Deadline on Love 13b/13b
Jared turned his head into the hand brushing through his hair. He snuggled closer to the warm body beside him, breathing in the scent of Jensen. Jensen. Jensen was there.
Jared’s eyes snapped open and he looked about desperately searching for his lover. Jensen smiled down at him in the darkened room, his hand ceasing it movements and coming to rest around the side of Jared’s neck.
“Jensen,” Jared whispered, his face pulling into a sleepy smile.
“I’m here, Jay. Right here,” Jensen said quietly and Jared rolled further into his arms, holding onto the older boy as though he might disappear any second. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Jared replied, rubbing his face into the warm skin of Jensen’s chest. He noticed that their bodies were draped with a thin sheet but other than that they were still naked and Jared’s body hurt in all the right places. “What time is it?”
“Um, a little after eight, I think,” Jensen told him and Jared felt a jolt of panic shoot through him.
“Shit, my parents, they’re going to be freaking out, they have no idea where I am,” Jared blurted, trying to sit up but he moved too fast and his head spun, blacking out his vision for a second.
“Whoa. Easy.” Jensen pressed a gentle hand to Jared’s chest, easing him back down onto the bed. When Jared's vision cleared he could see Jensen gazing at him with a mix of concern and amusement.
Crashing a hand over his eyes, Jared grimaced. "God, I'm going to be in so much trouble when I get home."
"Um, actually, no you're not," Jensen murmured, clearing his throat. Jared peered up at him through his fingers and frowned at the guilty expression there.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your dad already knows you're with me, so I doubt you're going to be in shit when you get home." Jensen smiled nervously, waiting for Jared's response.
"How does… you spoke to my dad? When?" Sitting up again, albeit a little more carefully this time, Jared watched his lover while he waited for answers.
Jensen nodded, his eyes shifting away for a second and Jared just knew there a lot more to the story that he wasn't aware of. It was time for explanations and Jared just prayed that the end result would be the same - Jensen staying with Jared and them getting their happy ever after.
"What's going on, Jen?" he asked tentatively. "Since when have you been speaking to Dad?"
Jensen looked shifty before he sighed and looked Jared straight in the eye. "Since you guys left. He gave me his number, said he could help me… and he did."
He was definitely stunned. He didn't know what to say. Jared took a moment to think this new information through but as much as he did, he couldn't make sense of it.
"How did my dad help you? Jen, what are you not telling me?"
Jensen sighed but nodded to himself.
"Do you remember when your dad said he wanted to speak to me, that last night you were in the beach house?" Jared simply nodded in assent and continued to listen to Jensen's explanation. "Well, he and your mom invited me to come with you. They said I could live with them, that they would make an application for legal custody over me, and that they would support me until I was eighteen and could legally do it on my own."
Jared's jaw dropped and he stared at Jensen in confusion.
"They said they'd take you with us?" Jensen smiled weakly. "And you said no?" Jared knew he sounded slightly hysterical, but seriously? Jensen could have been with him this entire time and he didn't take the option? He decided to stay with his abusive mother instead of being with the person he claimed to love? Jared just couldn't comprehend.
Jensen ran a hand over Jared's chest, asking him to calm down and listen but Jared was finding it hard to breathe. He sat back further up the bed and folded his arms. All this pain he had been going through, feeling like he was falling apart without Jensen by his side, Jensen being somewhere where he could get hurt, and all this time Jensen could have been safe with him, they could have been together, but Jensen hadn't wanted that?
"Jay, listen, please?" Jensen begged, sitting up as well and holding Jared's jaw, gently urging him to meet his eyes. "I couldn't do that. I couldn't sign my life away to people I didn't know." Jensen held his hand up to silence him as soon as Jared opened his mouth to argue that they were his parents and so trustworthy. "If I could have done that I would have run a long time ago, but that's just not who I am, it's not how I could live. When I was going to get away from my mom I was going to do it the right way, not take the easy way out, some hand out from some stranger. Your dad understood that, he actually seemed to respect it, and I really hope that you can too."
Taking a deep breath, Jared let himself think of it from Jensen's point of view. He knew that Jensen would never have been able to live happily in his house, living under other people's rules. He knew it, but that didn't mean the information hurt any less.
"Also," Jensen continued with a small smirk, "I don't think we would have been able to do what we did earlier under your parent's roof, do you? And being that close to you all that time, there is no way I could have kept my hands to myself."
