westering sun hit the big windows of that room and filled it with copper light and the country outside was so empty that the house might have been the last outpost at the end of the world and the loneliness without only made the fellowship within that much greater.
There was a galvanized bucket in the dining room that had been full of beer and ice but it was empty and Jared took it into the kitchen to dump out the icewater and refill it and he found Danneel in there by herself. She told him there was more ice and beer in the cookhouse and he carried the bucket out there and emptied it in the deep utility sink.
"You should fill that up in the kitchen so you don't have to carry it so far," she said from the doorway. "Let me help you."
They carried ice and sixpacks into the kitchen and put the bucket on the floor and Jared tore open the icebags and started emptying them while Danneel took the beer out of the cartons. He felt suddenly awkward at being alone with her and to break the silence he said, "I can't believe you didn't have this thing catered."
She shrugged and smiled. "I didn't feel like having a bunch of strangers running around the house all day asking where stuff was. Besides this is more family-like, isn't it? Are you having fun?"
"Oh yeah, great time. I never knew Jensen was such a cook."
"He does a mean barbecue but that's about it. I'm sure he wasn't whipping up any gourmet specials when you two lived together."
"Nooo, it was all Chinese and pizza. He didn't even..." He paused for a moment before he could go on. "He didn't even make coffee in the morning."
"How're those dogs of yours?"
"They're good, they're good...getting old."
"Aren't we all," she said and then said, "And how's Genevieve? You ever talk to her?"
"No. Not really. Actually not at all."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that didn't work out for you two. It was such a beautiful wedding."
Jared laughed. He shoved beer bottles down into the ice. "I think the wedding was the high point of the whole marriage. I guess that's what you get when you rush into things."
"Well, you never know about something like that. You could marry someone you've known for two weeks and be happy with them for the rest of your life and then you could know each other for years and still not make a go of it. Like you and Sandy. Hell, like me and Jensen, almost."
"What?" Jared laughed, "You guys are the perfect couple."
"It was pretty over there for a while, though," she said and he stopped and looked up at her.
"Really?"
"Oh yeah, that Christmas, it was...God almost ten years ago. 2008. We had the worst fight. It was over. We were over. I thought I'd never speak to him again. I didn't even think I wanted to."
"Christmas. 2008. You broke up with each other?"
"He broke up with me. I'd been feeling like something was wrong for months but that still hit me outta the blue."
"Did he...did he say why?"
"He said he still loved me but he was out of love with me. I was sure there was someone else but he said there wasn't. He just said it wasn't gonna work and it wasn't fair to me to stay together. Oh, I had a fit. I'm surprised I didn't put him in the hospital."
Jared thought of that Christmas. The first one Genevieve had spent at his parents' house. Then they'd gone skiing in Sun Valley for New Year's. A week later he'd stood in his kitchen in Vancouver and told Jensen that she'd be moving in.
He swallowed and said, "How did you patch things up?"
She smiled. She crossed her elbow over one knee and leaned in to him. "I feel kinda bad about saying this, since it didn't work out with you and Genevieve, but Jay...it was because of you and Gen that we patched things up."
Jared stared at her. A part of him wanted to laugh. He always seemed to be having important conversations in some kitchen. Life-changing conversations.
"Jensen called me his first day back in Vancouver and we talked for at least an hour and he said he was sorry and that he'd just gotten scared and he loved me. He said if you could make a commitment to Genevieve after just a few months, then he didn't know what the hell he was waiting for. I think it was just the nudge he needed."
"Just the nudge."
"Mm-hm." She reached out and rubbed his arm. Her hands were freezing from the ice. "It's funny. We might never have gotten back together if not for you."
"Oh," he said. He looked away for a second and then back at her and he nodded and smiled. "I'm glad. You belong together."
She squeezed his arm. "Let's get this beer in there before the natives get restless," she said and she nestled the last few bottles in the ice and Jared picked up the bucket and carried it out.
* * *
He took a beer and uncapped it and poured a long swallow down his dry throat. Jensen was not in the great room. Maren was on the floor stringing beads with one of her cousins and Justin was asleep on his grandmother's lap so he didn't think Jensen was upstairs. He thought about looking for him but didn't want to. The room was too hot and too full of other people who shared Jensen's life and he wanted to be outside. In that cold wind and empty space.
He let himself out the front door and onto the porch. The house was built on the only high ground on the land and the wind was blowing in out of the west and it was bitingly cold. The sky was all red now. The porch wrapped around the house and he put his back to the west and walked towards the darkening east. When he turned the corner he saw Jensen at the far end of the porch, looking out at the dark purple shadow of the mountains. He almost retreated and then Jensen turned his head and saw him.
"Hey," he called.
"Hey."
"Come down and get outta that wind."
