Damage (1/3)
Aug. 13th, 2013 12:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_lioraTitle: Damage
Wordcount: 21,587
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Jensen/Jared, Jensen/OFC, Jared/OFC
Warning(s): Serious angst, infidelity
Beta(s): The ever incredible, earned a buttload of cupcakes, Sammichgirl.
Prompt(s): Written for an anonymous bidder for the AO3 auction. Loosely based off of the movie Damage.
Summary: Jensen Ackles has the perfect life. He's the governor of Texas, happily married, and has an incredible daughter. Everything is fine, until his little girl brings her new boyfriend home.
Jensen Ackles is ten the first time his father Peter takes him hunting. They’re in the blind, woods spread out around them, and Jensen is receiving his third lecture on proper handling of a rifle. He’s fired one before, but never at a living target. His father checks his sight one last time before handing it back to him.
Jensen has been waiting for this moment for forever. His father is rarely home, usually at benefits and meetings, so this time is precious to him. Special. Dad’s been promising to take him on the yearly hunting trip since he was eight.
There’s a rustling, and then the doe breaks through the brush and makes itself a clear target. Jensen takes aim, peers into the scope, and takes a deep breath. It’s all coming together, and this is a perfect shot.
Except he doesn’t. His finger won’t squeeze the trigger, and he can’t make himself do more than stare at the doe. She’s pretty, sleek and well-built, and he wonders if she has a family like in Bambi and hopes for her life. Do animals dream? It’s a bizarre line of thought, unusual for him, but it consumes him. Personalizes the doe in a way he’s unprepared for.
The bang takes him by surprise, and Jensen jumps and lets go of the rifle. It rattles on the floor, and then he turns to look at his father. The doe is down, and his dad is lowering his own rifle and sweeping the clearing with his eyes. It seems like it takes forever, but eventually his dad’s eyes land on him and there’s disappointment in his gaze.
“First rule Jensen: control. You must always control everything from your emotions to your surroundings. If you don’t you’ll hesitate, you’ll make mistakes, and you’ll fail. What does an Ackles never do?”
“Fail sir.” He lowers his own gaze to the dead doe, and then back up to his dad. “An Ackles never fails.”
His dad nods once, then leaves Jensen in the blind to go take care of the doe. They don’t go hunting again until Jensen is sixteen. It’s a present for Jensen being elected president of the student body, and he shoots two does and a buck.
---
At the age of thirty-eight it’s understood that Jensen Ackles is not only taking over his father’s dynasty he’s setting a new bar for success. Elected to the Texas state senate at the unheard of age of twenty, climbing to a congressional seat by twenty-seven, and now he is celebrating his new position as governor of the great state of Texas. The pundits rant and rave depending on their position regarding the notorious Ackles family. Not since the Kennedys has there been more political influence or scandal connected to one name. Jensen Ackles is the first member of the family that has managed to avoid or manipulate the second while fully embracing the first.
He graduated from high school two years early and headed for U of T at Austin for his Political Science degree. At eighteen while working on his degree and running the student congress Jensen was caught by the press coming out of a frat house early in the morning with his hair ruffled and the same clothes from the night before. Speculation ran wild about the conservative boy spending the night in a house full of men, a house that had connections with the campus LGBTQ associations no less. The vultures had one day of news before several eyewitnesses from the party stated that Jensen was celebrating his engagement with his best friend.
Jensen emerged on the scene two days later holding the hand of a sleek and beautiful blonde and smiling in his now trademarked abashed way as he explained to the press that he hadn’t wanted them to scare his love off before she said yes. Several reporters were caught on tape saying “ah”. Eight and a half months later they welcomed a beautiful baby girl named Marta.
Four years and full honors later he celebrated his graduation from U of T by being elected to senate, and the scandal this time was that Jensen ran as a liberal. If Peter Ackles had anything to say about it the press couldn’t seem to find him, and Jensen himself simply stated that he believed there were certain aspects of the conservative party that simply did not fall in line with his personal beliefs. Fox News heralded him as a rebel that would destroy the Ackles Empire. The more liberal and independent stations vacillated between claiming it was a publicity stunt and wondering if Jensen’s storied friendship with LGBTQ rights activist Christian Kane had anything to do with the move. Either way it didn’t affect Jensen’s success.
He didn’t quite beat Dan Moody for the title of youngest Texas governor, but Jensen didn’t seem interested in accolades. His reputation was that he was a man for the people, and even his father’s Republican friends quickly evolved connections and alliances with the young man. Jensen was a favorite for an eventual presidential run, and everybody knew it.
There had been wild speculation about Marta, called Marty by those closest to her, and whether or not she would live up to her family’s reputation. Connections were made between her and other famous daughters, but Marty managed to avoid the hard-partying life her peers seemed to wallow in. She ended her high school career as Valedictorian, was accepted on full scholarship to A&M, and every picture of her in the press was tasteful and fashionable.
On the surface the family looked so perfect and sweet together that it seemed impossible for anyone to throw mud on their name. Despite the minor hiccups they were a unit and the plethora of pictures showing Jensen and Emily staring at each other lovingly, or Jensen and Marty spending time together, all fueled the press’ stories of fairy tale perfection.
The problem with fairy tales of course, as any cynic will surely tell you, is that they are always surface beauty covering a mire of ugliness, blood, and shit. Happily ever after is a cop-out used by authors to avoid the inevitable fall when reality peeks in and reminds everyone that nothing is ever quite that easy.
In the case of the Ackles, the story behind the fairy tale wasn’t quite as dramatic as all that. After all this is real life. No, the behind the scenes shared much with the public image. Jensen was comfortable, settled into his life in a way he was never sure he could be. His wife was beautiful and sweet, his daughter was whip-smart and accomplished, and his career was on an upward trajectory that put his father’s history to shame.
He was a man who lived for his family, his job, and everything else took a backseat. At least it did until Marty brought home her newest boyfriend, and then everything changed.
----
“Jen I’m tellin’ ya it’s time son. This is the year to pull it.”
Jensen frowned and shook his head once at the menu his chef was holding out. He reached for a pencil even as he responded to Christian in a warm and friendly tone that came as naturally as breathing.
“And I’m telling you that this is too soon Chris. We just headed off that ridiculous sonogram abortion bullshit. We try to pass gay marriage and we’ll just be flashing our asses at the religious right. You and I both know we can’t afford to do that right now.” He crossed out Caesar Salad and replaced it with Chef. “I’m as eager as you are to get the bill out there, but I’m thinking ahead man. You need to be too.”
“You think Pileggi isn’t thinkin’ the same thing Jen? He lost that sonogram thing, as you know, and this is an election year for him. He’s gonna lose his backing from the RNC and Focus on the Family if he doesn’t do something drastic. We let this bastard get the drop on us and we might lose. You know what this means to the community.” Christian sounded angry and desperate, as he so often did these days. Every call was some new request for help, and Jensen was honestly a little sick of it. Then again, being best friends with the most influential members of the more liberal subcultures was invaluable.
He waved the chef away and then leaned back in his chair. “I promise you if I get even a hint of Pileggi planning anything I’ll get the tanks ready, but in the meantime Chris you gotta trust me and cool it man. Let the Republicans lick their wounds and see what they’re really in for. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t dare try to introduce any straight marriage bill right now. Not with a Democratic governor and majority. Just give it time.” Emily’s blonde tresses peeked around the door, and Jensen waved her in. “I gotta go man. The little woman is calling.”
There was a derisive snort on the other end of the line, and then Christian’s voice was softer and fond. “Jen you coming to the barbeque this weekend? Steve would love to see you man.”
“What did Tom say when you asked him?” Emily took a seat at the edge of his desk and plucked up the letter opener she’d bought him last year. Her delicate and recently manicured fingers traced the blade gently.
“That you were available and if you said any different you were a lying coward.” Chris didn’t necessarily sound offended, but he didn’t sound amused either. Jensen tried to remember how many social outings he’d canceled with his oldest friends.
“Well then I’m coming. Marty will be excited to see you again. Now I really have to go Chris. I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah son, later.”
When he’d dropped the cell phone to the desk he looked up to see Emily avoiding eye contact. Jensen immediately tensed.
“Jen, I don’t want you to be angry.” And Jensen knew immediately that it was about Marta, and that he was going to be angry. “But Marty is bringing her new boyfriend around tonight for the family dinner.”
