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Jensen's father was as dead as a doornail. This is important to understand or nothing wonderful can come of this story.

Jensen worked in a firm downtown, a trader or a merger or a something to do with invisible funds that never seemed to do anyone any good except to generate more money to be traded or merged or whatever he did with it. What he did does not matter, what matters is that he was miserable at it.

This was not actually his chief problem. That title was reserved for his total lack of knowledge that he was, in fact, miserable. He had a good job, a nice apartment, a sensible car that he seldom used because he walked most places. He even recycled. He thought that the pain in his chest in the morning when he woke, and at night when he went to bed, was indigestion. So he avoided fried foods and red sauces but nothing changed.

I could tell you about his family, but they were nothing very remarkable. Nice people who taught their son traditional values like hard work and patriotism. The only notable thing is that in Jensen's Senior year of highschool, during his graduation barbecue, his father died so suddenly and so quietly that no one noticed for at least an hour and a half, until he was found, as I said, dead as a doornail, surrounded by smoked meats and potato salad.

His father had worked downtown as well, in an office even higher up than Jensen's. He had worked long hours to provide for his family, and Jensen didn't know it but this one event had shaped his life like no other. For one, barbecued meats made him inconsolably sad, but more importantly, he had spent all his days since then becoming the man that he felt his father could be proud to call his son.

But our story does not actually begin in a suburban backyard in Texas, circa 1996, but begins instead in the City, present day, on the corner of Third and Main, three blocks from Jensen's office building, sixteen blocks from his apartment, and at the exact spot where his life first began to change.

*

Jensen tripped up the curb and cursed it. It had been there for as long as he'd been taking this route to work, but he'd been looking down at his phone, which had alerted him of a minute but crucial change in the market, and he had not been looking where he was going.

"You better watch out," someone nearby said to him, or sang, rather, following it with a laugh and a barely melodic, "you better not cry..."

Normally, Jensen didn't stop for anything on his way to work, not even coffee, but he paused to glare at the busker standing on the corner. The man was smiling and holding an accordion, of all things, looking at Jensen like he expected something. Beside him was a case, glittering with loose change.

Jensen sneered.

"You better not pout, cranky sweatervest guy..." the busker sang and paused again, smiling wider, proud of himself.

"Get bent," Jensen said before the man could finish the verse, then looked to his phone and headed on his way, ignoring the jolly jeers he was getting from behind, in song format.

He didn't trip on any other curbs on his way to work, but when he got there the security guard was singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the receptionist handed him a candy cane with a tiny Santa hat glued to it.

"It's three weeks until Christmas!" he shouted to no one in particular because no one was standing in his office when he shouted it. "And I'm not cranky," he growled, then threw away the candy cane, straightened his sweatervest, and went to his first meeting.

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*

Jensen's boss was a man named Cratchit who had years ago made the sad mistake of being so very good at his job that they promoted him. If anyone at this story's beginning can be said to be more miserable than Jensen, it is Robert Cratchit. This may be one of the reasons that Jensen counted him as a friend, since misery does, as they say, love company. But Rob Cratchit was not, deep down, a miserable soul. He was kind and lighthearted, quick to laugh and quicker to cry, especially at those commercials with the sad-eyed puppies and kittens in cages. In fact, like Jensen, it was his good nature that made him so miserable in his work.

It might also have been what made him step in front of a bus three weeks before Christmas.

Jensen didn't hear about it until his third meeting, and he did not find time to call Rob's wife until after the fifth, and by then he figured he might as well wait until he was done for the day. He didn't want to bother Mrs. Cratchit too much, since having your husband hit by a bus probably made for a busy afternoon.

But by the time he was done that evening, long after he should have already left for the day, he had quite forgotten about poor Rob Cratchit in the hospital, until his walk home, when a bus rumbled by with an advertisement for life insurance on the side. He was so distracted by this that he tripped up the curb as he crossed at Third and Main.

"Oh, you better watch out," someone said.

"Get some new material, buddy," Jensen shouted, irritated, but the person he'd shouted at, when he turned to look, was not a busker but a woman about the age of his mother, wrapped in several sweaters and carrying a Whole Foods bag which she nearly dropped.

"Well I was only trying to help!" she said as she walked away.

"Sorry!" Jensen called after her, then decided to head home instead of going to the hospital, even though there was nothing for him there but some takeout menus and the last season of Project Runway, which had been on his DVR for months.

He thought that maybe he'd get Chinese.

*

The Chinese gave him indigestion. Or so he assumed. He woke the next morning sleepier and even grumpier than the day before. He wasn't aware that it was unhappiness that he was trying to medicate with antacids, trying to shower and shave away, but it was, and it wouldn't come off.

On his walk to work he finally texted Mrs. Cratchit.

How's he doing? he asked in cold, digital letters, then pocketed his phone. He approached the curb at Third and Main, which he definitely did not trip up, but someone ran into him.

"Oh! Sorry," the busker said, wielding a guitar today. He was so tall and broad and seemed to have too many limbs, it was a wonder he didn't trip up every passer-by. He was also smiling so brightly that Jensen was instantly annoyed with him, although this was actually his body's reaction, long unused to the sensation, to being ever so slightly cheered.

"Watch where you're going, pal," Jensen huffed, trying to get past the giant busker. Perhaps the comment was a mistake, since that was the moment when recognition crossed the man's face.

"Cranky sweatervest guy!" the busker crowed, grinning wider and patting Jensen on the shoulder. "Good to see you again."

"Is it?" Jensen asked, trying to get away. "At least one of us gets something out it."

"Don't be like that, Sweatervest. Let me play you a song to make up for the inconvenience of my face."

Jensen smirked, which was the closest to laughter his face could manage. "There isn't a song long enough, my friend."

The busker looked pleased. "Hey, but at least we're friends now. I'm Jared." He held out his hand but Jensen didn't take it.

"And I'm sure your mom's real proud."

"Are you this cranky every day? Or just on the days you wear sweatervests?"

"Are you this annoyingly cheerful every day?"

The busker smiled wider, all bright teeth and pink cheeks and stubble. He didn't look homeless. Jensen had never seen such a happy vagrant. "I hope so!"

"Yeah, well," Jensen said, lame in the face of such a response. "Good luck on the payroll."

"You, too. Now how about that song?"

"How about no," Jensen said, finally slipping away when the man took up his guitar.

"On the house!" The busker called from behind, and then Jensen could just make out the broken strains. "City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in business attire, in the air there's a feeling so grum-py..."

No one else sang to him that morning but the receptionist was putting up a tree, huge silver and red balls that reflected small versions of his frown when he passed her by.

"Good morning, Mr. Ackles," she said.

"Is it?" he asked, but she didn't hear him over her own humming, and when his phone chimed to alert him of an incoming text, Mrs. Cratchit had responded with the following message: He's doing strangely, which he found puzzling enough that he decided to ignore it.

*

His mother called him at lunch. He didn't usually take lunch. Lunch was for hourly employees and construction workers. But he took the call because he loved his mother, and it was easier than explaining to her later why he wasn't taking lunches.

"I'd hoped you'd come this year for Christmas," she said in that warm, loving, accusatory way that almost all mothers have, even if they don't mean to.

"I've got a meeting Christmas Eve," Jensen replied, looking through his desk drawers for a bag of Bugles or a Clif Bar, "but I might make New Year."

"Well who needs to meet on Christmas Eve? Isn't everyone with their own loved ones, then?"

"It's an international account, mom. I'm not sure if they even celebrate it. It didn't come up."

"Yes, well," his mother said, "sorry for being so Western."

"I didn't mean it that way..."

"I know. Will you at least be celebrating? With friends or... otherwise?"

There was nothing to eat in his desk but a pack of gum and a mint-flavored toothpick. He considered the candy cane the receptionist had given him, then remembered he'd thrown it away.

"I'll probably be busy, mom, but I'll call, okay?" He looked in the trash can next to his desk, but housekeeping had dutifully emptied it overnight. "Damn," he said.

"Pardon?" his mother asked.

"Not you, mom. But I've got to run. I'll call, I promise."

"Just take care of yourself, Jensen."

"Yes, ma'am."

He ended the call and sighed at his empty trash can. He'd already wasted part of his lunch talking to his mother, he might as well take the rest of it for actually eating. When he informed Tim, his assistant, of this, Tim looked surprised at first, then shook his head with concern and understanding. "Going to see Mr. Cratchit?" he asked.

Jensen blinked at him. "Not unless he's at Manny's Deli."

*

Cratchit was not, as you might have guessed, at Manny's Deli. This was a good thing in Jensen's opinion, since he didn't think that he wanted to see just what Mrs. Cratchit meant by "doing strangely". What was not a good thing was that Manny's Deli was at Third and Main, but of course the busker must roam, as they do. He would be blocks away by this time of day. Maybe standing outside of Macy's on the Eastside, attacking shoppers coming and going.

