Remember the time I couldn't stop reading an RPF - real person fiction - called
Shameless by Helens? (I mentioned it in
this blog post; you can
read the fic here. Do. It's sooo gooood.)
It has Christian Bale and Sean Bean. Sean Bean doesn't die in this one, but he does have a lot of sadomasochistic same-sex sex. And it is glorious.
It's been many and many a year since I actually wrote an RPF - since my college days, I reckon. These days I prefer to work with fictional characters, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy an occasional RPF read.
This past week a series of fortunate events occurred. The 2015 Peoples' Choice Awards were held on Wednesday, January 7th, One of the winners was my latest celebrity crush, Misha Collins, for playing Castiel on
Supernatural.
So on
my Tumblr blog Something Kitten This Way Comes on Thursday, I blogged a few PCA photos. It's a book blog with many, many diversions, and one of those diversions is that I sometimes blog red carpet photos for actors I particularly like - the
Hunger Games cast and whatnot.
On Friday, I blogged nothing but Misha Collins all day, just because he is pretty. A lot of what I reblogged came from the archives of my fellow Tumblrer Alexandra on her blog
Your Bittersweet Company. Including this:
And that graphic links to
this, a Misha Collins/Jensen Ackles RPF. (They have a ship name, and it is Cockles.) I couldn't NOT read it. I simply couldn't. The author goes by NamiChan89, and the artist of the lovely banner is petite_madame. There are 8 chapters and an epilogue, all awesome. It's not
plotless porn.
I mean, it's really sad at first. Fictional-Jensen's brother and very-pregnant sister-in-law are killed by a drunk driver, but his infant nephew survives the crash. Since their other sister is still in college and they can't stomach the thought of the little boy being raised in foster care, Jensen has to take care of the little boy, named Andrew or A.J. for short. He gets paternity leave from his engineering job, but he's a little depressed after the trauma of losing his brother. The sister lives too far away to be much of a support system for him, and AJ is fussy. Uncle and nephew get very little sleep at first.
Fictional Misha is their new neighbor across the hall. Jensen and Misha flirt a little right from the first day they meet. It's casual, though. Fictional Jared Padalecki shows up as AJ's pediatrician, which is very cute.
In Chapter 2, Misha seems to know something about caring for a baby, but Jensen doesn't dare ask him why that is. Misha lives alone, so no wife or children appear to be in the picture.
Chapter 3 has the sister - Mackenzie - babysitting AJ so Jensen and Misha can go to dinner and a movie. It's a date that Jensen somewhat ruins at the end by blurting out that it is not a date.
Chapter 4 is very sweet. Jensen has made himself sick by drinking milk that was a little spoiled. While he's recovering, Misha takes care of him and AJ. They both seem to accept that Misha will help take care of the baby, but the two adults are just friends.
In Chapter 5, with his paternity leave coming to an end, Jensen is complaining to Misha that it's hard to find a good babysitter. In the midst of explaining why he doesn't feel comfortable hiring the potential nannies who seem a little too flirty, Jensen very clearly states that he's gay. Misha doesn't flinch, but he's not forthcoming with any more clues about his own orientation, either. Not surprisingly, Misha ends up taking the 2-day-a-week nanny job, since he mostly works from home. (He's a translator.) Mackenzie, meanwhile, gives her brother the number of a definitely-gay potential date named Tom, since Jensen's flirtation with Misha doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Chapter 6 is mostly dates that Jensen goes on with Tom. Their relationship is progressing, even if Jensen can't seem to get past his seemingly-hopeless crush on his hot neighbor/babysitter. At the end of the chapter, Misha interrupts their date calling Jensen and telling him to meet him at the children's hospital. Uh oh.
Chapter 7 returns to the melancholy. AJ is fine, but Misha narrates the sad story of how he came to be experienced with caring for babies. He was married, and he had a baby girl. While he and his wife were working on a humanitarian project in Africa, their daughter got sick, and she died. Misha and his wife couldn't stop arguing after that, and they got divorced. Not only is the story sad, but now Jensen's romantic hopes are crushed, because now he believed Misha is a straight guy. At the end of the chapter, Misha is contemplating taking a job in Russia.
In Chapter 8 - well, we can all see where this is going. Jensen breaks down and admits to Jared he's been in love with Misha for the past 8 months (because every chapter is a month). Jensen breaks up with Tom, and Tom admits he saw it coming, because clearly Jensen is smitten with his babysitter. Faced with losing Misha forever, Jensen goes across the hall and begs Misha not to take the job in Moscow, and they both admit to having feelings for each other. Then they kiss. That night, after AJ has been put to bed, they go to Jensen's bed together.
In the epilogue, a 15-year-old AJ - now just going by Andy - doesn't quite know how to tell his two obnoxiously-in-love dads that he, Andy, has a crush on a girl. He comes out to them as straight.
And it is adorable.
Sometimes you just have to say "fuck reality," suspend disbelief, and enjoy a romantic drama.
