Reconciling Hollywood
by Qthelights
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 32,000
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: None of this happened, no disrespect intended
A/N: Dedicated to kadiel_krieger because it simply would not have gotten done without her constant
support and alpha/beta work at the times when I thought it would never amount to anything. Many thanks
to blue_fjords for her read through, support and ameri-pick! and cupiscent for direction advice.
Summary: Misha has always prided himself on his mastery of the first impression - both giving and
receiving. After all, people are easy enough to read if examined through the appropriate lens. For the last
two years he's stuck to his guns and his assumption that Jensen is just a good guy who made a dick
mistake back when he thought Misha was disposable. Pushed him up against a trailer door and took
because he could. But now, with Jared overseas with his new bride, Jensen around more than ever, and
a decision weighing heavy on his conscience, Misha realizes that truly knowing Jensen might be nearly
as impossible as knowing himself.
Prologue
July 2008
He's only been on set for a couple of weeks. Given the screen time this entails for Castiel, he's really only
been on set a few days. Officially. Unofficially, he's found himself pulled in on quite a few of his
supposed days off. He could head home to LA, but there's no point really when he'll just have to turn
around and get back on a plane in a week. Plus, they've put him up in a pretty nice hotel, so it's not
exactly a chore. And seeing as he's in the city, well - a costume check here, makeup tests there, signing
this, picking up that - he's been on the set 4 days out of 7 nearly every week since he began.
It's given him a fair amount of time to acclimatise, to creep silently around and get a feel for the set and
the crew. He's only going to be around for a few episodes, but if anything, that makes him want to
understand more rather than less. It's an opportunity to learn even more than it's one to pad the resume.
He has nothing to lose and unlike some other sets, this one is a blast. The creative vibe appeals to him
in ways that working on 24 or ER never even came close to. This isn't Hollywood; this is Vancouver, and
amazingly, everyone seems to want to be here - from the stars down to the set-dressers. It's refreshingly

non-jaded and the enthusiasm everyone brings to the simple act of creation nourishes his soul.
It's why he became an actor, after all. To create.
Jared is pretty fucking funny. He hasn't had any scenes with him yet, but strangely, that seems to have
no effect on how much time he's spent with him. Jared had loped up to him the first day he'd arrived and
pulled him into a ridiculous hug like they were long lost friends, stage cried "It's my Angel!" and burst into
uproarious laughter. Misha had been grinning in seconds and hamming it up with him in minutes. Jared
was his kind of person - fucking insane and unafraid to behave like a kid because age decreed it
inappropriate.
Jensen had been quieter, more reserved. He held back and watched Jared maul him with a bemused
smile. 'Don't mind Jared. He's just five.'
When Misha replied gravely that he himself was rarely much past six, Jensen had laughed, soft and
throatily, and Misha could instantly tell that while Jared was the kind of guy he loved to hang around with,
Jensen was the kind he liked to fuck.
Not that he thought that was about to happen. Two and a half weeks in and Misha's pretty sure Jensen
doesn't swing that way. Or at least, he doesn't swing Misha's way. The protective glances thrown Jared's
way make him wonder. Despite the early success at making Jensen laugh, he's not managed much of an
impression since.
Jensen's nice enough, absolutely. Always checking he's good, pointing him in the direction of the right
people and trailers; being a perfect Texan gentleman, Misha assumes.
But that's it, nothing more. There's no banter or teasing the way he secretly observes Jensen and Jared
sharing in their down time between takes. No arm slung over his shoulder or scripts run through together.
No going out of the way to talk when there's no reason to. Just cordial good behaviour when it can't be
avoided.
Secretly, he's starting to think that maybe Jensen's a bit of a jerk.
He's been on other sets before, many of them actually, where the show was well established and the
main actors insular and dismissive of guest cast. Where the leads have snubbed him and not bothered to
learn his name, nationality or face. And while he doesn't exactly get that impression of Jensen, can't fault
him on his manners, he also knows he hasn't been truly accepted. He doubts an offer is coming.
Which is a pity, he thinks, as he prepares for episode two of the season, because on screen they have
some pretty fucking epic chemistry.

It's palpable, is what it is. Dean's anger at the angel is a slow burn of bass. Misha feels it in his bones
when Jensen drops his voice, tries to match the gravel that flew out of Misha's mouth unbidden when
Castiel started to speak. The anger Dean has, the resentment and pain is amazing, and the flash of fire
in Jensen's eyes when they're filming is just this side shy of too intense for an audience.
And fuck but does Misha love it. It's a tease, a flirt, sex in vowels and growls. And he's not above playing
to it, not until a director or producer tells him to cut it out and tone it down. They haven't and so he
continues. Goads Jensen with his resonance and steps just that inch too close, another until he feels
Jensen's breath, Dean's words, puff against his lips.
He's a professional and he's working. But Misha knows himself well enough to admit that if he didn't have
to work on remembering lines and hitting marks, he'd not have enough distraction to keep himself from
getting hard. As it is, it's a struggle.
When Cas pushes Dean just that step too far, when Jensen's eyes glitter sharp and dangerous, Misha
wants nothing more than to keep on pushing. See what it would take to get Dean to fall away and Jensen
to push back.
Preferably up against a wall.
But then the director yells "Cut!" and Dean is gone, Jensen blinking and turning away. Resetting,
calculating, picking up a script. The tension is gone. At the end of the day the most Misha gets is a 'See
you tomorrow, Misha.' He watches Jensen extricate himself as quickly as he can, sees the smile that
lights up when Jared comes into view.
It's probably a little unfair that he thinks Jensen's a dick. But to have that chemistry on screen and have
none of it translate off, even in friendship? An offer of a beer or an invitation to lounge in a comfortable
trailer and watch the game? The contrast is so sharp it smarts. So he does what he always does, shrugs
and places Jensen into the pile of people he doesn't need to worry about or get to know and enjoys
Jared's friendlier confrontations. Ignores the way Jensen shuts up the second Jared's insanity falls on
Misha. It's not his problem and he'll be done soon anyway. Live and let be miserable.
Which is why, two days later after filming the scene at Bobby's for the end of episode two, when Misha
has said goodbye to the crew, nodded at Jensen and headed out back to grab his things from the guest
trailer, he's rather surprised to find Jensen slide up beside him, grab his wrist and yank him in the
direction of his own trailer.
He doesn't even have a chance to process, not that he would - he's much more a 'go with the flow,

analyse the shit out of it later' kind of guy - but some advance notice might have been nice, he thinks, as
Jensen pulls him up the steps and into his trailer without a word. Slams him up against the door in the
dark.
"Jensen, what-" he starts, but Jensen stops him by crushing his mouth to Misha's. It's quite effective as it
turns out.
It comes out of nowhere, but Misha's not a fucking idiot. He opens his mouth and lets him in immediately,
finds Jensen's hips and pulls him in hard.
Jensen's breathing is harsh and quick, his tongue slick and his hands hot where they slide under the
trench-coat and yank the too large shirt out of Misha's pants. It's frantic and rushed and hot as all hell,
even if Misha can barely see Jensen in the moonlight filtering in through the trailer's tiny windows.
Jensen pulls back, nipping at Misha's mouth in a way so unexpectedly intimate and exposed that Misha
doesn't even know what to do with it. So he chooses instead to slide his hands up under Jensen's t-shirt,
Dean's t-shirt, press his palms to Jensen's flesh and follow ribs back to shoulder blades, spine and dip
and ass and fuck, yes he thinks as he digs his fingertips into Jensen's ass, pulls him in and grinds his
hardening cock into Jensen's pelvis.
He's slammed back pretty roughly into the trailer door for his trouble, Jensen's fingers hot and insistent
under his own shirt, fingertips clenching into the soft skin of his sides. Jensen groans and Misha can feel
the answering hardness pressing achingly against his leg.
There's a sudden influx of colder air as Jensen pulls back from him, then the pressure of hands on his
crotch, rubbing the ache of him and Misha's keening low and deep in his throat. His hips thrust into
Jensen's hand of their own accord, not that Misha's about to stop them, not when Jensen's fingers are on
his belt, Castiel's belt, sliding and clinking and zipping and then just there, burning in their grip around him
through the soft cotton of his underwear. Misha let's his head fall back with a thud against the flimsy faux-
wood of the door as Jensen begins to pull and pet and knead him with his hand. Jensen's mouth finds its
way to his exposed throat and teeth are biting down on the tendons of his neck, mouthing and tonguing
and nipping just hard enough to hurt but not to leave marks.
The frustration and anger and tension of the last few days, the suddenness of the onslaught and the fact
that hey, Jensen is fucking insanely fuckable, combine and undo, and his hips are jerking in tiny little
hiccups and Jensen only moves faster, harder, rougher. Goads him and works him until it's too much and
Misha is coming hard and painfully fast inside his underwear.

