Within You -part 1
Jensen always wanted kids. I remember, it’s one of the first things he told me when we started dating more seriously, that he was a carrier, and that he wanted kids. I agreed with him -hell, I had just met the boy I wanted to spend my life with, I would have agreed if he told me he wanted us to live in the mountains as recluses and brush our teeth with beaver grease. Anyway, I don’t know if it was the fact that he’d grown up in a foster home and needed to feel grounded, to have a future biologically speaking, or maybe it had to do with carrier hormones -probably a mix of both. He was eighteen at the time, I was twenty-two and the thought of having kids… sure, why not, in a decade, right? I guess what I mean is, it all seemed so far away and, at the time, I didn’t realized how important it really was for Jensen, how intricate a part of his personality it was. Later, yeah, it kind of jumped in my face, and I think that's the story I want to tell. I want to write about my husband’s incredible strength and will to live, to bring our baby safely into this world. It’s the least I can do.
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My name is Jared Padalecki, I’m from Texas, and I moved to New Hampshire when I started college. I’ve always liked literature, and for a while I thought I would become a writer. My career choice made my mother upset. She said I wouldn’t be able to earn a reasonable living from writing. I settled for studying accounting which might seem weird, but I always liked numbers and the logic behind them. They're absolute. Two plus two will always equal four. I guess it’s reassuring for me. The prospect of a career in a bank or a private company was way more comforting than thinking about writing night and day for months and then having my manuscript refused by publishers. I love writing, it will always be a part of me and I know I’ll never stop doing it, even if it doesn’t lead me anywhere. But I’m an anxious guy and numbers have always helped me to cope with my anxiety. Anyway, I fell in love with Manchester when I moved here and, although deep down I’ll always be a Texan, I quickly decided that I would love to settle here. The environment is more gay-friendly than in my hometown. Then again, everywhere is more gay-friendly than Texas.
I met Jensen Ackles during my junior year of college. He was a freshman and worked part time at the café I used to frequent. Jensen’s the one who took the first step. I’m not exactly shy -reserved, maybe? I didn’t have a lot of experience in relationships and, to me, he was mind-blowing. He could have had any guy he wanted, so why would he be interested in a future accountant with tangled hair who looked like he never got used to his freakishly tall body? Anyway, he always took time to chat with me, smiling, joking, touching me on the shoulder or the arm. He always put way too much whipped cream on the top of my mochaccino and sometimes even added little color sprinkles. I must have seemed so oblivious to him, because it lasted months before he finally sat down at my table on a sunny early April morning, and boldly asked me if I was gay, because he was, and he wondered if I’d go on a date with him. I agreed, dumbstruck. A week later, as we were making out in my old rusted car, he panted in my ear that he thought I would never get a clue, that he was crazy for me, had been since the first time he saw me and that he was starting to become desperate. I think I came then. Shouldn’t write that down. What the hell, it’s not like I think this will ever be read by anyone, and if so, well, I’ll just take off the NC-17 passages.
Jensen was… everything. Gorgeous, outgoing, kind, generous, one of the funniest guys around. He wasn’t exactly exuberant in his sexuality, but he wasn’t shy about it either. I remember thinking: wow it’s like he’s decided to enjoy every hour of every day, whether it's spent serving coffee, studying, or fucking, and I realized I had missed it my whole life, someone like Jensen, or you know, just Jensen. He was barely eighteen and I wanted to take it slow. I guess it felt a little like I was taking advantage. He wouldn’t have any of it though. He had been with guys before, but he’d never gone “all the way” like we used to say when we were young. It happened for the first time a month after our first date, and when I finally slid into him, he started crying. I panicked. I tried to pull back, but he held on to me, and he said, “Don’t you dare, it’s just intense. It’s good.” Later, he told me he loved me, and that maybe it was a mistake so soon in our relationship, but he couldn’t keep it inside. I told him it didn’t matter, because I loved him too. We were two giant saps. We still are, I guess.
