Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"So that's it?"

"No, that's not it," Aimee says, sighing. "This stuff doesn't have to follow a script, you know? That's part of what I…" She shakes her head. "I'll stay for a while. We can get past the award shows. You've got that spec meeting coming up, I don't want this to be a distraction. We can figure out how to do it after." Her cheek sucks in on one side. She sits forward and reaches over the coffee table, although they're so far apart there's no chance of her touching him. Just her hand, extended where he can't take it. "We should just be... preparing, you know? It can't go on like this. I want a change. Maybe you can change, too."

That night, Jensen lies awake, staring at the guest room ceiling. It's nice in here. Smells good. Something Aimee bought, since she's the one who actually knows anything about decorating, and most of the time she's the only one who has friends over. Had friends over. Jensen doesn't know if that's going to be happening anymore, any more than them sleeping in the same bed will.

She offered to take the guest room. Ridiculous, considering that all of this is Jensen's fault, and he said so. She got that pinched look on her face that she always did when she thought he was being unfair. He grabbed his favorite pillow and decamped, and listened through the closed door while she made her usual rounds of the house at night, double-checking the locks and alarm and setting up the espresso machine for the morning and thought, with a sense of unreality made stronger by the unfamiliar bed and the perfumed orange from the oil diffuser on the bookshelf, that in a month or two, he wasn't going to be hearing that anymore. That the life they'd built, over five years of meeting and dating and discovering each other and meeting parents and supporting her art career and being a shoulder to cry on when her dog died and learning the way that in bed she'd turn on one side, then the other, and then sigh before she finally fell asleep, smelling like her nighttime moisturizer, eucalyptus and mint—that was all going to be gone. He'd be alone, in this huge house, and it would be quiet, and it'd smell like—nothing.

It's sad. He's sad. He knows but it feels distant. His therapist has been telling him to sit in the feelings more, so he can acknowledge them and see them as real, but he's not sure what good that'll do, right now. He could cry but he doesn't feel like it. The pillow will just get damp and snotty and then he really won't sleep, and he'll have to throw the pillowcase into the laundry in the morning, and it'll be a whole thing. He spreads out, under the very nice soft West Elm comforter that matches the rest of the décor in a way that's tasteful, if boring, and takes a deep breath, and—gives up, sits up, grabs his phone off the charger.

Anymore in his trailer he spends ninety percent of his time on YouTube. The algorithm sometimes brings him videos of himself—gag, but it's something to do with his Google account, as he understands it, and can't be stopped—but he's found a safe haven on his subscription page. He likes the usual suspects—James Hoffman, Hot Ones, the Austin City Limits concert page—but when he's in a particular mood he doesn't want all the slick production values, the content that's been curated to sell. There's a woman who makes leather corsets for cosplaying weirdos he watches semi-regularly, just because it's nothing to do with his job and there's nothing in her affect that's gagging for approval like most of the YouTube stars. (This is unfair and he knows it. Another thing he's supposed to work on, according to his therapist.) But he's in luck, despite how it's one of the least lucky days he's had in years, because it's Sunday, and there's a red bubble on his notification page, and that means that JPHW has uploaded a video.

Howdy, folks, I'm JP. Jensen curls sideways over his pillow, phone propped on the bedside lamp. Something in his chest that's been tight since he cleared the table after dinner, since Aimee said that they needed to talk, it just… eases. Every Sunday, like clockwork, for five years now, there's a video: JP, the owner of JP's Handcrafted Wood, who's teaching the hobbyists of the world the secrets of furniture making and bowl turning and, as far as Jensen can tell, the art of how to just be… a chill, cheerful person.

Hey, y'all, JP says. He adjusts the camera over his worktable, the way he always does, and smiles. Wide, guileless, dimples popping all over the place. On the five inch display of Jensen's phone he's tiny, but still just—

He doesn't remember how he clicked on the first one. Some recommendation, the algorithm trying to get him to watch something that wasn't a guitar video for once. The video was about hasps. Jensen didn't even know that was a word, much less what one was. Mostly the video was a pair of huge tanned hands, bandaids around two of the fingers, showing off different mechanisms and talking about the advantages and use cases of each one, and then finishing with a fitting onto a little wooden chest that he'd apparently made in the previous video. Throughout was the narration, an easy endless rambling soliloquy with a faint Texas accent that made Jensen abruptly homesick, marooned as he was in Georgia on a shoot for a movie he didn't really care about but was making him a whole hell of a lot of money, and he lay back on the couch in his trailer and clicked on the next recommended video—this one actually making the wooden chest—and then the next one—dovetail joints—and then he went back to the very first video, and he watched all the way through, from the beginning, for every y'all and every bad pun and the extremely rare personal details JP will let slip by accident just because he, apparently, never stops talking.

Today's video is about building a chessboard. Two hours. Jensen settles in, his heart beating slower in his chest. These longer uploads are always a treat. JP shows up every Sunday, but it's anyone's guess whether it'll be a five minute review of a new Bradpoint bit or a live four hour hangout while JP builds an end table in almost real time, walking through the steps but really just letting his fans see him work, occasionally glancing over to see what the comments say and giving that big haw haw laugh, and sometimes answering a question if the question isn't flat-out pornographic.

It was about the twentieth video, back in 2011, that stopped being a fixed camera on just his hands and added the view of… everything. Jensen clings to the fact that the first videos he watched had no body shots at all. JP's got seventy thousand subscribers and the names in the comment section, when Jensen braves it, tend to be along the lines of VeronicaMAR$$$ and BabyGirl92 and 'yassssskween'. Opinions are shared about his forearms and delts and just what he can do with those big, capable hands. Jensen has wondered, himself. But that's not the kind of personal JP ever gets into—there's no hint of a wife, or girlfriend, or anything like that. He's got two big dopey dogs who occasionally guest star in videos and he's got what looks like six feet of hardworking muscle and he's got a grin that lights up the woodshop but Jensen's here for the chill, the steady artisan vibe, the actually interesting tips about good crafting vs bad. He can tell now when one of his bougie coworkers buys factory-assembled crap for too much money. Anything else is a side-benefit.

He falls asleep, before the end of the video. When he wakes up his phone is dead from autoplaying YouTube throughout the night, and the house is empty. Monday, early; Aimee's probably at her studio. Normally she would have woken him up, kissed him, told him to have a decent day. That's over, now. Probably won't happen ever again.

Monday. He has an ADR session to get to. A lunch with his manager. Therapy, this afternoon, and he'll have a doozy of a report to make.

He lays back in the guest bed, dead phone resting against his chest. His girlfriend of five years broke up with him last night and he's sad. He is. He should feel worse. He closes his eyes and hears the hum of a sander.

*

Award season is painful. He's good at red carpets but hates them. Marianne, his manager, says he does a good job of not letting it show. One of his more convincing pieces of acting.

Aimee enjoys the parties. Lucky, although he knows her enjoyment is partly because he hates them, and he knows that because she told him. "No one else on earth would bitch this much about having to make small talk with Don Cheadle," she said once, tilting her head back and forth to admire her eyeshadow in the mirror, and he made a face at her over her shoulder that she smiled back at, wide and guileless and just as bitchy as he is.

She has a point, and it's one he's had to go over in therapy, too. Of all the hopeful kids with zero years of training under their belt who came to Hollywood with a pretty face and a dream, he's one of the entirely random lucky ones. He's under no illusions there. He went to the same sets of auditions for blond-ish twenty-ish college kid-ish parts and saw the same guys over and over again, and they all got assessed with detachment by the same set of casting directors and hairy-handed paunchy producers, and he knows for a fact that it's some quirk of time and temperature and whether the assistant had a decent lunch that gave him the chance for a callback versus some other perfectly adequate guy—and that gave him the opportunity to hang out on set, and practice, and get to know other actors and producers and crew—and that meant that on the next callback he was more confident, and even more so on the next one, and when he got Marianne she'd seen some of his reel and knew where to deploy him to best effect, and it's all just—luck, looks he didn't ask for, and taking drama in freshman year of high school because Ben was taking it and said it'd be an easy elective, and that he happened to pick up an Entertainment Weekly when he was eighteen that talked about this new wave of teen shows that was starting, in Los Angeles, and how America was ready for fresh-faced wholesome talent, and his mom pinched his cheek and said, who's more wholesome than you, sweetheart.

Don Cheadle's been nominated for an Oscar. He got a Critics award in '95. Aimee said, "Weren't you, what, sixteen? I don't think you were in contention." Of course that's not the point but the comment stuck in Jensen's head and that night they'd had one of those irritable bickering kind of arguments that Jensen absolutely started and that wasn't Aimee's fault, at all, but that happened anyway because Jensen can't let well enough alone. He does actually understand why she's leaving him.

For now: awards shows. Ultron's obviously not up for anything real but he still has to go and be seen, both for his contract with Disney and because Marianne will be politely but devastatingly disappointed if he doesn't meet the people she wants him to meet. In some key but alarming ways, Marianne reminds him of his mother.

They go to People's Choice even if he's not nominated; when the camera pans to him in the audience, Jensen claps and whoops for Downey and Hemsworth and Scarlett. On the carpet he wears cowboy boots and Aimee wears a dress she designed herself spattered with paint and odd angles of sequins, a lot like her sculpture work, and he mugs endearingly for the press pool, and at the Disney party afterward he and Aimee meet a few invitees from the creative wing at Hulu. Jensen's charming. He's got practice. Globes, after that; he goes suit shopping with Marianne and gets a peacock velvet that pops against the press backgrounds, especially when Aimee's on his arm in her lavender gown. For the Oscars they opt for a traditional tux but with plum tie and accents, and loaned Cartier cufflinks that the frightening woman from E! practically moans over when she gets him into the fashion spotlight. Aimee coordinates with a white sheath and amethyst jewelry, and she's still got her funky bleach-blonde chop and still insists on flats, and she waits calmly five paces to the right when Jensen's getting the anvil-crawl of flash. When he turns to her she stands with that little smirky smile he'd liked so much when they met, that look that says I know what you're thinking of me, but you don't know what I'm thinking of you, and he lets his fingers rest so-lightly at the small of her back and they get their picture taken and Beth gives the scribbling fashion writers the designer names and jewelry details and their image is perfect, deployed correctly for the business needs they both have, and he thinks—this evening and the parties and the photographs and this smell of her skin, warm under the sun-glow of the carpet lights, the way her slim little shoulder tucks under his and how she always looks off to something he can't see, like there's another world somewhere past the photographers that has something she finds more interesting—a few more nights and that'll be it. The end.

