Gone Are The Days (1/6)
one
The Ackles family broke the news calmly, as with everything in their household, over dinner.
The knowledge that they were taking in a new foster kid (apparently their last, although Jensen couldn't be sure that any foster kid was ever going to be the last to live with the Ackles family) didn't really surprise Jensen.
When he'd first arrived in the household two years ago, the Ackles had already adopted two older boys - Jeff and Josh - and two younger girls, Megan and Mackenzie. Both Jeff and Josh had left for university a year after Jensen had moved in with them, and Jensen had been waiting for a 'new kid' announcement ever since then.
All five of the Ackles kids knew better than to think that it was a replacement thing, although a few of Jensen's friends at school had hinted at it. With Donna and Alan, it was simply putting everything they had into helping as many kids as they could. As long as they had the space for more, they'd keep bringing more kids into their family and offering them a second chance.
"You'll like him," Donna informed the room, a large grin decorating her pretty face, blue eyes shining with excitement. "The CPS worker I spoke to said that he was quite the hit with the girls in the group home that he's in now. And he's only a few months younger than you, Jen, so hopefully the two of you will get along quite well... You might even have a few things in common."
Jensen wondered briefly if they might be talking about the fact that he was a foster kid, and immediately dismissed the idea. It seemed that for all of their best efforts, Alan and Donna hadn't managed to eradicate the part of Jensen that feared that his foster-kid status defined him.
"It sounds awesome," Kenzie announced happily. "I'm so excited to meet him!"
"We can show him around town and introduce him to everyone. Take him to Sam's Diner!" Megan continued, grinning as wide as the Cheshire cat from the DVD of Alice in Wonderland that she'd made him watch the year before. Alan and Donna grinned at their collective enthusiasm, adding their own ideas to Megan's list, and Jensen felt himself relaxing back into his seat with a small grin.
It was times like this, sitting around the table and laughing and joking, that it hit Jensen all over again that these people were his family. That, four months ago, both himself and his new parents had signed the forms to make him a legal family member. That, after fifteen years of bouncing from one crappy foster home to the next, this was really it for him. He would never again be forced to pack up his meager belonings into a ratty backpack from three homes back, never again be placed with a broken little family that saw him as nothing but an easy paycheck.
In all of the excitement, none of them remembered to ask the new foster kid's name.
***
By the end of the week, Josh's stuff had been shifted into Jeff's room alongside the other boy's things, and Donna had prepared the same things for the new kid as she had for all of her other foster kids upon their arrival to the Ackles house.
The walls of the large room had been repainted a neutral blue colour (since Josh had painted them an alarming shade of green at the first given opportunity, possibly just because he could); a chest of drawers and a wardrobe had been bought and Donna had even bought a new desk, and a laptop to sit on it.
It was, without a doubt, far better than most foster homes would have afforded Jensen, or any other kid that he knew, and the young man found himself glad once more that his life had led him to the Ackles family. They were perhaps the first, and only, honest and loving family that he'd ever been placed with, and he knew firsthand that there was few foster kids that got as lucky as he had.
Saturday rolled around quickly, and the excitement in the air was almost tangible. Donna was amusingly nervous, constantly in movement - tidying and re-tidying, stacking the magazines in the lounge first alphabetically and then by the colour of the spine; creating a rainbow that hurt Jensen's head to look at just as much as his eyes.
By the time that the doorbell rang, she'd made three batches of cookies and one of muffins, and had a batch of brownies cooking happily in the oven.
"Oh, god, that's them! Uh, kids - can you go upstairs for a little while? The social worker says that he's a little shy and nervous, so I don't want to crowd him as soon as he steps through the door." Donna explained, even as she was herding them towards the stairs. "I'll come and get you in a few moments."
Reluctantly, the three of them headed upstairs, and Jensen couldn't quite bring himself to head past the girl's rooms and up the second flight of stairs - to the area that he would soon be sharing with the new kid - purely on the basis that it was too far away from the first floor.
Instead, he followed them into Megan's room, and found himself leaning over the two younger girls to press his ear childishly against the wooden door in a vain attempt to better understand the voices drifting up from the main floor.
It was a waste of effort.
He couldn't hear anything any clearer than when he'd been stood in the middle of the room, although he did achieve a spectacular mental image of Donna snatching the door open and sending the three of them crashing to the floor in a tangle of guilty limbs... which was entirely ridiculous. Mainly because the door opened inwards.
The thought was enough to make him snort aloud, and - as if reading his thoughts, or simply annoyed at him for making noise - the girls rolled their eyes at him simultaneously, before turning back to the door, desperate not to miss anything.