Jared barked out laugh, knowing Jensen was a hundred percent right on that front.
"So what did you do? How did Dad help you?" Jared asked, his interest renewed.
"He gave me another option I'd never thought of before," Jensen explained. Jared looked quizzical. "Emancipation."
"You got emancipated?" Jared asked, impressed.
"Yeah."
"How did you pull that off? Did you report your mom for everything that she did?" Jared continued to question, getting more excited over this new information.
Jensen smiled ruefully. "Not exactly. Mom wasn’t going to sign the forms letting me go, but when I threatened to go to the cops she couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. Now I’m a free agent.”
“So it’s all legal? You’re not in the system, no one coming after you for running away?” Jared clarified and Jensen grinned, nodding with renewed vigor at Jared's enthusiasm. “I can’t believe you did all this.”
"Your dad was amazing. He helped with everything, the paper work, all the legal shit. He found a garage not far from here looking for someone, so I got an interview and got the job, I start tomorrow. He even came and got me, drove me up here and helped me look for this place. It’s all I can afford right now.”
Jensen stopped talking and Jared swallowed thickly, everything slowly coming together in his mind. Still there was something bothering him.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t he tell me?” Jared asked, feeling hurt and left out. All this had been going on all this time while Jared had been worrying himself to death when he could have been excited and happy knowing that Jensen was okay.
Jensen sat beside him, taking his hand along with a deep breath.
“I asked him not to say anything.” Jared shot him a disbelieving look and Jensen hurried to explain. “I didn’t know if everything was going to work out, it could have all fallen through if I couldn’t get a job or a place to live. I didn’t even know if they were going to grant my emancipation or not for a while. I didn’t want to get your hopes up and then it not happen. I didn’t want to get my own hopes up. I think part of me never really believed it was going to happen until I was here and actually doing it. Don’t be mad, Jay.”
“I’m not mad,” Jared assured him, understanding his hesitation to make everything real only to be disappointed if it didn’t happen in the end. “I’m… I think I’m in shock.”
Chuckling, Jensen wrapped his arm around Jared’s shoulders and pulled him against him, pressing a kiss into his hair.
“So, everything’s okay? You’re happy?” Jensen asked, holding him tight in anticipation of his answer.
“Yes,” Jared promised, leaning against Jensen and closing his eyes. “I can’t believe my dad did all that. I think I love him even more.”
“Ha. Well there were some conditions,” Jensen told him and Jared turned his head up to look at him, waiting for him to explain. “I have to stop fighting and go back to school.”
“You’re going back to school?”
“Yep, already enrolled at the public school. It’s going to be tough fitting it in and earning enough to live on at the same time, but it’ll be worth it.” Jensen nodded and Jared grinned, so very proud of the older boy.
“Wow, this is… I don’t even know what to say,” Jared admitted, feeling a little on information overload.
“Well, I’m having to start a year behind to make up for everything I’ve missed, but the Principle was really nice when I met him and he thinks that I stand a good shot at graduating if I work hard. I’m not a wiz or anything, but my grades were never that bad,” Jensen said, a little shyness creeping in, something Jared knew only really happened around him.
“So, now you’re a free agent.” Jensen nodded happily and there was a hint of pride shining in his eyes and Jared knew that it was because what he had done allowed him to stand on his own two feet, he wasn’t taking hand outs and everything he would have he would have to work hard for, but he would do it. “And you chose to come here?”
Jensen looked a little quizzical. “Where else would I go?” he asked, hurt staining his tone.
Jared looked down, staring at Jensen’s bare chest. “Did you ever think about finding your dad and brother? Maybe living with them? I mean, wouldn’t they be okay now that you’ve been cleared of… everything?”
When Jared looked up he saw Jensen’s eyes harden and he wondered if he had said the wrong thing.
“Yeah, I did think about it… for all of two seconds. They abandoned me, Jay. They believed I was capable of that stuff and they didn’t even ask me about it. They just turned their backs and walked away and didn’t give a shit about what was happening to me. Maybe one day I’ll be ready to see them again, but right now I just want to be with you. I want to move on from all that crap and have an actual life.”
Jared nodded thoughtfully, he got it, but deep down he really did hope that Jensen would be able to mend those bridges. “What about your mom?” he asked tentatively.