She turns into his side, tipping up like she's whispering into his ear—what it'll look like on entertainment blogs tomorrow, even if she has to half-shout to be heard: "If you get me off this carpet I'll share the Lagavulin flask in my bag."

He laughs, can't help it. Her small hand on his chest, her head tucking under his chin. Beth's frowning, because he's supposed to be model-perfect and chiseled, but hell. It's the Oscars and he's a guy famous for wearing spandex. What's not to laugh about?

*

He has to go back to Atlanta for a few last-minute pickup shots and yet more ADR on Captain America: Civil War, and Marianne and Beth arrange a few interviews in New York as long as he's on that coast—ten minutes of a morning show appearance, an afternoon shopping with that pop culture reporter from the Times, photos of him at a record store that she hopes will appeal to some hipper demo than they've hit with the Marvel crowd—and Aimee moves out, the week he's gone. He gets home to the house clean and quiet. The cleaners left things neat. Smells like lemon.

Schedule's more or less open. His next movie's filming in July and the serious press for Civil War won't start until early April. There's another development meeting with some of those people from Hulu who want him for a show, although it turns out to be less creative substance than one of those surface level schmooze-fests that leave his smiling muscles sore. He's been with Joel from CAA for almost fifteen years now and Joel knows what he's doing—proof of concept, the fact that Jensen's no longer stuck with bottom-of-the-barrel soap opera sludge and instead has a seven-figure house off Laurel Canyon—but that's tough to swallow, even so. After all the handshaking's done Jensen goes to stand in the leafy walled-off courtyard to wait for the valet to bring his car and wishes he still smoked, and if he did smoke that he could smoke in public, and Joel says, "Okay, so it wasn't as good an idea as I hoped."

"Rom-com meets Ghostbusters meets Ryan Murphy?" Jensen says, and he doesn't actually intend to sound that cutting but Joel winces. He shoves his hands into his pockets, looking out at the sky. Pretty day, despite everything. March in Los Angeles, what could be better. He's been told to focus on the positives.

Joel rocks back and forth on his heels. "Nip/Tuck was good," he tries, but that's not the problem and he knows it. An intern scuttles past them and gawks and Jensen gives her the winning-but-polite smile he's perfected in the mirror. Joel sighs. Steps closer and follows Jensen's look to the sky and talks like they're in a spy picture, like if they're not meeting each other's eyes no one will suspect what's said. "Look, if it gets off the ground it'll fuckin' print money. They want you for something because you print money. The big contract's up in two years—sorry, three," Joel says, and Jensen closes his eyes because yes, they're going to split the last movie in two. Of course. More asses in seats. "I'm not your manager but I can count. You can do what you want, man, you know that. You want a series, thirteen episodes where you don't have to travel and the work's good—we can get you that. You want indie shit like this thing in Ireland this summer, we can get you that, too. I will make the magic happen, brother, I will work miracles. You just gotta tell me."

Growling purr—the Jag, coming around the curved driveway. The valet hops out and hands the key to Joel, for some reason, who accepts it with an ironic little salute, and then turns to squint at Jensen. "Seriously," Joel says.

"I know," Jensen says. He sucks in the inside of his cheek. Not Joel's fault that no one serious wants anything to do with him. He gives Joel a smaller version of the polite smile. "You stealing my car? Give me those."

Joel leans into the open passenger window when Jensen gets in. Salesman, can't quit. "Seriously," he says, again. "I sent over those pilot scripts, there's some original shit, some movie someone wants to film in fuckin' Buenos Aires. Check them out. We're gonna get you something good, brother. Whole world's the oyster of Jensen Fuckin' Ackles."

"I should change the name on my SAG card," Jensen says, to make Joel snort, and then says, "Okay, move it, you're scuffing the paint," and Joel backs up, grinning, says, yeah yeah, the paint, and then he's gone, blowing out of Santa Monica on the way back to the canyon, thinking, oysters. He doesn't even like oysters.

His problems are not real problems and he knows this. Part of why it fell apart with Aimee: like a good artist, she was focused on wars and poverty and access to healthcare and clean water and food that didn't rot before it got into the hands of refugees. Not being an idiot, Jensen's also aware of these things—he sends a pretty decent portion of his exorbitant paychecks to combat them, not that throwing money at anything ever seems to do any actual good—but that doesn't stop him from driving up Mulholland in his stupid-nice car to his stupid-nice house and thinking, if only. One of the things he's working on with his therapist. If only what? Trap of fame is a cliché, woe-is-me rich boy crying on his stacks of cash is a cliché; well, he's a just-okay actor who's getting paid bank for trafficking in cliches and so maybe he's entitled to wallow in them, if only when he's alone.

That night he sits by the pool with a giant carafe of the green tea Downey insists is good for the brain—given Downey's brain, Jensen's not sure he trusts that, but whatever—and reads scripts. Couple of pilots that are so jank-ass lame Jensen nearly throws them into the water. An action thing that might be fine except that he can already see the director insisting on a shirtless scene and he's tired of working on his pecs and pretending like PEDs had nothing to do with them. The Buenos Aires movie, which might not be awful, but his eyes blur reading about the handsome journalist investigating corruption in the whatever and then meeting a beautiful-but-mysterious whoever, and he drops it with the rest of the pile and falls back onto the deck chair.

Backyard's beautifully lit. Landscaper designed it well. Jasmine's just starting to bloom as spring unfolds through the valley; a soft breeze ripples the pool, salt-cool. Perfect, or near enough. Jensen folds his hands behind his head and breathes it in and doesn't want any part of it. Wants to be—in his shitty shared apartment in West Hollywood back in those early days, when everything was terrifying and thrilling and new. Wants to be back home, in Texas. Wants to be eleven years old, playing Little League and doing his homework and bothering his big sister and not knowing how little he'd measure up, in the end. How small it'd end up feeling.

—and at lunch the next day with Beth, knows all of that's absurd. They're at a half-private table at a Taiwanese place she likes near LACMA and she's giving him the skeptical look he's unfortunately familiar with. "You know that's horseshit, right?" she says, chopsticks halfway to her mouth with bok choy. Beth's only been his publicist about five years but she gets him better than Marianne. "Are you kidding?"

"I am kidding," Jensen says. He isn't and they both know it.

Beth studies him, chewing the bok choy. "Did New York suck?"

"New York was fine." Mostly true. The record store was fun, in an annoying way, since the hipsters were desperate to pretend they didn't recognize him because they were all obviously too cool for Marvel movies—meaning he and the reporter just got to talk about music uninterrupted. Old rock, hill country blues. He thinks that was a real conversation, although the piece isn't going to come out for a week or so to coincide with the early marketing push for Civil War. Maybe it'll just be another fake-authentic puff piece. He picks a mushroom out of his noodle bowl and drops it onto her plate. "Should've bought you a souvenir."

"Yes, you should've," she says. She ignores the mushroom, leans back in the booth. Her eyeliner today's a shocking electric purple, laid on heavy; she squints at him and looks a little like a bruised-up boxer trying to get through the match. "Aimee?"

Problem with one of your few close friends also being your publicist: she has to know the personal shit before everyone else, for multiple reasons. "No," Jensen says, firmly, and Beth's thick eyebrows fly up and he has to look out over the low hum of the restaurant and think about it. His therapist would say yes, although she'd also say it was part of an overall issue with intimacy and emotional truth. Sometimes Jensen thinks she's reading from a checklist of what could be wrong with the A-list actor I've been saddled with as a client.

The waitress reappears while they're silent, pours more tea. Gives Jensen a covert look while she does so but stays professional, for the most part. She's early twenties, pretty. Probably has a few auditions lined up, somewhere—the cute girlfriend, the sorority sister. Genderbend of the kind of jobs Jensen struggled to land when he started. If Aimee were here she'd start rattling off guesses for roles, since she'd always been entertained by how often the struggling-actor-working-in-food-service trope ended up being true. Maybe Monique was auditioning for a space detective with a hidden past, Aimee might've said. Maybe she had pages in her neat apron for a 19^th century bandit queen, who stole from the rich as easily as she stole hearts.

Honestly Jensen had always found that less quirkily cute than irritating. Maybe Monique just wanted a solid role on a sitcom, like everyone else. "Not Aimee," Jensen says. He stops poking at the noodles he isn't supposed to eat and picks up his teacup, settling back in the cushions to match Beth. Feels like a teenager when he shrugs, but a shrug's all he's got. "I'm just…"

Beth purses her lips at him. "Poor little rich boy," she says, but not nearly as sarcastic as she could've. There's a reason he likes Beth. Rat-a-tat of her nails on the lacquered table and then she leans forward. "You know what you need? Outreach."

Jensen snorts. "All you make me do is outreach."

"No-no," Beth says, flicking her nails. "Community shit. Charity shit. Not the stuff for paps but stuff for you."

"You want me to volunteer at a soup kitchen?" Jensen says. Maybe a little too ironic—but it's one of those things he'd had to do back in the bad soap days, and even then it had been a farce. No paparazzi, bullshit: there'd been a crowd, middle-aged ladies surging up to see the Bold and the Beautiful stirring beef & barley, the people who actually needed it turned away for the photo op. He drains his cup of oolong, grimacing. "Think we're past that."