It took several long seconds for Jensen to get his words in order and out in a calm tone. “Here? She realizes that family dinner is for family right?”
Emily’s nose wrinkled in distaste as she carefully replaced the letter opener. “You’re so stodgy and old-fashioned sometimes.”
“Emily this isn’t about being - never mind. Do we know anything about this new boyfriend other than Marty didn’t want to tell me directly about him?” Marty’s social life had been tightly constrained since she was a little girl. Jensen had put a lot of energy into making sure that his daughter’s friends were not only socially acceptable, but safe. The result had been a string of slightly questionable and wholly inappropriate boyfriends once she’d gained her independence. She’d never done anything too stupid, but she had come close once or twice. The memory of the last time gave Jensen the chills.
“Well Marty said he was an art student at your alma mater, and he seems like a good boy. From what Marty says.” Emily looked at Jensen hopefully, fluttering long lashes and smiling in that way that made her a Texas premiere fashionista. Jensen worked his jaw for a second before leaning out and cupping her face.
“Alright. I’ll be civil. It can’t be as bad as the hotel heir.” Emily’s nose wrinkled again and Jensen dropped a fond kiss on it. “I changed the salad.”
“Oh Jensen did you have to? I thought the Caesar was perfect for the Prime-“
---
Jensen had sent Tom on a fact-finding mission, and while the new boyfriend’s name was unique enough to make the search simple he didn’t believe he would have much in the way of information before dinner began. So he was going into the situation mostly blind, and that was enough to make him both paranoid and angry. To counteract his blindness Jensen had the new boyfriend placed across the table and sitting down from Marty. There would be no footsie on his watch.
At five-thirty on the dot Jensen was seated at the head of the table with Emily on the opposite end. Tom his PA and Mike his bodyguard were already seated, and the only empty places belonged to Marty and the mystery man. Emily tapped her nails on the table for Jensen, and he was secretly grateful that she would give in to the expression of their mutual annoyance.
When Marty finally slammed through the door Jensen took in the wind-blown hair and the bright blue eyes, full lips, and the high aristocratic nose that had her labeled Princess Ackles from the age of eight. He kept his eyes on his daughter long enough to halt her progress through the room and engender a nervous smile on her face.
“You’re late.” He checked his watch pointedly and then gestured to the place next to Mike. “You’re never late.”
For a second Marty looked like ashamed, and then her shoulders squared and she tugged the hand that was peeking around the doorframe. What came along with it was not what Jensen was expecting.
Instead of the well-groomed frat boys his daughter usually brought home, collars popped and hair carefully coifed, what stood in front of him was a behemoth. Jared couldn’t have been any less than 6’4, and his frame was built for power and intimidation. All of the muscles though were contradicted by the soft and fond smile pulling at pink lips and bringing out just a hint of dimples. High and sharp cheekbones, a straight and full nose, and dotted beauty marks completed a sculpture that was only made obscene by the most colorful and wickedly shaped eyes Jensen had ever seen. His clothes were relaxed, cheap, and Jensen spotted paint specks along the side of his shirt. Messy hair fell into his eyes, and while Jensen watched Jared pushed it back before that fond smile turned as nervous as his daughter’s.
For a moment, just one, he clenched his fork like a lifeline.
“Father, mother, Mike and Tom, this is Jared Padalecki. My boyfriend.” Jensen wasn’t sure if he should stand and shake the man’s hand for appearance’s sake, or run him the hell out of the house.
“Well hello dear, welcome to our home.” Emily was instantly the gracious hostess, face plastered with an easy smile and feet crossing the hardwood rapidly to take Jared’s hand and tilt her face up in an invitation. Jared paused for a second, expression confused, and then seemed to get the idea before he bent down to place a kiss on her exposed cheek. Jensen followed suit and took Jared’s hand in a firm shake.
“Pleasure to meet you.” Jensen didn’t meet Jared’s eyes when he said it, gaze locked on his daughter as he tried to figure out what was going on, and why Marty had suddenly taken an interest in someone who looked like they’d never worn a suit in their life.
“You too. Marty’s talked about both of y’all a lot.” Jared seemed to fumble with the next part, and Jensen finally made eye contact with him in that moment as he read the poorly delivered lie. “All good things, of course.”
“Of course. Please have a seat.” Jensen crossed back to the table and took his position before beginning the prayer. When the necessities were over the service began, and conversation lulled into banality fairly quickly.
Emily tried her best to get past the early moment, but Jensen could picture Marty warning her new boyfriend that he was an overprotective father on a level the boy probably had never imagined. Marty still blamed him for using his pull to have her third boyfriend arrested for possession. In his defense the boy had been carrying cocaine around his daughter.
Jared, for his part, seemed to eat carefully and keep his eyes cast downwards. Every now and then he’d throw shy looks at Marty, or look around the table to see what everyone else was doing, but for the most part he kept his head down and his mouth shut. Jensen knew enough with just that to peg the young man for someone far out of his daughter’s league.
What was Marty playing at?
“So what style of art are you studying Jared?” His voice came out steady and measured as always, and he watched the tall boy choke slightly on his beef before Tom clapped him on the back gently. Jared shot the PA a grateful look.
“Uh-I mostly do Impressionism sir. It’s uh-it focuses on-“
“Using light to convey a feeling instead of a perfect recreation. I took Art Appreciation in college.” Jared jerked once and then looked up, and there was a complicated expression Jensen couldn’t quite read for half a second before it was replaced with that same goofy half-smile the young man had entered with.
“It’s impressive that you remember. Most people-“
“Daddy remembers everything. He says steady access to information is the best form of intimidation.” Jared’s eyes jerked the same way Jensen’s did, and landed on Marty’s bright smile. “How many senators and representatives have you scared so badly they only send their aides now Daddy?”
Jensen controlled the grin that wanted to appear and simply shrugged at Marty. “That’s hardly dinner conversation honey. Anyway, I stopped counting after the hundredth one.”
Jared laughed politely, but he honestly looked a bit confused. Jensen added it to the list of reasons this boy had no reason to be dating his daughter.
“So Jared is the Governor’s Mansion what you thought it would be?” Emily’s eyes sent the message she’d come to the same conclusion, and Jensen sent back they’d discuss it later. Jared fiddled with his salad fork before using it to spear more beef.
“Well it’s just as fancy I’ll say that. Really it’s the people that surprise me. It’s awful nice of ya’ll to have your employees eat with you too. I didn’t expect that.” There was a moment where Marty’s look of shock perfectly expressed Jensen’s own feelings. He bit it back hard and nodded once, as Tom’s lips twitched in a grin and Mike simply laughed.
“Yes well, they are family, and family always comes first.”
---
The dinner that wouldn’t end finally did, but somehow Emily talked Marty into staying the night. That of course meant that Jared was staying as well, and after a rousing fifteen minute argument between mother and daughter Marty agreed to separate rooms.
Jensen slid out to the garden after everyone was asleep and took his position on the bench. He was just about to light his cigarette when he heard a throat clear behind him. His lighter clattered to the stonework, and Jensen gripped the cigarette so tightly it snapped in half.
“Jesus don’t- Jared?” The tall young man stood behind him in the moonlight, cheekbones highlighted and eyes dark and glittering in his face.
“Sorry Governor Ackles. Didn’t mean to scare you. I just couldn’t sleep. Strange place y’know?”
Jensen watched the way the man ducked his head, hand coming up and ruffling through those shaggy chestnut locks, and then he made a decision that had nothing to do with logic or strategy. Years later Jensen would point to that moment as the one that doomed him. The only saving grace was that he didn’t let slip the instinctive Call me Jensen.
“Well, have a seat if you don’t mind smoke.” He sounded gruffer than usual, uncontrolled, and Jared shivered visibly in the dim light before sliding onto the bench beside him. The younger man exuded heat, and Jensen considered that as he pulled a new cigarette out and lit it.
“So this may be cliché but what are your intentions towards my daughter?” When Jared barked out a laugh Jensen shot his eyes over, but the younger man had ducked his head and his hair hid his expression.
“Well – uh good? I mean I like her a lot. She’s a real special girl.”
Jensen suppressed the instinct to tell Jared that she was more special than he could imagine. It wasn’t that he disliked the kid exactly; just that he wanted the best for his daughter. More importantly Jared seemed like a nice boy, and he was in way over his head. “How’d you two meet?”