But as Jensen crossed Second Street he could already hear the near-tuneless rendition of Here We Come A-wassailing. He thought about turning back but he wouldn't be bullied like that. Plus, he had his heart set on pastrami. So he stopped at the newsstand, purchased the last morning paper, and made a fuss of opening it as he walked into Manny's, blocking himself from the busker's view and irritating more than a few fellow patrons.

He employed the same technique after he'd ordered his sandwich and waited for a table to empty, and even still when he had grabbed the first free table even though it was all the way in the back, since, by then, he'd become quite interested in the article about the dog who'd saved her owner from choking on a peppermint by jumping repeatedly on his chest.

"That's a pretty amazing dog, right?" someone said. Only it wasn't someone, it was the busker.

"Really?" Jensen asked, incredulous, irritated. At least that's what he was going for. He crumpled the paper and pushed it aside, just in case he hadn't quite gotten the point across.

The busker smiled. "It's really me, yeah. I almost didn't see you, since you're sitting way back here, hiding behind your paper. Luckily, I'm really observant." He took the seat across from Jensen, settling his guitar case down beside him, his long legs taking up all the spare room under the table, and some that wasn't so spare. "You don't mind, do you? Break time."

Jensen scowled. "I do mind. I don't know you from Adam, pal, and I want to enjoy my sandwich in peace."

The busker scooted a little closer. It was loud in Manny's so the guy leaned in. He didn't smell homeless, Jensen thought. In fact, he smelled pretty nice. "I told you my name. It's Jared. So you do know me. And we've met a few times now. We've even already gone from friends to pals in the space of a few hours, so you might as well tell me your name or I'll just keep calling you 'Sweatervest'."

The busker, Jared, smiled. There was something about it. Jensen wanted to knock that smile off his face but somehow, simultaneously, there was something happening to his own face. A kind of pulling around the mouth. It didn't quite hurt, but it didn't feel natural.

"Jensen," Jensen said, because he didn't know what else to say. He reached for the paper to maybe start reading again to see if Jared could take a hint if it was given twice, but he had mangled it beyond repair.

"That's good," Jared said, "I like that better than Sweatervest. Easier to rhyme."

Jensen was about to say that he didn't need any more rhyming in his life when their sandwiches--both his and Jared's!--were brought to the table.

"I see you got yours to-go," Jensen said.

"Well that was before I saw you," Jared said, and smiled. He did that a lot. "So what's got you so cranky, anyway?" he asked, removing a meatball sub the size of Jensen's arm from the bag. He didn't look overwhelmed by it.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm not cranky." Jensen said in a voice that he knew was actually pretty cranky sounding. "At least I wasn't until some guy kept accosting me on the street."

Jared shrugged. "Since when is being friendly a crime? Anyway, you looked like you needed it."

"To be accosted?"

"A friend."

"Pfft," Jensen said, and made a face that he wasn't sure didn't look very stupid, then stuck his sandwich in his mouth to avoid saying anything else.

Jared wasn't to be dissuaded, and around a mouthful of meatball he said, "Tell me about yourself, Jensen. Where is it you're going in such a hurry every morning?"

"Work. You know, you show up, they pay you. And not even in a top hat or a guitar case. But with a check!" That had been low and Jensen knew it, it wasn't even Jared's raised eyebrow, sandwich paused at his mouth, that told him. "Sorry, man, that was a crappy thing to say."

"It was," Jared agreed, but continued eating his sandwich as if it hadn't been.

"I'm an accounts manager with a blablah-blah firm and I blah the blahs between wah-wahs and the whoop-de-do," Jensen said. Of course that's not really what he said, but as I've already explained, it doesn't matter what he does, just that he's miserable at it.

"That sounds miserable," Jared said. "I mean, no offense, man," he paused to take an even larger bite of sandwich, red sauce smearing his chin, and then mumbled something that Jensen figured, after some thought, must have been "soul sucking".

"Nah, it's good. It's, you know..." he handed Jared a napkin, "good."

"Takes all kinds," Jared said, "you know, to make the world go 'round."

"You're proof of that, if anything," Jensen said, and Jared smiled hugely.

"Thanks, man! But, actually, I'm not exactly what you think."

Oh great. Here it comes. He's an "actor" or a "novelist" or an aspiring trapeze artist. Probably looking for investors for some sure-thing venture.

"Oh yeah?" Jensen said, sounding snobbish even to himself. "What are you?"

Jared wiped his mouth, only to fill it again with another too-big bite to make Jensen wait for a response. "Well I've got a regular job, for one."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yep. I wait tables at Spoon, over on Eighteenth. Just part-time but it pays the bills."

"So, what, you just do the song-and-dance gig for kicks?"

"Yeah," Jared said, then shrugged, "and no. See, I--"

"Ackles?" A voice cut into Jared's speech and there, over Jared's shoulder, was--

"Mr. Dickens."

Mr. Dickens was Jensen's boss's boss. That is, Mr. Cratchit's boss. A very tall, portly man whose peculiar moustache and beard made him look as if he was always frowning, even when he smiled, or so Jensen assumed, since he wasn't sure he'd ever seen Mr. Dickens smile.

"Don't get up, just checking in." Dickens sneered. Or it was just his face, Jensen couldn't be sure of that either. "How's that Blah-blah account coming?"

"Very good, sir, I was just--"

"Yes, it must be very good if you're here at your leisure and with Cratchit out of the office. What a business. What an inconvenience. Harumph," Dickens said, and stroked his beard.

"He was hit by a bus, sir."

"Yes, a very inconvenient bus. Been to see him, have you?"

"No, sir, not yet."

"Just as well, nothing we can do, Ackles, except to keep up his Doo-dad accounts while he is away. You are, aren't you?"

"Yes sir, I--"

"We can't afford to let them slip behind."

"No sir, Mr. Dickens, sir, I--"

"As long as we understand one another, Ackles. Good day!" Mr. Dickens bellowed and seemed to tip his hat though he wasn't wearing one.

"I've got to go," Jensen said, clearing away his lunch quickly. He hadn't eaten half of it.

"Jeez, who was that?" Jared asked. "He seemed very... Victorian."

"He's my boss's boss, Mr. Dickens."

"I mean, he said 'harumph'. No one actually says that, just dusty old British guys in two-hundred-year old novels. And where'd he even come from? They don't exactly serve Yorkshire pudding here... hey why don't you finish your lunch at least?"

"I can't, I've gotta--"

"Here," Jared said, and took Jensen's sandwich, wrapped it up carefully and stuffed it into his empty to-go bag, "now you can take it with you."

"Uh, thanks." Jensen took the bag and gathered his coat.

"Same time tomorrow?" Jared said hopefully.

"What? Uh, no. No, I've got to work." He was walking away backwards and bumped into someone who told him, for the third time in two days, that he'd better watch out.

"Tomorrow morning, then!" Jared called from the table but Jensen had already turned away and out the door.

*

The next morning the temperature dropped considerably and the wind was bitter as he turned onto Main Street, but with it came the now-familiar, if not exactly skillful, sound of Jared's playing. On the corner was Jared himself, wearing a cheerful striped sweater and the most ridiculous antlers on his head. It was very strange what happened to Jensen just then. It was as if he grew suddenly warmer, even though the wind was blowing full in his face and he was slowing his pace. And that strange pulling sensation was happening around his mouth again.

Jared was finishing up a peculiar rendition of Joy to the World when he caught sight of Jensen.

"You're early!" he said, adjusting his accordion across his chest. "Good morning."

"Um, yeah." Jensen said, slowing enough to be polite, and Jared just kept smiling as he watched him pass. "You always out this early?"

"Every day," Jared said. "Hey, you wanna grab a coffee?" He gestured with his head toward Manny's and the bells on his reindeer antlers chimed all at once.

"No, actually, I mean, I really can't stay," Jensen said, finding that he regretted that it was true. But Jared only laughed, then plied his instrument.

"'Cause baby it's cold outside," he sang, slow and strange, accompanied by the accordion and a smile.

Jensen caught on and before he knew what he was doing, he said, "I've got to go away..."

"...baby it's cold outside!"

"I, uh," Jensen said over his shoulder, "I don't know the rest of the words."

"Come back at lunch, I'll teach you!" Jared called, since Jensen was still walking and several yards away by now. Some people nearby watched them and when Jensen finally noticed this he was embarrassed and simply waved over his shoulder, Jared's laughter and bad singing following him across Second Street.

"Crap," Jensen said to himself.

*

Jensen did not see Jared at lunch. Or the next day at all. Or the day after that. And not even the third or fourth days after but those were Saturday and Sunday so he had good reason.

There was something about Jared that made Jensen uneasy. In fact it was something that made Jensen too easy, too lighthearted, but he did not know that. So he began cutting through Union Avenue until it hit Second. It meant passing a McDonalds and two Starbucks but he persevered. Since running into Mr. Dickens, and since Cratchit had been out, he was working even harder, longer hours and had made quite a lot of money for quite a lot of other people. Normally, this would have made him happy, but for the first time in a very long time, he wasn't so sure that what he thought of as 'happy' was, in fact, very happy at all.