Jensen's weight as he presses against him keeps him up, allows him a moment to breathe and regain
equilibrium.
It's not until Jensen moves abortively against his thigh that he remembers it's only polite to return a
favour. He kisses Jensen's mouth, wishes he could see if his lips are swollen, if they're dark and pink and
wet, before he shimmies out from under him. He turns Jensen quickly, presses him back against the wall
and drops to his knees on the dirty floor.
Misha doesn't waste any time, popping the button of Jensen's jeans and lowering the zip as fast as he
can carefully manage. Jensen's breath gasps quick on the intake as Misha pulls down the band of his
briefs and levers Jensen's cock out. It's hot and broad against his palm and again, he wishes he had a
better visual than the silver-lit outline he gets. He can feel though, and smell and taste, and all of those
things tell him he wants Jensen against his tongue. Wants to suck and coax and blow until Jensen's
spilling down his throat.
And so he does.
Jensen writhes above him as Misha tastes and licks, hollows his cheeks and pulls him in against the flat
of his tongue. Misha feels his lips stretch around the width, gauges girth with his mouth and length with
the back of his throat. Soft moans are spilling from Jensen's mouth and spurring him on, teasing and
pulling until the moans increase in speed and intensity, punctuated with gasps and flutters of muscle
under Misha's palm where it's pressed flat to Jensen's stomach in anchor.
Too quickly, it's over, Jensen's hands flying to Misha's head, tangling in his hair and holding him still as he
thrusts in again and again. Jensen's biting back a cry and spurting hot and salty against the back of
Misha's tongue, trickling down his throat.
They stay there in the dark breathing and thrumming and growing cool in the chill of the air-conditioning.
Eventually Misha rises, kisses the taste of Jensen into Jensen's mouth for a long minute, sedate and
slow.
The moment pulls tight and threatens to break and Misha senses it's time for an exit. He does himself up
and Jensen slides away into the trailer. He pauses, hand on the door and tries to make Jensen out in the
dark but he can't. When he isn't stopped he slips out into the night, closing the door behind him with a
soft click. He stands in the dark a moment longer, a little stunned and a lot spent. His head is too
muddled to attempt coherent thought, but deep down he suspects there's churning and doubt going
through it. How could there not be?

When the light inside flickers on warm and bright, spilling out into the dark Vancouver night, Misha shakes
himself and hurries to his trailer to collect his shit before calling a cab.
It's not until much later, when he's lying boneless and shower-warm in his hotel bed, that he realises
Jensen never said a word.
Jensen doesn't meet his eye the next day and Misha is disappointed, but he gets it. He's there, he's fresh
meat and Jensen is a guy so pretty that it makes sense he's used to taking what he wants when he wants
it. It just happened to be Misha for a few insanely hot minutes.
It makes him angry to be used so fucking easily, even if he was totally on board at the time. He decides
Jensen really is a dick; young Hollywood royalty with pockets of cash and eyes too big for their brains.
They never talk about it, and it never happens again, which confirms to Misha that he was just new and
convenient - and that's all it was.
Time passes, episodes go on, more get added and he almost forgets. Jensen isn't a bad guy. It turns out
he just needs time to get comfortable with an interloper in the midst. They become friends. Good friends.
And Misha puts Jensen's behaviour, the cold freeze and snap thaw, down to a dick move by an okay
guy. It's cool, if slightly disappointing. But people often are.
He moves on.
* * *
One
May 2010
Halfway through college, when he'd needed a break and an adventure, he had spent twelve months in
Nepal and Tibet. It was enlightening in more ways than one, and since then, he has made a point to
spend at least two weeks of each year at a silent retreat. It's not the same as doing it halfway up a
Himalayan mountain, but it's restorative nonetheless. Usually it's a Buddhist one, but really, it doesn't
matter. He's there to be quiet. Very quiet. To relax and let his mind turn off or on as he chooses, but
above all, to keep his mouth firmly shut. It just so happens that the Buddhist ones always seem to be the
quietest.
Filming wrapped three and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago he was back in LA and two weeks ago he
flew to Kentucky. He'd spent the visit in glorious silence; talking to no one, having no one talk to him. No
phones, no internet, no twitter. Just him. Well, him and a half dozen monks. But, generally speaking,
monks weren't big on the socialising.

Normally, it would have done him the world of good. He's come to rely on those two weeks getting him
through the other fifty each year. Being allowed to slough off his masks, personae and commitments and
the restless need to be doing and just be. Let his mind wander and sort through its mess of files, wipe
away the dust and clutter.
He would come back serene, beatific smile on his face and often with an abundance of energy and the
uncrushable need to talk the ear off of the first person who accidentally wandered into his field of vision;
pin them down and subject them to his newly rediscovered theories of life the universe and everything.
Except this time.
Now, as he sits in his seat waiting for the plane to refuel - or whatever it is that's making a hundred or so
people wait for takeoff for going on 45 minutes after boarding - he doesn't feel serene at all.
In place of the low-level thrum of contentment at his lot in life that would normally be suffusing his blood
after a retreat he just feels itchy.
Partly, it's the cheap nylon fabric of the airplane seat that's scratching along his arms every time he
moves. Partly, it's the 5 year old in the seat next to him getting sticky red sugar over everything while his
indifferent mother nurses a less-sticky baby from the aisle seat and the fact that they've been sitting on
the tarmac for the last 45 while jets come and go from the bays next to them.
But he can't even blame the waiting on the feeling of annoyance prickling under his skin. Not honestly,
because he's been feeling it since before he unpacked his bags in the spartan stone-floored room that
he's called home for the previous two weeks. Hell. Even before that, but he'd thought that was just the
yearly need for concentrated solitude.
Apparently not.
Something doesn't feel right. It's been knocking him off kilter since the wrap party, since filming ended
and Eric waved and said he'd be in touch. Since Jared clapped him on the shoulder and told him not to
get in too much trouble while he was off travelling the world with his new bride, asked him to keep Jensen
fed and watered for him. Since Jensen rolled his eyes and said he'd catch up with him over the break.
Misha likes to think he's fairly self-aware. Granted, often he deliberately doesn't analyse things that rock
and roll around in his head, but he's still fairly conscious of not thinking about them.
But what's got him slipping from highs to lows, eating at his nerves and slumping his shoulders, he
honestly has no idea. He feels unsettled and out of sorts, and everything he looks at is coming through
that filter. It's depressing and emo and he doesn't like that he can't shake it. Generally speaking he likes

his artistic bouts of depression to be deliberate forays into the accessing of dark emotions. Days of woe
and misery and snappish behaviour that only his mother would recognise from teenage years gone by put
on like a familiar coat when a little release is required. A little petulance wallowed in for the sake of
appreciating the rest. This though, is not deliberate.
And frankly, it's beginning to piss him off.
He'd wandered the gardens of the monastery, sat in quiet cavernous rooms, avoided eye contact and
eaten food that, well, food was a generous way to describe it. He'd scribbled in journals and burned the
pages in acts of catharsis. He befriended the monastery's marmalade cat. Refused to talk to it when it
rubbed up against his shins and pressed a fingertip to its nose when it mewled in a broken sort of way,
because rules were rules after all, but he'd snuck it bits of cheese from the dinner table in apology. He
mused on the nature of world domination and excess and happiness and all kinds of things Nietzsche
would have had problems with.
It should have let his mind unwind, soothed his jangled nerves and uncertain heart. Rejuvenated his joie
de vivre. But it didn't. And that unnerves him more than anything.
His mood isn't being helped any by the gnawing hunger in his stomach, mind. He'd gone with a no frills
airline to save a little money; by habit more than anything else given that he finally had enough money in
the bank to relax a little bit. It meant no food was going to be forthcoming, even if they wouldn't serve
anything until they were in the damned air. Sure, he could spend an exorbitant amount of money on a
minuscule bag of peanuts, but really, even his hungry stomach won't allow him to just throw money away,
although he can afford it.
Misha eyes the plump child next to him as it waves the lollipop around in a dangerous curve of sugary
stain.
He wonders what it says about him that he'd sooner consider stealing candy from a baby than pay ten
dollars for peanuts.
Probably nothing good.
Biting back a sigh, he turns his gaze out the window and tries to ignore the chatter of increasingly irate
passengers around him as he watches the sun shimmer off the tarmac in waves of heat. After two weeks
of nothing but his own head, the noises seem sharper and more insidious, ricocheting around his cranium
and settling an ache down in the base of his skull. It's all a little too much.
Idly getting his phone out, he taps around the internet for a few, thinks about twitter and in a rare fit of