Jared hummed softly, one foot kicking out to knock a pebble along the tiles of the seating area. “She was at Blanton for a class assignment. I work there as part of my work-study so I gave her the tour and then asked her to dinner.”
“Did you know who she was?” Maybe it was celebrity worship, but Jensen already knew the answer. This kid wasn’t some savvy gold-digger no matter how easy it would have been to dismiss him for it.
“No sir. Not even a little bit.”
“Do you even vote?” Jensen couldn’t help himself, his eyes stayed locked on the shaded face in the hopes that it would tilt upward and give him some idea of the expression behind those words.
“Nope.” Jared laughed once, the sound husky and warm along Jensen’s skin. “But I’m easily swayed.”
“You don’t say. That’s not the best way to be you know. Anyone could take advantage.”
Jared looked up, moonlight shining off his eyes and lips curved in a perfect grin. “You gonna take advantage of me Mr. Ackles?”
It took no time at all to know that Jared, his daughter’s boyfriend, was hitting on him. Jensen considered his cigarette for a long time. Let the silence spin out between them until it was uncomfortable, cold and Jared pulled back and lifted his hands in denial.
“No, no I’m sorry that was - Jesus I just - I wasn’t really-“
“You were not really flirting with me. In fact you never came out here.” Jensen dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his loafer knowing the gardener would dispose of it before Emily could catch the evidence of his wrong doing. “Because that would be inappropriate and strange. Your mouth just ran away with you.”
Jared nodded rapidly and then held his hands out. “I’m sorry Governor Ackles. I just get kinda nervous around people like ya’ll and to be honest when I’m nervous I flirt. It’s kinda my defense mechanism.”
“I would suggest you find a different defense mechanism. The kind of man who would flirt to handle his failings isn’t the kind that deserves my daughter.”
With that Jensen stood, ignored the pull deep in his stomach at the blatant hurt on Jared’s face, and marched his way back into the house.
The next morning a much more subdued Jared left on the arm of a bright and chipper Marta. Jensen certainly felt no guilt at stripping the smile off of those lips.
---
Jensen watched as Marta introduced Jared to Steve. He was positioned beside Christian at the grill, and the sweating beer in his hand did nothing to distract him from the way the younger man smiled and chatted easily with his best friend’s life partner.
“And then I just inserted the gerbil and let it do its thing.” Jensen jerked his gaze over to an amused Christian.
“What?”
“Thought so. Wanna speak your peace there gov?” Christian basted the ribs and then closed the lid of the grill. “Because you’re staring hard enough to set them on fire.”
“What do you think of the new boyfriend? Little outta character for Marty isn’t he?” Jensen watched Chris adjust his ponytail out of the corner of his eye.
“Well I’ll admit the kid’s got more to him than I’m used ta. There a specific thing you’re thinking Jenny, or is this just a for instance?”
Jensen tried to order his thoughts as he watched Jared laugh so hard he was slapping his knee. The dimples were out in full force, and the sunlight caught the lines of his face just right and set them off to perfection. “Something about him just doesn’t feel right Chris. I’m not used to Marty bringing home…that. Also, major baggage. Tom did background.”
Light blue eyes cut his way, and one dirty-blonde eyebrow arched upwards. “You trying to tell me we ain’t got baggage ourselves son?”
Well that was laughable. Jensen could count on one hand the number of things he regretted and all of them were lost political maneuvers. “Some of us lived perfectly normal childhoods filled with light and love. The kind of thing we exposed our children to Chris.”
His friend narrowed his eyes this time before opening the grill and flipping the ribs onto a serving platter. “You keep telling yourself that Jenny. In the meantime you might want ta’ beware of the kid anyway.”
“Marty tell you something I don’t know?” He took the serving platter as Chris turned off the burners. Tried not to run over immediately and bum rush the boy away from his daughter.
“Nope. But the only time I ever seen you with that look on your face you ended up married with a kid. It’s good to see again, but it’s gonna be damn scary for you. Plus, kid’s taken and that ain’t territory you wanna be stepping in.” Chris clapped him on the shoulder and headed off without another word.
---
Chris’s words continued to bother Jensen that night as he studied the background check Tom had run on Marta’s new boyfriend. On paper Jared Padalecki wasn’t anything ruinous, but he certainly wasn’t the right kind of boy for his baby to end up with. Too many gaps in the story, and not quite the right class. The kid came from immigrant stock, a single mother that came from Poland with two young boys, and while it was admirable that he’d risen above that to get his scholarship it didn’t change how out of his depth he’d be at public functions and in the eyes of the press.
Sure, they could spin it like a fairy tale, Princess Marta taking the lower-class man out of obscurity, but that sort of story always came with a price. Usually the one that paid it was the Cinderella and not the prince.
The only question left was the story behind the death of Jared’s brother. Tom’s information stopped at the word suicide, and Jensen wasn’t interested enough to push beyond that. Honestly it was all pointless, because as soon as Marta realized that this one wouldn’t survive the coverage that followed her constantly she’d move on to the next unacceptable boy. Sometimes he wished his daughter had been Catholic. Maybe she would have picked being a nun on her own.
His fingers ghosted over the lines of Jared’s face in the photo, an ID picture for his school, and Jensen considered again the perfect lips and the strong jaw. Jared was certainly beautiful; Jensen could give him that, but was there much beyond it? Signs pointed to no, because the kid had already spent his first time meeting Jensen flirting with him.
And Jensen had certainly done nothing to encourage that.
---
He unzipped Emily’s dress as she used the remover pad to wipe the makeup from her face.
“How long is this going to last?”
In the way only a woman who had been reading the subtext of her husband for years could Emily smiled into the mirror at him and reached for one of her numerous lotions. “I don’t know dear. As long as it has to. Marty’s just going through a phase right now.”
“The grungy artist phase?” Jensen undid his tie and hung it in the closet before sitting to unlace his shoes. “Which one is this anyway? The one that comes before celibacy or the one that comes before her just sucking the life right out of me?”
Emily laughed, head tilted back and eyes shut in mirth, and then dropped her dress before hanging it carefully and reaching for her pajamas. “She wants to be different from her parents. Eventually she’ll realize that this isn’t the way.”
Jensen slid under the covers and watched Emily brush her hair out before joining him. He held an arm out and she snuggled underneath it. “I just – this is gonna end bad Em.”
His wife placed a gentle kiss against his bare chest before sighing. “Jensen are you worried about Marty or Jared?”
There was something in the tone that Jensen didn’t quite recognize. A question or an accusation that didn’t make any sense and Jensen almost took exception to.
“Can’t it be both? The kid has no idea what he’s in for.”
Her lips pressed against him again. “Jen, honey, he isn’t a stray puppy no matter how adorable his big eyes are. He’s a grown man and he can handle it. Sure, it’ll hurt, but he’s not our responsibility. Family first right?”
There was an unspoken thing here. That Jared should have expected this, should have realized that he was out-classed and out-manned in this situation. It was a terrible thing to be faced with your own snobbery, but Emily was right. He thought of Jared smiling ignorantly as he used the wrong fork and left his elbows on the table.
---
Another boring political dinner, dry chicken and fake smiles, and Jensen thought he’d tear his hair out if one more person asked him whether or not he planned on backing a gay marriage bill. If Chris was sowing the seeds for this Jensen would make him pay.
Emily took the seat beside him again and laid one delicate hand on his forearm.
“Jen, do you want to leave?”
Tom caught his gaze from across the room, where he was busy trying to escort the rather tipsy Lieutenant Governor away from the open bar. He really needed to make a limit to these things. “No Em. I think I’d really like to dance with my beautiful wife.” Jensen turned in time to catch the flush leaking through her foundation, and then he took her hand and led her out to the floor.
The band obligingly changed to something more appropriate, and Jensen took Emily’s hand and waist and led her into the proper box-step. “I thought you hated dancing at these things.”
He smiled as flashbulbs went off and Tom managed to slip out of the room undetected. “And I thought you loved it. After all, why have a dress that lovely if it’s not being shown off?”
Emily patted him once, her gesture for him to stop and continue all at once. “I was thinking Jen, and don’t be angry, but I really wondered if maybe-“
When she trailed off Jensen schooled his features and swept her into a spin before pulling her back in effortlessly. “Em you know you don’t have to beat around the bush. What is it this time? Charity benefit? Auction?”
