Prologue
Jared decided that the thing about him and Jensen was, everyone always assumed that Jensen was the only one that needed saving. They looked at the mess Jensen was, and they assume that Jared was the savior and that Jensen was the saved.
As far as Jared was concerned, that’s just a bunch of bullshit.
The truth of the matter was, Jared needed saving as much as Jensen did. It’s just that he wasn’t as obvious. Because he wasn’t falling down drunk, or so high that he got lost in a dead end alley, they assumed he was on the right track in life.
In all honesty, as far as Jared was concerned, before he had Jensen, before they met, before that fateful day in Eric’s office, Jared had been as lost as Jensen. He might have been on the highway, but he was caught in some freaky endless loop that went nowhere. He had the Golden Boy image. Everyone pointed to him and said, “THERE, right there is what Hollywood is gonna become.”
They bet their banks on his charming smile and easy whit. They assured him that his down-home Texas level-headedness was keeping him on the right path because his name didn’t appear in the National Enquirer on a weekly basis. Truth was though, he was empty and alone, hiding behind cute little girls that fit what everyone sitting staring at him on their television sets wanted for him. Dark hair and big brown eyes were his MO.
Loneliness and heartache was his reality.
He was so afraid to be himself that he almost forgot who he was.
He’d been conditioned though a lifetime of exposure to the narrow-mindedness of other people into believing that he had to fit their mold, or he’d never belong. They’d made him believe that he’d never make it, and that was just something he thought he wouldn’t survive. He’d never believed he’d find that one person who would make the rest of the world worth missing, so he hadn’t even really been looking, instead he chose to immerse himself into a career hoping his character could keep him from falling too far into the darkness. So, he’d bent and squeezed and suffered until he’d managed to fit into a tiny little mold they’d set out for him, and pretended that the pain he lived with his whole life wasn’t there.
Then he met Jensen Ross Ackles.
He knew he would always consider that first day as one of the best of his life.
It wasn’t quite the fairy tale Hollywood beginning; there were no fireworks and it wasn’t love at first sight. Looking back, Jared realized that Jensen looked too pale and jittery for it to be just nerves, but at the time, he didn’t much care. There in front of him was Jensen Ackles. An actor that he was well familiar with, someone who was set to play his big brother, but not even Jared himself had any idea that Jensen would have such an all-encompassing effect on Jared’s life.
Again, looking back Jared couldn’t help but feel like he should have known what was going on with Jensen, but back then, at least at the beginning, he was so excited and nervous for his own reasons, that there was no way to see it. Although, knowing what he did after hearing Jensen’s story, the effect he’d had on Jared was just that much more awe inspiring, in Jared’s opinion anyway.
Here was a man whose personal life was a mess. He was addicted to drugs, he had people surrounding him who manipulated him at every turn, and yet from the first he’d opened his life to Jared, letting him go where no one else had ever been. He’d almost literally taken Jared by the hand and pulled him from the endless loop he’d been caught on and shoved him to the path he needed to be on, even though Jensen couldn’t do the same for himself.
He taught him to be unafraid of who he was, an irony that wasn’t lost on Jared. Jensen taught him to stop hiding from the people who loved him. Jensen taught him to be proud of his accomplishments and believe in his future. Jensen taught him how to fight when everyone else said give up.
The thing about Jared saving Jensen was that it was only possible because Jensen saved Jared first. He saved him from his fake life and fake girlfriends and fake friends. He saved him from making the huge mistakes and then talked him through the little ones he hadn’t been able to save him from. He’d lent him a shoulder and his undying support when he’d broken up with Sandy and come out to his family.
He’d saved him.
And, Jared saved him back.
Wasn’t that how it was supposed to go when you loved someone?
Chapter One