Epilogue (A Sort of Fairy Tale 14/14)

Title: A Sort of Fairy Tale
Chapter: Fourteen: Epilogue
Author:
Fandom: SPN RPS
Pairing: Jensen/Misha
Warning/spoilers: None.
Word Count: 1100
Rating: PG
Summary: Misha loves Jensen. Jensen is … getting there.
Chapter fourteen summary: “If you were telling our story, how would you end it?”
day fourteen: International

Jensen’s parents don’t quite know what to make of Misha, but Misha is used to that. They are bemused by the stories, by Mort the Pony’s place of honor in the back seat of Misha’s car (safely seatbelted — he also holds the maps, though he’s a terrible navigator), by the fact that Misha brought a backpack full of books with him but only one pair of shoes.  They think Misha’s constant scribbling is a journal and exchange a look when he tells them he’s writing fairy tales. They put Misha into a guest room, but Jensen ends up in Misha’s bed most mornings anyway, holding Misha’s hand and snoring on top of the covers.

It’s not uncomfortable, though, it’s just people who love Jensen trying to look out for him; and given the people Jensen has brought home before, Misha understands. It’s the same thing that happened on set, only there’s no Jared to ask his intentions: there’s just Jensen’s mom gently quizzing Misha about what he’s reading and what he’s writing and what he did before he started acting, and Jensen’s dad asking everything from what countries Misha has visited to what kind of a name is Misha?

Misha doesn’t mind. He rattles off his previous professions. He tells the story behind his name and assures them that yes, it’s his actual, parent-bestowed name. He shows them pictures from Singapore and England and Morocco, and tells them the places he wants Jensen to see.  He tells them about his own parents and his gypsy childhood, and Jensen’s mother is more sympathetic after that, patting his shoulder and giving him an extra helping at dinner.

“I’m sorry about the rough time they’re giving you,” Jensen says the night before they’re due to leave. “I didn’t think they’d be quite so … careful.”

“It’s not so bad,” Misha says. They’re on the back porch, looking out over the back lawn that slopes down to a little wild area, a dry creek bed lined with oak trees and sandstone boulders. Jensen sits on the step above and Misha sits on the step below, between Jensen’s legs. They share a cigarette — Jensen’s mother prefers to keep the smoke outside — and pass it back and forth as they listen to the cicadas buzzing in the trees. The best part about it is Misha can lean back against Jensen’s chest and feel him breathing, when he gets bored of holding Jensen’s ankle, just below the hem of his jeans. “They’re just protecting you.”

“You’re the last person I need protection from,” Jensen murmurs and wraps an arm around Misha’s shoulders. Misha weaves their fingers together and leans back against Jensen again, and watches the ember of the cigarette burn in the near-dark.

*

In the morning, once the car is packed and Mort the Pony is perched on the dashboard, Misha thanks Jensen’s mother for hosting them and she says, “You take care of him, now. He’s trusting, and that gets him into trouble sometimes.”

“I will,” Misha says, and he figures that’s a pretty high compliment, really.

*

It’s a long drive from Texas to Canada, made longer by the fact that they take detours whenever possible to see bits of Americana when it arises. They have GPS and Google maps to help, but more and more they put technology aside and just drive, windows down, music on, hands clasped over the gear shift.

They visit farmer’s markets and roadside attractions. They stay in motels that inspired Supernatural’s set dressers, little places with cabins shaped like concrete tipis or that rent by the hour and have vibrating beds and porn on demand.

A few times, people say, “Aren’t you –?” to Jensen but he just smiles and says, “I get that all the time.” He grew out his hair for the movie and lets his beard grow for the road trip, and looks scruffy and rakish. But still beautiful. Misha thinks it wouldn’t matter if Jensen grew a beard to his navel and stopped bathing, he would still be the handsomest man alive.

They make love in these ratty motel rooms, in truck stops with thin walls and thinner sheets, in the car a time or two when the road is deserted enough and they don’t want to wait another two hundred miles to the next stop.

Misha writes down interesting names of towns and takes pictures of memorial plaques. He crushes leaves between the pages of his books, hoping they’ll still smell spicy and loamy when he rediscovers them. Jensen talks to the people they meet in roadside restaurants and gift shops, asking about the local stories, the things that people like best about living here. A time or two he even gives an alias from the show as his name and tells them he’s writing a book, and Misha just rolls his eyes and goes back to deciding if he wants a chunk of white crystal on a leather cord or a snow globe with the town’s name painted on the bottom as a souvenir.

*

The desert gives way to the plains, then the mountains. Soon there’s a smell in the air, clean and cold giving way to tar and exhaust, and they pull over a few miles before the outskirts of Seattle, to enjoy northwestern rain forests one more time. They walk away from the car down among the trees, which smell of pine and rain, and hold hands to catch each other if they slip on the slick needles.

Jensen says, his voice soft, “Do you think it’s going to get harder or easier from here on out?”

“For you and me? I don’t know. I figure it’ll be the same as it is for everyone else. Sometimes it’ll be easy and sometimes it’ll be hard, sometimes we’ll fight, sometimes we’ll love each other so much we don’t know what to do with it …”

“But, if you were telling our story, how would you end it?”

“Our story,” Misha says, smiling, and thinks he’s told their story over and over but never really been happy with how any of the versions have ended. “I’d want to say we live happily ever after, but we won’t know until we get there.”

Jensen nods and stops walking. He pulls Misha to him and kisses him, holding Misha’s face in his palm. Misha clutches his hand and kisses him back, and tastes his lips when Jensen pulls away. Jensen leans their foreheads together, and when he speaks his voice is still soft, but certain.

“I think we’ll get there.”

They kiss again, and then climb back up to the road.

End.

and I was talking to you
and I knew then it would be
a life long thing
♪ “A Sort of Fairy Tale”— Tori Amos

All songs in a .zip.