One perfectly painted lip disappeared under even white teeth and came out plumper. Calculated and flawless. “I was thinking we should have Marta home for the summer. I don’t like her staying so far away when she’s not in school. She’s still at an age where we can talk her into it. When she has kids of her own though she’s going to want to go on trips with them and-”
The rest went unsaid. Her stodgy old parents would be a thing of the past, and they’d see their baby at holidays and family functions. Eventually she was going to have a family of her own, and Jensen had to be ready for that.
“Yes. I’m behind that plan, but is Marty? You know how she loves her independence. Plus, she may want to spend summer with that boy.” They took a swaying step around another couple that was less coordinated and then settled back into the proper pattern.
“Actually she – well she already agreed. As long as Jared comes with.” Emily flashed her media smile, and the flashbulbs went off again as Jensen pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips. “I hope you’re not angry that I already agreed?”
He thought of spending the summer with the awkward young man. Of having the media take pictures and speculate how serious the relationship was if the notoriously over-protective Governor allowed his daughter to spend so much time with one boy. They’d be discussing Marty’s wedding plans before July.
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Jensen saw Tom tapping his watch across the room as Mike eyed the occupants. They had finally reached the socially mandated three hour stay. He could end this as soon as the music concluded.
“I think it’ll be fine. She’ll behave herself.” Emily slowed their pace for them, and when the music concluded they both clapped heartily. “And if she doesn’t I’ll do something. Plus maybe if she has to face what the consequences of picking such a boy are early she’ll understand what she’s doing.”
Jensen clapped along with everyone else before sweeping Emily into a one-armed hug and leading her towards his PA and bodyguard. “Great. We’ll have a front row seat for their breakup.”
Emily chuckled softly and tucked her head against his chest. “I’m sure it’ll be noteworthy. Artists are notoriously temperamental. It probably won’t last to the beach house.”
---
The second time Jensen spent one on one time with Jared Padalecki was almost the same as the first. He had stormed outside after a particularly strained but polite argument with a Republican senator regarding the possibility of tax increases being on the next ballot. There was some confusion as to where funding came from, and if he thought Jensen was being silly when he said that public schools needed the money then Jensen thought he was being willfully ignorant.
The cigarette was soothing, glorious, and interrupted by more than six feet of artist. “Governor Ackles?”
This time Jensen didn’t bother trying to hold his knee-jerk reaction in. “Jensen. Call me Jensen.” The minute he said it he wished he hadn’t. He could have left it at the more formal title and avoided closing even a bit of the gap between them. Instead he’d just opened the door, and Jared apparently took it for what it was.
Marta’s boyfriend took the seat beside him and looked out over the garden. “Do you always smoke out here?”
“Emily doesn’t care for it. Nasty habit.” Jensen took another long drag and shot the smoke from his nostrils as he considered the moon hanging above them.
“She mentioned you quit when Marty was a teenager. I guess that didn’t take?” Jared’s hands looped around his knees as he pulled them up to his chest, and it made him look young and innocent in the silvery light.
“You’ve discussed me with my wife?” Jensen tried not to let the amount of incredulity show, but the half of Jared’s face that he could see pulled into a bright smile.
“We’ve done lunch once or twice. She was talking about buying one of my paintings. I think she was vetting me for Marty.” If there was a trace of bitterness in Jared’s tone Jensen couldn’t pick up on it.
“She can be quite the protective mama bear.” He wanted the cigarette to be finished so it didn’t look like he was rushing away again.
“I imagine you can be just as bad. Marty told me you probably had a background check run on me. It’s a fair thing to do considering who ya’ll are.” Jared’s fingers plucked at the knees of his jeans as he tilted his head so that Jensen could see all of his face. “I wanted to apologize for last time.”
“What for?” Jensen kept his voice measured as he flicked his ashes and took another drag.
“Flirting with you. I shouldn’t a done that, but I just-I guess I’m kinda built that way. I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”
“And you thought seeking me out alone in the dark again would quell that impression?” It was honest curiosity, and from the smile Jared flashed he got that.
“Well nobody ever said I was a genius Jensen.” Something about the way the man said his name, warm and familiar, sent a shock along his system before he crushed the cigarette under his heel.
His body refused to push upwards and away.
“Several people have called me a genius.” He cut his eyes to the right and took in Jared’s studious face. “Do you love my daughter?”
“I’d certainly like to think so. She’s a great girl.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
Jared laughed then, the one that Jensen had only heard from a distance, and was so much better up close when he was causing it. “It wasn’t really a question.”
And with that Jared stood, fingers brushing maybe accidentally against Jensen’s knuckles as he disappeared up the path and towards the house.
For the first time in five years Jensen chain smoked until he was able to head inside and relax.
----
In the morning Jensen found himself sitting across the table from Jared as Marta chattered on happily with her mother about their plans for the day. Jensen wasn’t a morning person, and until the coffee properly hit his system he didn’t plan on joining in on anything.
Plus, he hated tennis.
“Jensen? Do you think you and Mike could do that?” His eyes jerked up from the rim of the cup to land on Emily’s wide and guileless ones.
“What?”
She tittered gently, and Jensen resisted the urge to wince. “I knew you wouldn’t hear me.” His wife turned and laid a solicitous hand on Jared’s arm. “The governor’s a big old bear in the morning. He’d love to get your stuff with you. Wouldn’t you Jen?”
Four sets of eyes landed on him, and Mike didn’t bother to hide his grin.
“Yes. Of course. I’ll need to get ready first.”
Emily clapped her hands delightedly and then stood. “Excellent. That gives Marty and I time to suit up and hit the courts.”
Marta shot him a brilliant smile, and Jensen returned it.
---
Jared’s studio was small, but the entire Eastern wall was made up of windows that set the loft alight and made the wooden floors glow with a burnished sheen. Jensen found himself standing in front of a painting of a man, kneeling by a tree in the moonlight, hands up to the branches in the universal gesture of supplication.
Mike was down by the car since this wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, and Jared was puttering around dropping supplies into bags. Jensen was so caught up in the image he missed when Jared stepped up directly behind him.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s miserable.” It came out blunter and gruffer than he wanted, but Jared made an interested noise and Jensen plowed on. “It reeks of despair. I mean it’s beautiful, and well done, but depressing as all hell. Your chiaroscuro is absolutely amazing.”
There was a huff of laughter, and then a large hand landed on his shoulder. “It would be the technical shit you’d pick up on second to save you from discussing the emotions.”
Jensen didn’t shrug the hand off, but he did lock up under the pressure. “Excuse me?”
“It’s you. All locked up and repressed, begging the night for something you don’t know how to word. I painted it after the first night I met you.” Jared’s voice hooked lower, sad and understanding. “Marty’d told me you were a bit of a control freak, but I figured she was just your average annoyed daughter. Now I know better.”
Something hot and angry twisted in Jensen’s gut, and he reached up and gripped Jared’s hand too tight. “And let me guess, this is the masterpiece that’s gonna net you a fortune.” When he turned the expression on Jared’s face didn’t match the tone of his voice. It was curious, but ultimately empty.
“Is that what you think of me? It never occurred to you I was just moved by the visual?” Jared’s hand stroked his jaw, and Jensen glared even as he leaned into it. “By the essence of it. Something so beautiful and so distant. Like a star I can admire but never really touch. That’s right isn’t it Jensen? No one ever really touches you.”
Jensen’s hand finally broke the paralysis and jerked up to stop Jared’s fingers, his tongue sliding out traitorously to taste the salty skin before he tossed the hand aside. “My wife touches me and my daughter touches you. You’re not bringing that into my house.”
---
It’s stupid. It’s possibly the dumbest idea he’s had since high school when he risked everything to have his first sexual experience with Mark Pellegrino.
That whole weekend had been unadvisable, but Jensen had just watched his father disown his brother for being caught by the paparazzi smoking pot. Liam had been given the family version of a severance package and sent to Europe on an indefinite back packing trip. So Jensen ended up at Chris’s house buried as deep into one of Chris’s gay friends as he could be. Mostly because he knew he could never have it again, but also because something about the guy had just gotten to Jensen. He’d been an amateur philosopher, and he’d had no idea who Jensen’s family was. The kid had been from New England.
He’d been so entranced then he was willing to risk staying there too long and drinking too much to pay attention to whether or not the cameras were outside when he left. It had been such a close call that Jensen could still feel the paranoia and panic.