"I know you're feeling put-upon and miserable but I actually didn't mean for your career," Beth says, dry. "I meant actually for you—self-care, or whatever." She pulls her phone out of her tiny purse, flicking through apps. "When I'm not babying celebrities I do some pro-bono work for community groups—there's this newish homeless charity starting up in Silver Lake that I'm helping with a benefit. Silent auction, cash bar, that kind of thing. You could come."

Phone held across the table: a screenshot of an Instagram ad, LOVE/LA: #Night4Need. Not this Saturday but the next. Jensen looks at Beth over the top of her phone. "And this would not be for my image."

"If someone takes a pic of you helping a charity and puts it on Twitter I'm not gonna pretend I won't use it," Beth says. Practical as ever. "Look, you're bored. Promo's coming up and I know you hate it. This charity thing—I won't tell anyone you're coming, but if you come it'll be—you know, Captain America shows up out of nowhere and makes the night something special. Donate some money, meet people in your town who are doing something good. Use all that famous-guy power to make shit a little better. Might make you hate it less." Does she want him to put on the spandex, too? Jensen shakes his head, but Beth leans forward, quick, surprisingly serious. "You know how happy it makes people to meet someone as famous as you? Spread the love, rich boy. God knows other people would kill for it."

The waitress reappears, softly removes the dishes and lays down the check folder. Beth takes it, because her firm can write it off as a business reimbursement even if they spent most of the last hour primarily dealing with Jensen's sadsack problems, and gives Jensen a hard look. "Think about it, yes? Or stop whining. Or, whatever, keep whining but we're doing it when I can charge you by the hour."

"You're not my therapist," Jensen says, after a few seconds. Beth mutters yeah, right into her teacup.

*

Jensen met Aimee in the spring of 2011. Filming on the first Cap movie was done and now it was just waiting for the premiere. He'd signed the (at the time) six-film contract, and he'd been buzzing with the twinned thrill and sheer anxiety of how big it was going to get. Not everything rested on him not fucking it up, but a pretty big portion did. Iron Man had unexpectedly gone gangbusters and the guy from Marvel, Feige, had this whole plan that he'd rattled off in Jensen's face, in the meeting after he'd finally gotten hired after the tenth audition and was signing away the next however many years of his life. More money than he thought he'd ever make in his career, with the promise of significantly more if this Avengers thing got off the ground; more fame, maybe, than he'd ever actually wanted, even when he was little giving fake Oscar speeches to his bathroom mirror, prop statue played by his toothbrush.

The party was hosted by Marvel but it was all about Disney, who'd bought the company a few years before—some executive's something-th anniversary, but they brought in some of the big (and soon-to-be-big) talent to provide sparkle and glitz. Jensen had had the show, he'd had the movies, but this behind-the-scenes upper echelon schmoozing stuff was new. Marianne and the newly-hired publicist Beth Zhao had prepped Jensen with background on some of the execs, a fresh haircut to layer up the boy scout Steve Rogers look, and a casual-but-tailored blazer and jeans combo that had cost triple the deposit on his first LA apartment. He'd been comfortable for a while but this was strange—shoved onto a pedestal he didn't have the balance for, yet. "Be charming," had been Marianne's advice; Beth, already alarmingly casual, had told him to text her if he shit himself; Jensen had actually called his dad, who'd said what, Disney like Mickey Mouse? They're your bosses? Hadn't really helped.

Art gallery off Melrose, with these huge installations: bright colors, wild splashy patterns, up the three story mezzanine and across the floor. Waiters circulating with cab, sauv, or champagne. Jensen wanted a beer but took the champagne. He met Downey there for the first time—call me Robert, he said, and Jensen obliged but there was something plasticky and hard over the top of the quirky public smile and he knew right away that they'd never really be friends. Rich Ross made a brief appearance—Jensen had been prepped with his photo by Marianne and told to be obsequious, which Jensen dutifully did, although the impression he got was that Ross wouldn't remember who he was unless the Cap movie made nine figures opening weekend—and he stood smiling in a circle of marketing people so Feige could show him off and obediently told a charming story about the many fittings for the suit—and withstood a gaggle of wives ogling him, while one went on and on in detail about the remodel they were doing on their place in Bel Air, and Jensen used every acting skill he'd ever perfected on the soap to avoid looking bored.

Eventually, a retreat to the bar. He'd had two glasses of champagne and wanted a very large margarita and wasn't allowed to have one for the diet his brand-new personal trainer had put him on. A woman appeared next to him—tall, dark pixie hair with bleached tips—and ordered a double Scotch, and when she had it in hand she looked at him and said, "What do you think of the art?"

A question that wasn't about how he got his ass to look like that in spandex or the changing face of the film industry. Disarmed, he was honest, and said, "Kinda splotchy. Like the colors, though." She smiled at him like that had been a stupid thing to say. He gestured with his warm champagne to the giant 10x10 abstract canvas on the opposite wall, below which Robert was holding court in a crowd of charmed execs. "That's my favorite."

She said, "Why?"

He said, honest again, "I like yellow." She laughed, less like he was stupid and more like she was surprised, and her expression was different, more assessing. What did he know about art? This stuff was interesting to look at. He did like yellow.

Five years and he never really understood her work. He liked to look at it but didn't get it, and sometimes he'd wondered if there actually was something to get but he never said that, even when they'd get in a nasty fight, with slights from years ago dredged up as thrown gauntlets. Found out later from the PR woman at Marvel who'd planned that party that the art wasn't really why they were there—it was just a venue that was available when another had fallen through, and the gallery happened to have cool installations from this relative-unknown artist, and was it okay if she was there to explain a piece if someone asked? Jensen hadn't asked. Aimee had been the one to ask him out, actually.

Tonight is another big installation. Sculpture and murals and now she's covered both ceiling and floor in the main hall of this gallery, a giant blue-and-purple abstract cave lit in random corners by Edison lights and flashing fluorescents and a neon sign she commissioned months ago that says in spiky block letters WHAT DO YOU KNOW FOR CERTAIN? Nine Inch Nails playing over the sound system, inside and spilling out into the open back garden, where her weird block-and-spike shapes are placed at symmetrical intervals between the hedges. Waiters circulating, with hibiscus kombucha and super-sweetened iced black tea. Jensen had helped with tasting while she was planning this, months ago, and thought they were both kind of gross. She thought that was funny, too.

He arrives fifteen minutes after the opening, as requested. Photographers and starchasers snap pics behind the velvet ropes while the valet takes his keys. This opening's been mentioned in the trades for weeks and Aimee texted him, just to be sure: you're still coming? Of course he was still coming. She came to the Oscars; this is the least he can do.

Aimee's by the bar when Jensen's finally done with the selfies and autographs and makes it inside. A little crowd around her that parts for, as far as they know, the artist's boyfriend. "Citron and soda," she says, and smiles at Jensen while it's being made. "You look good."

He looks like he always looks. She's dyed her hair again in the weeks since he saw her last—rich sunset orange, hot contrast against all the cool blues and purples of the room—and is wearing another slick white dress, silver flats. Funky and beautiful. Also how she always looks.

There's a good turnout. Some of it's for him but most of the people actually inside, the invited critics and other gallery owners, the art collectors with houses much nicer than his, are there for her. He kisses her on one high cheekbone and takes the low-calorie drink she ordered for him and they walk out back to the garden, the music quieter, Aimee stopping to shake hands with some white-haired artiste who's effusive about her use of cobalt. Jensen checks out a sculpture while he waits for the lady to stop gushing: acid-etched copper, rippling in a smooth wave about as tall as he is before it breaks apart into rays of jagged edges. The little plaque on the standee reads Skepticism (2016).

"You want it?" Aimee says, when she comes to stand by him again. Close although she's not touching. Her eyes go all over the piece, critical even if she's the one who designed it. "Friends and family discount, it'd only set you back, mm. Twenty k."

"Don't think it'd go with the midcentury aesthetic," Jensen says. She smiles at the sculpture and then shifts all her weight to one hip, tilted a little away from him, looking across her shoulder. That same assessment. "You got a place?"

"In Burbank," she says, and lifts the shoulder like, that's all that needs to be said about that. "How was New York?"

"It sucked," Jensen says. Her eyelashes dip and he takes a sip of his awful drink. When she doesn't respond he says, "There's going to be a profile in the Times. More chances to be embarrassed about my taste in music."

A tiny laugh huffed through her nose. "When it's the old stuff it's not so bad," Aimee says, and puts her fingertips on his jacket sleeve, pulling him along the crushed gravel path past the next sculpture (bright blue blocky sun with white-and-violet splotches all over—Disbelief). "It's the Keith Urbans and pop girls that make me want to commit homicide."

"Not sure even Beth could cover that one up."

Aimee rolls her eyes. "Beth." No, they never much liked each other.

The sculpture at the end of the garden path's arc, an obelisk with one side shattered into bits of glass and mirror, arrested in place. Anxiety. What the hell is this theme. Another couple there and they meet Aimee with more superlatives, which Jensen smiles through, completely ignored. Art people really don't care who he is. When they move away Aimee turns to him straight on and says, like they weren't interrupted, "Beth's actually a good segue. I don't know how famous people do this but we should make it official."

"You moved to Burbank," Jensen says, more sour than he expected to be. "That's pretty official."

Aimee doesn't rise to the bait. "I want to be able to have dinner with someone and not have some weirdo on one of your fan blogs sell a tip to TMZ," she says, even. Her head tilts, looking at someone coming over his shoulder, and she smiles wide and guileless and holds up a one moment finger. "I really appreciate you still coming tonight—the extra press helps." Her eyes meet his for a second and her smile goes lop-sided, more natural. "Sorry. Kind of. But I think if you didn't complain about it all the time you could have more fun with being famous."

