Fic: The past is never where you think you left it
Title: The past is never where you think you left it
Author: Zara_Zee
Beta: 9Tiptoes
Total Words: 4,250
Genre(s): Timestamp in the Fifty cents ‘verse.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I have borrowed the names and faces of certain actors without their knowledge or approval. Said actors belong to themselves and I have merely cast them in my fiction. Not a word of this is true; I’ve just got them playing parts.
Warnings: smoking, swearing, references to domestic violence, references to homophobia, references to past child abuse, m/m sex
A/N: I have made up families for the major players, as I don’t personally feel comfortable casting non-actors in my fictional drama! I have also messed around with people’s ages. Jensen is only two years older than Jared.
Title is a quote by Katherine Anne Porter
Summary
When Jensen doesn’t come home after a therapy session with Dr Whitfield, Jared goes looking for him.
--
September, 2002
It’s dark by the time Jared finds him. Summer is giving way to Fall and while it’s not yet cold, it’s pretty cool once the sun goes down and Jared knows Jensen didn’t take a jacket with him when he went to see Dr Whitfield.
The evening air smells damp, a warning of frosty nights to come, and as Jared treks through East Portal Park he breathes in the fresh wet scent of leaves starting to turn orange. The park is his second search-place. He’s already checked all of Jensen’s favorite quiet spots on campus.
The tell-tale red glow of the end of a cigarette is like a beacon in the night and Jared heads straight for it.
Jensen is sitting on top of a picnic table. His feet are planted on the bench seat, his elbows resting on his knees and there is a brand new pack of Marlboros and a brand new cigarette lighter sitting on the table top, next to his cellphone and keys. Jensen looks up when Jared approaches, his expression a mixture of guilt and defiance.
“Hey you,” Jared says, draping Jensen’s leather jacket around his shoulders and then climbing up to sit beside his boyfriend on the picnic table.
“Thanks,” Jensen shrugs into the jacket with a shiver. “Charles called you, huh?”
Jared nods. “He didn’t tell me anything,” he reassures, “just dropped a few hints that you might not be in the best headspace.”
Jensen snorts and takes a long drag.
Jared bites at his bottom lip. “Did you remember to take the patch off?” he asks softly.
Jensen’s eyes widen and he swears under his breath, placing the cigarette between his lips and pushing up his sleeve. He tears the nicotine patch off his upper arm and sticks it to the underside of the table. “No wonder I was getting a headache.”
He takes a final drag on his cigarette and then crushes the butt on the tabletop before flicking it in the general vicinity of a nearby trash can. Jared’s eyes narrow, but he’s learned to pick his battles.
“So…” Jensen says, drawing out the word.
“You wanna talk about it?” Jared keeps his tone light; just an offer, no pressure.
Jensen shakes his head. He picks up the cigarette pack and the lighter, slides a smoke up and down inside the pack a few times before finally pulling it out and sticking it between his lips. He cups a hand around the tip and sparks a flame. His hands aren’t entirely steady.
“You ready to head home?” Jared asks.
Jensen draws back; exhales; shakes his head.
So Jared talks. About the paper he’s writing for Sociology. About the douchebag in his Gender Studies class who seems to have taken the subject just so he can heckle the lecturer with a constant stream of comments starting with ‘but not all men…’ About the group project he’s been assigned in Native American studies and how glad he is that their friend Adrienne is part of his group.
Jensen works his way through two more cigarettes while Jared talks and then complains that he’s cold and says he wants to go home.
Jared is still strutting like an alpha-dog over their new apartment. It’s a two bedroom/two bathroom townhouse, with a wood burning fire place and a private balcony. It’s only a short stroll away from the university campus in a controlled access community that has a pool and spa, a sauna and fitness center and a tennis court. Jared loves it and so does Jensen, although he tries hard to pretend that he doesn’t. The rent is very reasonable, mostly because Jared persuaded his mom to buy the apartment and then rent it to them at a price Jensen would accept. Jared told his boyfriend about that little fact after it was a done deal and it led to their first post-reconciliation fight. Also their first post-reconciliation make-up sex once Jensen decided that Jared’s parents had caused him enough trouble; maybe they owed him a few perks. They moved in over the summer and Jared is looking forward to lighting the open fire come winter; to spreading a quilt out on the floor in front of it and making love with Jensen by the flickering light of the flames. So he’s a giant sap. Sue him.