sanity thinks better of twittering his snark out into the world. Which should be a clue as to just how not
right he's feeling.
When he gets back to LAX he was planning to just catch a cab, or if there's a wait, the bus. He used to
have half the bus routes in LA committed to memory from rambling excursions, auditions and general life.
It alarms him that he can't even bring to mind the number of the route he'd get from the airport back to
home. When did he lose that?
Fuck it. It's too much and too hard and though it pains him to do it, he finds himself bringing up Jensen's
number, sending a text.
misha collins: up wall. candy from bb. taxi = can't be fucked. send driver prty pls? wn645 mci to lax
5:23.
Jensen's driver, and Misha can't even believe that he has something as celebri-bratty as a 'driver,' is
actually a pretty good one. Punctual, discrete, quiet. It's the quiet that Misha is focusing on right now.
God help him but he doesn't think he can handle having to make small talk with a chatty cab driver. Not
after the almost four hours he's going to have to be in the air in a small enclosed cabin of sheer noise.
And that's assuming they actually take off sometime in the next century.
His phone vibrates in his hand and the screen lights up with the blue bubble of Jensen's answering text.
jensen ackles: no worries. consider it organised. safe flying and don't eat any babies.
Misha follows through on the sigh this time, relieved that he has one less thing to think about. Plugging
his earphones into his iphone he selects music at random and leans back into the seat, wills the time to
snap and bend and deliver him to Los Angeles before he can blink.
Somehow, as a cherry-flavoured candy is brought down on his knuckles followed by a delighted high-
pitch laugh and a frazzled "David!", he doesn't think it will.
* * *
Exiting the main terminal Misha heads straight for the outside world. All he has is a duffel with his now
dirty clothes so there was no need to check any luggage, no need to jostle at the carousel or scrutinize
each bag to make sure it was really his. His nerves feel even more frayed, tension jangling down his
spine with each step closer to freedom. 'David' had not behaved himself on the flight. And while normally
he might try and engage the little human in riddles and puzzles, teach him the importance of a liberal
education or celery or some such nonsense, the red sticky film covering his jeans and sleeve had made
him disinclined to play nice.

Instead he'd glared at the mother, who it turned out was fairly immune to death glares from random surly
strangers given she was dealing with a bratty kid and baby and traveling on her own. She'd just
shrugged, what am I going to do?, and turned back to trying to get the baby, currently whimpering on the
verge of bawling, to feed. Consequently, the last 3 and half hours Misha would really really like to forget.
Or possibly drown in a haze of alcohol.
The light of Los Angeles is bright, even in the wavering afternoon sun, a solid wall of white encroaches
into the gloom inside. Misha shields his eyes with a cupped palm, gaze searching for the black town car
and suited driver.
He can't see it, or him, and he can already feel his blood pressure nudging up a notch when he glances
right once more and sees Jensen instead, leaning casually against his dark blue SUV in the pick-up/drop-
off lane.
Not what he was expecting.
What the hell? The idea was for someone to pick him up so that he didn't have to interact. He can
already feel his inner brat aching to lash out and wound, despite the fact that all that has happened is that
someone has done him a favour. It wasn't one he asked for.
Misha carefully schools his face into poker blank, smiles tightly as he approaches. Jensen's smile is wide
and lazy in comparison.
"Hey," Misha says when he's close enough for Jensen to hear. "What happened to your guy?"
Jensen shrugs lightly, still smiling. He pushes off the car and offers out a hand to take the bag slung
across Misha's shoulder. "Had another engagement, thought I'd save him the trouble of calling around.
How was your trip?"
"Um, yeah good," Misha says, momentarily thrown by the change in plans. He lets Jensen take his bag,
watches him throw it in the back seat and open the drivers side door. With a shake to bring himself back
to reality - because really, Jensen picking him up is not something that should fucking throw him - he
steps forward, opens the car door and hitches himself up into the seat.
Jensen pulls out into the stream of cabs and traffic inching towards the exit, fumbles in the glove
compartment and pulls out a pair of sunglasses to slip on. Misha wishes he had his with him.
"You really didn't have to pick me up. I would have gotten a cab."
Jensen snorts, glances at him but Misha can't tell what his expression is beneath the mirror of the lenses.
"And have your pretty ass all pissy at me for the whole summer?"

Misha lets his lip curl in a wry smile. "So really, it was just because you're a selfish prick who doesn't
have Jared as entertainment for the summer?"
This time Jensen grins. "Pretty much."
"Lucky me," Misha retorts, does a passable job at keeping the sarcasm out of his tone. He turns his gaze
out the window, watches the industrial wasteland blur past the window. Welcome to LA.
He waits for Jensen to say something. Defend considering Misha a bff-sidekick-replacement while Jared
tours the Andes or Vesuvius or whatever the fuck he was doing. Question him further about the trip.
Start yammering on about the latest call from Jared or, fuck, talk about how he separates his lights from
his darks for all Misha knows. He really doesn't give a crap what the talk is, he just knows he doesn't
want to do it.
But strangely, Jensen remains silent. And it's not even uncomfortable. Jensen seems happy to play
chauffeur, navigate the freeways and smog, happily eating up the road, one hand on the wheel, fingers
tapping lightly, the other resting loosely on the gearshift.
Misha's surprised, and kind of grateful.
He leans his head back against the headrest and dozes in the afternoon sun.
When he blinks his eyes open again he's outside his own house and Jensen's hand is warm on his wrist,
softly waking him with a tap.
"Go get some rest, man. You look beat," Jensen says gently. His sunglasses have migrated to the top
of his head and Jensen's eyes are a dark olive in the fading light.
Misha can only nod in agreement, he reaches between the seats and hauls his bag over.
Tugging the door handle open though he pauses, blinks sleepily at Jensen, back-lit by the orange-tinged
smog sunset. He gestures with a wave at the steering wheel. "Thanks for the ride. Sorry I went
narcoleptic on you."
Jensen smiles, doesn't seem in the least bit put out. "Hey, you needed a lift, not a sparring partner."
Misha wipes a hand down over his mouth, tries to pull alertness into his fading muscles. "Still
appreciate it."
He nods one last time and unfolds himself out of the car, watches as Jensen reverses back into the
street, one arm over the passenger seat as he twists for a better view. It's not until the brake lights slow
at the end of Misha's street that he realises he's still standing there, watching Jensen leave.
* * *

Two
Three days later and Misha still hasn't shaken the weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something is
wrong and apparently his subconscious has no intention of cluing him in.
He's started at least a half-dozen projects and as many books, but he has no patience for any of them.
The pile of junk he pulled from the closet with every intention of sorting and taking to Goodwill remains in
the corner of his bedroom where he pushed it in frustration. Maps of the Los Angeles area lie unfolded
and scattered over the living room floor where he gave up plotting a hiking escapade. Vegetables from
the farmers market began their slow march to decay in the fridge after he lost the will to cook them into an
epic vegetable lasagna.
He'd managed to clean the terrarium, at least. Although that had only gotten him his fingers snapped at
for the trouble. Turtles had no sense of fucking gratitude. Terrapins, man.
It's when he's standing in the lounge room, actively contemplating just plonking himself down on the
couch and doing nothing, or even worse, buying a fucking television, that he finally gets sick of himself,
weird mood be damned.
He heads back into the bedroom, sidestepping the weird assortment of sports equipment, art supplies
and strangely disturbing fan-given pony collection, and finds a pair of shorts from what's left of the clothes
quotient. Pulls them on and slips out of the sweater he's wearing to leave just his ratty old gray UC t-
shirt. One sneaker he finds underneath the bed, but it takes a brief re-arrange of mess to locate the other
under an errant lacrosse stick that he didn't even know he possessed until two days ago.
He likes to run. It's his thing. Jared and Jen can have their ridiculous custom gym follow them around on
set, but Misha isn't about to set foot in it anymore than he's gonna hire a personal trainer to the stars. Or
a bodyguard. Or a stylist.
He's done just fine without such things for 34 years, and a good portion of those years with a great deal
less, like houses or money, for example. And there's just no good way he'll ever be able to justify having
someone pick out his fucking shirts for him. Even if he only has about five.
What you can do, rich or poor, is run. And so he runs.
Locking the door behind him and slipping the key into his sock, Misha makes his way out into the
unseasonably chilled Los Angeles air. He heads north in the direction of the Santa Monica mountains,
starting out at a walk and then easing into a slight jog. The pavement is jarring under his feet, hard and
unforgiving despite the spattering of pine needles, but even that begins to fade as he lets the calming