His complaining about it all the time was one of the major pillars of her I'm leaving you monologue. The reminder is irritating but mostly because it's a discussion and then an argument they had over and over, and now Beth's giving it to him, too. "I'm going to a charity thing next Saturday," he says, without intending to. "This little group in Silver Lake. Don't tell anyone but that's kind of the whole thing—Captain America shows up, free buzz. Should be fun. I can have fun with it."

She looks entirely skeptical. "Really. You're showing up at something, in public, without a contract."

"I'm here, aren't I," Jensen says. She'd had Marianne put it on his calendar months ago, which was ridiculous. He would've come no matter what.

Aimee's face softens. "I really do appreciate it," she says, but also steps back, folding her arms over her stomach. She looks back toward the open back wall of the gallery, the reflections from the art casting her skin blue. Jensen reaches up and fixes an orange flyaway, which makes her blink, but then he tucks his hands into his pockets. She smiles, quick. "Talk to Beth? Or I can, but I feel like it should be you." She nods at the gallery where, yeah, she's gonna have to say a few words and do the usual q&a. A step away, her flats crunching on the gravel, before she turns and sets her closed fist in the middle of his chest. A pause, and then she says, looking at her fist and not his face, "Have fun at the charity thing."

Jensen leans on the bar during her speech, watches the blue-and-purple light ripple over her dress. The neon sign looms in his periphery. He orders a second drink and texts Beth: I'm coming to the thing on the 2^nd. Receives, almost immediately because her phone is never far away, three hearts. Don't tell anyone, he texts, just in case, and receives DUH!, so, okay. Having fun with it.

At the far end of the gallery Aimee's gesturing at a 10x5 canvas that almost blends with the rest of the splotchy walls, but for a bright spill of yellow river running through it. His favorite in this collection. He could buy it, but. The bartender puts another citron & soda by his elbow and says, "Here you go, Cap," very quietly, and Jensen smiles and drains half the glass in a swallow.

*

Saturday he has a session with Andreas, who pushes him through an hour of cardio in Jensen's home gym before ending with a round of pilates. Just maintenance, not bulking, thank god. "Don't slack, handsome," Andreas says, flicking his perfect manicured nails at Jensen's chest, and Jensen goes to one elbow in his plank to flip him off and says, "I'm eating fries for breakfast tomorrow, just watch." Andreas mock-screams and Jensen's laugh almost breaks him out of the plank but he holds it for the full two minutes. Screw you, Andreas.

That night it's a much delayed birthday dinner with a few of his older LA friends. Including Vince. With the breakup he thought about canceling but Beth said, no, this is exactly what to do: go out without her, start slow. If Vince is the guy Beth thinks he is, rumors will circulate among a certain set and it'll smooth the way. Jensen hasn't talked to Beth about the other kind of guy that Vince is. Hasn't really known how to broach it. Anyway, he's already got a private room booked at Yamashiro. For five, instead of six.

Birthday boy, hailed like a king. Sake all around, hugs, air kisses. These are the people he met in that first year of scrambling for auditions and waiting tables and staying up until four a.m., smoking dirt weed and gossiping and hooking up and, miraculously, staying friends. None of them are trying to act on screen anymore—which helps, since the friends he thought he had who are still going out for roles are the ones who ask if he knows such-and-such casting agent rather than asking about his day. This crew he can actually talk to, when he isn't being dragged to random parts of the world. It's comfortable. Although Mike won't stop calling him Jenny from the block. It's a good thing Mike ended up becoming an accountant and is afraid of the press, because Jensen cannot imagine the sheer humiliation of that nickname ending up as a Twitter hashtag.

They've known him since he was plucking his eyebrows in a magnifying mirror he stole from a CVS and so even if it's his birthday, they're not interested in New York or reporters or what the Oscars afterparties were like. He gets their gossip, instead. Mateo and Yolanda are adopting, isn't that amazing? Mike and Vince rag them for spending the money when they could get a kid the old-fashioned way and Yoli says, "Girl, I am not screwing up this six-pack, are you kidding," and flashes her flat yoga instructor stomach to the table, and Jensen steals her beer and says, "Okay, better not waste these calories then," and she scrambles to take it back from him and Vince spanks her ass as she goes by, and it's actually—fun, mostly. Mostly.

Later, when they're stuffed (Jensen's nutrition plan truly thrown out the window—screw you again, Andreas), and the server's brought a bottle of Dom—a gift from the chef, she murmured, pouring Jensen a glass he didn't ask for—there's clubby Japanese pop playing, loud and bright. Mike and Yoli are dancing, Mateo leaning back in the window with a beer resting on his belly and calling out commentary, and Vince comes and drops next to Jensen on his bench seat, taking the champagne flute out of his hand. "If you're not going to drink it let the plebs have a taste," he says.

Jensen rolls his eyes. Vince curls an arm around Jensen's shoulders and gets cozy. Almost two decades and Vince hasn't changed: pushy, catty, kind of annoying. Fun, but not the kind of fun Jensen has anymore, and hasn't for years. "I'll get you a bottle for your birthday," Jensen says.

"Sure," Vince says, snorting into the glass, but then taps his long elegant fingers on Jensen's arm. "So. No Aimee."

Like butter wouldn't melt. His extremely effortful curls fall over his forehead, just so. Jensen's had just enough to drink that he flicks them back from Vince's eyes. He always hated that affectation and doesn't know how boring-khakis Mike stands it. "Nope," he says, lips popping. Vince's big brown eyes widen, faux sympathetic, and Jensen stretches out, crosses his boots at the ankle. "Don't even. It was mutual, we're adults, it was five years, it's over."

"Hmm," Vince says. His thumb drags over Jensen's shoulder, warm and slow. "We'll miss her."

"Bull," Jensen says, and Vince smiles wide and drains the champagne, discards the glass on the windowsill behind them, crosses his legs so his calf rubs against Jensen's, heavy. Jensen takes a deep breath. It has been a long time. Long time since he's had this many drinks around someone this dangerous, too. He folds his arms over his chest. "How are you and Mike?"

"Mike's an angel and he also has a very rewarding relationship with a personal trainer in Culver City," Vince says. Why is it always personal trainers, Jensen thinks, dizzy. Vince drags his thumb the other way up Jensen's shoulder, nail dragging a little this time in the soft weave of his shirt. "You've been out of the game, honey. Whole new world out there. Although—" he says, softer, pulling back just enough to brush Jensen's hair back from his face. "I like the oldies, too."

"I'm only thirty-eight," Jensen says, and Vince murmurs, yeah, you old hag, and, god. Yeah, he misses the oldies, too, sometimes. Back in that old apartment, when no one knew who he was and there wasn't five hundred dollar champagne given away for free and the hostess at the restaurant wasn't going to text her friends a covert pic of oh my god, is that Jensen Ackles?? with a queeny Italian about to shove his hand down Jensen's pants, and the PR problems that would ensue—well, back then there was no PR to worry about, was there.

Jensen drags his hand over his face, leans forward. Yolanda has pulled Mateo up to dance with both her and Mike and it's not going well, the three of them all kind of drunk and swaying and laughing. Vince's fingertips drag down his spine. "You wanna dance?" Vince says, rich with meaning.

He does. He doesn't. "I've—" Jensen takes a breath. "Gotta pee."

In the bathroom he runs cold water over his wrist, leans his forehead against the mirror. He's much, much drunker than he meant to be. Tolerance is shot, with this diet. His phone buzzes in his pocket. An email, to the actually-pay-attention-to-it account. Updated schedule from Marianne's assistant: golf with Joel and some mid-level execs from Fox next Wednesday, filming that Today segment moved to Thursday, and a blacked out PERSONAL next Saturday night. Personal. Yeah, right.

Another buzz and the dropdown notification is from Vince: No worries either way. Want a ride home?

Jensen drags his fingers over his lips, smearing cold water. Tries very hard to remember how good sobriety is, and to forget how much fun him and Vince and another bottle of champagne could be. I called a cab, he taps back, and remembers what Beth said, and types more slowly, Don't mention the thing with me and Aimee. Receives a zip-mouth emoji in return. Knows that Vince is and will forever be a gossipy bitch and will tell his not-so-zip-mouth industry friends almost immediately, so it'll trickle to rumor blogs and pop culture journalists and people who work at JustJared. Jensen has fun when they get together, and it is comfortable in its way, but there's a reason Jensen didn't stay in that apartment.

He sniffs. Calls the cab he said he was going to call, which in this case means the extremely discreet private car service. Goes to the back room, and gets hugs from Mike and Vince and a comedy grope from Mateo and a big sloppy kiss on the cheek from Yolanda, who tells him not to be a stranger, and then he pours himself into the back of the unobtrusive Lexus that arrives with its professional silent driver, and watches the blur of Los Angeles smear past the tinted windows. Thinks about warm fingers, dragging down his spine.

Hungover, in the morning. God, he is really out of practice. Should've puked when he got home but he hasn't done that since the real bad old days. A shower, in one of the few rooms of this house he's really glad he spent the money on, and when he's pummeled and steamed and scorched clean he chugs a Pedialyte and then climbs naked back into the big expanse of the bed and snoozes off-and-on, until it's afternoon and when he swims gummily back to consciousness his mouth tastes like chalky strawberry and ass, and he missed a call from his mother—they usually talk after church, whoops—and he's starving, and oh, it's Sunday.