Jared makes baked potatoes loaded with store-bought coleslaw, cheese and sour cream for supper while Jensen grills them up a couple of steaks.
Jared plates the food and Jensen pulls a couple of Belgian dark ales out of the fridge. Jensen is a genuine beer-connoisseur. He can have a conversation about flavor and aroma and bitterness and brewer’s yeasts with the confidence of someone who knows what he’s talking about. Jared thinks it’s hugely impressive, but Jensen just shrugs it off, the same way that he shrugs off his ability to deep-throat without gagging.
“Thanks,” Jared says as they clink their bottles together.
“Seb would say we should be drinking pale ale with steak,” Jensen remarks. And then his face goes abruptly still and he shuts down completely.
Jared files away Jensen’s response to the mention of Seb. Dr Whitfield had described this afternoon’s session as ‘emotionally challenging’ and Jared’s hoping they’ll talk about it later. When Jensen’s ready.
After they’ve eaten, Jensen goes out to the back porch with his cigarettes. Jared does the dishes and then joins his boyfriend outside with a couple more beers.
Jensen is sitting at their three-piece outdoor setting. Jared still can’t quite believe they have one. Somehow outdoor furniture seems so much more grown up and settled than indoor furniture. Jared hands his boyfriend a beer and then sits down beside him.
“Are you pissed?” Jensen asks.
Jared frowns and Jensen holds up the lit cigarette.
Jared shakes his head. “I don’t care if you smell like an ashtray. Not too keen on you dying of lung cancer, but you’re quitting for you, not me.”
He leans forward and kisses Jensen softly and it’s kind of awkward because Jensen has a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, but Jared scoots his chair around until they’re almost facing each other and then reaches out and grasps Jensen by the back of his head, slotting their mouths together in a way that’s comfortable and familiar and Jared gets a little lost in the soft, sweet press of Jensen’s lips against his. Jensen does smell like an ashtray and, truthfully, Jared hasn’t missed either the smell or the bitter taste of tobacco. It doesn’t stop him from deepening the kiss and Jensen shudders and relaxes into Jared’s hold, pliant and accommodating. Jared pulls back just a little when he feels it happen, anxious eyes searching his boyfriend’s face for traces of Dean.
Jensen’s lips quirk into a sad smile. “It’s me,” he says. “I’m still here.”
Jared rests their foreheads together. “I love you.”
Jensen chuckles. “I know,” he says solemnly. And then pushes Jared away so that he can take one final drag before butting out his cigarette. He gets to his feet and stretches and then goes and stands on the porch’s top step and looks out over their tiny back yard.
There is a long moment of silence and then Jensen begins to speak. “When I was a kid,” he says, his back to Jared, “my dad was kind of my hero. He was a real Texan, you know?” Jensen unleashes his accent. “Liked huntin’ an’ fishin’ and campin’ and hikin’. Loved sport.”
Jensen’s voice is molasses slow, caught as he is in his memories. “I remember this one time, not long after I started Kindergarten, we went to watch a football game down at the high school. It was standing room only and I couldn’t see, so he swung me up to sit on his shoulders. So many people came over to talk to my dad, to shake his hand. I felt so proud of myself, sitting up there, cuz everyone could see that I was his son. ”
Jensen takes a drink; wipes a hand across his mouth. “He was the life of the party, my dad, everybody’s friend; practically royalty down at the beef processing plant,” Jensen pauses. “But he had a dark side.”
There’s another long pause and Jared chews on his bottom lip to keep himself silent and waits it out.
“My mom got the worst of it,” Jensen says finally. “She was always wearing dark glasses and long-sleeved dresses. It took me a while to work out why.”
Jensen sits down on the step, puts his beer down and gets his cigarettes out. “When my brother got older, he started stepping in, trying to protect her. Zac’s four years older than me.” Jensen lights up and sighs. “I mostly hid under the bed, nights like that.” He taps ash onto the porch floor and the breeze sweeps it away into the night. Jared watches him in profile. Jensen’s expression is distant and so is his tone.
“My dad got his belt out real easy,” Jensen says to the back fence. “I wasn’t even sure what I’d done wrong half the time. He had fixed ideas about how men should behave, was always telling me ‘suck it up buttercup’, ‘walk it off like a man’, ‘no son of mine’s gonna act like a sissy’. Once I hit puberty,” Jensen takes a deep breath and then swallows. “I knew by then that I was…different. My dad just knew that I was too pretty for my own good and nowhere near man enough for him. He’d go after me when he got drunk. I don’t think he knew,” Jensen pauses and tilts his head. “I think maybe he didn’t wanna know. I do think that if he’d ever caught me with another guy he wouldn’t have been able to stop punching.”