This he blamed on Jared, who surely had more than his own share of happiness, so much that, next to his, Jensen's seemed lacking. No, he thought, it would be best not see Jared again.

This was very inconvenient since seeing Jared again was absolutely all Jensen ever thought about. He spent the whole next week thinking about him, mostly ways in which to avoid him, but that was still thinking of him. Then he spent the latter half of the week thinking of ways that he might accidentally see him again. Out shopping, perhaps? But Jensen did all of his shopping online. In the park? But Jensen hadn't had time to jog in months. Until one morning he found himself hoping there might be a gas leak on Union Avenue so that he would be forced to take Main Street or go far out of his way.

So it happened that five days before Christmas, Jensen asked his assistant, Tim, to push his lunch meeting out to one o'clock, and this time Tim did not ask what Jensen was doing with his lunch hour. Jensen headed to Manny's with a very strange feeling in his chest which he did not recognize, but for the sake of this story, we'll call it hope.

*

Jensen was disappointed. Jared was not at the corner of Third and Main, nor was he in Manny's taking his break. Jensen thought about getting a sandwich since he was there anyway, but he suddenly wasn't very hungry. He headed slowly back to work, dismayed, disheartened. This was much more familiar territory for him, and he began to feel better. Or he thought he felt better. Really, he felt much worse, but that was normal and so he found it comforting. He'd been right all along. He was better off not seeing Jared again.

That was when he heard it, a block down First Street. It was a harmonica and it was being played quite well, so he wasn't sure why he drifted that way with any idea of finding Jared, but drift he did and there, in front of the Dunkin' Donuts, was Jared, playing a surprisingly soulful Jingle Bell Rock. He didn't falter when he caught sight of Jensen, just acknowledged him with his eyes as he played the last refrain. He'd drawn a crowd and his top hat on the sidewalk boasted a fair amount of not only change, but green bills. When he finished to applause, Jensen waited for the audience to thin, and waited, too, for a friendly call of "hey, Sweatervest" or some other poorly sung greeting, but none came.

"Hi," Jensen said at last.

"Hey," Jared said, gathering his bag and coat and sliding his harmonica into a small case which he dropped into the bag.

"Long time no see," Jensen offered.

Jared laughed but it wasn't the sound Jensen expected. "Guess I should start playing Union Avenue, huh?"

"Oh... you know about that," Jensen said, following as Jared started off down the sidewalk in the direction Jensen had come. Then something occurred to Jensen. "Wait, why do you know about that? Are you... are you stalking me?"

Jared spun around and they both stopped. "No," he said, then sighed, "not stalking. Let's call it a... a healthy interest. But I'm not stupid. I know how to take a hint, believe it or not." He turned again and Jensen hurried to catch up. Jared had very long legs.

"Well I had a good reason," Jensen said.

"You mean you weren't just trying to avoid me?" Jared asked over his shoulder. He didn't seem angry exactly, he was even still smiling, but then Jensen didn't know him very well, maybe that was just his regular face.

"Well, yeah, but I had a good reason for it." And he did, though he wasn't completely sure what it was.

They kept walking. When they finally reached Main street Jared stopped again. "Okay," he said, and smiled, but it was more one of resignation than genuine pleasure. "Did you just want to hear a song, or..." he asked, as if he'd already been waiting for the answer.

"Oh, no, I mean, yes, but no, um." Jensen said. "You wanna grab lunch?"

The bells on Jared's antlers jingled as he shook his head and laughed and his smile, after he seemed to consider the offer, was a real one. "Yeah, alright."

*

They did not go back to Manny's just in case there were any other bosses lurking around. When Jensen had no alternate suggestion, Jared decided on Manuel's, a Mexican place four blocks over, and though Jensen could already imagine the evening's indigestion, he did not complain.

I could bore you with the details of what they ordered and how they did or did not enjoy their meal or if their service was or was not satisfactory, but as this is, at its heart, a love story, I'll skip to the important bit.

"Sociology?" Jensen asked, hoping he didn't sound as surprised as he felt.

"You sound pretty surprised, man," Jared said. "But yeah. I'm a graduate student. The busking is research for my thesis."

"Really?"

"You know, you keep sounding that surprised and I might have to consider being offended."

"No, I mean, well it's not like I thought you were homeless or anything."

Jared studied him for a moment, then broke out with an accusatory grin. "You totally thought I was homeless, didn't you?"

"No. Well...maybe a little. But that's good for your study anyway, right? People's perceptions and all that?"

"Yeah, actually. But that doesn't make me feel any better about some hot stranger mistaking me for a vagrant."

"Uhm," Jensen said, and Jared just laughed. "So, uh, but why busking in particular? Why not just panhandling--Hey! What about all of the money those guys give you? They think it's going to help some poor sap with hard luck and dubious musical talent."

"Dubious? You're full of compliments."

"You were pretty good on the harmonica."

"Thanks, but, as for the busking, I enjoy it. I like standing on a corner being stupid." He shrugged so effortlessly that Jensen wondered what it was like to be that easy going. "And I like seeing people smile when they pass me. Or frown," he gestured to Jensen, "whichever the case may be. And I give the money to charities."

"All that and a saint."

"No, it's like you said, they think they're giving to folks in need. Well, this way, they are. Although sometimes they're giving to the animal shelter but most people would rather help animals than people, anyway."

Jensen shrugged. "That's because people can help themselves. People can get jobs, dust themselves off and get back into the game. It's just that a lot of people prefer to sit back and live off of society's handouts."

Jared blinked a few times. "You... you don't actually believe that, do you?"

"Uh... no." He did. "No, not at all, just a little, you know, devil's advocate."

Jared smiled but looked uncertain, then he got a look so thoughtful it made Jensen uneasy. "Alright, so what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Why do you do your job? What makes you so driven?"

"I, uh, you know." He didn't know. "It's what you're supposed to do."

"It's what I'm supposed to do?" Jared asked stubbornly.

"No, I mean me. What I'm supposed to do, you know.... It's what my dad did."

"So you're doing it for him?"

"What? No. I mean, I know he wanted me to."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Yeah... well, no." Jensen was getting irritated. He'd been flinging his burrito around a bit and people were starting to look. He spoke a little quieter. "I thought you were into Sociology not Psychology."

"Sociology is a very broad field! ...and I was a psych minor." Jared smiled, all childish mischief and adult satisfaction. "Plus I'm just really irritating."

"Hmph," Jensen said, with feeling.

Jared stuffed his mouth full of nachos. "So tell me why you hate Christmas."

"Psychology," Jensen accused.

"Broad field," Jared defended.

"I don't hate Christmas. I used to love Christmas.It used to... I don't know... mean something. Now it's all about buying things and making people insecure about whether or not their loved ones will still love them if they don't buy the right Susie-Wets-a-Lot."

"Susie, who?"

"Ipad, smart phone, whatever."

"So what was so great about Christmas that you used to love?"

"What?"

"You said you used to love Christmas. What's different?"

Jensen pushed salsa around the bowl with a chip thoughtfully. "Well... my dad for one."

"He hates Christmas, too?"

"Nah, no way. The old man loved it... I mean, not the tinsel and the cookies and all that crap. Well maybe the cookies. But he liked the tree and my grandparents visiting. We'd spend hours together putting up lights, and he loved winter... not that there's much for winter in Texas."

"You're from Texas?"

"Yeah, Dallas."

Jared grinned. "San Antonio."

"Well, what are the odds?"

"I don't know, man," Jared said, still grinning and reached across the table to shake Jensen's hand, as if meeting as fellow Texans required it, "I knew there was a reason I liked you, though."

Across the restaurant, someone was having Feliz Cumpleaños sung to them, along with a complimentary plate of churros with a candle stuck in it, and right across from him Jared was smiling like Jensen had just sung all twelve days of Christmas in the right order and his palm was warm in Jensen's and Jensen wasn't sure if anyone had ever held him so tightly.

"Uhm," he said. "Look, I've gotta make it back to the office, I've got a one o'clock that won't wait." He slipped his hand out of Jared's though it wasn't easy, then stood and gathered his coat and laid down a few bills to cover his half and a tip.

If Jared was bothered he didn't look it. "Same time tomorrow?" he asked.

"I've got a lunch meeting tomorrow..." Jensen said, and then Jared did look a little disappointed, "but maybe, uh. Here." He fished out a business card and handed it to Jared. "If you, uh, I mean... maybe dinner?"

Jared smiled.

Jensen sighed. "I gotta go."

His one o'clock was late which gave him time to think, which he thought was probably not a very good idea so he got busy doing something else, but failed miserably when the memory of a strong hand in his own kept distracting him. At 1:20, Tim brought the client into his office and the client, a long-time investor in Whats-Its, asked after Rob Cratchit.

"What a terrible thing to happen so close to Christmas!" she said. "Have you been to visit him?"

Jensen smiled through clenched teeth, but shook his head 'no'.

*

Four days before Christmas, Jensen woke from the best night of sleep he'd had in a very long time. Then again, he had gotten to bed a bit early the night before and somehow, in spite of yesterday's spicy lunch, he'd managed to avoid his usual indigestion. He didn't once consider the actual cause for this, but hopefully, by now, you can guess it.