When he met Emily in college he knew he’d found the right woman. The daughter of an oil magnate Emily understood how the world worked. She knew what Jensen needed to make it, and she knew what she’d have to be to help him. Chris had spent the weekend before he announced trying to talk him out of it, insisting that while Jensen may love Emily he’d never be totally happy with her. Jensen didn’t believe it, and until Jared the idea had proved wrong.
Sure, sometimes a man caught his eye just right. The thing was that Emily was everything he needed, and she was such a sweetheart. She understood Jensen, the closed off parts of him and the things he’d never share. She didn’t push and she didn’t pry. Instead she silently acknowledged that Jensen needed space, and he needed focus. Even in the more progressive sections of Texas a gay politician wasn’t going to get far, and arguing that he was at most bisexual wasn’t going to cut it. Time would take that out of the equation, but Jensen didn’t have that time. He needed to win, he needed to succeed, and he needed to do it soon.
Mark, much like Jared, never would have made it under the scrutiny of the public eye. It would have been cruel to subject him to that lifestyle. People had been taking Jensen and Emily’s pictures since after their conception, and the flashbulbs and scandal pages didn’t faze them anymore. To put an unsuspecting, unready person in front of that sort of pressure was inhumane. Look what it had done to Lindsey Lohan for god’s sake.
Jared was going to crumble. He may have dreams of being some kind of famous artist, but he wasn’t one yet. More importantly this wasn’t the sort of fame he was aspiring to. Dating Marty was going to put him under a microscope the same way it had every boy before him, and what they found or didn’t find wouldn’t matter compared to what filled space and sold subscriptions.
All of that went into Jensen’s reasoning for not calling it all off immediately. Jared was only a temptation as long as Marta kept him around, and she was too smart and empathetic to subject him to that sort of suffering for long. No doubt there would be stories, pictures, and eventually something would crack Jared’s happy-go-lucky armor and leave him damaged enough Marty would release him. After that Jensen would never see him again.
As long as it stayed harmless flirtation. As long as all it amounted to was brief conversations, maybe touches, but nothing else. No more tasting the man’s skin and no more jacking off to the mental images of all that length spread out over Jensen’s expensive Egyptian cotton sheets.
How long had it been since he flirted anyway?
---
The first official week of Jared’s stay Jensen spent in meetings and phone conversations. He saw little of the younger man, and what interaction they had was a part of the enforced family dinners Emily insisted on.
Jensen was too exhausted to spend much time in the garden, and what little he did was Jared-less. Instead he watched as Jared sat beside Marty and laughed at her jokes, ran into them making out in the hallways, and every now and then saw them stumbling in from some club. Tom scanned the papers and the magazines, but nothing terrible ended up on any of the pages and that was just fine. Pictures of them together but nothing serious, and certainly nothing that had to be shut down.
Then Jensen was given a brief reprieve, and Emily decided it was the right time to try a family outing. He felt so guilty for working through so much of their time together that Jensen didn’t even complain when it ended up being the opera. The day before he and Emily were seated in the breakfast nook discussing an upcoming event and sipping coffee when Jared stumbled behind Marty.
Her face was animated the way it had always been when she was little and fixated on something. The first time Jensen remembered seeing that expression the girl had ended up with a horse. This probably wasn’t going to end any better or cheaper.
“Daddy. Daddy. Jared needs a tux. Stat.” Jensen met the young man’s wide eyes over his daughter’s head and then turned to his smirking wife.
“Emily I feel like I’m hearing something, but it’s a little girl demanding for my wallet. We don’t have a little girl anymore.”
His wife’s lips curled wider as she sipped her coffee. “It must be a neighbor’s kid. Don’t give in.”
Marty released Jared’s hand and plopped into his lap wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him the puppy-dog eyes. “Daddy it’s urgent. We’ve got the opera tomorrow and Jared has nothing to wear.”
“Marty I rented a tux at-“
“Men’s Warehouse.” His daughter managed to lace the words with so much derision that even he winced a bit and Jared’s mouth curled down briefly even as he flushed with shame. Marty turned back to him fully and stuck her bottom lip out. “Can’t you get Sheppard to do something? It’s not too late right?”
When Jensen looked back up Jared’s eyes were hooded, and he shuffled his big feet once and looked so awkward and out of place that Jensen honestly felt bad for him. He could picture the scene in his head; Marty looking in Jared’s closet and finding the plastic bag and the mass-produced second-hand tux before launching into the sort of superior tirade only someone who had never worn anything more than a few months old could.
Maybe they had spoiled her a bit. Although Jensen couldn’t talk because he’d grown up with the same money and position. This was more Emily than him though, because Jensen had spent enough time trying to work with people of Jared’s economic status to be so casually cruel as to make him stand by while someone begged for him.
“Stick your lip out a bit further and we can ride it to the coast.” He hadn’t said that to her since she was ten, and her laughter erased the tension in the room and allowed him to relax his arms around her without feeling too bad about Jared’s shabby clothes and obvious shame. “Yeah honey Sheppard can do something. On the other hand I’m sure the tux Jared picked was just fine.”
Emily barked out laughter before shaking her head. “Men. You’ll just never get it.”
Marty nodded sympathetically with her mother’s amusement before leaping up and grabbing Jared’s hands. “You’re gonna love this baby. Sheppard is the best. He made my prom dress!”
Jared’s smile wasn’t quite as bright or lively as usual, but it was there. His big hand smoothed over Marty’s long blonde hair. “Yeah. I bet I will.”
---
The ride to Sheppard’s shop was silent, and Jensen used the time to review campaign fundraising information as Jared stared out the window. Eventually the younger man broke the silence.
“You didn’t have to do this.” When Jensen looked up Jared was still turned away from him, expression a mystery and voice flat and emotionless. “It really was a fine tuxedo.”
“I bet it was.” It was the best he could offer. Sure, he felt for Jared and his pride, but at the end of the day it was what Marty wanted. Jensen wasn’t willing to choose Jared’s side on this.
“Is it always like this with ya’ll? Things gotta be just perfect for the public eye?” If there was bitterness or accusation Jensen couldn’t hear it. The questions were delivered much like comments on the weather. He’d never heard anyone deal with such a sensitive topic without some feeling their voice.
“Yes. It always is.” He almost added that Jared should get used to it or get out, but it seemed too mean-spirited. Instead he put the papers down and gently touched the young man’s shoulder. “You okay?”
When Jared finally turned Jensen saw that the expression he’d been wearing throughout the conversation was one of pity. It threw him so far off his game for a moment Jensen couldn’t remember what the point of the conversation had been.
“I’m fine. I don’t live in a world where the price of a man’s clothes is a deal-breaker. If I’da said no I wouldn’t be going to this shindig tomorrow would I?” Jensen realized his hand was still on Jared’s shoulder, and he couldn’t find the will to lift it.
“No. We would have left you at home like a shameful secret.” It was best to get it out. To break whatever was building here between them because Jensen couldn’t do it physically. Couldn’t put distance there and he wanted to so badly.
What was happening? Jensen had never been this stupid or reckless before. Everything in him cried out to grab Jared and pull him in. To taste the mouth that was currently implying that Jensen’s life was faulty in comparison to Jared’s. To understand what it was about the young man that made it so impossible to look away.
He’d never felt this way before. Not even in those heady first days after meeting Emily when all they did was make out and laugh like the whole world was their joke. His hands were cold, his gut was burning, and he was pretty sure if Jared didn’t kiss him soon he would kiss Jared.
“You don’t even have the slightest clue how sad that is, do you?” Jared was leaning forward, eyes locked on Jensen’s mouth and one hand brushing against his knee.
“Not as sad as having to rent a smelly tux from a discount retailer.” The hand on Jared’s shoulder finally moved, but the trajectory was upwards as it stroked the graceful neck and then buried itself in that soft hair. The texture was incredibly soft, and Jensen wound his fingers in it before giving a brief and hard tug. Jared, big as he was, followed the pull like he was helpless.
“Much sadder. Poor, repressed, ignorant rich people.” The hand on his knee slid up to his thigh, squeezed once, and Jensen suppressed a moan. He tugged Jared’s hair again so that his face was tilted and his mouth only centimeters away.
“Shut the fuck up.” Then their lips met, and all the cliché bullshit Jensen had heard about in stories came true for the first time. Electricity sparked from mouth and fingers, all pretenses gone as Jensen hungrily devoured Jared’s mouth. Jared’s lips were as soft as his hair, slick with spit and opening almost instantly so that Jensen could plunge his tongue in and taste more.