He calls his mother back while he cooks—egg white omelet, with spinach and a measured-out ounce of feta, with apologies to Andreas. His dad's already out golfing with his buddies and so she's got the house to herself, is making a roast chicken for dinner. Yes, the service was nice. How was your party? Oh, that's nice. You know your sister—

And so on. Calls with his mother tend to go the same way. She loves him and he loves her but they haven't been close, really, ever since that first year in LA. His therapist says people have to come to acceptance in their own time, and in the meantime practicing conscious and ongoing understanding is the best thing we can do, on our own side. Sometimes Jensen wonders if she can hear herself, when she talks. "How's Aimee?" Mom says, just before they hang up, and Jensen doesn't skip a beat before he says, "Doing great—that gallery opening was fantastic," and Mom says, "Tell her we send our love," and Jensen says, warm, "Sure will, Mama." See, that improv class all those years ago really came in handy. Mom's always been incredibly approving of Jensen's girlfriends.

Omelet's lukewarm by the time he can get off the phone. No matter; it wasn't going to taste good, anyway. Jensen takes it to the breakfast nook and sits in the warm pool of afternoon light and fires up YouTube on his laptop, and right there, on schedule, uploaded three hours ago: Choosing the right varnish. Thumbnail is JP holding up a can of Rust-Oleum with a lightly quizzical face. Goofy but it makes Jensen smile, anyway.

The lingering headache drains slowly out of his shoulders while he eats, watching. This video's an ultra-casual one, even if JP's doing an actual product comparison rather than a build. The edit's loose, and the dogs keep interrupting, and JP grins exasperated at them and then looks sidelong at the camera, like, can you believe what I put up with? Wearing a much-stained Spurs t-shirt and paint-spattered jeans and a blue ball cap turned backwards over his too-long hair and talking with genuine enthusiasm about the different reasons to pick a polyurethane over aliphatic urethane, and the best way to apply them, and a demo of different pieces of furniture he's refinished with different types, and a cut to his back patio where he shows off the water-resistance on a wooden picnic table with a spray of his hose, which of course makes the black lab go nuts and soaks the Spurs shirt so it clings to his lean stomach. Well, could've seen that coming, JP mutters, apparently really not thinking about how fucking incredibly hot he is. Which of course only makes it hotter.

Jensen sits through the full half hour, endeared and almost forcibly relaxed, as always. He cannot imagine ever actually varnishing something of his own and that doesn't matter. Then, at the end, after the usual thanks—reminders to subscribe if you haven't, although if y'all just keep coming back that's pretty good too—just when Jensen's about to scroll down to the comments to see if everyone else also tagged that moment at 26:42 when JP pulled his wet shirt out from his belly and they were all treated to a flash of tan skin, happy trail, edge of blue boxers over his belt buckle—there's a quick cut and it's JP's hands, again, resettling the camera over his big scarred worktable, pulling off his baseball cap and shoving long band-aided fingers through his hair.

Hey, y'all, before you go, JP says, and Jensen leans in, mostly-eaten omelet forgotten to the side. JP grins, kind of sheepish. So, if you didn't know, I'm based out here in Los Angeles, California. He plucks at the Spurs shirt, dry now through editing magic, and whispers stage-comedy loud booo Lakers, yayyy Spurs. Jensen blinks. No, JP had never mentioned that, at least in any video Jensen remembered. JP reaches just off camera and holds up a flyer, small in his hands, and pushes it forward while he says, But, Lakers aside, I dig my adopted town, and we've got some fellow folks in the community who could use a little help. My buddy's putting together this benefit next Saturday and I said I'd help out.

LOVE/LA. Jensen's hangover-tender stomach does a full loop-de-loop.

Guess that's hard to read, JP says, pulling back the sheet. I'll leave all the details down in the description. But there's a link to donate to help these folks, and if you're in LA then you can come to the benefit night—have a drink, buy something at the auction. I'm putting up something to auction off, so, you know—come and get a real JP original and do some good while you're at it. Another big grin, and he drags his hand over his hair, the dark waves falling thick and soft right back into the same place. Man, I don't know. I'm not good at publicizing stuff. See you if I see you, and say hi if you come. He reaches to turn off the camera and then pauses, holds up a long admonitory finger. Donate, either way!

Black screen, and then the recommended videos. YouTube thinks that he might like to rewatch the one about soft woods versus hard woods, with JP's lip-bite and sidelong look at the 'hard' in the thumbnail title. He's watched it twice; now's probably not the time for a third.

He dumps the last bites of omelet into the trash and leaves the plate in the sink. His phone's on the charger on the island and he picks it up to text Beth and then puts it down again. What the hell would he say?

He picks up his phone and goes to the YouTube app and watches the last minute of the video again. Wet t-shirt into dry t-shirt, big dimpled smile, the flyer. Tap to pause but it's not like he needs to. The video description has the information—the bar in Silver Lake, the date, the time. The link to donate, as promised, with a note below that reads COOL PEOPLE WHO CAN AFFORD IT LOVE DONATING TO HELP THOSE IN NEED. I HAVE IT ON GOOD AUTHORITY. ;-)

Again, Jensen gets as far as opening his texts to Beth before he puts the phone back down. Ridiculous but that doesn't stop him from being as hot-faced and fried as he was when he realized he was going to sit next to Robert DeNiro at that Paley event. JP is not Robert DeNiro. Among other things, Jensen would be surprised if DeNiro could build a custom armoire, complete with secret pop-out drawer—a feature which, when demonstrated and it worked, made JP high-five himself out of sheer delight.

Jensen takes a deep breath. It's for charity. He's going to show up, there'll be a fuss, he'll donate money and take pictures with people and they'll put those pictures up on Twitter and Instagram and wherever else and the benefit will get extra attention. If Jensen happens to meet a YouTuber there—well, so what. He'll have a story to tell Beth. It'll be fun. It can't be any worse than Comic-Con. Something to cling to, there.

Resolved, he goes back to the breakfast nook, and reaches to close his laptop. Pauses, and then scrolls down to the comments after all, and yeah, someone commented dear lord in heaven, and tagged 26:42, and Jensen watches again while that flash of stomach appears. JP's pelvic cut is significantly better than Jensen's. He runs his tongue over the point of his canine and then claps the lid closed. Maybe he should've taken Vince up on his offer, last night.

*

Tuesday, a text from Beth, with a link: bingo. A blog, someone claiming to be an 'industry insider' except all their posts are about celebrities dating and cheating and screwing up their lives. A short blurb, under a long-lens picture of him and Aimee standing next to each other in the garden at the gallery, with the headline (Captain) American Dream Over? Barely makes sense but then the people who write this crap aren't exactly Pulitzer contenders. He skims it—basic details about how long they dated, her career and his, and then what they expected: another 'insider' has learned about the breakup and there will be no wedding bells on the horizon. Jensen scratches his nails through his growing beard, reluctantly entertained despite the usual hot flash of embarrassment and anger. Wedding bells. All these so-called insiders really never knew a damn thing about Aimee Chapman. He texts Beth: Way to go, Vince, and she sends back an emoji of an upside-down smile, which—yeah, that's about right. Jensen leaves the phone on the bathroom counter and goes out to swim laps until his shoulders ache.

This week is a break, more or less. The serious marketing will start soon—there are already billboards going up with Jensen and Downey glaring at each other, forty feet high—but other than the Today appearance and the Fox meeting that's a lot of smiling and handshaking and nothing real said, he doesn't have much to do. A weightlifting session with Andreas (he lies about how much he drank over the weekend and Andreas absolutely does not believe him); a massage, cashing in Marianne's usual birthday present, with the masseur a giant Swedish dude who rolls his travel table into Jensen's guest room and then leaves him feeling like all his bones have been mashed to a powder and he'll have to gently ooze his way to the junket next week.

He puddles instead in the den, with a single IPA he's trying to draw out and savor and a pile of screeners Marianne's office sent over, along with heavily curated pieces of fanmail. The fanmail he leaves for another day when he's got more of a stomach for it; the screeners are actually kind of fun. Apparently rare among his SAG fellows, he tries to watch as much as he can over the course of the year. When the nomination call goes out, he doesn't want to just write in the last five movies his co-workers were in.

Knight of Cups, first. Malick flick. He sips at his beer to make it last and watches Christian Bale bounce around LA looking for the meaning of life and failing to find it in glossy parties and fucking. A little on the nose although it's got that Malick weirdness, which Jensen's always privately thought was trying to cover up with not having much to actually say, and then wondered if he just isn't smart enough to get it.

Bale wanders around an LA that looks like a perfume ad and among the misery and abuse Jensen thinks, where is this fucking city that's always in these movies. The city he's been living in since '97 isn't—this. The parties are not this glossy and the misery is not this artistic. It's just boring, and fake a lot of the time, but a lot of the time it's not. A lot of the time it's just—work. Los Angeles isn't some mythic dark hard-shelled city on the hill; it's just a place people live.

When he came he came with a dream, sure, but he was also a B- student from Texas with two grand saved up in his checking account and practical parents who told him, try it for a year and if it doesn't work out you can go to UT-Dallas and be safe here at home. Screw that. He got an awful apartment and he took his headshot to agencies and hung around sets as an extra and just—got on with his life. He scrounged tip change for ramen and diner coffee and met people and tried dating and called his parents and told them things were going great, not to worry, and tried some party drugs and avoided harder drugs and got a first agent, finally. Fucking Gary. Got him a job on the soap, which Jensen supposes he has to be grateful for because it led to everything else, but Gary wanted to fuck him more than Gary wanted to help him and Jensen never took the obvious hint and never got better work from Gary as a result. Even so it wasn't tawdry faux-intellectual bull with weird metaphorical scenes and, seriously, what is this camerawork. Beautiful but meaningless. Meanwhile in real life there was Gary, who was moderately good looking, in a math teacher sort of way, and his suits were cheap, and he always put his hand on the small of Jensen's back when they went in or out of a room and Jensen could've socked him one but it wasn't miserable or monstrous or bleak. Gary was just irritating. There was no overarching epic story. It was going to audition after audition and getting a slightly better apartment with the guys he met—Vince and Mateo among them—and leaving the crappy soap for a crappy primetime teen show, and then leaving the crappy primetime teen show for a crappy-but-nevertheless-kind-of-successful romcom, and all of it just mundane, and hard, and boring, and fine.