influence of the repetition soothe him.
The world narrows down to step after step, the crunch of gravel. His breathing sucking in and bursting
out. The burn of his muscles as they stretch up his calves and thighs.
It allows him to just be.
Beside him houses begin to blur out of focus as his mind focuses inwards. It'd be awesome if he could
just reach in and rearrange some shit. Move some piles of detritus, clear out some old crap, do a bit of
light dusting. Unfortunately, he's fairly sure it'd be about as useful as the closet cleaning had been the
other day. Though possibly his brain matter wouldn't end up all over the floor.
There may also be fewer ponies.
Or maybe not.
The air is cool on his skin, washing away the heat of sweat that threatens to break. He can feel the
tension loosen its grip on his lungs as the streets turn into other streets. The slow ache of tiredness
threatening to overwhelm, to draw him to little more than a crawl, but he pushes on, ignores it and leaves
it behind until nothing is left but the nirvana of nothingness. Freedom.
The thing about running, Misha long ago learned, is that it requires nothing but time, and while it
accomplished little tangible, it was head and shoulders above doing nothing with the same time. And so
he could do it and not feel guilty about putting aside the chore of conquering the world.
He lets his mind wander, swim in the emotions that have been plaguing him in the hopes that a 'why' will
come to the forefront. Nothing is forthcoming, but it does pull into focus the fact that something is making
him antsy. Being back in LA helps, being home. And maybe that's all it is, just an epic case of
homesickness.
It's not something he's had to deal with before, despite spending the majority of his childhood in the north
east, they never really had a 'home' as such. Just a series of houses and apartments they lived in, and
for a little while, a car. It was always new, and never his. Schools were always changing with the locale,
and so even finding his own people wasn't easy. Being the class-clown helped of course. Meant that
people gravitated toward you rather than away, or at the very least, put up with you out of entertainment
value.
But really, it wasn't until he moved to LA that he felt like he'd found somewhere that was his. A whole city
of class clowns. Artists and poets, strangers and vagrants, wanderers, hippies, idealists, pessimists,
creators and the clinically insane. His kind of people. People with stories and dreams. And it was

glorious.
Every time he's away, it feels just a little bit better to be home again. The irony isn't lost on him that the
one time he gets his creative big break, filming Supernatural, it's away from his city of creation. And if
he's honest? He resents it. Just a little bit.
Perched up high on horizon of the hills to his left the Hollywood sign glints in the early morning light. It’s
an absurd sight, the giant white lettering in the midst of the mountain, so incongruously unnatural that he
quite adores it. Labelling a mountain in the name of superficiality. Often he focuses on the sign as he
jogs up and down the hilly terrain, lets himself muse on the nature of celebrity and production, the history,
the future. Art gone viral. Today he lets the sign slip from his gaze, focuses on the ground at his feet
instead.
His shoes thud against the pavement rhythmically, catatonically, until he looks up and finds he's gone a
couple miles without realising it and he loops around in a large circle through his patch of Los Angeles,
cuts back past the golf course north of his house. Palms mix with Eucalypts and the grass is splotchy
where the summer heat has bested it. Around him people run and bike and rollerblade with their dogs
alongside. A couple practices Tai Chi under the shade of an old Oak, movements slow and graceful. A
homeless man sleeps on a bench, covered in tattered robes.
He doesn't stop running until he's turning back onto his street, down the sidewalk and up the stairs to his
front door, lungs heaving at the exertion and sweat running down the length of his spine, dipping under
the band of his shorts and following his tailbone downwards. The house key is warm and sweaty where
it's been pressing against his ankle.
Misha isn't in the door two feet when he hears the twin noises of the iphone default ringtone and the
glassy purr of the phone as it vibrates against the top of his coffee table. The name that flashes up is
"Jensen" and Misha can almost convince himself that the rigidity flooding back into his muscles has
nothing to do with the person calling and everything to do with the outside world intruding. It's not like he
knows he's wrong, either.
The heat of his thumb leaves a trail of quickly disappearing condensation when he swipes his thumb over
the lock.
"Ackles. What's up?" He greets, tries to calm his breathing rather than huff into the phone.
"Hey," Jensen's voice comes back to him, warm and deep in his ear. "Get some sleep?"
Which was three days ago, and if he hadn't, he'd probably be in a coma by now, Misha thinks

offhandedly, but whatever.
"Yeah, much better," he white lies, "Nothing like a bit of enforced sloth."
Jensen chuckles, "Right." There's a slight pause, and Misha can hear something clatter lightly in the
background before Jensen continues. "So I forgot the other day, but I saw Eric last week and he gave me
some stuff for you. Looks important. Did you want me to drop it off, or you wanna swing by and pick it
up?"
Even Misha isn't a good enough actor to fool himself at the clench of mild tension that sweeps through
him. He knows what the papers are. Eric indicated that they'd be coming before he left the set. Still, he
didn't think he'd get them quite so soon.
Suddenly a lot of the weirdness his brain has been putting him through the last couple of weeks starts to
slip into place. And the image that clarifies comes entirely out of left field.
Huh.
Misha realises that he's probably expected to answer Jensen's question, given that no one else is going
to. "Oh. Sure. How about later this afternoon?"
"Sure. I'll be home. Dog-sitting the brats."
Misha is pretty sure that means Jensen is looking after Harley and Sadie. Or he has a pretty weird doll
fetish. Either or.
"Anon, then."
Jensen replies in the affirmative and Misha ends the call, stares contemplatively at the screen until it
blinks dark. Briefly, he considers just not turning up, or leaving the state, hell, the country, for a little bit of
stress-relieving madness. Go treasure diving in Mexico or drink yak milk in Mongolia or something. Then
he considers that he's being ridiculous, and no matter what the papers that await him are - and he's fairly
sure he knows exactly what they are - they aren't worth worrying about until he has them.
With a shake of his head he heads for the shower.
The turtles take no notice.
* * *
It takes him less than a half hour to get from his place to Jensen’s across town. The drive is pretty easy,
which makes Misha wonder if it’s a weekend. He’s lost track of the days, not having anything to do in any
of them. Not that acting is conducive to knowing the days of the week anyway. When you work some
and not others with no recognizable pattern it just becomes easier to pay attention to whether you have to

be up at 3am (whether he has to go to bed before 2) rather than whether tomorrow is Monday.
When he pulls into the drive of Jensen’s place, all palms and pillars and about three times the size of
Misha’s place, even if still paltry by Hollywood standards, there’s already a battered truck in the drive next
to Jensen’s SUV. He doesn't recognise it.
Jensen answers the door in jeans and a flannel shirt. Bare foot. His hair is flat and messy, Texas-chic.
Country-rock music that Misha can’t identify swirls out around Jensen from inside.
“Hey, you’re here.” Jensen smiles, easy and wide, an expanse of white teeth on display. Time off suits
him. Jensen is relaxed and it’s obvious. Gone are the dark circles that makeup has to cover on set, body
posture lax and fluid.
It hits Misha, unbidden and unexpected, that Jensen is fucking attractive. Reminds him just why it was
they hooked up all that time ago, when Misha was just new meat and Jensen not a co-star and thinking
such things wasn’t fraught with politics.
Misha finds himself grinning in response, holds up the 6 pack of beer he picked up at the liquor store on
the way over. “And I brought barley-based toxins to imbibe.”
Jensen’s smile broadens further, and he ushers Misha in with a warm hand on his shoulder. “In that case
you are even more welcome.”
“You just want me for my beer, don’t you?” Misha deadpans, follows Jensen into the house.
Jensen leads the way down the corridor, past the entry foyer and lounge. He glances over his shoulder
and winks. “Your beer and your body, Misha. Don’t ever forget your sex appeal. You’re very pretty too.”
Misha snorts. "Says the pretty boy himself."
"Takes one to know one," Jensen volleys back easily and it's perfectly junior high and a conversation that
usually Jensen would have with Jared. Despite that, Misha thinks he could get to like this relaxed version
of Jensen.
Jensen turns into the living room and Misha follows. Out the bay windows he can see Harley and Sadie
sleeping in the shade of a massive oak, Harley's head resting on Sadie's side. Icarus is trotting around
the garden sniffing and pouncing at things, oblivious to the heat.
Inside, a massive plasma screen TV and stereo system taking up an entire wall. It's the source of the
music blasting through the house. And no wonder - the speaker setup is one of the nicest Misha's ever
seen. It's new; apart from the fact that the surfaces gleam sleek and fingerprint free it also wasn't here
last time he visited. He'd remember. He lets out a low whistle and Jensen laughs.