His day, however, was uncommonly slow, waiting and waiting for a call from Jared. Why had he given Jared his card? Why didn't he ask for Jared's number? Each of his morning meetings seemed to last an age, until just a little after noon when his phone alerted him of a text.

'Still on for dinner?' Jared asked.

'Yeah, how's 7?'

'Sure. Where are we going?'

"I'll make us a reservation.'

'Okay. Meet you on the usual corner?'

'Sounds good,' Jensen texted back, then saved Jared's number in his phone and realized he didn't yet know his last name.

After that, the day went by even slower.

*

However slowly the day went, Jensen still ended up being a couple of minutes late to the corner of Third and Main. He was never late. Well, he was late once, but it was the day he was born (nearly two weeks late) and he figured a person shouldn't be blamed for any prenatal tardiness. But on this particular evening, his hair refused to lay just right, and all of his tailored shirts didn't seem to fit as well as they should. But, as it happened, his four-and-a-half minutes didn't actually matter, because Jared was still playing to a small crowd.

"Sorry, man," he said to Jensen with sincere apology, even though this was after he'd wolf-whistled at Jensen's suit and had not apologized for that. "Do you mind waiting?"

Jensen didn't mind waiting. Sure, he groused about it inwardly, but after a few minutes of sitting in Manny's with a coffee and watching through the window as Jared played a tiny ukulele in too-big hands, he'd forgotten that he minded, or that it was very selfish of Jared to make him wait.

There was nothing of showmanship about Jensen. Even as a child, when he played pretend, he had never pretended to be a rock star or a very famous astronaut, only perhaps a behind-the-scenes manager for some more hopeful neighbor-child with a wig and a microphone, or, at most, a very typical, unknown astronaut. There was just no performance in him. This was true even in spite of the fact that he actually played the guitar rather well (his mother had convinced him to learn for Sunday church services where he had stood far in the back and played softly) and had quite a lovely singing voice (which no one had heard in so long that most had forgotten it existed). His mother would say this was shyness, and that was it in part, but Jensen also felt that acting out was, generally, pretty silly.

But for Jared, performance seemed to come naturally. So naturally that no one really noticed that he was actually fairly terrible at the ukulele or the guitar or even the accordion, and even worse at singing. Everyone who passed, or at least everyone who bothered to take their attention away from their mobile device of choice, looked on him with something like amusement, even if it was only ridicule. He sang God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman like he was in a bad rock opera, and Joy to the World like he was in a smoky jazz club, and he got all the Days of Christmas mixed up, but people still stopped to sing along and smile or laugh or, on one occasion, dance, and drop a little jingle into his top hat.

"Where'd you learn to do all that?" Jensen asked when Jared was packing up.

"What, play the ukulele?"

"No, I mean, the whole thing. Perform like that."

Jared smiled as he emptied the top hat into his pockets and shouldered the bag into which the ukulele had disappeared. "You're asking me how I learned to act like a fool?" He punctuated this by sliding the top hat onto his head.

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

"Well that's kind of a long story," Jared said, laughing as they crossed the street, and then he told Jensen about his family--both his families, his mom and stepdad in San Antonio, his dad and stepmother in Abilene, his seven brothers and sisters and stepbrothers and stepsisters--and how in a family that large, being ridiculous was often the only way to get any attention, and that after a while it just became second nature, and how sometimes this wasn't a good thing, like the time he and three of his cousins got drunk and all shaved their heads on Christmas Eve.

They had walked eight blocks before Jared asked, "Hey, where are we going?", eyeing the neighborhood and Jensen's suit uncertainly.

"Mancini's," Jensen said, with as much flair as a man without performance can manage. It was actually kind of impressive that Jensen was able to get them a reservation at Mancini's with so little notice, but Jared did not seem impressed by this at all.

"Um," Jared said. "I'm not really dressed for that." He was wearing a hoodie and jeans and a scarf the size of a small blanket. And a top hat.

"Yeah, I guess not."

"Sorry, man," he looked at his watch and for one surprisingly breathless moment, Jensen thought he would just go home. Instead, he said, "There's a hot dog truck on Riverside this time of night. If we hurry we can make it!"

They hustled six blocks, a man in a suit and one in a tophat and sneakers. Jensen had lived in the City for five years without ever once eating a hot dog out of a truck since he figured they were sure to give him E. Coli, but when Jared handed over one with mustard and onions and slaw he took it with a smile. They ate on a bench, wind at their backs, sipping watered-down soda out of waxed paper cups.

"You were saying about your dad?" Jared asked between bites.

"What about him?"

"Yesterday you were telling me about why Christmas was so different now, and it was something to do with your dad, but you never finished."

"Well..." Jensen hesitated. He was never very good at talking about his father's death, but Jared had been so open about his life and family. "He, uh, died when I was eighteen. It hasn't been the same since."

"Sorry, man," Jared said, in the sort of tone that Jensen had heard before and never really liked, but he leaned in and bumped Jensen's shoulder with his own and Jensen didn't really mind that.

"So, you going home for Christmas?" Jensen asked, as upbeat as possible. "I mean, one home or the other?"

"Both, actually," Jared smiled. He hadn't been lying about knowing how to take a hint. "To my mom's first and then my dad's. I leave Christmas Eve, back before New Year's. My mom will feed me every cake and pie known to man and my dad will smoke every hunk of dead animal he can find."

"Oh yeah?" Jensen asked, from beneath a wave of sadness, but he smiled when said, "Can't beat Texas for barbecue."

"What about you? Home for the holidays?"

"No, I've got a meeting Christmas Eve, so.... might make it home for New Year's, though."

"You're kidding. That sucks. Man, my mom would kill me--actual murder--if I missed Christmas."

Jensen shrugged. "She doesn't expect much. It's just me, you know, only kid. She knows I'm busy."

Jared frowned, or he smiled less anyway. "She's got family around or something, right? Or will she be all alone?"

Jensen coughed. His hot dog wasn't sitting well. He should have known better about the onions. "She's got a brother. She'll have dinner with them," he said quickly, then went quiet, finishing his dinner.

"There's a park by the river if you want to maybe take a walk," Jared said as he crumpled his paper and tossed his cup into a nearby trashcan, then did the same with Jensen's. The night was cold and Jensen's coat nearly wasn't enough but Jared seemed okay as they crossed the street toward the riverwalk.

The river was dark in the early winter evening but reflected the lights from the buildings on the opposite bank. They stood at the rail and watched the water on the rocks. Then walked over the footbridge and categorized the couples kissing there. New couples, old couples, lopsided couples, in which one was into it and the other was bored and would rather be home watching the cooking channel. Then they found the park, which was actually a playground, and Jared played on the monkey bars even though his feet touched the ground, his top hat tumbling off.

"Just so you know," Jensen said, watching Jared's shirt and hoodie ride up over his stomach, flashes of buttons and belt buckle and, during a particularly exaggerated reach, his belly button, "I'm not impressed."

He was.

"I don't see you trying."

"I'm more of a swing man."

"Alright."

They sat on swings side by side and in spite of Jensen's claim he only swayed a little, with Jared's top hat in his lap. Jared, who seemed to do nothing by halves, swung as high as possible, until he shook the swingset with every back and forth, then jumped at a high point and landed gracelessly, cursing and laughing, and when he sat back down next to Jensen he was brushing sand off of his knees.

"Show-off," Jensen said.

Jared laughed. "Yeah, so?" He smiled and smiled as he swung sideways, watching Jensen as Jensen tried to watch the river, swinging closer as Jensen stopped swinging at all. "Can I show you something else?" he asked at last, and pulled the chain on Jensen's swing and his lips, even in the cold, were warm against Jensen's.

"Impressed yet?" he asked against Jensen's cheek.

"Show me again."

(art by Ordinaryink!)

Jared pulled him closer and someone passing by giggled but it faded off down the riverwalk as Jared's lips found his again and Jensen sighed to be relieved of something he didn't know was there to begin with. Jared's hands slid beneath his coat and pulled, closer still, and Jensen's hands found the back of Jared's knee and the place on his neck, just behind his ear, where a couple of little hairs curled even though no others did, and Jared smiled into their kiss.

After a while they parted and Jared was still smiling and Jensen began to realize what the tugging sensation around his mouth had been. It was his own smile, long in disuse. He hadn't realized how long.

"I don't have a meeting Christmas Eve," Jensen said suddenly, as if he couldn't help saying it.

"What?" Jared asked, confused and amused at once.

Jensen swallowed, as if it might help him keep the rest in, but nothing could. "I just told my mom that because it makes me sad to go home at Christmas."

"Well that's..." Jared began to say, "but don't you think that would just make her sad, too?"

Jensen nodded. "Yeah, she is. That's why... anyway. I'm giving her towels for Christmas. Towels, for chrissake!" He sounded miserable and a little desperate, even to himself.

"Well..."