The thing with Jensen, at the time, was this underlying layer of fragility that was hidden beneath the surface, beneath the laughter and the energy, the enthusiasm, and kindness. It took me a while to understand it. I was an idiot. Two months into our relationship, he knew everything about me: my parent’s names, what they did for a living, my difficult relationship with my older brother, and my phobia of water. He knew that when I was four, I got stung on the dick by a wasp that had gotten caught in my underwear. He knew that when I told my parents I was gay, I was so scared about their reaction I had a fit of vomiting so violent my mother wanted to take me to the ER. He knew I liked to count by twos, only odd numbers, when I was nervous and wanted to calm myself down. I could go on and on. I had never so easily shared my most intimate thoughts with anyone before meeting Jensen, and I didn’t realized how little I knew about him until he asked me to dinner because “Ty” wanted to meet me. The only thing I knew about this Ty guy was that he was a “friend” with whom Jensen lived, along with a girl named Felicia. I had never met them. They lived outside of town. I for myself had a small, two-rooms apartment so it always seemed more practical for Jensen and me to hang out at my place, which we had to ourselves. I didn’t think about who they really were, or how important they were in Jensen’s life. Maybe because he was so good at distracting me, avoiding my questions or changing the subject.
Another thing I didn't realize was how often I woke up at night to find him up, staring out the window in the dark. I never stopped and asked myself if it happened every night. Or why he was so silent and withdrawn during those moments. Everything was so new to me, everything was Jensen, and love, and sex, and staring into his wonderful, bright green eyes. I knew the essentials -at least that’s what I told myself. He was studying to become a physical therapist because he wanted to help people. He wasn’t into sports, even though he was in good shape. He was eighteen. His shoulders would broaden, his jaw become more prominent, but I knew he would remain delicate, like most carriers. He was proud of his status, of being part of the ten percent of men able to conceive and bear a child. When I asked about his parents, he told me he wasn’t in contact with them, and that he didn’t want to talk about it. I figured it was probably linked to his coming out. Despite society being generally more tolerant and accepting in recent years, I had some friends who’d been thrown out of their homes or sent to those horrible Christian Camps to get “cured”. Jensen’s reluctance to talk about his relationship with his parents wasn’t that surprising, and I figured he would talk about it when was ready.
It came as a total surprise when I accepted the dinner invitation and he told me we had some things to discuss. He became very nervous and couldn’t even look me in the eyes. I was worried something was going on, something serious, like he was sick or something.
“Ty isn’t my friend, technically he’s my surrogate father,” he finally said in a soft, tiny voice. “I don’t remember my parents. I know I was put in a foster home at age four because of mistreatment. I didn't have a real home until I was fifteen. Went from family to family, foster homes as well, until Ty took me in. He and his wife couldn't have kids so they became foster parents. When his wife died, he kept on going. Felicia is another orphan, she’s lived with him for the past eight years. She’s my age. They’re my family.”
Jensen seemed so embarrassed about it. He cried. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know why he had felt the need to withhold the information until two months into our relationship. I remember wanting to take the pain away, needing him to know there was nothing to be embarrassed about, that I loved him. We talked a lot that night, and some things began to make sense. I understood so much more about him suddenly. His need to be loved and appreciated, his desire to please after being rejected again and again, trapped in a system that’s anything but perfect. His insomnia which, he told me, would come and go. He'd wake up in a cold sweat and wouldn’t know where he was for a few seconds. It took some time for him to calm down. He thought it was because of all those years when he wasn't sure how much time he would spend in a given place. He had trouble trusting people when he first came to live with Ty, and even then, after working hard on the issue with his surrogate father, he still had to fight the doubt that invaded his mind. What if he wasn’t good enough, funny enough, useful enough? Would his friends still be his friends? Would Ty keep him around, would I still love him? I protested, of course. I would love him no matter what, it wasn’t a question of how useful he was to me. He told me he knew it wasn’t logical, he knew it didn’t make sense, but it was hard getting over it. And from that moment on, I never forgot where Jensen came from, and how his past influenced the man he was becoming.
Ty Olson was a great guy, who was paying for Jensen’s college even though legally he didn’t have to provide for him any longer since Jensen was eighteen. He lived in a big house out of town which had at times been the home to up to six kids, some of whom he remained in contact with. Since his wife’s death, he’d slowed down the cadence, because he had to work and couldn’t be as present. When I met Jensen, another of his kids, Gil, had just left. He was older than Jensen and now had a job and an apartment of his own. Felicia and Jensen would be Ty’s last kids. He told me wasn’t getting any younger and he wanted to take time for his now grown up children and his dogs. He made it clear to me that he would hunt me down and hurt me if I ever caused Jensen any pain. I liked him immediately, as well as Felicia, a scrawny red-head girl who seemed crazy in love with Jensen and was just as full of life as him. They became my second family.