"What's the point working so fucking hard if you can't play with the proceeds?"
"Indeed," Misha says, though he isn't sure he agrees with the sentiment. Having pretty things is all well
and good, but if you had no time to enjoy them anyway "I won't even ask what this set you back."
"Less than Jared's corvette," Jensen shrugs.
Misha raises an eyebrow. "Probably less likely to kill you too."
Jensen nods, but his attention is elsewhere as he heads to the coffee table nestled in amongst the plush
white couches and crouches down, starts rifling through a stack of mail and papers. Half way through the
pile he finds what he's looking for and pulls out an over-sized yellow envelope. Misha ignores the way his
heart thumps as Jensen springs up and holds it out to him with a flourish. Across it is written "Misha
Collins - Private and Confidential" in big black lettering.
"Courtesy of one Eric Kripke," Jensen says. "You know what it is?" Jensen asks, but the way he asks it
tells Misha that Jensen's already guessed.
Misha shrugs, aims for nonchalant, as he takes it. He mutters thanks and stuffs it into the satchel slung
over his shoulder that rests at his hip.
Jensen frowns and Misha fights the urge to reach forward and poke his forehead smooth again. "You are
going to-" Jensen begins, then seems to think better of it, forces his features back into a smile. "Beer?"
"Thought you'd never ask," Misha says, because suddenly he's parched and in need of saying a giant
adios to sobriety.
"Between you and Kane I may not get a fuckin' drop." Jensen rolls his eyes.
"As in Abel?" Misha asks with a raised eyebrow. He follows Jensen back to the main corridor and in the
direction of where he thinks he remembers the kitchen being.
Jensen laughs. "As in Christian. You guys met, remember? At that convention wherever it was."
Which doesn't clear anything up, and Misha's shit at names so he just says ah, yeah vaguely and hopes
it wasn't one of the idiot Young Hollywood guys Jensen sometimes has a habit of hanging out with. All
smart mouths and beanies and not a single brain cell between the lot of them.
The guy lounging over the newspaper at the long white marble bench that takes up most of Jensen's
kitchen, long hair escaping from a messy ponytail, flannel shirt, jeans and bare feet, is way too scruffy to
be the type though. Misha thinks he maybe remembers the guy, perhaps a passing intro at a noisy club
one time? But Abel aside, he doesn't really remember him from Adam.
Jensen motions Misha towards one of the bar stools, takes the beer around behind the bench and slaps

Chris lightly on the lower back to make room as he passes by to place the alcohol in the refrigerator.
Chris looks up, grins at Misha in a slightly disturbing predator meets prey flash of teeth. "Hey, man."
"Hey," is all Misha volunteers back.
Jensen pulls already cold beer from further back in the fridge, twisting off the caps and throwing them into
the sink with metallic pings. "Chris, you remember Misha?" Jensen asks, hands the man a beer and
slides the other over the counter to Misha.
The grin widens. "Not a fucking bit."
It catches Misha off guard and he laughs. "I'm not the only one with poor recognition skills," he says and
takes a swig of the beer in his hand.
"My recognition skills are just fine," Chris drawls, strong Southern twang dripping out. "I remember the
folks I need to." It comes with a wink.
Jensen snorts, finishes his mouthful and turns to Misha with sarcasm. "It's his alcohol consumption skills
that need work. If he can't remember you then he was clearly smashed."
Misha's pretty sure there's a compliment in there, which is strange but amusing. He takes another
mouthful of beer, feels it slide cold down his throat to his stomach. He settles into the stool he's perched
on, quite happily prepared to watch Jensen and Chris bitch back and forth like at a tennis match.
Chris' eyes flash, but Misha reads humour. "Careful, boy. I can still whoop your pretty ass and have your
momma thank me for it."
The eye-roll is exaggerated, but Jensen concedes ruefully. "Unfortunately, both those things are fucking
true. Remind me again why I'm friends with your redneck ass?"
"I give fucking amazing head," Christian replies without missing a beat and Misha chokes on his beer like
a teenage girl at her first luau.
Jensen is laughing, loud even over the spluttering, as Misha tries not to spit a lungful of beer over the
bench. Generally speaking, Misha does not like to be laughed at - he prefers to be the one doing the
laughing - but the low rumbling chuckle coming from Jensen's clear amusement is not mean-spirited.
Much.
He wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand, pretty sure he's gone red, and shakes his head at the
two of them. "Well that was embarrassing. People are going to start to think I can't handle my drink."
Chris grins around the mouth of his beer. "Or that you don't get good blowjobs."
"You can think that, if you want," he says nonchalantly but with a smirk. Attempts another swig of beer

and this time manages not to hock it up over the company. "It won't be true, but you can think it."
"Oh, really," Chris leers, interest piqued, leans himself further onto his arms across the bench and spins
his beer bottle around with his index finger.
Misha grins and says nothing. He knows that silence is the best form of tease, but he can't help but
notice that now it's Jensen who has gone quiet, leaning against the sink watching them talk.
"Well, boy, don't be a cocktease. Do tell," Chris baits.
Misha smiles wryly, brings the bottle to his lips. "A gentleman never sucks and tells," he says and lets the
cool glass rub against his lips for a split second - and he knows exactly how that looks - before tipping it
up to get to the liquid.
Chris laughs so loud it echoes in the white confines of the kitchen. "Hell, I dunno why I don't remember
you. I musta been fucking four sheets to the wind."
"Told you," Jensen says matter-of-factly.
Misha finds himself oddly humbled that Jensen has been telling people that he's worth knowing. It's
unexpected, to say the least. They're friends on set, absolutely, but Misha's never kidded himself that
that means anything much other than trench camaraderie. Friendship is pretty similar no matter where
you are: good as long as it's there but not missed if it falls from your field of vision long enough.
Maybe it's more than that, though. He finds himself smiling at the thought.
"In that case, Misha," Chris says, pulling his name out like taffy, "you have to come to the gig Saturday
after next."
"Sure," Misha nods amicably, though he isn't sure what the gig is, exactly. He knows Jensen has lots of
musical friends, but keeping them all sorted out was never his thing.
"Done deal." Chris nods, all bets final. "Starts at 8.30. The Hotel Café. See if you can get pretty-boy
here to leave the house without something pussyish on."
"Pussyish?" Misha queries over Jensen's annoyed objections. It doesn't enter his head to wonder why
he'd have anything to do with getting Jensen to leave the house.
"Pink. Shiny. Gelled. Fucking Hollywood."
Jensen steps forward and cuffs Chris across the back of the head. "Just because you can't pull off
metrosexual, bitch."
"Metrosexual my ass," Chris snipes, "you just don't want your little fan parade to catch you without your
hair done. Afraid they won't wet their panties for you anymore."

"Classy," Jensen observes, deadpan.
"My middle name," Chris says and pats himself Tarzan-like on the chest. He turns back to Misha, faux
serious, "My boy here is all above his raisin'. Money and fame gone clear to his head. You though- "
Chris pauses, looks Misha up and down with a slow smolder that is only slightly less effective for the table
cutting his view in half, " seem normal. See if you can't bring him back down to size. I sure as hell
haven't had any luck."
Misha snorts, "Well I don't see why you think I'll have any more success."
Chris just grins. "No?"
Which Misha doesn't even have a clue how to interpret and a glance at Jensen finds a blank mask, eyes
boring into the back of Chris' head. When Chris himself glances back at Jensen, he must see more than
the blank look Misha sees, because suddenly he's changing the subject. Something about baseball or
football, or really, for all Misha knows, gymnastics. Whatever it is, it gets Jensen animated and vocal and
back at the bench with them, so Misha just sips his beer and observes the interplay.
This Jensen is one he hasn't really seen before. Sure, the Texan came out every now and again on set,
especially when he and Jared were beyond fucking tired, unable to open their mouths wide enough to roll
consonants out.
Still though. This Jensen, the one kicking at Chris' denim-clad shinbone with a bare foot, hair messed up
and clothes too large and faded to be anything but comfortable, laughing and drunk with flushed cheeks
and dirty humour is different. So very relaxed and non-guarded. It's intriguing.
Misha likes intriguing.
He ends up spending the remainder of the afternoon in varying degrees of drunkenness. The killer
headache he knows he's going to have in the morning is a worry for then and not now. Now, there is
meat, cooked way too rare for his liking, and copious amounts of beer. Jensen loose and grinning, Chris
talking shit, Misha telling stories that are so intricately invented even he has trouble keeping them
straight. All in all, it's a pretty fucking awesome afternoon and Misha finds himself sliding into it like a
warm bath after a long day, willfully ignoring the yellow envelope stuffed into his bag.
* * *
It's the next day, closer to dinner than breakfast given the earlier state of his head, when Misha pulls the
envelope out of his satchel. After he finds it that is, dumped inside the door to the spare bedroom for
some unknown drunken reason.