"I don't actually buy anything for anyone. My assistant does it. I categorize everyone in ascending order from nearest to farthest relation, or in order of money invested in the case of clients, and allocate a certain monetary amount accordingly, and choose generic, gender-neutral, allergen-free gifts from a catalog," he said in a rush. "I have a spreadsheet."

"Um," Jared tried, keeping Jensen close in spite of clearly not knowing what to do or say. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Honestly? I don't know."

"Well, look, everyone makes lists... even Santa!" He smiled, proud of himself.

"Yeah? What are you giving your mom?"

Jared's smile faded. "Going home for Christmas is my gift." He looked a bit guilty. "And some perfume."

Jensen let go. After a few moments, so did Jared. Jensen handed him his top hat. They swung apart.

"I think--" Jensen said, but was interrupted by his phone, a text alert. It was Tim. He was just informing Jensen that an early morning meeting had been canceled. Jensen read the text twice, buying time. "I gotta go."

"What, seriously?"

Jensen stood, buttoning his coat and smoothing out his pants. "It's a Japanese client. Some kind of emergency. It's tomorrow there, you know."

"I know what time it is in Japan, Jensen, but I'm really confused about everything else." He did, definitely, look confused.

Jensen sighed. "I've got to go, okay? I'm sorry."

Jared reached for him but Jensen was already away. He thought, as he left Jared behind, that perhaps he should look back, and he thought, when he was quite far, that he heard someone shout, "This isn't over!" but it might have been his imagination, or it might have been wishful thinking. He slept horribly that night, and woke in choking misery around 3am, cursing onions and encased meats.

*

'Can we pretend last night didn't happen?' Jensen composed in a text to Jared, then deleted it. 'Can we pretend the very end of last night didn't happen?' He deleted that, too. Then he closed his phone and tried to do some work, since he was, afterall, at work, and it was the last day before the office closed for the holiday. It was three days until Christmas.

He spent his morning (after a particularly stealthy and unnecessarily out-of-the-way walk up Park Avenue) feeling foolish about the night before, as much about the outburst as running off. Then spent the afternoon thinking of Jared's lips and hands and belly button and somehow especially that stupid top hat, and that maybe Jared hadn't thought him running away had actually been him running away. So when he was all finished for the day, and Tim had said goodnight and most of his colleagues had stopped by to wish him Merry Christmas, he took out his phone and thumbed down to Jared's name.

It chimed in his hand. It was Jared.

'Hope you're not still rescuing the Japanese from fiscal collapse.'

'No. All settled. Sorry about last night.'

'No problem, but you can only run away from me so many times."

'Before what?'

'Before I stop counting.'

'Are you busy tonight?' Jensen asked after swallowing the knot in his throat.

'Yeah, sorry. Roomie is having xmas party. Wanna come?'

He hadn't been to a party in longer than he had been invited to one, and that was a long time.

'Sure,' he replied.

'Awesome. Sixteenth and Liberty, grey building with red balconies, #305. 8pm.'

'Got it,' Jensen sent, then waited, as if that warranted further response but he knew it didn't and none came. So he locked up his office and headed home. As he crossed Sixth street his phone chimed again but it was Tim, asking, with some panic, if he should have sent Mr. Cratchit a set of towels as well.

*

In the cab on the way to Sixteenth and Liberty, Jensen got a text from Mrs. Cratchit.

'Can you pick us up at 10am?'

He stared at the text. He read it a few times. Then his phone chimed and another text appeared:

'Sent by accident, please ignore.'

He thought that perhaps he should ask after Rob Cratchit, but the taxi driver said just then that they'd arrived so he put his phone away and tried not to think about it, then tripped up the curb on his way out of the cab and the driver told him to watch where he was going. He didn't actually manage to forget about the text until three flights of stairs later when Jared met him at the door with that stupid antler hat and a smile.

"You came," Jared said, and Jensen was prepared to apologize again for the night before, to ask if they could act like it didn't happen, to pretend that Jensen wasn't, in fact, kind of an idiot, but then Jared hugged him so hard his feet lifted off of the floor and instead Jensen said:

"Oof."

Jared laughed when he let him go. "Let me give you the tour."

It was not a long tour. The apartment that Jared shared with "Tiny", his roommate, boasted a living and dining area not more than a few strides in width and only a few more in length. The kitchen was the size of Jensen's bathroom and the bathroom the size of his closet (the smaller one), and yet more than a dozen people had already fitted into these small spaces, talking over music Jensen didn't recognize, or if he did, only from department stores. He met people with names like Shoshanna and Pony and Dirk and three different Steves. Tiny was out getting ice or drinks or something Jared couldn't remember, but he met a dog named Hammond and a cat named Wizard. The dog was Jared's.

"I used to take him with me when I was busking, but I made tons more money with him and I realized he was skewing the data."

"Well with a face like that..." Jensen said, though in fact he didn't trust dogs, and Hammond looked like the feeling was mutual.

There was a balcony large enough for three people so they squeezed their way out onto it, together with a guy who introduced himself as Gutenberg and who smoked long, brown cigarettes and kept asking Jensen's major.

"Sorry about that," Jared said after they were alone and Gutenberg was satisfied that Jensen was, in fact, not a student, and also not in costume as Mr. Rogers. "You don't really seem like a party kind of person."

Jensen shrugged and leaned against the railing. Gutenberg's ashtray tumbled and nearly fell to the sidewalk below, but Jared caught it, a long reach with long arms and he almost lost his antler hat but he caught that, too, one hand full of bells, the other ash and plastic.

"Shit, sorry!"

"No problem," Jared said, dusting his hands on his jeans, ash catching on the cold wind. He straightened his hat. "I guess that's a no, though?"

Jensen leaned (carefully) on the rail again. "I do this all the time, can't you tell?"

Jared laughed. "Most of those guys are Tiny's friends. Well... all of them, actually," he shrugged. He said a lot with his body. Jensen had been noticing. "You've got to meet Tiny, though, he's a good guy. He was born with this congenital spine thing, and he wasn't supposed to ever walk, but he started doing, like, yoga or something--"

"Yoga's great," Jensen supplied a little too eagerly.

"--as a kid and was winning state championships for his highschool football team a few years later. Got a scholarship to the University and everything. But he's a closet nerd and works at some finance firm downtown. Like you."

"Closet nerd like me?"

"You know what I mean."

The night was cool and Jensen wished he'd kept his coat but Jared had been sliding a little closer so he was half warm at least. Then Jared smiled sideways at him and he felt a lot warmer. "Hey, about last night--"

"If I kiss you again," Jared said, soft and low, cutting him off, ignoring him, or both, "are you going to run away?"

"I didn't run away."

"Kind of sprinted, then?"

"No, not that either. I had a... thing."

"A Japanese thing."

"Exactly... hey, could we maybe not talk about it?"

Jared seemed to consider this and at length he shook his head. "We could just skip to the kissing," he said, and finally took off that stupid hat, and leaned in, and Jensen suddenly felt like the ashtray that he'd sent toppling over, only when he fell, it was all the way down.

"Oh, uh..." said the voice that interrupted them a few minutes later as the body it belonged to stepped onto the balcony. Jensen was a little slow to realize he recognized the voice, especially since he was having trouble, just then, remembering his own name.

"Tiny!" Jared said.

"Mr. Ackles?" Tiny said.

"Tim?" Jensen said.

"Uh, I guess you guys know each other?" This was a fair question, since it was true.

"What are you doing here?" This was also a fair question, since Tiny, or Tim, as Jensen knew him, was confused to find his boss making out with his best friend on their balcony.

"They call you "Tiny"?" This was possibly the fairest question of all, since Tim was shaped more for the sort of professional sports where the players do their best to knock each other down, and what's more he looked fairly unknockdownable. But he'd been so frail as a child, and his demeanor so pleasant, that the adjective had been applied and, over time, earned capitalization.

However, in answer to Jensen's question, Tim said, "Because I'm so big."

"Wait," Jared said, finally catching on, "Mr. Ackles as in your boss Mr. Ackles?"

Jensen cringed. "You don't say that like it's a very good thing."

"Uh," Jared said.

"So this is sweatervest guy?" Tim asked Jared but Jensen answered.

"Yeah," he said to Tim, "I'm the sweatervest guy and you're not telling anyone at the office." He turned to Jared, "And I'm Tim's douchebag--"

"I never called you a douchebag."

"--boss, and you're not telling him anything else about me, got it?"

"Not even that you taste like peppermint?"

"Especially not that!"

"Look, Mr. Ackles--"

"Call him Jensen."

"Jensen--"

"Don't call me Jensen!"

"Is this weird for you?" Jared asked.

"Of course it's weird. It's like worlds colliding."

"You were supposed to say that about me kissing you."

"I'm justing going to..." Tim said, "...I'm just going."

Tim went and Jensen sighed. There was something in his hand and he squeezed it. It was Jared's hand.

"This can't really bother you that much, does it?"