When the credits roll on the movie he realizes he wasn't much paying attention for a lot of it. Banderas saying something about strawberries? Whatever. He doubts he'll vote for anyone. Of course, this movie in Ireland later this year won't be any better. He got in a fight with Joel about it when they went for a drink after golf with the Fox people, which was stupid and he'll have to apologize, but he knows the director didn't want to hire him and her producers forced her hand. Jensen's taking guild minimum just not to screw up their budget and he's excited about the script—his character's a reporter at the end of his rope, miserable, and Jensen fell in love with the guy immediately—but he knows for a fact that the EP picked him because his name on the poster will create buzz, and maybe deranged Marvel fans will go to an indie slow-paced thinker and probably hate it but they'll have at least bought tickets, and he has no idea if he can even do this, the careful delicate character work, the hinting at depth and creating space for the camera to see more than what's really there. He spends most of his days fighting back his soft stomach and faking sincere smiles for fangirls. If he were more responsible he'd call Marianne and tell her she has to get him out of it, but he's less responsible than he is selfish. He wants to do something he actually wants to do. Which is absurd, and is part of why he picked a fight with Joel.

His shoulders are bungee-cable tight. So much for the massage. He finishes his one allowed beer and drags his hands over his face and his mind leaps as it has kept leaping all week to tomorrow night. Again he thinks about calling Beth and telling her not to expect him, but—that's absurd, too. He doesn't even know why he's going, at this point, other than as a sort of dare to himself. Go out and do something that isn't work and isn't bumming around this ridiculous house and isn't gladhanding A-listers who think he's a puffed-up Tiger Beat model with pretensions at artistry. It'll be different, at least. Although he suspects that if he actually has fun, Beth won't let him hear the end of it.

*

Silver Lake on a Saturday night overflows with hipsters. Better than the attempts at social climbing at Soho House but maybe—Jensen thinks while trying to park—not by much. Finally finds a space up a hill on a residential street and leaves the Jaguar to fend for itself, between a beater Toyota and an ugly 90s Beemer, and walks down toward the venue. Wishing, again, for a cigarette. Night's cool and breezy and he does have a moment of feeling transported—meeting friends at a divey bar, exactly twenty bucks to drink on unless they managed to get someone else to buy, the evening starting at ten p.m. and absolutely no end in sight.

Not the case today. The event started at eight o'clock; Jensen's arriving, by Beth's recommendation and his own preference, at least half an hour late. If he times it right he should be home by ten, dubiously good deed done and maybe his chest feeling a little less tight than it's felt, for the past month. Maybe more like the past year.

Stepping foot on Sunset he's already sure he's made a mistake. Three girls standing outside a coffee shop immediately recognize him—one makes a sound like a steam engine, while another smacks her friend hard enough on the bare arm that Jensen hears it like a spank as he walks by. He smiles, megawatt but brief, and walks faster. A kid in a lime green crop top and short-shorts that may not be street legal gawks, smoking something that is not just tobacco; a couple of guys with bad beards and plaid shirts all fully turn to watch him go, frowning and elbowing each other and muttering, audible over the traffic noise and the music spilling out of bar-fronts, was that…? It's Los Angeles, Jensen wants to say. Movie stars live here, don't be so shocked. But it's Los Angeles, which means that the people Jensen actually works with mostly aren't here. Which is the point. Nevertheless, maybe he should've—

Too late: between a vintage clothing store and a Vietnamese noodle shop, here it is. NINA'S in red neon, a black brick front and a dark door, with a big hand-made sign in the window, bubble letters reading #Night4Need. Another couple of people on the sidewalk, smoking—one of indeterminate gender with a rainbow fauxhawk squints at him and then gets big eyes, and says, "Uh, hi." T-shirt says STAFF.

Jensen takes a breath—god, the smoke smells good—and smiles, deliberate and easy. "Hey," he says, infusing a syllable with every ounce of relaxed star energy he can muster. Clooney, eat your heart out. "Ten dollar cover?"

Fauxhawk nods. Jensen hands over the bill and they stick it in their fanny pack—a fanny pack, jesus christ—and when nothing else seems to be forthcoming he tries another smile around at the group and then steps in through the open door, and finds that he wasn't quite fashionably late enough to miss all of the programming.

Long low room, red-and-white alternating lamps hung over black high-tops; a backlit bar on the left side and a tiny stage with a spotlight in the back right corner, which could hold a three-piece punk outfit or a singer-songwriter with a strumming guitar, but currently features a woman who might be all of five feet, telling the actually decent-sized crowd, "…not fair, and we know it, right? So we decided, hell with 'em. These are our neighborhoods, right?" Right, and hell yeah, from murmurs around the room. "We know how to take care of our own neighborhoods, right?" A loud whoop, on the far side of the room, and the tiny woman tips an imaginary cap to whoever that was.

While she keeps talking Jensen sidles to the left, weaving behind the crowd at the very back to not interrupt and not be seen. He's nearly made it to the bar when someone clutches his elbow and he stiffens and turns and it's—oh thank god. "Thought you were going to chicken out," Beth stage-whispers, and when he opens his mouth she shushes him with a finger to her lips, mock scolding. Fuck you, Jensen mouths, and she grins and jerks her head at the bar, so he has to carefully move between some Silver Lake people actually paying attention to the speaker.

"Rum and diet," Beth says, leaning forward to the bartender. Young and hot, in a Pattinson way; he nods at Beth and then looks at Jensen, and blinks, but doesn't react beyond that. That doubled his tip. The speaker finishes, while Jensen's distracted, and there's a decent round of applause that she calls over the top of, "Portion of the bar tab goes to us! Drink up! And don't forget to check the silent auction, you know you want that cute-ass scarf Sophie made—" and in all the noise Jensen manages to mime that he wants an IPA, and drops a fifty on the bar to cover it.

Music replaces the mic, when a guy with bleached locs and a—Jensen squints over the crowd—oh, a pretty nice Epiphone Les Paul, gets up and starts playing blues covers. Gary Clark he is not but it's not bad at all, especially with no vocal part that the attendees would have to scream to be heard over. Beth clinks her glass against Jensen's bottle and touches his arm again, steers him toward the rear of the place where the tiny woman is enthusiastically hugging around a group. "Deep breath," Beth says, over her shoulder, and Jensen thinks she's lucky that she's his small technically-employee and not a guy his size he could drag into a noogie—but also she's right, deep breath, because this is the point, right here.

The first Cap movie made Jensen famous, no doubt. Another level to where he'd been before, where moms at coffee shops would squint at him and then recognize him as a Forrester from B&B, or a college girl would recognize him from Dawson's, or a guy with an X-Men t-shirt would go, dude, are you Pyro? He always said yes. When Captain America happened that doubled, especially once the Marvel machine started churning and his face was on cereal boxes, mocapped for video games, when he stopped having to do Craig Ferguson and was pushed onto Letterman instead. None of that prepared him for when the Avengers crossed the billion-dollar mark at the box office. Whatever had happened with that first movie was doubled again. Maybe squared. He wasn't great at math.

What happens now is this: Beth leads the way, and the tiny woman swings around and says, "Zhao, you son of a bitch," like they're old pals, and they hug, and the woman's grinning and her eyes go up to see who's standing behind her friend, and when she sees Jensen there's this flicker, like something glitched. The group of people they interrupted are all doing the same thing, a rapid chemical reaction around their circle—expressions wiped clean with shock and then trying to put on a normal face, but it's not possible to be normal because the bar they thought they were standing in is now a different one. At a certain point fame becomes Fame and reorients the world. In all likelihood, the people in this hipster bar in this hipster neighborhood don't even like him, or his movies—probably haven't even seen most of them—but that chemical reaction happens even so, and now without anyone realizing it was going to happen this has become The Night that Jensen Ackles Came to Our Bar.

This is why Jensen doesn't go anywhere. Nevertheless: in order to make it The Night Jensen Ackles Came and not Oh My God, Did You Know Jensen Ackles Is An Asshole, when Beth lets the lady go and says, "Sona, let me introduce you to Jensen," he holds a hand out to shake and turns the Clooney up to eleven.

Sona folds. Another thing Jensen's learned: starry-eyed is an actual thing, though the severity depends on the person. To her credit Sona bears up under it and there's a flurry of introductions around the circle. Jensen's very good with faces and decent with names and while they talk in a flustered babble about LOVE/LA and wow, it's crazy that you're here, ha ha, how did you even hear about us, Beth you should've said—he asks a few questions and uses the names while he's doing it, and because he's got practice and because he literally did watch as many Clooney interviews as he could—good artists borrow, great artists steal—it doesn't come off used car salesman like it used to when fucking Gary was trying to 'teach' him how to gladhand. Instead they get comfortable, they smile wide, they seem genuinely happy.

By the time Beth makes excuses for them Jensen feels like he's been showered in oxytocin. "If I had the superpower to read thought bubbles," Beth says, leaning up to his ear, "Sona's would just say WOW in 72-point sparkle font."

"Shut up," Jensen says, but Beth only raises her eyebrows at him, and—okay, reorient your point of view. The charity people are still glancing their way and the tallish blue-haired guy, Brian—see, Jensen is good at it—catches Jensen's eye, and Jensen smiles and Brian actually goes red and smiles dorkily and kinda cute back. Absurd. But so what if it turns his stomach a little and makes him want to sprint back to the car and hide—they're shocked, and giddy, and maybe wow is right. He could be doing a lot worse with his night.