He slides his finger under the not-so-tacky gum of the flap, opens the envelope in a jerky back and forth.
It is of course what he knew it would be: His contract renewal for Season Six. And Seven.
Briefly, he thinks about taking the pen off the table and scrawling his signature across the lines marked by
neon 'sign here' stickers, taking it down to the post box on the corner and sending it back. Done, decided,
and over with. But something won't let him pick up the pen. The same something that he realises has
been tying him in knots for the last few weeks.
Because when it comes down to it, he doesn't actually know that he wants to sign.
And all at once the thought makes him feel nauseous and ungrateful.
Who the fuck is he to turn down the opportunity he's been wanting since he started this acting lark?
When it gets handed to him on a fucking gold platter, or at the very least, a golden envelope, why should
he think he can even contemplate turning it down? After all those years when he had next to nothing,
wanted nothing more than enough money for rent and food.
He fucking loves working on the show. He isn't lying when he says that it's the best set he's ever worked
on. Jared's constant farting and fucking around aside.
But somewhere down deep he knows that signing these pieces of paper is going to seal his fate. It's the
deal breaker; his career. Right there in black and white. And he isn't sure he fucking wants it. Doesn't
want to turn into someone who buys a flashy car or a sound system just because he can. He spent time
living in a fucking car, for Christ's sake, and it weren't no Corvette. In the back of his mind, he's always
assumed he'll be a starving artist; an out of work actor who picks up commercials here and there, maybe
a one liner or two, but spend his days eking out an existence fulfilled more on his whims than his wallet.
To sign these papers feels like signing away his soul, proclaiming himself 'actor' and 'Hollywood' and,
when he digs down deep enough, 'sell out'.
It doesn't matter that it's illogical.
Feeling the need to get out and run the confusion away, he leaves the papers, unsigned, on the kitchen
table. The table that he built with his own fucking hands because he wanted it to be real, to mean
something. And because he didn't have the money at the time to buy a new one.
* * *
Three
The contract remains unsigned for days, burning a metaphorical hole in Misha's table. He's okay with
leaving it there, as it turns out. And as Eric hasn't called to inquire yet, though Misha is under no illusion

that he won't, he figures he's got a least a few more days to stew unhappily over them. Maybe a week,
tops.
He has always found that he does his best thinking when he's not doing much at all. Generally, life-
changing decisions are best left to life to decide and human interference just makes things messy.
When he was interning at the place that he doesn't like to name anymore, surrounded by bitchy politicians
and star-struck staffers, he knew, deep in his gut, that it wasn't going to be for him. Changing the world, it
had seemed, was not done where people traditionally thought it was. Still, it had been a big decision.
When his internship was up he could easily have stayed on. He was smart enough, popular enough -
and wasn't that just the most ironic thing ever - to have been offered an actual position.
But the best and the brightest turned out to be kinda vacuous and moronic. So he'd known that it wasn't
going to work out, that he was going to abandon that particular life's ambition and follow some other path.
Yet at the time, even contemplating something like giving up the freakin' White House was one of those
things that he was fairly sure had deserved what people called 'serious thought'. Problem was, every
time he tried to think about it, he started to feel ill. So he just didn't. Put the decision off, day after day,
week after week, until when the hour came and he had to make the decision whether to stay or go, it
turned out he'd already made it.
His subconscious is sometimes awesome like that.
Clearly, therefore, when faced with a moral and financial decision of the same magnitude, and probably
the same amount of moronicness and vacuity, he needs to stop thinking. And at least knowing what it is
that he's meant to not be thinking about helps. It doesn't stop the occasional roiling feeling in his
stomach, but at least he knows he can ignore it. Unlike the itchy unsettled feeling he's been dealing with
in the interim.
On the sixth day after he comes back from the monastery, he decides he needs to flex his creative
muscles and so he calls a few of his crazier Los Angeles friends and before he knows it he has a whole
posse of people meeting in the park to make something. He doesn't know what, exactly, but he knows it
will be an adventure and that's all he ever really asks for.
He's about to head out, late morning, a basket full of possibly useful things he's picked up off the floor and
from various cupboards - paper, plastic, glue, sparkles, rope - when his phone starts mocking him from
the coffee table in an apparent attempt at deja-vu. It's Jensen again.
"We have to stop meeting like this," Misha says by way of greeting.

"True enough," Jensen replies with a chuckle. "So what are you up to?"
Misha juggles a roll of cling-wrap from the kitchen drawer that sticks when it isn't opened at just the wrong
angle. The basket is over his elbow and he tries not to drop the phone.
"Did you call to ask me what I'm wearing, Jensen?"
Because seriously, since when does Jensen call to just chat?
Misha's brain supplies unhelpfully: since his best friend buggered off and got married, and now you're the
default option.
He ignores his brain, as is often wise.
Jensen's laughing in his ear, and Misha can't help the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth at the
sound.
"I'd say yes but you'd tell me it was something see-through and frilly and scar me for life."
Misha snorts, "Or I'd tell you I was naked." He roots around in another drawer looking for scissors and
tape. He knows he had ample quantities of both, once.
Jensen makes a huffing noise that Misha can't quite decipher. He stops his searching for a moment and
tries to focus on the call.
"But actually," Jensen says after a pause, "I'm bored out of my fucking skull here. Thought you might
want to catch a movie or something?"
"Are you asking me out on a playdate, Jen? You really must be bored."
The chuckle he hears is warm, but soft. Misha decides to take pity on him. "I can't do a movie right now,
as I have epic shenanigans to get up to. But maybe tomorrow or something?"
Jensen ignores the peace offering and focuses on the rest, "What kind of shenanigans?"
"The usual," Misha answers. He knows its cryptic, but he also knows how outside people usually react to
the shit he gets up to. He's in no mood to be laughed at today.
"Ah " Jensen says and there's that awkward pause again.
Misha bites his lip. He knows what he's about to do, even as he know's it's an epically bad idea.
Fuck it.
"Do you want to come along?"
"Seriously?" Jensen sounds curious.
He shrugs, forgetting that Jensen can't see him. "It's probably going to be a bunch of hippies and English
Lit majors sitting around making macrame or some such shit. I imagine it will bore you to Dean's one

perfect tear. But if you want "
He leaves it open, deliberately. And truthfully, he kind of hopes that Jensen will beg off. Tell him he's just
thought of something he absolutely has to do right this minute, like iron his socks or something. He wants
to make shit today. Not play nice or be on good behaviour.
But then Jensen asks him when and where and he finds himself giving the address in Griffith Park and
telling him to bring whatever he thinks might be useful for taking over the world. If Jensen sits around
moping or makes fun of the rag tag group of people who will turn up, invited or not, then Misha is going to
be absolutely fucking pissed.
* * *
As it turns out, he has no need to be.
They've garnered a small army by the time Jensen turns up. Only a couple of whom Misha even knows,
but he's good with that. Adores the fact that by virtue of coloured paper and a pile of odd junk they can
attract similar souls from all through LA like a homing beacon for creativity.
They're littering a corner of the picnic ground, blankets strewn and people chattering, cutting paper,
sewing things together. The perimeter of the group is a wasteland of bicycles, abandoned boxes and
bags., their erstwhile contents - an assortment of materials and paints, metals and wood - cluttering the
space in amongst the ill-formed circle.
Misha himself is knee deep in tissue paper and a kind of homemade glue - flavoured with glitter - a fair
deal of which seems to have migrated to his hair. He's talking to a pretty redhead girl he knows he has
no hope of remembering the name of. He's pretty sure though that it was something to do with the
weather. They're chatting about the nature of lipstick feminism in the current era and how it relates to
metrosexuality when Jensen approaches across the lawn.
He has an armful of green plastic garbage bags and what might be rolls of cardboard, his impressive SLR
camera strapped over his shoulder. Proving that Misha really doesn't know Jensen at all as much as he
thinks he did, Jensen walks up with a grin.
"Hey. I wasn't sure what to bring so I grabbed the first things that came to hand."
Misha finds himself grinning in return, drying bits of glitter-glue pulling taut against his wrists and the back
of his hands as he reaches out to clap Jensen's shoulder in greeting.
"Awesome. That's perfect actually," he adds, surveying the mess of craft materials littering the grass.
"We needed something sturdy to build over."