Jensen finishes his cigarette in silence and Jared wonders if he should say something now. Jensen hasn’t really spoken about his childhood before. He’s let a few things slip, here and there, but Jared has never had so much information laid on him before this.
“It sounds-”
Jensen surges to his feet and rounds on Jared, speaking over the top of him. “I knew by the time I was twelve that I hated my father; knew that I was angry with him. I had no fucking idea until today that I was so fucking furious with my mom.”
Jensen kicks the empty beer bottle off the porch and out into the dark, and then turns and storms into the house.
Jared takes a deep breath and follows him.
Jensen has gone for the whiskey and that’s never a good thing. “You have class tomorrow,” Jared reminds him.
Jensen pours himself a couple of fingers and tosses it back. “Fuck class,” he mutters.
“Is that really what you want?” Jared asks.
The glass very narrowly misses his head before it smashes against the wall behind him. Jared is stunned. And then furious. And then he sees the utterly devastated look on Jensen’s face.
“Oh fuck,” Jensen collapses in on himself, sinking to the floor beside the liquor cabinet. Jared is beside him in three long strides. He drops to his knees beside his boyfriend and gently raises Jensen’s chin.
“I’m sorry,” Jensen says, the tears in his eyes making them look even greener.
“I know,” Jared says. “But that’s not okay. No matter how angry you are, you don’t get to throw stuff at me or hit me. You’re a better man than that; no matter what bullshit your dad told you about real men.”
Jensen nods. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “Please don’t leave me.”
Jared pulls him into a hug. “I’m not leaving you.”
Jensen cleans up the broken glass while Jared makes coffee and puts the whiskey away. They end up snuggled together on the sofa and Jensen does that thing where he somehow manages to make himself seem smaller than he is and tucks himself under Jared’s arm.
“You know,” Jared says, his voice carefully neutral, “from what you’ve told me, it sounds like your mom had a lot of problems that maybe she didn’t have the ability to deal with.”
“Well, yeah,” Jensen says tightly, “I was there, remember?”
Jared licks his lips. “Right. And it sounds like it was rough.”
Jensen snorts. “My brother and I, we were kids. She should’ve protected us. She should’ve just left the bastard.”
“Sometimes it’s not that easy to just leave,” Jared says.
“I did,” Jensen raises his chin defiantly.
Jared nods. “Do you think you could’ve done that if you’d had two small children with you?”
Jensen shrugs. “Whatever. She still didn’t have to send me to that place. She could’ve told me that it was okay to be gay. She could’ve found out about PFLAG and put me in contact with people who could help me; who could’ve protected me after she’d…” Jensen swallows, his body tensing against Jared’s. “She told me I’d been born with a dysfunction,” his voice is rising along with his anger, “that I had to learn to control my unnatural urges. She sent me to a guy who…” Jensen cuts himself off abruptly.
Jared tightens his hold on his boyfriend and kisses the top of his head. Jensen still hasn’t told him what happened at the re-orientation facility his mom sent him to as a teenager, but reading between the lines, Jared came to the conclusion some time ago that Jensen had been molested there.
“Why couldn’t she just love me? Jensen says, relaxing into Jared again. “Why couldn’t she just protect me?”
“I don’t know,” Jared murmurs. “And you have every right to be angry about that.”
Jensen sighs and squirms and sighs again. “Even Chris,” he says after a moment. “I love the guy like a brother, but the moment I stepped off the Greyhound, he couldn’t wait to start pimping me out to the clients he’d gotten too old for, with a bonus cut to him off course.”
“I’m sorry,” Jared murmurs.
Jensen presses his lips together. “First Luke, then Warwick. And then Chris took one look at me and just knew it wouldn’t be hard to talk me into sucking dick for cash.”
Jensen has talked about Luke before; he was a high school senior and the coach of Jensen’s baseball team when Jensen was thirteen. They’d messed around some in the locker rooms after practice, but they’d never gone the whole way. Jared has no idea who Warwick is and he isn’t sure that now’s the right time to ask. He suspects that he’s someone from the re-orientation center, and files the name away for future reference.
“It’s almost like I had a sign on my back,” Jensen says. “Kid from a fucked up home - abuse at own convenience.”