Giving up, Jensen grabbed Megan's stress ball off her desk and lay backwards on her bed to bounce it off the headboard, enjoying the stress relief in the monotonous actions. He was just falling into a rhythm when - in a move that Jensen could only identify as a 'conjoined leap' - the girls bounded away from the door and towards the bookcase.
There was no way that either of the two girls were ever going to be considered stealthy.
Their frantic scrabble to look like they were doing something resulted in Megan grabbing a book on Aquarium fish (which Jensen dimly recognised as Alan's, and not anything that Meg would ever willingly read) and Kenzie seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the Judy Bloom book she was pretending to read from was upside down.
It was one of the most suspicious things that Jensen had ever seen, and if it wasn't for the fact that only seconds later a gentle tap announced Donna's presence and her head poked around the door, he would have commented on it in a heartbeat.
"Megs? Do you know where the others- oh, you're all in here!" Donna gave them a suspicious look, her eyes assessing them even as she stepped into the room - holding the door open behind her for Alan and the new kid.
Jensen chose that moment to sit up and throw the stress ball into the slightly open desk drawer - not wanting the kid to think that he was being rude - before spinning back, just in time to see an all-too familiar form step inside of the room.
For a long moment, both of them froze.
Bizarrely, Jensen's first (and admittedly irrational) thought was, 'he's lost weight again.' He wasn't quite sure what to make of that, however, and so dismissed it for the second - which was a mental wince at the sight of the large, fresh-looking bruise on Jared's face. Still black in the center, an inch-long red gash that looked to have come from a ring in the middle, and gradually fading to a mottled yellow and green at the edges. It wasn't pretty.
Jensen had been in enough fistfights - and crappy foster homes - to know that a bruise like that came from someone landing a punch directly on your cheekbone, and his own throbbed in sympathy.
"Uh, Jen?" Donna asked gently, breaking the more-than awkward silence and alerting simultaneously alerting Jensen to the fact that all of the remaining occupants of the room were staring at himself and Jared intensely. "Do you two know each other?"
Another, slightly longer, pause met her question as Jensen once again locked eyes with the boy who had been his best friend for eleven years, and then Jared turned his head - tore his eyes away from Jen, and answered Donna calmly. Jensen couldn't bring himself to turn away, couldn't bring himself to even turn and answer his adoptive mother. It seemed that all he could do was stare at the boy in front of him and wonder if, perhaps, it was all some bizzare dream that he'd wake up from at any second.
"Yeah, we know each other." He said evenly, and Jensen blinked in surprise at the flat tone. In the years that they'd been friends, Jared had been very much comparable with a young puppy - his voice enthusiastic, even when Jensen knew that (most of the time) he spent his days wishing that he could simply curl up into a ball and never get back up again. His new voice was certainly a shock, and so emotionless that it caused a sharp sting in Jensen's heart.
"How well?" Alan asked carefully, his eyebrow rising impressively at the third silence in a matter of moments.
Part of Jensen expected the truth - for Jared to tell his family that they were best friends for eleven years, before Jensen threw away their friendship on a half-formed idea that he'd regretted ever since. The rest expected the attack that he figured he'd deserve - for Jared to bitch and scream, tell his family each and every one of his flaws in impressive detail (something which he was entirely capable of).
Jared did neither.
Instead, he dropped his eyes to the floor, and shrugged one shoulder.
"Not very well."
The words themselves felt like an accusation, a dig at Jensen for everything he'd done, and he felt an irrational sting of hurt, but Jared's face didn't show anger or betrayal - instead a dim acceptance that left a sickly taste in Jensen's mouth, carefully hidden behind an otherwise blank expression.
"Jensen?" Alan prompted carefully, offering Jensen a chance to explain the boys' strange reaction to seeing each other again.
He could have told them the truth - should have told them the truth. Told them about nine years of pranks and laughter, ending in an explosion of angry, empty words and a best friend who'd just stood there and taken them.
Instead, he just nodded.
***
Dinner that night was an awkward affair, but Jensen had expected nothing less.
For the most part, the others did their best to pretend that there was nothing wrong or unusual happening. The girls chattered amicably about school and boys, changing topics so fast that it left Jensen's head reeling, and Donna informed them that Josh and Jeff were coming home for the holidays in order to meet the 'new addition to the family'.
Jared said nothing, and although he'd cut his food into manageable pieces, he had accomplished nothing more than shuffling it around his plate. Not a single piece had made it into his mouth. It was the first real indication Jensen had received about his old friend's feelings in the five hours since he'd arrived, and some part of him, however selfish, was glad that he could still recognise the signs.
Jared had always had what therapists had called 'anorexic tendencies' when he was stressed or upset. Doctors and therapists alike had tried to cure him of it - even going as far as to prescribe eating plans and medications, spending hours talking to him in session after session.