His other hand, the one not manhandling Jared’s head, gripped at the muscle and bone of Jared’s hip while Jared’s hands roamed over everything and his mouth stayed soft and pliant under Jensen’s pressure.
There was the sweet sound of Jared groaning into his mouth, the wet noise of their tongues and lips clashing, and the rustle of fabric as their hands tried to touch and grab everything. Then the car stopped and Jensen practically flung the younger man away as he moved across the limo’s bench seat to put as much space between them as possible.
“Jensen I-“ Jared’s usual control was broken, replaced by a need mingled with guilt. Guilt. Because, after all, he had just been kissing his girlfriend’s father. His girlfriend’s married father.
“Let’s get you fitted.” Jensen hears how cold he sounds, distracted and distant, and hurt joins the emotional party on Jared’s face before it’s swept away and buried under understanding.
Mark calls Jared a moose no less than five times. He charges Jensen an extra five hundred dollars for the rush job, but Jensen can see the glee in Mark’s eyes as he faces the challenge of Jared’s long limbs and slim hips.
When it’s over Jensen is so caught up in reliving the moment and trying to dismiss it that he misses the cameras going off.
Next part
Master post
Wordcount: 21,587
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Jensen/Jared, Jensen/OFC, Jared/OFC
Warning(s): Serious angst, infidelity
Beta(s): The ever incredible, earned a buttload of cupcakes, Sammichgirl.
Prompt(s): Written for an anonymous bidder for the AO3 auction. Loosely based off of the movie Damage.
Summary: Jensen Ackles has the perfect life. He's the governor of Texas, happily married, and has an incredible daughter. Everything is fine, until his little girl brings her new boyfriend home.
Jensen Ackles is ten the first time his father Peter takes him hunting. They’re in the blind, woods spread out around them, and Jensen is receiving his third lecture on proper handling of a rifle. He’s fired one before, but never at a living target. His father checks his sight one last time before handing it back to him.
Jensen has been waiting for this moment for forever. His father is rarely home, usually at benefits and meetings, so this time is precious to him. Special. Dad’s been promising to take him on the yearly hunting trip since he was eight.
There’s a rustling, and then the doe breaks through the brush and makes itself a clear target. Jensen takes aim, peers into the scope, and takes a deep breath. It’s all coming together, and this is a perfect shot.
Except he doesn’t. His finger won’t squeeze the trigger, and he can’t make himself do more than stare at the doe. She’s pretty, sleek and well-built, and he wonders if she has a family like in Bambi and hopes for her life. Do animals dream? It’s a bizarre line of thought, unusual for him, but it consumes him. Personalizes the doe in a way he’s unprepared for.
The bang takes him by surprise, and Jensen jumps and lets go of the rifle. It rattles on the floor, and then he turns to look at his father. The doe is down, and his dad is lowering his own rifle and sweeping the clearing with his eyes. It seems like it takes forever, but eventually his dad’s eyes land on him and there’s disappointment in his gaze.
“First rule Jensen: control. You must always control everything from your emotions to your surroundings. If you don’t you’ll hesitate, you’ll make mistakes, and you’ll fail. What does an Ackles never do?”
“Fail sir.” He lowers his own gaze to the dead doe, and then back up to his dad. “An Ackles never fails.”
His dad nods once, then leaves Jensen in the blind to go take care of the doe. They don’t go hunting again until Jensen is sixteen. It’s a present for Jensen being elected president of the student body, and he shoots two does and a buck.
---
At the age of thirty-eight it’s understood that Jensen Ackles is not only taking over his father’s dynasty he’s setting a new bar for success. Elected to the Texas state senate at the unheard of age of twenty, climbing to a congressional seat by twenty-seven, and now he is celebrating his new position as governor of the great state of Texas. The pundits rant and rave depending on their position regarding the notorious Ackles family. Not since the Kennedys has there been more political influence or scandal connected to one name. Jensen Ackles is the first member of the family that has managed to avoid or manipulate the second while fully embracing the first.
He graduated from high school two years early and headed for U of T at Austin for his Political Science degree. At eighteen while working on his degree and running the student congress Jensen was caught by the press coming out of a frat house early in the morning with his hair ruffled and the same clothes from the night before. Speculation ran wild about the conservative boy spending the night in a house full of men, a house that had connections with the campus LGBTQ associations no less. The vultures had one day of news before several eyewitnesses from the party stated that Jensen was celebrating his engagement with his best friend.
Jensen emerged on the scene two days later holding the hand of a sleek and beautiful blonde and smiling in his now trademarked abashed way as he explained to the press that he hadn’t wanted them to scare his love off before she said yes. Several reporters were caught on tape saying “ah”. Eight and a half months later they welcomed a beautiful baby girl named Marta.
Four years and full honors later he celebrated his graduation from U of T by being elected to senate, and the scandal this time was that Jensen ran as a liberal. If Peter Ackles had anything to say about it the press couldn’t seem to find him, and Jensen himself simply stated that he believed there were certain aspects of the conservative party that simply did not fall in line with his personal beliefs. Fox News heralded him as a rebel that would destroy the Ackles Empire. The more liberal and independent stations vacillated between claiming it was a publicity stunt and wondering if Jensen’s storied friendship with LGBTQ rights activist Christian Kane had anything to do with the move. Either way it didn’t affect Jensen’s success.
He didn’t quite beat Dan Moody for the title of youngest Texas governor, but Jensen didn’t seem interested in accolades. His reputation was that he was a man for the people, and even his father’s Republican friends quickly evolved connections and alliances with the young man. Jensen was a favorite for an eventual presidential run, and everybody knew it.
There had been wild speculation about Marta, called Marty by those closest to her, and whether or not she would live up to her family’s reputation. Connections were made between her and other famous daughters, but Marty managed to avoid the hard-partying life her peers seemed to wallow in. She ended her high school career as Valedictorian, was accepted on full scholarship to A&M, and every picture of her in the press was tasteful and fashionable.
On the surface the family looked so perfect and sweet together that it seemed impossible for anyone to throw mud on their name. Despite the minor hiccups they were a unit and the plethora of pictures showing Jensen and Emily staring at each other lovingly, or Jensen and Marty spending time together, all fueled the press’ stories of fairy tale perfection.
The problem with fairy tales of course, as any cynic will surely tell you, is that they are always surface beauty covering a mire of ugliness, blood, and shit. Happily ever after is a cop-out used by authors to avoid the inevitable fall when reality peeks in and reminds everyone that nothing is ever quite that easy.
In the case of the Ackles, the story behind the fairy tale wasn’t quite as dramatic as all that. After all this is real life. No, the behind the scenes shared much with the public image. Jensen was comfortable, settled into his life in a way he was never sure he could be. His wife was beautiful and sweet, his daughter was whip-smart and accomplished, and his career was on an upward trajectory that put his father’s history to shame.
He was a man who lived for his family, his job, and everything else took a backseat. At least it did until Marty brought home her newest boyfriend, and then everything changed.
----
“Jen I’m tellin’ ya it’s time son. This is the year to pull it.”
Jensen frowned and shook his head once at the menu his chef was holding out. He reached for a pencil even as he responded to Christian in a warm and friendly tone that came as naturally as breathing.
“And I’m telling you that this is too soon Chris. We just headed off that ridiculous sonogram abortion bullshit. We try to pass gay marriage and we’ll just be flashing our asses at the religious right. You and I both know we can’t afford to do that right now.” He crossed out Caesar Salad and replaced it with Chef. “I’m as eager as you are to get the bill out there, but I’m thinking ahead man. You need to be too.”
“You think Pileggi isn’t thinkin’ the same thing Jen? He lost that sonogram thing, as you know, and this is an election year for him. He’s gonna lose his backing from the RNC and Focus on the Family if he doesn’t do something drastic. We let this bastard get the drop on us and we might lose. You know what this means to the community.” Christian sounded angry and desperate, as he so often did these days. Every call was some new request for help, and Jensen was honestly a little sick of it. Then again, being best friends with the most influential members of the more liberal subcultures was invaluable.