Jared figures that’s not too far from the truth. For those looking for an easy victim, Jensen’s low self-esteem and troubled family background would’ve been like a bull’s eye.
“And then there’s Seb too,” Jared says knowingly.
Jensen looks up at him, warily, and Jared smiles ruefully. “It would be so much easier,” he says, “if the bad guys had horns and never did anything good. Then we’d know they were monsters and things would be simple. Instead we have a whole bunch of complex, messed up people who sometimes do good things and sometimes do bad things, and you can love them for the good they’ve done just as much as you hate them for the bad.”
Jensen pulls himself away from Jared and gets his legs underneath him. He sits sideways on the sofa, cross-legged, facing Jared, and gets his cigarettes out. Jared hopes he isn’t going to try to light up in the house, because he’s drawing the line at that.
“Yeah,” Jensen says slowly, nodding. “Seb too. I keep telling myself that what he did wasn’t so bad. That if it wasn’t for him things would’ve been much worse. And that’s probably true. But just because he wasn’t as bad as he could have been doesn’t mean he didn’t do anything wrong. He took advantage of me and he shouldn’t have done that and I still fucking miss him.” He slides a cigarette out of the pack and Jared reaches out and puts his hand over Jensen’s. “Do you want to go outside again?” he asks. Jensen shakes his head and throws the cigarettes onto the coffee table. “Me and Charles were talking about all that today,” Jensen says. “How you can miss people and still be angry at them at the same time. How good people can sometimes do bad things,” he flicks the lighter’s wheel and sparks a flame, once, twice, three time, before tossing it, too, onto the table. “There are people I knew I was pissed at; my dad, Luke, Warwick, a couple of early clients who were real sick fucks. But Chris and Seb and my mom…I didn’t realize until today just how angry I was with them.”
“How do you feel about that?” Jared asks.
“Sad, mostly. These are people I care about. I don’t want to be pissed at them,” Jensen shrugs. “I don’t really know how to deal with this.”
“Well,” Jared says, “you could try talking to them?”
Jensen stares at him. “My mom’s dead.”
Jared nods. “Okay. But you could talk to Chris and Seb.”
Jensen continues to stare. “And what about my mom?” he says, his tone sharp and challenging.
Jared knows what Jensen’s expecting; some kind of homily about prayer and the dead in heaven being able to hear you; but Jared knows better than to say something like that to Jensen. Religion is something they’ve agreed to differ on.
“You could try writing her a letter,” he suggests.
Jensen scowls. “She’s not gonna be able to read it, Jare.”
“No. But writing it might help you feel better.”
Jensen snorts. “You get that from Dr Phil?”
Jared holds his hands up, palms out. “Just trying to help.”
Jensen sighs. “Maybe it’s not worth all the drama. Shit happens, right? Maybe I should just say fuck it and move on?”
“Maybe,” Jared says. “Whatever works for you.”
Jensen raises an eyebrow. “Well you’re no fucking help.”
It’s still early, but Jared can see that his boyfriend is emotionally spent so he decides to lighten the moment. He waggles his eyebrows and leers like a vaudeville villain. “Not true,” he says. “I’m always ready to help with the fucking.”
Jensen grins. “I love it when you talk dirty to me, Padre.”
They make their way upstairs and clean their teeth standing side-by-side in front of the big white vanity. It’s all very domestic until Jensen throws him out of the bathroom and tells him in no uncertain terms to get naked and wait for him in bed.
Jared does as he’s told. He doesn’t get the lube out; if he knows Jensen-and he does-it’s not going to be necessary. His cock fattens at the thought of what Jensen might be planning. Six months ago he would’ve been freaking out. Six months ago Jared felt guilty and distressed whenever Jensen tried to unleash his skills in the bedroom. Finally, Jensen arranged for them to have a couples counselling session with Dr Whitfield during which Jensen told Dr Whitfield that he really liked sex, that he used to have sex with people professionally, that he had some pretty mad skills when it came to sex and that he found it very upsetting that his boyfriend wouldn’t let him use them.
Jared hadn’t thought of it quite that way before, had been too busy trying to protect Jensen from anything that might remind him of his past; a past where he had been exploited; a past where he had, for a time, engaged in survival sex work.
What he hadn’t considered, was how Jensen felt about it.
Dr Whitfield threw around a lot of words like ‘personal agency’ and ‘self-determination’ and helped Jared to realize that in trying to shield his boyfriend from potentially unhappy memories he was also denying him the opportunity to be assertive about his sexual choices. Jensen put it a little more bluntly: “You’re not a fucking Trick, Jared. What I want matters too. And you don’t get to say what I should want.”