Is there anything else to tell? There is a French saying that states that there is no story to tell about happy people, and I guess that's true. We were happy and there's not much more to tell about that part of our lives. After college, I found a job in a small community bank. Jensen and I moved into an apartment halfway between the university campus and my work place. He graduated with honors at twenty-two years old and, that very day, I asked him to marry me. He said yes.
We got married August the 15th, in a small, civic ceremony. My parents and little sister came all the way from Texas. Ty, Gil and Felicia were there, as well as a bunch of our friends and Kim, a social worker who had been responsible for Jensen during his years in the foster system. The only person missing was my brother, but we hadn’t talked in years and my parents made the effort not to mention him. So, it was almost a perfect day.
We decided to wait for our honeymoon. Jensen had just started working for the Manchester’s rehabilitation center. Money wasn’t exactly flowing, but we were happy just to be together. We figured if we waited a year we could enjoy a longer vacation and travel out of the country. That doesn’t mean we didn’t fuck like bunnies the night of our wedding, like it was the first time all over again, and Jensen, god, so beautiful, naked, cover in sweat, his face red, his chest heaving -Jensen kept repeating he couldn’t wait to get pregnant, if it could happen right then he would be over the moon. It scared me a little. I talked to him the morning after, while we were enjoying mimosas and eating chocolate in bed. I didn’t want to ruin our wedding night and the feeling of euphoria we were sharing but I needed to know exactly where he was coming from.
“So, were you serious last night, or was it just me being too hot for you to handle so you said everything that passed through your mind?”
Jensen looked away from the TV, where some cheesy reality show was playing without the sound.
“What do you mean?”
“Making babies.” I took a piece of chocolate and fed it to him. He licked his lips. I loved it when he did that.
Jensen took the time to eat the chocolate then cast me an uncertain look. “Well… you always say you want kids just as much as I do so I figured…”
“Don’t you want to wait? You’ve just started working and money is still tight. I don’t… I figured we would buy a house first and then-”
Jensen’s reaction was immediate. His cheeks became red, his lips reduced to a thin line. He shook his head and lowered his eyes to avoid my stare. “That could take years. Waiting to have enough money, then a house, and then what? What if it doesn’t work when we finally try?”
“We don’t know that. I mean, I get how important it is for you, and it’s important for me too, but I think we should enjoy each other for a couple of years before we have a baby.”
“If that’s what you want,” Jensen murmured, and it was clear how upset he was by what I was saying.
“I want you to be happy,” I said, grabbing his chin so that he had to look at me. His eyes swam with unshed tears. I felt like a jerk.
“Yeah well, I want you to be happy too,” Jensen protested, trying for a smile that came out small and sad. “I won’t force you into becoming a parent if you’re not ready. I… I know the logic, Jay, I’m not stupid. I just… it’s something I need, you know. It’s like an empty space inside of me and… I want it so badly.”
We didn’t fight. We rarely fought. He was too sweet, and I was too cerebral for anything to escalate. It doesn’t mean our relationship was perfect. Maybe sometimes a good fight would have been better than working so slowly through our issues. I don’t know, I’m no psychologist. All I know is that from that moment I realized how important having kids really was for Jensen, and that I didn’t want to hurt him in any way. I wasn’t ready to have a baby, but is anyone ever? Besides, the thought of making a brand new human being with the man I loved, a combination and me and him, was kind of seductive. I asked him for six months, because I knew if I told him we could start right away he would fear I was only succumbing to the pressure. The smile he gave me was worth any doubts I still had. Jensen wanted a baby and I would give him one. If he’d wanted the moon I would’ve probably tried to get it for him too.
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We were married, we both had a job and we were happy. The first thing we did was to look for a bigger apartment with enough room for a family of three. Jensen was really close to Ty and I knew he had told him about his intention of getting pregnant in a few months. One evening, Jensen came back from a visit with him really excited, and told me Ty had offered to help us buy a house. I wasn’t enthusiastic about it at first; the thought of owing that much money to someone wasn’t exactly something I was excited about. Jensen seemed surprised by my reaction.
“I don’t understand, Jay. He just wants to help us with the loan, you know, put a down payment on a house.”
“But doesn’t it bother you? Owing money to someone. I mean, if we wait a couple of years, we’ll be able to do it ourselves and-“
“And then we’ll have to move, again, with a baby. It’s simpler this way. We could settle down in our own house before I even get pregnant, it would be great.”
I still must have looked unconvinced because he sighed and took my arm softly.