It didn't. Not really. It was kind of nice. He was at a party where two people knew his name and he was making out with someone he liked and someone who seemed to like him out on the balcony in a cool December evening and the sky was... a little cloudy, actually, but it was nearly Christmas and this was, as far as things that happened to him went, very nearly the best thing.

"Not really," he said, though it sounded a bit miserable.

Jared laughed, even though Jensen didn't think he'd said anything funny, and pulled him by the hand back into the apartment. Tim noticed them from across the room and gave Jared a concerned look and Jared gave a smile and an 'ok' gesture and Jensen shrugged because he didn't know what else to do. Then Jared led him past two Steves and one Gutenberg and into another room and shut the door behind them.

This room belonged to a scholar and a sports fanatic, an academic and a lover of 90's grunge bands and street photography, of books and silly hats, who was possibly color blind if the mismatching blanket, pillows, and walls were any indication. It smelled a bit like dog but mostly like Jared, in a good, washed, definitely-not-homeless way, and the bed was neat and huge when Jared sat down on it and pulled Jensen to sit next to him. Hammond was a yellow heap asleep on a doggie bed in the corner.

What happened next must be left to your imagination. Some of you might imagine that they talked about music and baseball and things they did and didn't have in common, and laughed together and found that they both knew all of the words to Paradise City which they sang (one poorly and one well) while they ate stale Chex Mix and drank spiked punch. Some of you will imagine less innocent activities with less clothing, possibly still involving Guns 'n' Roses and Chex Mix. Some of you might imagine both. All of you might be right, but the important part happened just before midnight, and just as Jensen was strumming his way through Every Rose Has Its Thorn, half-sitting, half-lying next to Jared, both of them with more clothing than you're imagining.

"I can't believe you're as good as you are and you never play," Jared said sleepily, yawning halfway through it.

"It's been a while." Jensen's voice was rough and lazy sounding. He thought he sounded a bit like a character from an old black and white movie, with greasy hair and a cigarette pack rolled up in his sleeve. He strummed a little more passionately.

"You know, I should put you on a street corner. 'Course it doesn't seem to matter how well a person plays. Josh Bell played a subway station once. Anonymously, you know? Only 7 people stopped to listen to him."

"People aren't looking for art," Jensen slurred between lyrics, feeling wise with all of Jared's attention on him, "they're looking to see someone make a fool of themselves. Failure draws a crowd. Success draws suspicion and contempt."

"Ouch," Jared said.

Jensen stopped playing, realizing what he'd said. "I didn't mean you--"

"No, don't," Jared waved his apologies away, "I know what you mean.”

But the moment was over. Jensen didn't feel so much like a rock star or Brando or anyone very special, until Jared took the guitar and sat it out of the way and took its place up close next to him. Jared was considerably bigger than the guitar and remarkably warmer. He was probably also a better kisser.

"So was that true, everything you said," Jared asked after a while, rather unexpectedly, "about not wanting to go home for Christmas and all?"

Jensen blinked up at the ceiling lazily. "Yeah... and also another thing I'd rather not talk about."

"Why not? Afraid I might try to change your mind?"

Jensen tried to laugh at such a ridiculous idea, but it caught in his throat, a familiar burning sensation. "That's not happening."

Jared burrowed closer and for a second Jensen though the conversation was over. "So, what? You just never go home for Christmas again ever? You can't do that."

"In case it's escaped your attention, Sigmund, I can do whatever I want, because I am a grown-ass man."

"Yeah, but you must actually want to be able to go home for Christmas, right?"

Jensen sat up. The Chex Mix and the booze had not settled on his stomach very well. Alcohol made for the worst indigestion. "What is your hang up with Christmas, anyway?"

"What's yours?" Jared asked, sitting up, too."What happens, say, five, ten, twenty years from now when your cranky Christmas issues causes some genuine pathological fear of tinsel? Or if your mom was to pass away and you regret all those Christmas dinners you could have had, and realize you'll never get a chance to have another one?"

Jared said this with such sincere interest, such concern, that Jensen felt stricken. These were, in fact, many of the same fears Jensen had thought of so often that he wasn't aware of thinking them anymore, and being reminded, together with the shame of feeling so judged by Jared's keen observations, was more hurtful than a thousand such fears shared only with himself.

"You practiced this," Jensen accused, moving ever so slowly away.

"No, I didn't."

"Have you just been waiting all night to pick my brain for your bullshit holiday psych experiment?"

"Of course not!... Wait, what do you mean bullshit?"

But Jensen wasn't hearing any of it. All he heard was the cold, analytical report on Subject A, one Jensen R. Ackles, Christmas-phobic, mother-hating douchebag. Jared was still saying something, possibly defending his work, possibly apologizing, but Jensen was too busy finding his shoes, wondering how the market was doing. He hadn't checked his phone in hours! What the hell was with him, anyway?

"Jensen, wait," Jared said when Jensen stood to leave, but Jensen ignored him. Halfway to the door he heard a yelp and looked down to find he'd stepped on Hammond's paw. "Watch where you're going!" Jared said.

"Yeah, Merry Christmas to you, too."

In the living room, on his way out, he bumped into Tim who smiled, a bit tipsy. "Hey, Mr. Jensen!" he said, oblivious to Jensen's red face and inside-out sweatervest. "Any news on Mr. Cratchit?"

Jensen pushed a Steve out of his way and snatched his coat from the rack by the door. "Fuck off, Tiny Tim."

*

Jensen had never really learned how to express his emotions. He knew how to cry and how to laugh, every baby knows how to do those things, and he knew how to shout and even how to kick garbage cans (he did the last two while leaving Jared's place), but he didn't know how to do these things in such a way that, after he was finished doing them, he felt any better. He didn't know how to let go.

So he held on. In the same way that he was still holding on to the grief of his father dying, guilt over being his mother's only rotten son, frustration at never being able to become the man he thought he should be, he held onto his anger at Jared and at himself for getting involved in the first place. He held onto it so tightly that his fingers ached as walked farther away from Jared's, clenched around nothing in his pockets, and it was eight or nine blocks before he realized he was nowhere near home and probably should have called a cab.

It had rained during the party. It should have been snow but the weather, as it so often conveniently does in this sort of story, reflected his mood. He stood on the corner of Hope and Despair (Those were the street names. Hope Avenue was named for the feeling the city planner had when he first sat down with quill and parchment. Despair Street was named for Charles M. Despair, a barely-notable semi-philanthropist who, in 1910, had donated just enough money to the city for the erection of one street sign) and tried to think of the best route home on foot, tried not to look behind him in the idiotic hope that perhaps Jared had run out after him (he hadn't--Jensen had already looked a dozen times). But all he could think of was a big, stupid smile and a big, stupid hat, and big, soft hands, and lips that kissed better than they sang. He hung his head, catching his reflection in the rain puddle on the street, and felt very, very stupid.

Then he noticed the rest of the reflection in the puddle. Then he remembered a mistaken text. He looked up to the building reflected in the water, the glowing cross over the words, "St. Mary's Hospital of the Holy Cross".

He stepped off of the curb and into the puddle and cursed for the sake of his shoes, but at least there was no one there to tell him to watch where he was going.

*

The trouble with building a hospital on a street named Despair is that it tends to give people the wrong impression. By consequence, the sisters who staffed the hospital were said to be that much kinder and more sympathetic, in an effort to show that the address was not an indication of the general state of morale.

Jensen found the opposite to be true. As it happens, nuns are not fond of slightly intoxicated gentlemen who wander into their hospitals a little after midnight demanding to see a patient. And though they were polite about escorting him out, they were also very strong. But he'd made it this far and he was going to see Cratchit tonight. Something had brought him here, something other than his own legs and a sense of direction compromised by alcohol and an unstable emotional state. So he turned up his collar like they do in the movies, and this time he did not stop at information to ask which floor was for people who got hit by buses. He'd figure that out on his own.

Twenty minutes later he was standing at the foot of Rob Cratchit's hospital bed. The light in the room was dim, just one of those little over-the-bed lamps and a nightlight on the wall near the floor, presumably to help keep Rob from falling should he get up at night, but Rob wasn't getting up and going anywhere on his own. Almost every part of him that Jensen could see was wrapped in a plaster cast. In fact, he wasn't so much a person as a plaster person-shaped thing with Rob's head stuck on. He was also asleep and Jensen was almost sober and maybe this hadn't been such a great idea after all, but he must have made some noise he wasn't aware of as he turned to the door, because a voice from the bed suddenly said, "It's about time you showed up."

Jensen slid his gaze from the door to the bed slowly. He wasn't sure he really wanted to see what being so broken did to a man's expression. Rob Cratchit was, on his best day, rather worn looking, beaten by stress and the strangely addictive drug of achieving, of earning. Getting hit by a bus was probably a little tougher to smile through.

And yet, somehow, that was exactly what Rob Cratchit was doing. Grinning so wide the room seemed brighter. Jensen had only seen such smiles in toothpaste ads.

"Well don't just stand there, come shake my hand!" Rob said, then laughed when Jensen fidgeted because there was really nothing much to shake. "C'mon, just the tips," he said, wriggling little pink ends of fingers from the end of his arm cast.