Jared can’t argue with that.
Jensen is completely naked when he comes out of the bathroom. He prowls toward the bed like a lion stalking prey and then crawls across the width of the bed to sit straddling Jared’s thighs.
Jared’s cock strains and dribbles against his stomach.
Jensen grins wolfishly. Not that wolves actually grin. And why is Jared thinking in animal similes and metaphors? Possibly because Jensen is exuding raw, animal magnetism. He leans down and claims Jared’s lips and Jared parts them willingly, letting Jensen’s tongue in to duel against his own. Jensen’s toned stomach is rubbing against Jared’s cock and Jared slides his hands around Jensen’s ass and grabs at his cheeks, pulling and kneading at the flesh before rubbing a finger against his entrance. Jensen pulls away before Jared can do much more than establish that they won’t need any more lube. He gives Jared a wicked smirk and then slides down and takes Jared’s cock in his mouth. He sucks at the head and does sinful things with his tongue, before swallowing Jared down to the root. Jared tries, with moderate success, to keep his hips still. Jensen squeezes his lips around Jared’s cock, creating tight suction. He slides his mouth up and down Jared’s length, his mouth hot and wet and messy with Jared’s leaking pre-come. Jared groans. He fists his hands in the sheets and lets himself thrust into Jensen’s mouth. Jensen relaxes his throat and takes it, swallowing around Jared until Jared starts to pull frantically at his hair.
“You gotta stop or I’m gonna come.”
Jensen pulls off with a wet pop and looks up at Jared, his pupils lust-blown.
“Gonna ride you,” he says, moving to straddle Jared’s hips. Jared grips the base of his cock and holds it still. Jensen positions himself over Jared’s swollen, straining cock and then slowly sinks down. Jared watches his face closely. Jensen’s eyes are hooded and his lips are pursed in concentration. Jensen’s face twitches in discomfort as Jared’s fat cockhead pops inside. His face, as he takes Jared’s wide girth, reminds Jared of the stained glass windows in the monastery; the stoning of St Peter, St Joan of Arc; their faces caught between agony and ecstasy. Jared is still not sure if he ever wants to bottom, but he is captivated by the knife-edge between pleasure and pain that Jensen seems to ride as he takes Jared’s cock. Once he bottoms out there’s of moment of stillness and after that it’s all pleasure. Jensen rides him hard and Jared stops himself from coming by sheer willpower alone; his own version of agony and ecstasy. He reaches out and grips Jensen’s cock, stroking him slow and tight from tip to base until Jensen is bucking and moaning and grunting and spurting onto Jared’s chest. Jared releases his cock, places both hands on his boyfriend’s hips and thrusts up hard until he comes, warm and wet, deep inside of Jensen.
They make a mess of the sheets when they pull apart and Jensen groans and curses himself for not putting a condom on Jared.
“Ewww!” he dashes for the bathroom. “Gross! It’s leaking out my ass!”
Later, when they’ve cleaned themselves and the bed, they lie cuddled together, sated and content and Jared can’t help thinking how different his life is from the one he expected to have. He’s glad his life changed paths; so very glad he met Jensen. With hindsight and an adult perspective Jared has come to realize that, in its own way, his own upbringing was damaging and dangerous, and he’ll be forever grateful that it was Jensen who he first fell in love with, when it could so easily have been somebody looking to exploit his naivety. Jensen too, is doing a lot of work re-evaluating his past; acknowledging the abuse he suffered, acknowledging that he wasn’t always as alright as he pretended to be, and also acknowledging that there had been a lot of positives in his life; that’d he’d often enjoyed his job, that’d he’d genuinely liked some of his clients and that having very wealthy men prepared to pay a lot of money to have sex with him had been great for his ego, at a time when his sexuality had lost him his home and his family.
Jensen stretches and begins to move away, so Jared wraps his arms around him like an octopus and hold him close.
“Seriously?” Jensen rolls his eyes, but settles back into Jared’s arms with a sigh. “You’re such a sap.”
He is. Jared accepts that. He holds his boyfriend tight and ponders the nature of existence. The present is fleeting. The future is just a concept. And the past? The past is never where you think you left it. Neither of them are the same person they were yesterday, but Jared likes who they’re becoming and he can’t wait to see where the future takes them.
The End