He walked down the length of the porch. Sheltered from the wind it was so quiet on this side of the house. His own footsteps were jarringly loud.
"I like this time of day," Jensen said. "The way the mountains turn that color."
"What mountains are those?"
"Those are the Del Nortes over there." He pointed to the right with his beer bottle. "And those to the south are the Santiagos."
"It's a hell of pretty spot."
"Yeah. Cities filmed about an hour from here. It was great, I could go to work and be home for dinner every night. Sawtelle was way up in Minnesota. I felt like I was back in friggin Canada."
"Sawtelle was... everyone's right what they say, you're incredible. I mean, they're comparing you to Paul Newman and you deserve it."
Jensen grinned and gestured at his face. "That's just because of this."
"No it isn't," Jared said and Jensen just laughed.
They seemed out of conversation. They stood there and drank and watched the sky grow dark. Two nighthawks wheeled overhead and called out into the dusk.
"Danneel sure knows how to throw a party."
"She does. She's amazing. I've wondered why the hell she puts up with me sometimes."
A minute passed. Two. Then Jared said, "She told me you two broke up. That Christmas." He hadn't meant to say it but it came out anyway.
Jensen looked at him. Then he looked away.
"I wish she hadn't told you that."
"Why?"
"Cause I didn't want you to know."
"Is that really what happened? Did you really break up with her?"
Jensen took a drink and held it in his mouth and swallowed it hard. "Yes."
"Jesus, Jen. Why didn't you tell me?"
Jensen put his head down and smiled. He began to peel the label off his beer. The wind whistled around the house and under the craftsman eaves. It rattled through the dry and wintry grass.
"Jen?"
"When would I have told you that, Jared?" he finally said. Jared had to lean in to hear him. "After you said that bein with me would ruin your life?"
Jared didn't say anything. He stood there frozen and Jensen went on. "Or maybe right after you said that all we had was two months of fuckin around. Is that when I should've told you that I'd left her for you?" Jensen looked up at him.
He wanted to say something but his throat caught and he looked down and swallowed and then he shook his head and looked up.
"I was scared," he said. "I was scared, and I'd just had this crazy conversation with my mother and I was freaked out..."
"I was scared too. I was fuckin terrified. But more than that I was in love with you. Enough to break the heart of someone who loved me. While you were off makin weddin plans with some girl you just met just so you could get the hell away from me."
"It wasn't like that."
"Then how was it?"
Jared shook his head. He remembered standing in that kitchen and those words spilling out of his mouth. He'd played them over in his head how many times since then. He'd never imagined Jensen had been doing the same. No, he hadn't let himself imagine it. The way he hadn't let himself think about Jensen punching him on the set or the things he'd said and done after the wrap party or how bad Jensen had looked all that summer or about so many things he knew but didn't want to know.
"I thought I was doing the right thing. For both of us."
"Naw, Jared. You saw an escape route and you went for it. I couldn't've stopped you, didn't even bother tryin." He laughed. "If I told you I'd left Danneel, you'd probably've run screamin outta the house. Ah well," he said. "It's all water under the bridge by now, isn't it?"
Jared's eyes were burning and he looked out to the mountains without seeing them and a long time passed in silence.
"I didn't mean it," Jared finally said. "None of that stuff about how we were just fooling around or having a good time or whatever. I was in love with you. I said those things because I was in love with you and it scared the shit out of me. I think I knew...no, I knew, I knew that you were ready to risk it all for me and that scared the shit out of me too. I never loved anyone the way I loved you but I was too fucking scared to be with you. I wish I'd been a better man Jensen, because I loved you and I still love you and I am so goddamn sorry I hurt you. You have every right in the world to hate my guts and I deserve it but I hope...I just hope you can forgive me someday."
He felt as if he had no right to stay any longer so he turned to go and then Jensen said, "Jay," and he stopped and looked back.
"I don't hate you," Jensen said. "Thought I did for a long time, but I don't." He sighed. "You know what's hell about all this? That you weren't wrong. There's no way either of us would be where we are if that'd gotten out. And I mean really gotten out, not just some joke on the internet. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said if I said I wouldn't have cared what that would've done to my work. I didn't go into this business planning to wind up some Brokeback Mountain punchline on Leno, neither did you. You saw that better than I did. Maybe you could've been a little..." He smiled. "A little less of an SOB about it. But you were thinking, back then, and I wasn't. I was just goddamn stupid in love."
He paused and looked out at the desert. The mountains were almost of a piece with the dark sky. The wind was still up and it whispered unceasing over the plain.
"And now look at my life. Look at my work, my family. No one gets this much without paying for it." He turned away from the desert. "You broke my heart, Jay. Some part of it's always gonna be broken. But that was how I paid for all this. Hell, most people get their heart broken and don't get shit. So I forgive you, Jay. I forgave you a long time ago. I just wanted you to know that."