“About reporting her, you mean?” Jensen asked and Jared nodded apprehensively. Jensen sighed. “Jay, I’m not the only one who lost anything here. I lost my sister, but my mom lost a daughter, too. I know that doesn’t make what she did okay, ‘cause it’s not. But she’s hurting too and that’s really the only reason she did all those things to me. She’s suffered, and she’ll continue to suffer every day, and now that I’m not there to take it out on maybe she’ll be forced to deal with it.”
Jared opened his mouth to speak but Jensen continued before he could get a word out. “She can’t hurt me anymore, Jay, and I for one don’t want to drag up the past, especially not now I’m trying to get myself a future. I’m free of her and that asshole of a husband of hers and I just want to leave it at that. You understand that, right?”
“Yeah, I understand,” Jared conceded. “I don’t like it, I think she should be held accountable for what she did, her and Eric, but I get that you want to forget it all. I won’t bring it up again, okay?”
Jensen’s eyes dropped closed for a second and Jared could practically feel the relief rolling off him.
“Thank you,” he said softly and Jared couldn’t help but lean in and kiss him.
Jensen returned the kiss for a moment before they both pulled back and smiled at each other.
“So, you’re going to be in the same year as me at school?” Jared asked, changing the subject and noticing Jensen’s appreciative look. “So we’ll be graduating at the same time. Maybe we can go to college together.”
“Oh I don’t know about college,” Jensen said with a laugh, his eyes shining with happiness. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to afford it for one thing and I’m not really the book learning type.”
“I think you’re pretty smart,” Jared stated and at Jensen’s raised eyebrow he continued, “You chose to be with me, didn’t you?”
Jensen tipped his head back and laughed loudly. “I don’t think there’s a degree in that, but I bet if there was I’d come out all A’s.”
“I guarantee it.”
The end
A/N: So there it is, all over. I have to apologise for how long it took to get this last part up, but there was a lot of things working against me, illness of me and my family being a large factor. But we got there in the end.
I want to say a huge thank you to avon_09 for all her beta help and hard work, don't know what I'd do without you honey. And to engel82 for keeping me on the right track all the way through and cheering me on and screaming WRITE at me when I most needed it, lol.
Also a big thank you to insane_songbird and twivamp92 for their amazing enthusiasm and encouragement, you guys are amazing, thank you. And to all my readers for your patience and support, it's all for you guys, without you this would all be pointless. *group hug*
Jared’s eyes snapped open and he looked about desperately searching for his lover. Jensen smiled down at him in the darkened room, his hand ceasing it movements and coming to rest around the side of Jared’s neck.
“Jensen,” Jared whispered, his face pulling into a sleepy smile.
“I’m here, Jay. Right here,” Jensen said quietly and Jared rolled further into his arms, holding onto the older boy as though he might disappear any second. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Jared replied, rubbing his face into the warm skin of Jensen’s chest. He noticed that their bodies were draped with a thin sheet but other than that they were still naked and Jared’s body hurt in all the right places. “What time is it?”
“Um, a little after eight, I think,” Jensen told him and Jared felt a jolt of panic shoot through him.
“Shit, my parents, they’re going to be freaking out, they have no idea where I am,” Jared blurted, trying to sit up but he moved too fast and his head spun, blacking out his vision for a second.
“Whoa. Easy.” Jensen pressed a gentle hand to Jared’s chest, easing him back down onto the bed. When Jared's vision cleared he could see Jensen gazing at him with a mix of concern and amusement.
Crashing a hand over his eyes, Jared grimaced. "God, I'm going to be in so much trouble when I get home."
"Um, actually, no you're not," Jensen murmured, clearing his throat. Jared peered up at him through his fingers and frowned at the guilty expression there.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your dad already knows you're with me, so I doubt you're going to be in shit when you get home." Jensen smiled nervously, waiting for Jared's response.
"How does… you spoke to my dad? When?" Sitting up again, albeit a little more carefully this time, Jared watched his lover while he waited for answers.
Jensen nodded, his eyes shifting away for a second and Jared just knew there a lot more to the story that he wasn't aware of. It was time for explanations and Jared just prayed that the end result would be the same - Jensen staying with Jared and them getting their happy ever after.
"What's going on, Jen?" he asked tentatively. "Since when have you been speaking to Dad?"
Jensen looked shifty before he sighed and looked Jared straight in the eye. "Since you guys left. He gave me his number, said he could help me… and he did."
He was definitely stunned. He didn't know what to say. Jared took a moment to think this new information through but as much as he did, he couldn't make sense of it.