“You don’t get it. Ty has money, he doesn’t really care about it, not in the way most people do. He says it’s there to be spent and he doesn’t know what to do with it anyway. He wants to help me. Help us.”
It was difficult to resist Jensen, especially when he was looking at me with so much hope and faith in his eyes. I agreed, on the condition that this money was borrowed, not given, and that we would make some arrangement to reimburse Ty. He accepted, but he wasn’t really listening at that point. He was focused on his plan: buying a house, getting pregnant. Getting pregnant, most of all. I could only hope that having a child would give him what he so obviously needed. Jensen might have been kind and sweet, but he was also determined, another layer of him I had discovered over the years. If he wanted something, he wouldn’t stop until he had it.
We found a house not too far away from Ty’s, which was obviously a factor Jensen had taken into account, even if he hadn’t told me. I didn’t mind. As I said, Ty was like a second father to me. The neighborhood was great, there was a large backyard and the house had been recently renovated. I have to admit I panicked; spent evenings going over our income and expenditures, making sure we would be able to make the monthly payments. Jensen kept saying we were going to be fine, but I needed proof, on paper, that it was doable.
It was, although money would be tight. Since the house had been recently renovated, there wasn’t much to do to get it ready. We moved in five months after our wedding. By that time, Jensen was already getting ready to become pregnant. He took folic acid and other vitamins, started to mark on the calendar the days of the month when he would be ovulating. It was all very complicated because carriers don’t really have periods, just a little fluid lost every month; most of the time, they don’t even realize it. Something to do with the anal walls absorbing most of the blood lost. I was never a specialist in carrier anatomy, and I trusted Jensen to know his own body. He took his temperature everyday with a special graded thermometer to look out for the slight fluctuations that would tell him when he was ovulating. He also used a bunch of tests, similar to a pregnancy test, that could detect in urine if he was fertile or not.
Jensen was ready and, true to my word, one month after moving in, we started trying. Jensen was so eager and intense. We fucked at least twice a day for five days in a row. Afterward, he would stay in bed and bend his knees up to his chest, because he had read that it was a sure method to keep the sperm inside of him for as long as possible. There was this sparkle of hope in his eyes, in the soft smile quirking his lips, and whenever I looked at him, it was like I was falling in love all over again. I knew he would be disappointed if it didn’t work, so I tried to talk to him about it, citing statistics and percentages. He laughed and told me it was okay, that making a baby was the fun part and that he wouldn’t mind going at it for another month or two.
Except it was bullshit. Around the time his period was due, he took a pregnancy test. He didn’t tell me, I found it in the trashcan of our bathroom. It was negative. Jensen had come home earlier than me and he was lying on our bed. At first I thought he was napping, but I went back to him after finding the pregnancy test, lied down next to him and wrapped my arm around his thin waist, so that we were spooning. I could feel him breathing unevenly, like he’d been crying. His body was hot against mine.
“It was the first time we tried,” I murmured in his ear. “We’ll do it again next month. It’s no big deal, Jensen.”
“I know, that’s what I keep telling myself,” he answered in a thin, tired voice.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m insane.”
“What? Where the hell is that coming from?”
Jensen shifted in my arms until he was on his back, looking at me. His eyes were swollen and red. “This… need I have, inside. It’s so strong, it’s not logical, and it’s been that way ever since I found out I was a carrier when I was a teenager. I know it has something to do with being stuck in the system, going from place to place and feeling like I didn’t belong. Hell, I was fourteen and sometimes I thought about getting fucked, by anybody really, just so I could become pregnant. Then, it would feel like I finally belonged, like I had something. Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that isn’t crazy?”
I did what he asked of me. It wasn’t difficult, because I was telling the truth. “It’s not crazy, Jen. With the way you grew up, it’s not crazy at all. I’m not saying it’s logical either, because it isn’t. It’s just who you are. You waited until we got married to ask, and I know all the waiting must have been difficult, but it means even though this need is more emotional than anything else, you can still consider it from a logical point of view. You wanna know what I think? You are amazing.”
Jensen snorted derisively, but he turned to wrap his arms around me and shoved his face in the crook of my neck. “We’ll keep trying, right?”
“Of course. Fucking is the fun part. You said it yourself.”
It made him laugh, and I felt better. I was still worried, though: what if we kept trying without any results? How many months before Jensen wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and broke down?
Luckily, that didn’t happen. It only took another month.
Part 2
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