Jensen drops his bundle of materials in a spare patch of grass to be pounced on like live bait in a shark
tank, and Misha watches him glancing around, can practically see the cogs turning in his head.
"And you're making what, exactly?"
There's no judgement there, so far as he can tell anyway, only curiosity, and Misha realises that Jensen
coming along might not turn out to be a bad thing at all.
"Hot air balloon."
Jensen turns to him, eyes slightly wider, clear excitement showing on his face. "Will it work?"
Misha just stares at him askance. "Are you serious? Of course it will."
A blonde girl, he thinks she was called Megan, pipes up from across the group. "Misha won't let us go
home until it flies."
Laughter greets her proclamation and so Misha can only answer one way: dictatorially. "That's right. So
you better all get with the program. Sew those fingers to bloody nubs."
Jensen laughs and pulls his camera around his shoulder to his chest. "I see you're the same
megalomaniac in the real world as you are on set."
Misha cocks his head, aware as he does that it's pretty reminiscent of Castiel-confused. "Who else would
I be?" he asks, genuinely interested in Jensen's answer.
Jensen shakes his head, bemused. "Sometimes Misha, I just don't know about you. You have more
masks than the rest of us combined, and yet you act like it's all just you."
Which kind of dumbfounds him. He's put Jensen down as many things, but acutely perceptive isn't one of
them.
Jensen doesn't notice Misha's sudden lack of language though, busy flicking switches on his camera and
twisting the lens into focus. "I thought I'd do some photography, capture some of the mayhem, if that's
cool?" He turns to Misha expectantly.
"Um yeah. That's fine. Snap away, Cecil."
And Jensen is off, introducing himself to the rag tag bunch of artists and friends of friends, quietly clicking
off photos and changing lenses. Misha goes back to his glue making process and discussing the new
humanist manifesto with Rain or Blizzard?
Maybe it's 'Sudden Downpour'
He wonders what her last name is, something boring probably, like 'Smith' or 'Jones'. Sudden Downpour
Jones. Now there's a name for a baby. Much better than 'Castiel'.

* * *
He'd almost be willing to say he forgets about Jensen being there in particular. If that is, he wasn't keenly
aware that his eyes follow Jensen around the group the whole afternoon. Jensen isn't shy or retiring, not
reserved the way he is around fans or serious the way he is when acting. He isn't even the goofy four
year old or harangued single mother that Jared vacillates between necessitating of him. At various
stages Misha watches him laughing with a woman who's sewing pieces of tissue paper together in a
colourful wall of autumnal browns. Showing someone's little kid how his camera works and letting him
take photos, sitting quietly with Mr Suzuki, one of Misha's elderly but young-at-heart neighbours and
talking intensely.
In two weeks and as many meetings he's seen sides of Jensen he didn't even realise Jensen had. Which
is ridiculous and pretty superficial of him really, to assume that the one side of Jensen he sees every day
on set is the sum total of his being. And yet, he sort of has.
It isn't even a bad side that he sees everyday, bar the occasional actorly flounce or that one time they
don't ever acknowledge. Jensen is a great guy, he's kind and thoughtful and takes his craft just as
seriously as Misha does. In terms of acting, Misha gives Jensen his due, the man is good. They've
become friends, slowly. Hanging out on set, catching a beer with Jared after work. Laughing and joking
and mucking around. Backing each other up when Jared won't leave either of them alone long enough to
get a good take. Generally speaking, he really likes Jensen.
But apparently, he doesn't even know him.
As Misha sews large banana leaves with thick twine, using a ridiculously large needle that keeps pricking
his fingertips, the thought makes him wonder about things that never were. They've never talked about
that night. He's always assumed Jensen thought it was a mistake, or that it was just a thing - both of
them there in the right place at the right time. Or hell, maybe it was just Jensen seeing and taking
because he could. It's not something Misha condones, but he was just as willing to let Jensen take at the
time, and so he doesn't think he can fault him for it. Even if he does judge, just a bit.
Truth be told, Misha thinks that if Jensen had turned up that next morning, caught his eye or pulled him
aside for something more, he probably would have gone for it. But Jensen didn't and so neither did
Misha. Especially since he was the new guy on set, only meant for a couple of weeks, and fucking that
up was not a good idea. And once he'd gotten over the fact that maybe, just maybe, Jensen was
occasionally that guy, he brushed it away.

Clearly Jensen wasn't, and isn't, interested in a repeat, or 'more'. He hasn't even thought about it much
since, really. Except for the random, and in Misha's mind, entirely appropriate, thoughts about just how
fucking pretty Jensen could be. How pretty that mouth would look wrapped around Misha's fingers, or his
cock.
The thoughts are harmless and un-acted on, and he's never one to deny a thought that has no bearing on
reality, no possible way to cause harm.
Still. He's watching the afternoon light settle over Jensen where he's kneeling in the grass, holding down
the corner of a sheet while Monsoon Season the stiletto feminist (she'd been upgraded) smooths it out
and joins it up with the piece held by the dreadlocked guy that they'd acquired after lunch. Jensen's eyes
are crinkling in amusement, dark stubble he's left haphazard scruffing his cheeks and throat. He's tanned
from the LA sun and the long-sleeved t-shirt is old and well-worn, clinging to the lean muscles of his arms.
He's always known he'd fuck Jensen again, given the chance. He's only human after all. But it's never
really occurred to him that maybe he might like to see if there's anything else past simple sexual attraction
there.
Until now.
* * *
It's late in the evening, dusk falling, when they finally assemble the various sheets of tissue paper and
plastic into something resembling a balloonish shape. Heavy on the 'ish'. Jensen stands back from the
group, camera to his eye, palm wrapped around the lens and index finger on the shutter button.
Misha lets the more engineeringly inclined in the group figure out how to rig up a bottle of something
flammable to remote control and instead slips further into the dark, sliding up next to Jensen. His cheeks
and nose are radiating heat where he's slightly sunburned, and he's glad he wore a long-sleeve t-shirt
despite the heat of the day
Jensen laughs as the group erupts into jeering disagreement at something. The chuckle is a low rumble
that Misha feels under his ribs. Then Jensen's glancing sideways and catching Misha's eye. "Thanks for
inviting me. I had fun."
Misha shrugs, unused to taking credit for merely inviting someone somewhere. "And I thought it was just
a banana in your pocket."
Jensen laughs, knocks his shoulder against Misha's. "You live in a crazy-fucking world, but I like it."
"Me too," he says quietly, finds he doesn't have a sarcastic quip to add.

A cheer goes up at the same time as a flame bathes the faces of the group in a warm yellow hue. The
balloon fills and actually rises, which is more than Misha thought it would. Makes it up about 20 feet, in
fact, before the tissue paper catches fire and the balloon self-destructs in a ball of flash and burn to the
laughing shrieks as everyone runs to escape falling debris.
Jensen captures it all in series, the soft insistent clicking of the shutter chattering to Misha's left.
The sunburn and the dropping temperature make Misha shiver, and he absolutely doesn't acknowledge
that he leans in just a little closer to Jensen for warmth, in the dark. Ignores the fact that Jensen lets him.
* * *
Four
Misha is sitting down to coffee, black and bitter, spreading the morning paper over the table, the still
unsigned contract buried under newsprint and the smell of ink when Jensen calls for a third time.
It's only been a day since the park and he isn't expecting to hear from Jensen again so soon, but he can't
deny that when he pulls the phone out from under the broadsheets he's not entirely upset at having his
peaceful breakfast interrupted. Secretly, he's a little bit pleased.
"Mister Jensen," he answers, settles the phone into the palm of his hand, picks up the coffee cup in his
other.
"Hi," Jensen says and he sounds sleepy and soft. It absolutely does not make Misha think about what
Jensen might be like to wake up to. At all.
"Bored again?" he asks when nothing more seems to be forthcoming. He sips at his coffee carefully so
as not to burn his tongue.
Jensen chuckles. "Not exactly, but I was wondering if you'd wanna come to a premiere thing I said I'd go
to tonight. Last minute cancellation."
Misha licks coffee off his lip. He highly doubts that it's a 'last minute cancellation'. Much more likely is
that Jensen can't find anyone else to go with given his other half being away. Still. It's the thought that
counts.
He has to admit, he's kind of curious to see more of Jensen outside of filming and conventions. The
glimpses he's had over the last couple of days are tantalizing, and he never could resist figuring out a
new puzzle. Especially one he thought he'd placed the last piece in over a year ago. There is, as far as
he's concerned, nothing sexier than being proven wrong when you're dead set sure you're right.
But there's no need to be mature about it.