Jensen walked over and, with some hesitation, shook one little index finger-end, and Cratchit just kept smiling.

"How, uh, how you been, Rob?"

Rob cocked his head and smirked. "Really?"

"Yeah, I guess that was a stupid question."

"There are no stupid questions, Jensen, just stupid people."

"Uh, I'm not sure--"

"Sure you are," Rob said, looking sideways. "Have you ever done anything you weren't sure about? I know I hadn't. Extended warranties, consumer reports, reviews and recommendations, Zagat and Angie's List." Rob's eyes seemed to go a little out of focus, staring at the ceiling, then snapped suddenly back to Jensen's face. "You know I never bought an album just because I liked the cover art?."

Jensen cleared his throat. He guessed this was what Mrs. Cratchit meant by 'doing strangely'. "I didn't know you liked music, Rob."

Rob laughed and nodded, or made a motion that would have been a nod if his body had worked just right. "I know," he said, then, after a moment, more lucidly, "I'm sorry... I'm on a lot of drugs." He smiled. "How are you, Jensen?"

"I'm... you know, I'm good," he lied.

"That's a lie."

"Better than you, anyway."

"That's a lie, too."

Jensen pulled a visitor chair over and sat down, then stood, then sat down again.

"I'm not great, Rob."

"That sounds closer to the truth."

"I don't wanna... I mean, how are you? What do the docs say?"

Rob sighed, but it wasn't heavy or weary or anything like it. It was wistful and far away. "They say I'm lucky to be alive! They say I should be dead. But you know what? I told them I was dead before."

"You mean they resuscitated you or something?"

"No... well yes, they did that, too. But I mean before, before the bus.... Don't you ever feel that way?"

Jensen wondered just what medication he was taking.

"Uh, not really."

Rob smiled. "I don't know if you're just lying to me or lying to both of us."

"Rob, I don't--"

"I quit the firm, Jensen."

"You what?"

Rob shrugged with his eyebrows since his shoulders didn't work. "I was miserable there, you know it. And I would have stayed forever." Something in Rob's tone made Jensen feel like they were back at the office, sitting across from each other at a conference table, waiting for a client and discussing non-work related topics, like weekend plans or the best brand of garbage bag. "I would have been miserable until I died, do you understand that? I guess technically I was miserable until I died!" He laughed, then calmed and almost whispered. "That was no life."

"And this is?" Jensen said, gesturing to the plaster man-shape.

"It's more than I had. Besides, it's all superficial. Bones and things."

"Yeah, what's a few bones?"

"I'll get better." He said it like a promise, like something Jensen couldn't question. "Susie and I are going to have another kid. We're going to sell the house and buy a motorhome and I'll learn carpentry or something. Or maybe we won't sell the house and I'll stay here and open up a flower shop or an aviary or maybe we'll buy a farm in Kansas or a B&B in Vermont. The point is we can.... The point is, Jensen, you can too."

"But I don't want to open a B&B in Vermont."

Rob smiled. "You know, I love you, Jensen," he said softly, "but you're so stupid."

Jensen stayed for a little while longer and Rob told him he was going home the next day, that his mother was moving in with them for a little while to help Susie take care of him, that he and Susie were going to renew their vows and Jensen was invited. Then Rob drifted back to sleep and Jensen sat and watched the monitors until a nurse found him and shooed him out with less force than the nuns. On his way out he got tangled in the cords around Rob's bed and tripped but caught himself and the nurse just shook her head and made a clicking noise with her tongue.

"Watch where you're going," she said, and he thanked her.

*

Monday morning Jensen was standing in the airport. In his pocket was a ticket for home.

It was Christmas Eve.

You might be saying to yourself, "wait, how did he get there? Why did he change his mind about going home for Christmas? There is a serious gap in this narrative!" And if you are saying that to yourself, you might have only skimmed the last scene, or you might actually enjoy having a point hammered home. If it helps, after he left the hospital, he walked back to his apartment and slept off the rest of the alcohol. Then he woke in the morning, took a hot shower and had a sensible breakfast, then decided that Cratchit had clearly learned something from being hit by a bus and that he'd been trying to share this knowledge with Jensen. Also that he'd rather learn it without the broken bones. So he booked a flight and packed a few bags and there he was.

And there was Jared.

Now you might also be saying to yourself, "oh, of course Jared was there catching his flight home, and how convenient for them to meet in the airport just after Jensen had his life-changing (albeit suspiciously absent) epiphany, so that they can hold hands and buy a souvenir pencil tin and have their names engraved onto it." But you would be being very pessimistic. In fact, coincidences like that are far more common in real life than in fiction, just think of the last time you saw your fifth grade teacher in a grocery store. Jensen and Jared lived in the same city and they were both catching a plane bound for Texas for the holidays, whereas you haven't seen Mrs. Johnson since you were twelve, and yet you still ran into her last week in the frozen foods!

But, in fact, this was not a simple coincidence at all. There was a lot involved in this coincidence. Jensen was catching an early flight because he wanted to beat traffic and because he thought if he waited any longer he might lose his nerve, and Jared was catching a flight later in the day because he liked to sleep late when he could, and because the restaurants in the airport serve better lunch than breakfast. Then, for some reason that the airline could not clarify, Jensen's flight was cancelled, and he was left to catch a much later flight. But even then he would not have run into Jared except that Jared was delayed from boarding his own flight, having run into his fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Johnson, who wanted to catch up.

"Hi," Jensen said when Mrs. Johnson had said her goodbyes. Jared looked surprised to see him, and a little uncertain.

"Hey, uh... What are you doing--I mean, I guess you're catching a plane obviously, but..."

"I'm headed home."

The corner of Jared's mouth lifted in spite of the tension between them. He looked so good, standing there half-smiling in old jeans and flip-flops and an impractical t-shirt, as if he was already in Texas. "Really? That's... I mean, that's great."

Jensen tried to smile, but there was an ache in his chest he couldn't have explained to any doctor. "Yeah, you can count this social guinea pig a success."

Jared's frown was more a product of his eyebrows than his mouth. "Jensen, I was never trying to--"

"I know, I'm sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. It wasn't even you who--I mean, I don't want you to think--"

A voice over the intercom made a last call for Jared's flight.

"Yeah, I get it," Jared said, but with one of those consolation smiles like he probably didn't at all. To be fair, Jensen didn't really get it either. "Look, this is my flight, I've got to run." He shouldered a duffel that had been sitting on the floor beside him, largeish but not very large. Probably the only bag he brought. Jensen had checked two, plus a carry-on.

"Jared," Jensen said and Jared stopped, halfway to the door.

"Sir," the attendant said.

"Merry Christmas," Jensen said after a few seconds of saying nothing at all, and Jared smiled but it wasn't that stupid smile that Jensen wanted.

"You, too."

*

Jensen's mother was very happy to see him. She did cry, just as he'd been afraid, but it was only out of happiness and surprise (because he hadn't told her, when he called the day before, that he was coming, just that he'd missed her and wondered what she was doing for Christmas). She thanked him for the towels she'd gotten in the mail and for how nicely they were wrapped, and apologized that she'd already mailed his gifts and so she had nothing for him. But he only hugged her and said he was sorry about the towels and that he hadn't wrapped them at all.

"I don't have a tree," she said as she took him up to his old room, which looked exactly the same except for all scrapbooking supplies piled around his desk and on his bed. "I just didn't see the point, with no one but me here. I hung the stockings, though. All three.... It never feels the same without them."

"I should have been here, mom. Last year, the year before."

"Oh, you were busy. I understand. But what about your foreign meeting you were supposed to have today?"

He thought about telling her the truth, confessing the way he'd told Jared. But unburdening his conscience was not worth hurting her. He shrugged. "They called and cancelled it."

"Well, lucky me!" She was smiling and she was so beautiful, his mom. She still curled her hair the same and she still smelled the same when he hugged her. It had only been about a year since he last saw her but it had been several Christmases, and somehow that made the difference.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Let's go get a tree."

Jensen spent the rest of his day with his mother, picking out one of the last remaining trees in the Boy Scout lot, dragging the decorations out of the garage and finding that only half of one strand of lights worked anymore. She made him a pie and he sat at the piano and played Oh Come All Ye Faithful twice over, because it was her favorite, and found that he had forgotten only a few of the words.

It was not as perfect as all that. They ordered chinese takeout and Jensen's fortune told him to beware heavy sauces, and his mother's shih tzu had an accident in the foyer. Also, he kept thinking of Jared, thinking of how stupid he'd been, wondered what Christmas was like in San Antonio, what Jared might be doing for New Year's, or if he'd ever want to see Jensen again. But, even more than that, everywhere Jensen looked he saw reminders of his father, from his stocking on the mantle to the tiny Dallas Cowboys helmet ornament Jensen gave him when he was eleven.

"We're supposed to miss him this time of year," his mother said when she found him hanging the ornament on the tree, stepping out of the kitchen with flour on her hands. "It just means we remember."