He waved the chef away and then leaned back in his chair. “I promise you if I get even a hint of Pileggi planning anything I’ll get the tanks ready, but in the meantime Chris you gotta trust me and cool it man. Let the Republicans lick their wounds and see what they’re really in for. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t dare try to introduce any straight marriage bill right now. Not with a Democratic governor and majority. Just give it time.” Emily’s blonde tresses peeked around the door, and Jensen waved her in. “I gotta go man. The little woman is calling.”
There was a derisive snort on the other end of the line, and then Christian’s voice was softer and fond. “Jen you coming to the barbeque this weekend? Steve would love to see you man.”
“What did Tom say when you asked him?” Emily took a seat at the edge of his desk and plucked up the letter opener she’d bought him last year. Her delicate and recently manicured fingers traced the blade gently.
“That you were available and if you said any different you were a lying coward.” Chris didn’t necessarily sound offended, but he didn’t sound amused either. Jensen tried to remember how many social outings he’d canceled with his oldest friends.
“Well then I’m coming. Marty will be excited to see you again. Now I really have to go Chris. I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah son, later.”
When he’d dropped the cell phone to the desk he looked up to see Emily avoiding eye contact. Jensen immediately tensed.
“Jen, I don’t want you to be angry.” And Jensen knew immediately that it was about Marta, and that he was going to be angry. “But Marty is bringing her new boyfriend around tonight for the family dinner.”
It took several long seconds for Jensen to get his words in order and out in a calm tone. “Here? She realizes that family dinner is for family right?”
Emily’s nose wrinkled in distaste as she carefully replaced the letter opener. “You’re so stodgy and old-fashioned sometimes.”
“Emily this isn’t about being - never mind. Do we know anything about this new boyfriend other than Marty didn’t want to tell me directly about him?” Marty’s social life had been tightly constrained since she was a little girl. Jensen had put a lot of energy into making sure that his daughter’s friends were not only socially acceptable, but safe. The result had been a string of slightly questionable and wholly inappropriate boyfriends once she’d gained her independence. She’d never done anything too stupid, but she had come close once or twice. The memory of the last time gave Jensen the chills.
“Well Marty said he was an art student at your alma mater, and he seems like a good boy. From what Marty says.” Emily looked at Jensen hopefully, fluttering long lashes and smiling in that way that made her a Texas premiere fashionista. Jensen worked his jaw for a second before leaning out and cupping her face.
“Alright. I’ll be civil. It can’t be as bad as the hotel heir.” Emily’s nose wrinkled again and Jensen dropped a fond kiss on it. “I changed the salad.”
“Oh Jensen did you have to? I thought the Caesar was perfect for the Prime-“
---
Jensen had sent Tom on a fact-finding mission, and while the new boyfriend’s name was unique enough to make the search simple he didn’t believe he would have much in the way of information before dinner began. So he was going into the situation mostly blind, and that was enough to make him both paranoid and angry. To counteract his blindness Jensen had the new boyfriend placed across the table and sitting down from Marty. There would be no footsie on his watch.
At five-thirty on the dot Jensen was seated at the head of the table with Emily on the opposite end. Tom his PA and Mike his bodyguard were already seated, and the only empty places belonged to Marty and the mystery man. Emily tapped her nails on the table for Jensen, and he was secretly grateful that she would give in to the expression of their mutual annoyance.
When Marty finally slammed through the door Jensen took in the wind-blown hair and the bright blue eyes, full lips, and the high aristocratic nose that had her labeled Princess Ackles from the age of eight. He kept his eyes on his daughter long enough to halt her progress through the room and engender a nervous smile on her face.
“You’re late.” He checked his watch pointedly and then gestured to the place next to Mike. “You’re never late.”
For a second Marty looked like ashamed, and then her shoulders squared and she tugged the hand that was peeking around the doorframe. What came along with it was not what Jensen was expecting.
Instead of the well-groomed frat boys his daughter usually brought home, collars popped and hair carefully coifed, what stood in front of him was a behemoth. Jared couldn’t have been any less than 6’4, and his frame was built for power and intimidation. All of the muscles though were contradicted by the soft and fond smile pulling at pink lips and bringing out just a hint of dimples. High and sharp cheekbones, a straight and full nose, and dotted beauty marks completed a sculpture that was only made obscene by the most colorful and wickedly shaped eyes Jensen had ever seen. His clothes were relaxed, cheap, and Jensen spotted paint specks along the side of his shirt. Messy hair fell into his eyes, and while Jensen watched Jared pushed it back before that fond smile turned as nervous as his daughter’s.
For a moment, just one, he clenched his fork like a lifeline.
“Father, mother, Mike and Tom, this is Jared Padalecki. My boyfriend.” Jensen wasn’t sure if he should stand and shake the man’s hand for appearance’s sake, or run him the hell out of the house.
“Well hello dear, welcome to our home.” Emily was instantly the gracious hostess, face plastered with an easy smile and feet crossing the hardwood rapidly to take Jared’s hand and tilt her face up in an invitation. Jared paused for a second, expression confused, and then seemed to get the idea before he bent down to place a kiss on her exposed cheek. Jensen followed suit and took Jared’s hand in a firm shake.
“Pleasure to meet you.” Jensen didn’t meet Jared’s eyes when he said it, gaze locked on his daughter as he tried to figure out what was going on, and why Marty had suddenly taken an interest in someone who looked like they’d never worn a suit in their life.
“You too. Marty’s talked about both of y’all a lot.” Jared seemed to fumble with the next part, and Jensen finally made eye contact with him in that moment as he read the poorly delivered lie. “All good things, of course.”
“Of course. Please have a seat.” Jensen crossed back to the table and took his position before beginning the prayer. When the necessities were over the service began, and conversation lulled into banality fairly quickly.
Emily tried her best to get past the early moment, but Jensen could picture Marty warning her new boyfriend that he was an overprotective father on a level the boy probably had never imagined. Marty still blamed him for using his pull to have her third boyfriend arrested for possession. In his defense the boy had been carrying cocaine around his daughter.
Jared, for his part, seemed to eat carefully and keep his eyes cast downwards. Every now and then he’d throw shy looks at Marty, or look around the table to see what everyone else was doing, but for the most part he kept his head down and his mouth shut. Jensen knew enough with just that to peg the young man for someone far out of his daughter’s league.
What was Marty playing at?
“So what style of art are you studying Jared?” His voice came out steady and measured as always, and he watched the tall boy choke slightly on his beef before Tom clapped him on the back gently. Jared shot the PA a grateful look.
“Uh-I mostly do Impressionism sir. It’s uh-it focuses on-“
“Using light to convey a feeling instead of a perfect recreation. I took Art Appreciation in college.” Jared jerked once and then looked up, and there was a complicated expression Jensen couldn’t quite read for half a second before it was replaced with that same goofy half-smile the young man had entered with.
“It’s impressive that you remember. Most people-“
“Daddy remembers everything. He says steady access to information is the best form of intimidation.” Jared’s eyes jerked the same way Jensen’s did, and landed on Marty’s bright smile. “How many senators and representatives have you scared so badly they only send their aides now Daddy?”
Jensen controlled the grin that wanted to appear and simply shrugged at Marty. “That’s hardly dinner conversation honey. Anyway, I stopped counting after the hundredth one.”
Jared laughed politely, but he honestly looked a bit confused. Jensen added it to the list of reasons this boy had no reason to be dating his daughter.
“So Jared is the Governor’s Mansion what you thought it would be?” Emily’s eyes sent the message she’d come to the same conclusion, and Jensen sent back they’d discuss it later. Jared fiddled with his salad fork before using it to spear more beef.
“Well it’s just as fancy I’ll say that. Really it’s the people that surprise me. It’s awful nice of ya’ll to have your employees eat with you too. I didn’t expect that.” There was a moment where Marty’s look of shock perfectly expressed Jensen’s own feelings. He bit it back hard and nodded once, as Tom’s lips twitched in a grin and Mike simply laughed.
“Yes well, they are family, and family always comes first.”
---
The dinner that wouldn’t end finally did, but somehow Emily talked Marty into staying the night. That of course meant that Jared was staying as well, and after a rousing fifteen minute argument between mother and daughter Marty agreed to separate rooms.
Jensen slid out to the garden after everyone was asleep and took his position on the bench. He was just about to light his cigarette when he heard a throat clear behind him. His lighter clattered to the stonework, and Jensen gripped the cigarette so tightly it snapped in half.