"Couldn't get a prom date?"
"Fuck you, man," Jensen huffs, but there's no malice in it. "Thought it might be something you'd enjoy."
"You know Jensen, it'd be much easier if you just admitted that you wanted me. We could stop playing all
the coy cat and mouse games," he says, holds his breath to see if the sarcasm plays or pierces.
"Funny, Collins. Funny. In or out?"
Misha grins; he's so totally in. "Pick me up. And if you're lucky I won't wear heels that make me taller
than you."
"As long as you're wearing clothes, Misha? I'm not going to complain." Jensen's voice comes deadpan
down the line.
Misha feels the laughter bubbling up his throat, silent but more genuine for it. "When do I need to be
pretty by?"
"I'll swing by around 6. Oh and there's a thing afterwards that might be cool. See how we go."
Misha has no idea what such a thing might be, but he finds he agrees with the sentiment. They'll see how
they go.
Disconnecting the call and swallowing down the last of his coffee, he folds up the newspaper and gives
the contracts underneath a contemplative glance, a maybe, before he heads to the bedroom to find his
running gear. It's a fucking gorgeous morning out there and he damn well needs to be in it.
* * *
He's surprised when Jensen picks him up with a driver. As he slides into the backseat of the towncar
next to him he remarks as such. Well okay, he may also put it in terms of prom dates and limos. Jensen
just tells him to shut the hell up.
Which Misha can appreciate. He likes it when people don't let him get away with crap. As long as it
remains novel and not modus operandi.
They chat on the short trip into the city, Jensen talking about his parents and siblings and the phone call
he got while trying to get ready. The aversion of World War III.
Misha knows who all the players are, of course, it's not like Jensen doesn't talk about personal things on
set. Still, something feels strangely different about the intimacy of the moment. And it takes Misha most
of the car ride to realise that it's because he's hearing it unedited. Not the continuation of a story started
with Jared, nor annotated by Jared himself - already in on the details as if they were his own family. And
considering how long those two had been living in each other's pockets, Misha supposes they probably

are.
A brief thought flits through his head that it's either awesome to be trusted with primary details or insulting
to be substitute-Jared. He isn't sure which it is, evidence that his image of 'Jensen' has been severely
fucked with in the last week and a bit. It's both intriguing and unsettling, so he pushes the thought away.
When they pull up outside of the Landmark's Regent Theatre in Westwood Misha is once again surprised.
Firstly, that Jensen has effectively just done a huge circle around Los Angeles to pick him up and bring
him back to his neck of the woods and secondly, that they aren't at some swanky red-carpet blockbuster
event. If they're at the Regent then it's going to be something independent. Something artsy. Foreign.
Something, in other words, that Misha might have a fair chance of enjoying.
The world premiere of Loot had been at the Regent, almost two years ago to the day, and Misha has
always had a slight soft spot for it because of that.
It is however, a premiere, and so there is, in point of fact, a red carpet, but it's shallow and small, and the
people Misha can see wandering up it are unknown. Not that he's very good at picking out celebrities
anyway, he doesn't watch enough to memorize them and his facial recognition is screwed up enough that
even if he does, he doesn't trust the name that flits past to match the image.
Still. He's fairly certain none of the people currently in his field of vision are a Brad or an Angelina. Not
that it's stopping the small but persistent handful of photographers snapping away at anything that
moves. In the land of celebrity it pays to shoot now, ask questions later. So to speak.
One of the least interesting parts of the ‘job’ as far as Misha is concerned is pandering to celebrity. And
while he doesn't exactly like doing all the ridiculous publicity – he recognises it for what it is: a means to
an end to get to things he does want to do – he pretty much feels it's intrusive and stupid. He can handle
a red carpet, no sweat, he just obfuscates and charms. Doesn't mean he won't feel like a right moron at
the end though.
Pulling his jacket straight, he falls into line beside Jensen as they make their way to the security guys and
the cordon. Jensen pulls out tickets and they’re waved through with nothing more than a nod. Jensen’s
been doing this much longer than he has, or at least, with a lot more recognition involved, and so Misha is
expecting that he’ll at least do some of the rope line. He’s resigned himself to the fact.
But that isn’t what happens.
They’re only a few feet onto the carpet when Jensen looks up towards the front of the line and smiles
broadly, teeth dazzling in the spotlights. He waves an enthusiastic greeting and with a quick glance back

at Misha to make sure he’s following he heads quickly up the line, dodging behind the people currently
ensnared like krill to the sea urchins of greedy reporters on the rocks. Misha keeps in step with Jensen,
trying not to bump into people as they hurry towards whoever it is that Jensen’s seen at the end of the
line.
He hears at least one reporter call out Jensen’s name, but Jensen just glances over with a promised “Be
right back.” The guy calls again, but quickly turns to the fresh meat behind them.
When they reach the end of the carpeting, Jensen ducks in through the doors and the sudden darkness
of the theatre lobby, quieter and less frenetic, despite the amount of people milling about. There’s no one
waiting to catch up with them though. Jensen stops and turns to Misha, grinning.
“Old trick I learned from an anti-social friend once. Gets you through the line without being hassled or
pissing off paparazzi.”
“Dude,” is all Misha can think to say, at once impressed and somewhat turned on by the devious turn
Jensen’s nature has just taken.
Jensen winks. “You can thank me later. C’mon. Let’s get something to drink.”
* * *
The movie turns out to be pretty good, although Misha is sure that if someone asked him to recount the
plot there’d be some pretty sizeable gaps in his rendition. It isn't that the movie is boring, far from it, it's
heart wrenching and well-directed and the lead actress is extremely attractive in a non-Hollywood way
and not at all bad at acting.
It's just that every now and again Misha’s attention wanders to Jensen sitting beside him. Perhaps more
again than now. The heat radiating off his thigh where it almost brushes his. The way his fingers curl
over the arm rest and he grips tighter unconsciously in the sad parts. The way the movie light flickers in
his eyes if Misha glances out of the corner of his own.
If it isn't for the thought that Jensen might snatch his hand back, Misha is almost tempted to try
something. Maybe just run a finger down the outside seam of Jensen’s jeans or accidentally brush arms
along the armrest.
He doesn’t though, because in the back of his head he’s pretty sure it would be unwanted. After all, if
Jensen had been amenable to more than a quick fuck, well, he would have acted like it two years ago. If
he’d wanted something more, there were 24 months in which he could have made a move, suggested
that an advance wouldn’t be turned down.

He hadn’t.
So Misha keeps his hands to himself. He tries not to feel like a fool for even contemplating it. Though of
course, if it weren't for the fact that Jensen had been the one to drag him into his trailer and pull an
orgasm out of him with nothing more than his hand on Misha’s cock, and mouth on his neck, well, he’s
pretty sure he wouldn’t even be contemplating a repeat performance of the night right now either.
Whatever. If Jensen is going to be a dick about that then he certainly isn't going to be putting himself
through the embarrassment a second time. A quick fuck is all well and good one time, but twice and he’d
start to feel used.
When the credits roll and the lights come up, he’s almost convinced himself that he isn’t actually
interested in Jensen anyway. Until he turns to say something and finds Jensen staring at him
contemplatively, eyes shadowed and body angled toward him.
“What’d you think?” Jensen asks.
“Good,” Misha affirms, hopes Jensen doesn't quiz him on specifics.
Jensen smiles softly. “Worth being my prom date for a night?”
Misha laughs, “Yes. It was worth being your Sasquatch.”
Jensen’s brow furrows. “Jared?”
“I assume you’d normally be doing this stuff with Jared is all,” Misha says.
Jensen just looks at him, pauses a millisecond too long in which Misha thinks shit though he doesn't even
know why, before he says “No. Jared would never let me drag him to a movie like this. He’d never be able
to sit still through it.”
“Oh,” Misha says. He doesn’t know what else to say, senses that something has shifted, that somehow
he’s said the wrong thing.
“You aren't the replacement, Misha,” Jensen says, turns away to stare at the credits still rolling on the
screen.
“I just meant,” he begins, but Jensen turns back to him, smile suddenly in place and slightly wrong.
“Forget about it. I know what you meant. How about we go to the club?”
Misha wants to say no. It’s not his scene, it’s never been his scene and never will. But he knows he’s
fucked up somewhere, though he can’t imagine how. And Jensen has already proven himself twice in the
last three days, surely he deserves the benefit of the doubt?