*

Do you remember at the beginning of the story when I said that it was important to understand that Jensen's father was as dead as a doornail? Well, we've finally come to the point where this is especially important.

That night, Jensen stacked the colorful paper strewn across his bed into neat piles and crawled in under the covers like he had so many times as a kid. He thought he wouldn't sleep well, and he thought that his General Tso might keep him up, but he drifted off to sleep before he could even regret his second eggroll.

He woke again at half past one to a distant, muffled, mumbling noise. There had been a rule when he was a kid, that no matter what he heard, there was no getting out of bed on Christmas Eve, or else Santa might take all the toys and give them to some less curious child. But he got out of bed anyway, and crossed the room quietly in bare feet. He tip-toed downstairs, so as not to wake his mother if she was asleep, or frighten her if she was awake. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find. Probably the dog had activated one of those singing Christmas toys his mother liked, hamsters that sang Blue Christmas, or a dancing Christmas tree. But halfway down the stairs he stopped, and saw something he did not expect. A blue-ish shape appeared on the landing, blurry and gauzy and ever-changing. It flickered and it danced, and then it spoke.

"Jensen," it said in his father's voice, and Jensen's heart rose into his throat, fear and heartache alike, "I can't tell you how to live your life," it continued to say, sounding so young and alive, "but if you never do anything else your old man tells you, do this: be happy. Find what you love--find someone you love!, and don't spend a minute wishing. Just do it, kid." There was a long pause and then laughter, and then "How was that, was that stupid?" The shape on the stairs flickered again, as if it had never been there at all. It flickered like the light from a television screen. There was another voice, this one his mother's, "That was great," it said and Jensen descended the last few stairs down into the living room. "Now tell him you love him!" his mother said, an invisible voice behind a camera, and on the screen his young father, tan and smiling, hair longer than Jensen ever remembered, held an infant-sized Jensen up to be seen. "Nah," he said, and smiled, "he already knows it."

"Dad," Jensen whispered.

"Jensen?" his mother said in real time, sitting on the sofa. She flicked on the lamp beside her and paused the video,

"Sorry, uh, sorry, mom." He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. She pulled a Kleenex out of the box beside her and offered it to him.

"C'mon," she said, "I think your baptism is next."

*

You were probably expecting a ghost. Maybe you were expecting three of them. But then again maybe Jensen already knew how good his past Christmases had been, maybe he'd already confessed how cold and sterile and lonely his current Christmases had become, and maybe he'd already been warned about the regret and guilt his future Christmases would bring if he didn't change. Just because a lesson doesn't come from a supernatural entity rattling metaphorical chains, that doesn't mean the lesson isn't valid. And just because a person is dead (even as dead as a doornail), that doesn't mean they can't still get their point across.

*

Two days after Christmas, Jensen was standing in the airport with his mother, just outside of security check.

"I'd stay for New Year, but--"

"I know, you're very important," his mother teased and hugged him. She smelled nice and he knew it was the perfume he'd given her.

"I may not be for very long," he said when they parted.

"Why, what's changing?"

He shrugged. "Nothing, just... just talking. I'll call, okay?"

"If you don't, I will!" She said and left him in line for security.

He wondered, as you are probably wondering, if he would run into Jared, headed back to the City, too, even though it was the wrong city, wrong airport. Or perhaps he would see him during his layover, grabbing lunch between one plane and the next. Maybe they'd share a plane from there. Stranger things have happened.

He didn't.

He wondered, the next day, three days after Christmas and two days until New Year's Eve, if he'd see Jared on the corner of Third and Main, singing... well Christmas was over. Maybe he'd sing Oh, Suzannah or accordion-based versions of Coldplay songs.

He didn't.

He thought about texting or calling, but he didn't do that either.

He also didn't intend to quit his job that day, even though it was a Friday and as good a day as any. He thought he'd better give it the weekend to make sure that he hadn't simply been carried away by holiday sentimentality, then he'd give his resignation, work another two weeks, maybe four, play it safe, not burn his bridges or his savings account. Visions of dead fathers aside, Jensen was a very sensible person. Just because he'd had a change of heart and a newfound sense of life and purpose, he didn't think that meant he should go out and buy the biggest goose at the butcher's, so to speak. But when a call from Dickens interrupted his third client meeting and Dickens offered him Cratchit's job, somehow the words "no" and "sorry, I've got another offer" just came tumbling out, along with all of his good sense. It was as much of a surprise to himself as it was to Mr. Dickens, who grumbled and harrumphed and hung up the phone, and to his client, who asked if he'd still be billed for the full hour.

*

And that is how Jensen's life was changed forever, for the better. He left the firm, bought a motorhome, and took up carpentry. Or maybe he bought a farm in Kansas and grew a beard. Or maybe he stayed in the city and opened a flower shop or an aviary. It doesn't really matter what he did, just that he could. It only mattered that he was, for that Christmas and many after, actually, quite happy.

 

EPILOGUE

New Year's Eve morning brought record cold temperatures for the City, and Jared hustled up Third Street, accordion slung over one shoulder, savoring the break in the wind whenever a building blocked it.

He had one more day of busking before he had all the data he would need for his study, and though he usually spent this morning walk in a good nature, eager to see smiling faces, he did not relish today's outing. It wasn't because it was his last, or even because of the unwelcoming weather. It wasn't even because he'd woken a bit late so he skipped breakfast and was starving three blocks into his walk. It was because he knew he would spend the day waiting to see Jensen walk by, and that Jensen, in all likelihood, would not. Jared had not been out busking since before the holidays, and he hadn't seen Jensen since the airport. He hadn't heard from him by text, email, phone, skywriting, messenger pigeon or otherwise, and then Tim had come home a couple of nights ago and said that Jensen had left the firm. Probably to move out of state, Jared thought.

He passed Union Avenue and scowled at it. A woman walking by caught the scowl on his face and hurried on quickly.

"Not you!" he shouted after her, but she bustled away without looking back.

"Get a grip," he told himself, and squared his shoulders, put a smile on, and continued up to Main Street. He'd take a break in Manny's before he started, get a pastry and a coffee and by the time he squeezed the first few notes out of his accordion, he'd feel better. He was sure of it.

There was a crowd up on Third and Main when he approached, enough to block the sidewalk. And there was music. Someone had poached his corner!

He couldn't see the guitarist when he joined the crowd, not even with the advantage of his height, but then he was still standing street level and they were all up on the curb. He excused and pardoned his way through while the guitarist effortlessly strummed a song (what was that? Coldplay?) like he played it every day of his life.

Then, quite suddenly, Jared found the curb. He tripped up it and cursed, and the crowd parted around him and someone said, "You'd better watch out."

The music had stopped and everyone was staring, but when Jared got his feet back underneath him and looked up, it started again, a new song.

"Maybe I'm crazy to suppose, I'd ever be the one you chose, out of a thousand invitations you received," the guitarist sang, and to Jared's surprise, he sang it to Jared. He wore a familiar sweatervest that didn't look warm enough and his cheeks were pink and so were his lips and he looked as good as he did the day Jared first saw him walking down Main Street. Only less grumpy.

"Oh, but in case I stand one little chance..." You've certainly figured out by now that it was Jensen, "...here comes the jackpot question in advance..." of course it was Jensen. That's symmetry for you. "What are you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?"

The notes faded out, caught up in the wind as the guitarist stopped playing, and the crowd thinned when he didn't start to play anything else and instead just stood and stared at the man who had belatedly stumbled in.

"Hey," Jared said, and thought his face would break from smiling.

Jensen smiled back, but it was sheepish and tentative. "I thought you'd never show up."

"How long have you been out here?"

Jensen shrugged. "Not long. Two days."

"Two days!?"

"Well I did go home to sleep and everything."

"You could have just called me, you idiot." There were still a couple of people standing around, watching them as if it was still a performance.

"It would have ruined the gesture."

"What's that? Freezing to death?"

"Apologizing," Jensen said and shrugged again, guitar and all. "Asking for one last chance."

Jared laughed, stepped closer to say quietly. "You know, I thought you were pissed at me, not the other way around. So I guess we got our lines crossed somewhere."

"Yeah, I guess," Jensen said, then stepped closer too, and smiled. He had little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, just the start of laugh lines. Jared thought they were his best feature. "So, uh, what are you doing for New Year's?"

A blast of wind came up from behind Jared and pushed him forward, closer. At least he thought it was the wind. It didn't really feel cold anymore.

"How about a duet?" someone standing nearby called out and Jensen looked around, a bit startled, like he'd forgotten that they were on a street corner, but he smiled at Jared and only stepped back far enough to strum.

"Is it too early for Auld Lang Syne?" Jensen asked.

"It's already tomorrow in Japan," Jared said, smiling and readying his accordion.

"I'm not living that one down, am I?"

"We'll see. I'm more concerned about the Coldplay."

"Hey, Jared?" Jensen asked as he strummed the first chord and Jared squeezed his accordion into life, making sure they were in harmony.

"Yeah?"

"What do you think of Vermont?"

(art by Ordinaryink!)