"Okay," Jared said. "Okay."
"What the hell's the matter with you, 'okay?' Get over here," he said and then they had their arms around each other. It was the first time they had touched without being in the middle of a crowd in nearly ten years and Jared buried his face against Jensen's neck and almost wept out loud. The sky darkened to night and the first stars began to shine and they stood there and held on to each other.
There were clomping footsteps on the porch and they stepped apart and Jensen turned around and wiped his face and laughed.
"Whoa, here's my angel!" He reached down and scooped his daughter up in his arms.
"Are you crying?"
"No, it's just real windy out here. Makes my eyes water. And what're you doin out here with no coat on?"
"Mommy said to come inside. She said we're gonna have cake and unwrap your presents."
"Oh well, cake and presents, I can't miss that."
She was wearing some golden circlet now and she took it off and put it on her father's head.
"You should wear the crown. It's your birthday."
"What, don't I get any wings?"
She laughed. "Only girls are angels, Daddy," she said
"Ohh, that's right. I forgot. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she said and she wrapped her arms around his neck and he turned around with the little girl balanced on his hip and told Jared to come inside and Jared nodded and said he would be there in a minute.
When he crossed to the backdoor he found the circlet on the floor at the threshold. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands and almost put it in his pocket. He laid it on the kitchen counter instead and left it there.
* * *
It was not late but it was snowing now in dry windblown flurries and the guests began to leave. For a while there was a commotion of engines and headlights out in front of the house and then it was quiet. The party was reduced to family and a few friends. Maren was asleep with her head on her father's knee. When Danneel picked up Justin to take him to bed, Jared stood up and said he was leaving too, that he wanted to drive back to San Antonio that night.
"Oh, you should stay. That's a five-hour drive!"
"I can do it in four."
She turned to Jensen. "Jen, tell him to stay."
Jensen said, "Jared, you really should. We've got plenty of room. And plenty of leftovers."
"No really, I should go before it gets any later." He leaned down and kissed Danneel. "It was an incredible party. Thanks so much for inviting me."
She hoisted Justin on her shoulder. "You're welcome, though I don't know why you can't stay. Just promise me you won't be such a stranger."
"I won't. I promise."
"All right. Well, goodnight...and drive safe," she said and she turned and went up the stairs.
Jensen eased Maren off his knee and walked Jared to the door.
"You sure you don't want to stay?"
"Yeah. I'm sure."
"All right. Thanks for the guitar, it's a beauty, it's...way outta my league."
"You'll just have to get better then."
"At least I was always better than you."
"I know you were," he said. "You still are."
Jensen rubbed his arm and opened the door. They went out onto the front porch and Jensen closed the door behind them.
"I guess I'll see you at the Oscars," Jared said. "I mean...I'll see you on television at the Oscars."
"I'll try not to mouth the f-word when I don't win."
"I don't think you have to worry about that."
They were quiet for a moment. It was very cold.
"I'm really glad you came."
"I am too."
They embraced and Jared said, "Happy birthday, Jen," against Jensen's neck.
Jensen nodded. "Thanks, Jay. Get home safe."
Jensen didn't walk him to his car. When he was down the porch steps and halfway across the yard, Jensen called, "Danneel's right. Don't be such a stranger."
He turned. "I'll try not to." Jensen waved and he waved back. When Jared made it to his car he turned to wave again but Jensen had gone back inside. The house was all lit up and it was warm and beautiful in that dark desert and the endless black sky above it and Jensen within it. He stood in the cold and the dark and stared at it and the snow stung his face.
He got in the car and keyed the ignition. The engine was blasphemously loud. He turned the car around and when he reached the end of the driveway he stopped and looked back at the house. Then he sat back in his seat and watched it in the rearview mirror. He wished for Jensen to come back out on the porch and it seemed that if he only stayed there long enough that would happen but it didn't. He stepped on the gas and drove out onto the dirt road. For miles the house glowed behind him like the nimbus of a candle and then the desert night swallowed it up and it was gone.
By the time he reached the security gate he was crying. The bright ribbons were a blur of colors in his headlights and then he was past them. When he came to the paved road he stopped the car and stared at the sign. Texiana Road. Private. The snow fell heavier and he thought of avalanches both real and imagined and of things left behind that could not be recovered and he felt the coldness inside him again and knew it would always be there. He sat for a long time at the crossroads of Texiana and some unnamed Brewster County route and the snow swirled down and the night was so dark. After a while he wiped his face and put the car in gear and went on until he reached Highway 118 where he swung north towards Alpine and San Antonio and Vancouver and the rest of his life.
The End
Jensen in glasses icon courtesy of
lovelylora. Highway 118 icon courtesy of the Texas Department of Transportation.