He finished his beer and so Beth takes him back to the bar and he gets another—same Pattinson-lite guy, who gives him a private grin this time and a not-dormant-enough part of Jensen's hindbrain goes, aha—and he's pulled to various groups to meet-and-greet. Celebrity wattage set at a firmly warm glow. Mostly these people are too self-consciously cool to make a huge fuss, although one guy with glitter-pink nails and a homemade t-shirt that says THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS asks for a selfie, because he says his stepsister is a massive Captain America fan and proves it by showing Jensen a picture of a little girl grinning gap-toothed over a plastic version of the shield. Jensen takes two for that—one with the Steve Rogers Patient Hero smile, and one where he's got glitterboy in a headlock, with his own eyes crossed—and then glitterboy's girlfriend tells a story about going to the Avengers premiere at midnight with her ex and she fell asleep before the aliens invaded and had no idea why Manhattan was rubble when she snorted awake, and the story's entertaining enough in her telling that Jensen actually laughs and realizes that, oh, he's not really acting anymore.

Beth brings him a third beer while he's hearing about how impossible it is to get on for amateurs night at the Comedy Store—the little group he's with was appalled that he's never been to the Comedy Store, and tell him he just has to go—but then also pulls him away, says she has to introduce him to someone, When they're six inches out of earshot she crows, told you, told you. Jensen does kind of noogie her, but very carefully so as not to mess up her twin buns. Before he can do more she wriggles out of his grip and they fetch up by one of the women who was in Sona's group earlier. Jensen's internal rolodex throws up a card: Hispanic, shimmer-white lip gloss, shockingly short blue dress. Rio.

Beth kisses Rio on the cheek, pulls Jensen in close to her table. "I've got to go," she says—what? That wasn't part of the deal—"but tell my boy here about the auction, okay? I bet you could talk him out of some cash." To Jensen she gives another big smile, this one a lot more like the Joker's, and a shrug. "Meeting someone. Have fun, don't do anything I'll have to smooth over." A kiss for him, too, and then she slips between two other tables and disappears, and Jensen's left with—

"So, Rio," Jensen says. They already met and her starry-eyes have mostly been banked, thank god. The rolodex throws up another card, from when he was half-paying attention to the stammering introductions earlier. "You're on the board for LOVE/LA, too?"

Safe ground and she immediately warms to it. Jensen tunes out a little. It's a charity aiming for direct-action support for the homeless and needy in a pretty tight area; admirable work, genuinely, and when Brian sidles up he joins in talking about some of the stuff they've already done, but it's not like this is groundbreaking. Jensen makes the right noises and asks about support from the city, and they scoff as expected, and it's easy to let them talk at him. He knows he's going to be hit up for cash, which is fine—he has cash, this is what it's for—but even with the pretty good music and a decent beer and interesting fuck-me eyes from Bartender Pattinson, his night's probably winding down.

"Fuck, Rio, I'm so sorry," someone behind Jensen says, interrupting Brian's monologue. Takes a split-second longer for Jensen's brain to turn back on, at which point the hair on the back of his neck stands up.

"I thought you weren't coming!" Rio says, and Jensen takes a step to the right to make room as she comes forward to hug— jesus christ.

Tall, is Jensen's first thought. God, seriously, taller than Hemsworth. He's got an arm wrapped around Rio's shoulders, saying something about a job that went long, caught in traffic before he could get back home—and he's freshly showered, radiating cedar and soap. "God, stop babbling," Rio says, and then, "You brought—oh, great," while he hands over a package wrapped in brown paper, and he shoves a big band-aided hand through his wet hair and says sorry again and Rio says, "Shut up," and then, inevitably, "um, Jared, let me introduce—"

"Jared," Jensen says, brainless.

JP. Wild second of reorientation, where he's not grinning under a YouTube video title but is instead this—giant man, tall and leanly built and thick stubble on his jaw and his hair clinging damply in curled ends behind his ears, and a big hand held out to shake before he clocks who he's looking at and that world-flip happens. "Jared?" he says, confused.

"Jensen." Jensen laughs and immediately feels stupid. What is he doing. He clasps JP's—Jared's—hand, and it's warm and kind of wet from touching his hair and Jensen's gut surges with heat. "Nice to meet you, Jared."

"Uh, yeah," Jared says, eyes big. He looks all over Jensen's face and takes a beat before he says, "Wow, uh, same here."

Jensen manages to keep the handshake to a non-embarrassing length by sheer force of will and nods at the big paper-wrapped thing Rio's holding. "What do you have there?"

"Last thing for the auction," Rio cuts in, and pulls Jared with her toward the tables on the opposite side of the stage. Jensen follows, helpless to do otherwise.

JP, Jared. A grey-and-yellow plaid hanging open and rolled up to his elbows, very much clinging to his biceps; faded black jeans with only one tear in the knee, which are about the nicest ones Jensen's ever seen him in. He glances back at Jensen as they make their way to the auction, still shocked, and Jensen gets that same jolt in his belly he got that first time, a million years ago, watching The Princess Bride and barely understanding why he liked Westley and not Buttercup. Oh, he is in trouble.

The auction table is not the kind of silent auction Jensen's had to attend before. Some okay art, a funky blocky vase someone clearly made in a beginners' ceramics class, some donated books, some jewelry. The previously-mentioned scarf, which is pretty in a chunky knit way. JP's piece, when unwrapped, turns out to be a beautiful cheese board, in mixed face- and end-grain and finished with smooth curved edges. Rio sets it on the empty stand at the end, next to a silver necklace and bracelets set that they also clearly expect to go for some money, and gets on her toes to wave to someone across the room while JP turns around and stares at Jensen again.

Not JP. "Great piece, Jared," Jensen says. "Zebrawood?"

Jared looks at the board and back at him, surprised all over. "Yeah," he says, and then laughs. "Yeah, it is. Figured, you know, it's for charity, right? Better make it look good."

"Looks great," Jensen says, not intending to sound like a dick-stupid teenager but there may be nothing for it at this point. Jared blinks, mouth half-open, and jesus christ, Jensen, pull it together. Under the plaid Jared's wearing a much-loved Spiderman t-shirt that Jensen's seen a dozen times—Jared owns about twenty shirts, as far as his subscribers can tell, and cycles through them on a regular rotation. Jensen tries to reassemble some of that Clooney magic when he nods at the faded print and says, "Dude, I'm offended."

Baffled for a second before he looks down and then laughs, kind of too loud but relieved. "Hey, maybe if Steve Rogers was the top science student at Midtown High," and Jensen doesn't know what that means but god, somehow even that is hot. Built and good with his hands and his eyes, for god's sake, and now a nerd on top of all that. Jensen smiles and Jared grins back, all dimples and white teeth, but right about then Sona arrives and says, "Where were you?" and Jared has to turn and do the sorry, project, traffic rigamarole all over again.

Jensen's actually ignored while they huddle, and rather than ogle the giant beautiful man he turns to the auction table again. Also the subject of their conversation: the bids aren't very high and they need to pump it up. Fair; the okay-ish watercolor of birds closest to Jensen has three numbers written on the sheet, and the highest is only forty bucks. The suggested start Rio scribbled down for Jared's board is fifty, which is criminally low. A woman comes up to the table next to him and he steps back so as not to be noticed and distract her while she checks out the items, but she ignores the board and writes in something for the bracelets instead. Idiot, Jensen thinks.

"We could try adding a dime bag to every item," Rio's saying. Jensen snorts and Jared glances at him, grins again. The starry-eyes mostly aren't there, with the surprise fading. "I don't know. Let's auction off a date with Jared."

"Whoa," Jared says, holding his hands up.

"What, you're single!" Sona says. Jensen feels like every hair on his body is standing on end. She reaches up—standing next to her is making him look even more massive—and pats him on his very, very nice chest. "No, c'mon. You're still up for the lesson, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Jared says. He points at Rio. "But make the minimum bid a hundred, I don't want to feel like a cheap date, here."

Sona tugs him down the foot-and-a-half and gives him a big smacking kiss on the cheek, and then worms her way toward the stage. Blues guy is meandering his way through the back half of a lazy version of Catfish Blues and nods when Sona waves. Rio goes off saying she needs to grab someone, and then a couple wander forward to look at the art and Jared steps back, out of the way, which means his elbow brushes Jensen's stomach. "Sorry," Jared says, jumping, but the space is tight and he's only about six inches away.

Jensen looks up into his face and the world's upside-down. This must be what it's like. Jared hesitates, squinting, but has to make room again as a guy goes past with three drinks clutched in his hands, which makes him sway against Jensen again, touching his shoulder lightly this time as warning. He smells fantastic. Jensen's pretty sure it is just soap, but good god. Jared leans back, says, "Man, it's a cattle call in here. You—uh, come here often?"

Jensen feels his eyebrows fly up before he can control his face. Where the hell did the Clooney go? Jared's got a smile still curling his mouth, though, and after a split second too long Jensen laughs. "Not really," he says. Drags the ease back bit by bit. "Seemed like a nice event. Thought I could help out."

"Wow," Jared says, smile widening, but the internal wince Jensen quashes about the actual reasons for his attendance and whatever else Jared might have said get cut off, because the song's over and Sona's back on the mic, yelling out people, are we having a good time? and Jared's attention yanks toward her.

Sona calls a few of the locals who contributed up on stage. The watercolor artist is an older lady with iron grey hair and five facial piercings, who takes a bow while Rio carefully carries the bird picture back and forth like a ring girl at a boxing match. The silver jewelry was made by Mike, who's maybe the feyest little queen Jensen's seen since the WeHo days, although he's got a startlingly deep voice while he talks about how excited he is that everyone came out. Jensen moves carefully backward, while the spotlight's heavy, and he manages to get his back against the wall—a startled twenty-something makes room when Jensen gives an apologetic smile—by the time Sona's calling up Jared. He steps up onto the stage with a familiar version of the big Hey y'all grin, waving, pointing at someone off in the dark and mouthing hi with a private smile just for them. Heartbreaker.