"How did my dad help you? Jen, what are you not telling me?"
Jensen sighed but nodded to himself.
"Do you remember when your dad said he wanted to speak to me, that last night you were in the beach house?" Jared simply nodded in assent and continued to listen to Jensen's explanation. "Well, he and your mom invited me to come with you. They said I could live with them, that they would make an application for legal custody over me, and that they would support me until I was eighteen and could legally do it on my own."
Jared's jaw dropped and he stared at Jensen in confusion.
"They said they'd take you with us?" Jensen smiled weakly. "And you said no?" Jared knew he sounded slightly hysterical, but seriously? Jensen could have been with him this entire time and he didn't take the option? He decided to stay with his abusive mother instead of being with the person he claimed to love? Jared just couldn't comprehend.
Jensen ran a hand over Jared's chest, asking him to calm down and listen but Jared was finding it hard to breathe. He sat back further up the bed and folded his arms. All this pain he had been going through, feeling like he was falling apart without Jensen by his side, Jensen being somewhere where he could get hurt, and all this time Jensen could have been safe with him, they could have been together, but Jensen hadn't wanted that?
"Jay, listen, please?" Jensen begged, sitting up as well and holding Jared's jaw, gently urging him to meet his eyes. "I couldn't do that. I couldn't sign my life away to people I didn't know." Jensen held his hand up to silence him as soon as Jared opened his mouth to argue that they were his parents and so trustworthy. "If I could have done that I would have run a long time ago, but that's just not who I am, it's not how I could live. When I was going to get away from my mom I was going to do it the right way, not take the easy way out, some hand out from some stranger. Your dad understood that, he actually seemed to respect it, and I really hope that you can too."
Taking a deep breath, Jared let himself think of it from Jensen's point of view. He knew that Jensen would never have been able to live happily in his house, living under other people's rules. He knew it, but that didn't mean the information hurt any less.
"Also," Jensen continued with a small smirk, "I don't think we would have been able to do what we did earlier under your parent's roof, do you? And being that close to you all that time, there is no way I could have kept my hands to myself."
Jared barked out laugh, knowing Jensen was a hundred percent right on that front.
"So what did you do? How did Dad help you?" Jared asked, his interest renewed.
"He gave me another option I'd never thought of before," Jensen explained. Jared looked quizzical. "Emancipation."
"You got emancipated?" Jared asked, impressed.
"Yeah."
"How did you pull that off? Did you report your mom for everything that she did?" Jared continued to question, getting more excited over this new information.
Jensen smiled ruefully. "Not exactly. Mom wasn’t going to sign the forms letting me go, but when I threatened to go to the cops she couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. Now I’m a free agent.”
“So it’s all legal? You’re not in the system, no one coming after you for running away?” Jared clarified and Jensen grinned, nodding with renewed vigor at Jared's enthusiasm. “I can’t believe you did all this.”
"Your dad was amazing. He helped with everything, the paper work, all the legal shit. He found a garage not far from here looking for someone, so I got an interview and got the job, I start tomorrow. He even came and got me, drove me up here and helped me look for this place. It’s all I can afford right now.”
Jensen stopped talking and Jared swallowed thickly, everything slowly coming together in his mind. Still there was something bothering him.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t he tell me?” Jared asked, feeling hurt and left out. All this had been going on all this time while Jared had been worrying himself to death when he could have been excited and happy knowing that Jensen was okay.
Jensen sat beside him, taking his hand along with a deep breath.
“I asked him not to say anything.” Jared shot him a disbelieving look and Jensen hurried to explain. “I didn’t know if everything was going to work out, it could have all fallen through if I couldn’t get a job or a place to live. I didn’t even know if they were going to grant my emancipation or not for a while. I didn’t want to get your hopes up and then it not happen. I didn’t want to get my own hopes up. I think part of me never really believed it was going to happen until I was here and actually doing it. Don’t be mad, Jay.”
“I’m not mad,” Jared assured him, understanding his hesitation to make everything real only to be disappointed if it didn’t happen in the end. “I’m… I think I’m in shock.”
Chuckling, Jensen wrapped his arm around Jared’s shoulders and pulled him against him, pressing a kiss into his hair.
“So, everything’s okay? You’re happy?” Jensen asked, holding him tight in anticipation of his answer.