Nothing they'd tried had ever broken him of the habit - perhaps it was simply because they'd treated his anorexic tendencies as the problem, rather than a symptom.
Jensen suddenly longed for the days when all he had to do was gently nudge Jared with his elbow and give him a pointed look, and Jared would grimace, and then reluctantly finish at least half of his meal. Part of him was tempted to do it regardless of their situation - if only because Jared's skinniness was far beyond healthy - and his elbow twitched a little.
He stopped it just in time, and if Jared noticed, he didn't show it.
It was probably a good thing - Jensen wasn't sure how Jared would react to his touch after everything that had happened between them.
He guessed that it wouldn't be good.
"Jared?" Donna asked innocently, her voice as gentle as if she were talking to a spooked horse. "Is there something wrong with your food? I can make you something else, if you want-"
Jensen frowned a little as Jared shifted uncomfortably in his seat, never once raising his eyes from the table, but shifting so his hands were resting on his lap beneath it. Jensen knew without looking that he'd be using the heel of one hand to rub absently at the skin atop of the other until it was raw, perhaps even until it bled; another nervous habit that he'd never been broken out of.
They'd been through this before; vicious cycles where Jared would get better, only to have something knock him right back to the way that he was before.
Jensen knew that Jay's not eating only got worse when someone noticed it, the attention making him feel pressured and only increasing his stress, and the part of him that still saw Jared as his best friend wanted to intervene - to steer the conversation about potentially prickly or uncomfortable topics.
The rest of him just felt sick.
"No, thanks, ma'am," Jay responded quietly, his shoulders hunching a little further. "I'm just not hungry. I'm sorry."
"It's quite alright," Alan interjected, his voice just the right side of paternal. "If you're tired, why don't you call it an early night? It must have been a tiring day for you, young man."
Jensen did a second internal wince. Alan was doing the best that he could, trying to offer Jared a way out of a situation that he clearly wasn't comfortable with. Jensen knew without thought that Jared wasn't going to see the warmth in the action. Just the dismissal.
"Yeah," He muttered predictably, voice even quieter than before. He stood silently, hesitating for a moment and muttering, "Thanks," before turning and leaving the room without another word - letting Jensen catch a glimpse of the top of his hand as he left.
It was red, the skin irritated and sore-looking.
And then Jared was gone, and the table was silent.
Somehow, none of them could find the words.
***
Donna pulled Jensen to one side after he'd done the dishes, scrubbing them without thought whilst keeping an eye on the girls out of the window. His eyes tracked them with careful concentration as they emptied the trash cans and raked the leaves from the patio. It was stupid, watching them like he did - they didn't need his protection, not here - but Jensen had lived his whole life with a strong desire to protect those that he loved, in a world where they needed all of the protection that they could get, and it wasn't going to stop now, just because they were safe.
Donna was frowning, but her hand was gentle on his back, and for a long, awful moment, Jensen expected her to demand that he tell her everything.
Instead she just smiled at him sadly.
"I need to know if this is going to be a problem. For you, and for him," She told him earnestly, and the tears in her eyes made his heart thump uncomfortably in his chest. "Jared… well, he's been through a lot in the time that you've been with us... and before that, I've been led to believe. His social worker doesn't hold much hope that he'll… well, he'll survive another placement. If this isn't going to work out, then I want to know now. There might be no turning back later."
It should have sounded like an ultimatum, but her tone of voice was gentle, letting him know that this was his decision. If he told her, then and there, that he wanted Jared out of his house, the younger man would be gone in the morning.
Jensen couldn't stomach the thought.
"It'll work," Jensen replied confidently. "We've got some issues to work through, but it'll work. I promise."
Dimly, he hoped that he was right, because he wasn't sure that he could let Jared for a second time.
Despite the fact that, for the most part, the last two years with the Ackles had been good for him, Jensen had never really been able to imagine a life without Jared in it. For the last two years, he'd imagined scenario after scenario where the two of them were reunited, but he knew without a doubt that if Jared left the Ackles household, there would be no going back. It would be for good.
It wasn't until he was in his room, doing his best to finish up his biology homework that her words really caught up to him.
"His social worker doesn't hold much hope that he'll survive another placement."
What did that mean? God, their lives had never been easy, but they'd always said that giving up wasn't an option. There was always other options - running away together, finding the perfect foster home, applying for emancipation.
Anything.
What had happened to him that made the social workers think that he was a suicide risk?
For a long second, Jensen couldn't breathe, and then he stumbled over to his bed and buried his head in his pillow, crying for the first time in years, because whatever had happened?
It was his fault.
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