"Everyone say, howdy, JP," Sona says, and gets a decent smattering of obedient echoes. Jared tips an imaginary cowboy hat. "You guys know Jared, right? JP's is a local institution, passed down in the family—real LA roots, here. Ignore that he grew up in Texas." Someone boos, which causes a ripple of laughter; Jared feigns outrage, which causes more. He's good on stage. "We've got a lovely piece from his workshop, which Rio's showing off, now. What'd you bring us, Jared?"

He bends down to the proffered mic with an absurdly thick drawl. "That there is a cheeseboard, little lady," he says. He holds up his hands, careful. "Or a shark coocherie board, as I hear you LA types like that kind of thing."

I'll show you a shark coochie, says some woman's voice in the dark, and Jared belts out a big haw haw laugh, clapping.

"Keep it in your pants, Max," Sona says. "Now: as well as the incredibly, amazingly gorgeous charcuterie board, which would be a stunning addition to any Silver Lake home—" to which a guy calls, keep it in your pants, Sona— "Jared is also offering another incredible prize, which could belong to any lucky bidder here. We tried to get him to offer a date but he said he had something called standards."

Jared delicately steals her wrist to pull the mic close and says, dry, "I said that auctioning off dick probably isn't legal anymore."

Like a good double-act foil, Sona pouts. "You could've made some nice girl or boy very happy."

All the blood in Jensen's body rushes to his face. But then—why the surprise? Half the people in here are somewhere on the rainbow. On the YouTube channel there was never anything personal but even so, Jensen would've thought his extremely fine-tuned radar might've picked up—something—

"So, no date. Instead, we've got a personal woodworking lesson! JP will invite some lucky bidder into the workshop and you'll get a one-on-one tutorial on how to work with… wood."

Jared steals the mic back and promptly says, "Get your minds out of the gutter." Fat chance, says that same guy from earlier. Jared points at him, faux-stern, before he melts back into a grin. "Seriously—we'll build something for you to take home. I got the materials and all so think of it like—you'll get a custom piece that you helped make for your place, and all you gotta do is donate to an awesome cause. That sounds pretty good, right?"

"I mean, who wouldn't want to spend a couple hours with this piece of Texas beef," Sona says, when it's her turn with the mic, and Jared drops his head back on his shoulders and groans loud enough that they can all hear it. "It's like one of those Masterclass things, but with a much better view. And you get a table at the end! Or something."

Yeah, or something, says a low woman's voice by the bar, and Jared grimaces and does the cut it off motion, and Jensen drains his warming beer down to the bitter foam, his ears buzzing. Sona says something else but Jensen's watching Rio wave around the last sheet of paper—they've scrawled JP'S WOOD at the top in Sharpie and pink highlighter, very professional—and then watches Jared hug Sona around the shoulders and wave relaxed and loose at the crowd before he jumps down, and immediately gets met by some woman who makes him grin wide and pick her up in a giant, fully body hug, swinging her around. His hair's nearly dry and is falling in these soft fresh-washed waves, and he looks off over the crowd and beams and is just—a lot. Jensen's a fan but he really had no idea.

When Sona gets off stage, blues guy goes back on, louder. Jensen checks his watch—quarter to ten. He hasn't had enough to drink that he can't drive home. The couple next to him are whispering about something and his back's to the cold brick wall and he's watching JP—Jared—a half-head above the crowd, working his way to the bar. Pattison-Lite leans in with a wide smile to serve him. He gets a beer, and cups the back of P-L's head and kisses him on the cheek, and P-L stands back when Jared turns away and looks like Christmas came early. For fuck's sake.

There's a mill of activity around the auction table. Rio's acting like a carnival barker, dragging people forward to spend their money. Mikey the silverworker throws down a few bids; a few giggling girls gather around the last page, clearly daring each other, before one of them writes something in. Jensen wishes he had another beer. He pushes off the wall and wades forward—blue-haired Brian intercepts him and Jensen's polite, and smiles perfectly through another selfie Brian was clearly too shy to ask for, earlier—and then he's at the table. Rio's attention is caught by artist-with-face-piercings and Jensen gets a second to just look. The board has another couple of bids—up to $110, now. The jewelry's up to $175. Under JP's class, there are already six names, with a probable winner for this group edging out the rest at $500.

Jensen drags his hand over his beard, hot-faced. Do things for fun, Aimee said. Do stuff for you, Beth said. Jensen picks up the sharpie and writes in one of his for-the-public perfectly anonymous aliases, Chris Powell, and his actually-pay-attention-to-it email address which is similarly anonymized, and then he takes a breath and before he can change his mind he writes in $10,000, and drops the sharpie uncapped, and walks directly back out through the crowd. Sona's somewhat near the door—he interrupts whoever she was talking to, and says with full wax-on celebrity glow, "This was a great event, I really appreciate the work you do," and she stammers her thanks and then—he's out, in the cool night, his face still feeling like it's stop sign red.

Rainbow fauxhawk is sitting on the stool by the door, now, and gawks at him the same as when he walked in. "Have a great night," Jensen says, pulling it together, and sets off at a deliberately casual pace, his hands in his jeans pockets and his face tipped up to the sky. A foggy glow of light pollution on the clouds. The sweat that erupted is cooling on the back of his neck. He has to stop for more selfies—people have had some drinks now and are more willing to ask instead of just staring—but he makes it up into the neighborhood, and to his car, without much incident. Drives back up into the hills to his house, music playing over the stereo that he hardly hears. At home he pours himself a Bushmills over a big ice cube, and takes himself and the drink directly to his laptop, where he fires up the very first episode on Jared's channel and watches those big hands, a band-aid on just one knuckle, showing the proper and safe use of a table saw. Safety first, folks, JP says unseen, like Jensen's heard him say a hundred times, and Jensen drinks the whiskey down like a shot, and then gets up again and pours himself more.

In the morning he is absolutely hungover. Sunday, again. He dodges the call from his mother with a texted bad excuse and takes four Excedrin and wallows, sort of, in how disgusting he feels. Two weeks in a row. Andreas will not be pleased.

There's no food in his house he wants to cook and he can't get delivery. He ends up eating canned peaches—why the fuck did they have canned peaches—over Greek yogurt, and when he opens his laptop he almost doesn't look, but then it's nearly impossible to break the habit of years.

JPHW started streaming live, forty-four minutes ago. Jensen leans forward, breathing coffee steam from his cup, and clicks. One of those hangout videos, which could go on god knows how long. When he jumps in Jared's not even on screen, although there are banging noises coming from somewhere. Live chat at the bottom right. Jensen closes that immediately, because in his current mood he doesn't need to see the ladies making salacious commentary. The camera's set up in the workshop over the big table and it looks like he's making a bar stool. The collie mix is curled up on her bed in the far back corner, tail slowly wagging. All told it'd be Jensen's comfort zone. Except.

When Jared reappears on screen he's holding a raw 4/4 and says, Poplar! Knew I had some around. Okay, so what we're gonna do is—

He doesn't seem to be hungover. When did he leave the event, Jensen wonders, and wonders also who he left with. Wearing a cream-colored beanie today and his shoulders straining a ratty black v-neck and he's hot, he's always hot, but Jensen has new information now: how he's tall enough that Jensen has to actually look up to meet his eyes—how he's a little filthy-mouthed and likes dirtier jokes than YouTube monetization will allow—how his hands are even bigger than they look when he's working. Jensen wraps his own hands around his oversized mug and gets that vivid sense-memory of Jared's handshake enveloping him. Crazy-making.

More coffee, which he takes back to bed with the laptop. Jared's mostly just working, talking through his process. Jensen watches, head hurting, and takes a break to piss when Jared does, and smiles when the collie comes up to get attention and Jared, as always, can't completely scold her but instead pauses for pets and a treat and then pretends like he's a hardass after the fact. Throughout Jared glances at his own laptop, perched at the far side of the table—laughs at some comments, responds to others. A rare actual question about the stain he's using, which he demonstrates on a spare cut piece of poplar to show how it soaks in. All of it exactly why Jensen subscribed, in the first place.

Eventually, someone must ask another question, because Jared startles and says, oh, yeah! So—that charity thing I told you about last week. Jensen's head pulses and he drags his hand over his mouth, queasy. Jared leans on his elbows on the table, drags his beanie off and scratches his hand through his hair. Smiles, looking down, like he's not sure what to say. Um, it was really great. Folks raised a good amount for the charity. And I met—I don't know, are you here? Russ—yeah, RussMan42. Good to see you! Hope you donated. Another big smile, with his teeth catching the edge of his lower lip. Um, yeah. So, my thing was a cheeseboard I made a few weeks back—I'll put a picture up my Instagram if you guys wanna see—and, um, a woodworking lesson, which… He laughs, cramming his beanie back over his hair. Well, someone took me up on it. So, yeah. A real success! Thanks for asking. He looks down at the laptop, reading, and then shakes his head. Nah, private lesson's gonna stay private, no cameras. Just gotta find the auction winner and get 'em to admire my wood. He winks at the camera, over-the-top saucy, and then says, anyway—and Jensen closes his laptop. The live video will go up for rewatch at some point when it's finally over. He can catch the rest another time.

What was he thinking. He should have more sympathy with the starry-eyed. At least Jared didn't mention any celebrity guests, although Jensen wonders now who RussMan42 is and if they crossed paths last night. He hasn't yet heard from Beth, but aside from his little personal crisis here he thinks the night was, more or less, a success. Met some good people; made some of them a little happy; he might, actually, try to go to the Comedy Store at some point. His mild insanity over a lanky giant is his own problem. He'll have to let his accountant know about the $10k. Doesn't matter if he doesn't actually get a lesson—cool people who can afford it donate to those in need, he's heard. He's got to hold up his end of the bargain. There's a lot of stuff he wanted to do and couldn't; after enough time in the business, he's got practice knowing how to forget the rest.