“Yes,” Jared promised, leaning against Jensen and closing his eyes. “I can’t believe my dad did all that. I think I love him even more.”
“Ha. Well there were some conditions,” Jensen told him and Jared turned his head up to look at him, waiting for him to explain. “I have to stop fighting and go back to school.”
“You’re going back to school?”
“Yep, already enrolled at the public school. It’s going to be tough fitting it in and earning enough to live on at the same time, but it’ll be worth it.” Jensen nodded and Jared grinned, so very proud of the older boy.
“Wow, this is… I don’t even know what to say,” Jared admitted, feeling a little on information overload.
“Well, I’m having to start a year behind to make up for everything I’ve missed, but the Principle was really nice when I met him and he thinks that I stand a good shot at graduating if I work hard. I’m not a wiz or anything, but my grades were never that bad,” Jensen said, a little shyness creeping in, something Jared knew only really happened around him.
“So, now you’re a free agent.” Jensen nodded happily and there was a hint of pride shining in his eyes and Jared knew that it was because what he had done allowed him to stand on his own two feet, he wasn’t taking hand outs and everything he would have he would have to work hard for, but he would do it. “And you chose to come here?”
Jensen looked a little quizzical. “Where else would I go?” he asked, hurt staining his tone.
Jared looked down, staring at Jensen’s bare chest. “Did you ever think about finding your dad and brother? Maybe living with them? I mean, wouldn’t they be okay now that you’ve been cleared of… everything?”
When Jared looked up he saw Jensen’s eyes harden and he wondered if he had said the wrong thing.
“Yeah, I did think about it… for all of two seconds. They abandoned me, Jay. They believed I was capable of that stuff and they didn’t even ask me about it. They just turned their backs and walked away and didn’t give a shit about what was happening to me. Maybe one day I’ll be ready to see them again, but right now I just want to be with you. I want to move on from all that crap and have an actual life.”
Jared nodded thoughtfully, he got it, but deep down he really did hope that Jensen would be able to mend those bridges. “What about your mom?” he asked tentatively.
“About reporting her, you mean?” Jensen asked and Jared nodded apprehensively. Jensen sighed. “Jay, I’m not the only one who lost anything here. I lost my sister, but my mom lost a daughter, too. I know that doesn’t make what she did okay, ‘cause it’s not. But she’s hurting too and that’s really the only reason she did all those things to me. She’s suffered, and she’ll continue to suffer every day, and now that I’m not there to take it out on maybe she’ll be forced to deal with it.”
Jared opened his mouth to speak but Jensen continued before he could get a word out. “She can’t hurt me anymore, Jay, and I for one don’t want to drag up the past, especially not now I’m trying to get myself a future. I’m free of her and that asshole of a husband of hers and I just want to leave it at that. You understand that, right?”
“Yeah, I understand,” Jared conceded. “I don’t like it, I think she should be held accountable for what she did, her and Eric, but I get that you want to forget it all. I won’t bring it up again, okay?”
Jensen’s eyes dropped closed for a second and Jared could practically feel the relief rolling off him.
“Thank you,” he said softly and Jared couldn’t help but lean in and kiss him.
Jensen returned the kiss for a moment before they both pulled back and smiled at each other.
“So, you’re going to be in the same year as me at school?” Jared asked, changing the subject and noticing Jensen’s appreciative look. “So we’ll be graduating at the same time. Maybe we can go to college together.”
“Oh I don’t know about college,” Jensen said with a laugh, his eyes shining with happiness. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to afford it for one thing and I’m not really the book learning type.”
“I think you’re pretty smart,” Jared stated and at Jensen’s raised eyebrow he continued, “You chose to be with me, didn’t you?”
Jensen tipped his head back and laughed loudly. “I don’t think there’s a degree in that, but I bet if there was I’d come out all A’s.”
“I guarantee it.”
The end
A/N: So there it is, all over. I have to apologise for how long it took to get this last part up, but there was a lot of things working against me, illness of me and my family being a large factor. But we got there in the end.
I want to say a huge thank you to avon_09 for all her beta help and hard work, don't know what I'd do without you honey. And to engel82 for keeping me on the right track all the way through and cheering me on and screaming WRITE at me when I most needed it, lol.
Also a big thank you to insane_songbird and twivamp92 for their amazing enthusiasm and encouragement, you guys are amazing, thank you. And to all my readers for your patience and support, it's all for you guys, without you this would all be pointless. *group hug*