“Jesus don’t- Jared?” The tall young man stood behind him in the moonlight, cheekbones highlighted and eyes dark and glittering in his face.
“Sorry Governor Ackles. Didn’t mean to scare you. I just couldn’t sleep. Strange place y’know?”
Jensen watched the way the man ducked his head, hand coming up and ruffling through those shaggy chestnut locks, and then he made a decision that had nothing to do with logic or strategy. Years later Jensen would point to that moment as the one that doomed him. The only saving grace was that he didn’t let slip the instinctive Call me Jensen.
“Well, have a seat if you don’t mind smoke.” He sounded gruffer than usual, uncontrolled, and Jared shivered visibly in the dim light before sliding onto the bench beside him. The younger man exuded heat, and Jensen considered that as he pulled a new cigarette out and lit it.
“So this may be cliché but what are your intentions towards my daughter?” When Jared barked out a laugh Jensen shot his eyes over, but the younger man had ducked his head and his hair hid his expression.
“Well – uh good? I mean I like her a lot. She’s a real special girl.”
Jensen suppressed the instinct to tell Jared that she was more special than he could imagine. It wasn’t that he disliked the kid exactly; just that he wanted the best for his daughter. More importantly Jared seemed like a nice boy, and he was in way over his head. “How’d you two meet?”
Jared hummed softly, one foot kicking out to knock a pebble along the tiles of the seating area. “She was at Blanton for a class assignment. I work there as part of my work-study so I gave her the tour and then asked her to dinner.”
“Did you know who she was?” Maybe it was celebrity worship, but Jensen already knew the answer. This kid wasn’t some savvy gold-digger no matter how easy it would have been to dismiss him for it.
“No sir. Not even a little bit.”
“Do you even vote?” Jensen couldn’t help himself, his eyes stayed locked on the shaded face in the hopes that it would tilt upward and give him some idea of the expression behind those words.
“Nope.” Jared laughed once, the sound husky and warm along Jensen’s skin. “But I’m easily swayed.”
“You don’t say. That’s not the best way to be you know. Anyone could take advantage.”
Jared looked up, moonlight shining off his eyes and lips curved in a perfect grin. “You gonna take advantage of me Mr. Ackles?”
It took no time at all to know that Jared, his daughter’s boyfriend, was hitting on him. Jensen considered his cigarette for a long time. Let the silence spin out between them until it was uncomfortable, cold and Jared pulled back and lifted his hands in denial.
“No, no I’m sorry that was - Jesus I just - I wasn’t really-“
“You were not really flirting with me. In fact you never came out here.” Jensen dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his loafer knowing the gardener would dispose of it before Emily could catch the evidence of his wrong doing. “Because that would be inappropriate and strange. Your mouth just ran away with you.”
Jared nodded rapidly and then held his hands out. “I’m sorry Governor Ackles. I just get kinda nervous around people like ya’ll and to be honest when I’m nervous I flirt. It’s kinda my defense mechanism.”
“I would suggest you find a different defense mechanism. The kind of man who would flirt to handle his failings isn’t the kind that deserves my daughter.”
With that Jensen stood, ignored the pull deep in his stomach at the blatant hurt on Jared’s face, and marched his way back into the house.
The next morning a much more subdued Jared left on the arm of a bright and chipper Marta. Jensen certainly felt no guilt at stripping the smile off of those lips.
---
Jensen watched as Marta introduced Jared to Steve. He was positioned beside Christian at the grill, and the sweating beer in his hand did nothing to distract him from the way the younger man smiled and chatted easily with his best friend’s life partner.
“And then I just inserted the gerbil and let it do its thing.” Jensen jerked his gaze over to an amused Christian.
“What?”
“Thought so. Wanna speak your peace there gov?” Christian basted the ribs and then closed the lid of the grill. “Because you’re staring hard enough to set them on fire.”
“What do you think of the new boyfriend? Little outta character for Marty isn’t he?” Jensen watched Chris adjust his ponytail out of the corner of his eye.
“Well I’ll admit the kid’s got more to him than I’m used ta. There a specific thing you’re thinking Jenny, or is this just a for instance?”
Jensen tried to order his thoughts as he watched Jared laugh so hard he was slapping his knee. The dimples were out in full force, and the sunlight caught the lines of his face just right and set them off to perfection. “Something about him just doesn’t feel right Chris. I’m not used to Marty bringing home…that. Also, major baggage. Tom did background.”
Light blue eyes cut his way, and one dirty-blonde eyebrow arched upwards. “You trying to tell me we ain’t got baggage ourselves son?”
Well that was laughable. Jensen could count on one hand the number of things he regretted and all of them were lost political maneuvers. “Some of us lived perfectly normal childhoods filled with light and love. The kind of thing we exposed our children to Chris.”
His friend narrowed his eyes this time before opening the grill and flipping the ribs onto a serving platter. “You keep telling yourself that Jenny. In the meantime you might want ta’ beware of the kid anyway.”
“Marty tell you something I don’t know?” He took the serving platter as Chris turned off the burners. Tried not to run over immediately and bum rush the boy away from his daughter.
“Nope. But the only time I ever seen you with that look on your face you ended up married with a kid. It’s good to see again, but it’s gonna be damn scary for you. Plus, kid’s taken and that ain’t territory you wanna be stepping in.” Chris clapped him on the shoulder and headed off without another word.
---
Chris’s words continued to bother Jensen that night as he studied the background check Tom had run on Marta’s new boyfriend. On paper Jared Padalecki wasn’t anything ruinous, but he certainly wasn’t the right kind of boy for his baby to end up with. Too many gaps in the story, and not quite the right class. The kid came from immigrant stock, a single mother that came from Poland with two young boys, and while it was admirable that he’d risen above that to get his scholarship it didn’t change how out of his depth he’d be at public functions and in the eyes of the press.
Sure, they could spin it like a fairy tale, Princess Marta taking the lower-class man out of obscurity, but that sort of story always came with a price. Usually the one that paid it was the Cinderella and not the prince.
The only question left was the story behind the death of Jared’s brother. Tom’s information stopped at the word suicide, and Jensen wasn’t interested enough to push beyond that. Honestly it was all pointless, because as soon as Marta realized that this one wouldn’t survive the coverage that followed her constantly she’d move on to the next unacceptable boy. Sometimes he wished his daughter had been Catholic. Maybe she would have picked being a nun on her own.
His fingers ghosted over the lines of Jared’s face in the photo, an ID picture for his school, and Jensen considered again the perfect lips and the strong jaw. Jared was certainly beautiful; Jensen could give him that, but was there much beyond it? Signs pointed to no, because the kid had already spent his first time meeting Jensen flirting with him.
And Jensen had certainly done nothing to encourage that.
---
He unzipped Emily’s dress as she used the remover pad to wipe the makeup from her face.
“How long is this going to last?”
In the way only a woman who had been reading the subtext of her husband for years could Emily smiled into the mirror at him and reached for one of her numerous lotions. “I don’t know dear. As long as it has to. Marty’s just going through a phase right now.”
“The grungy artist phase?” Jensen undid his tie and hung it in the closet before sitting to unlace his shoes. “Which one is this anyway? The one that comes before celibacy or the one that comes before her just sucking the life right out of me?”
Emily laughed, head tilted back and eyes shut in mirth, and then dropped her dress before hanging it carefully and reaching for her pajamas. “She wants to be different from her parents. Eventually she’ll realize that this isn’t the way.”
Jensen slid under the covers and watched Emily brush her hair out before joining him. He held an arm out and she snuggled underneath it. “I just – this is gonna end bad Em.”
His wife placed a gentle kiss against his bare chest before sighing. “Jensen are you worried about Marty or Jared?”
There was something in the tone that Jensen didn’t quite recognize. A question or an accusation that didn’t make any sense and Jensen almost took exception to.
“Can’t it be both? The kid has no idea what he’s in for.”
Her lips pressed against him again. “Jen, honey, he isn’t a stray puppy no matter how adorable his big eyes are. He’s a grown man and he can handle it. Sure, it’ll hurt, but he’s not our responsibility. Family first right?”
There was an unspoken thing here. That Jared should have expected this, should have realized that he was out-classed and out-manned in this situation. It was a terrible thing to be faced with your own snobbery, but Emily was right. He thought of Jared smiling ignorantly as he used the wrong fork and left his elbows on the table.
---
Another boring political dinner, dry chicken and fake smiles, and Jensen thought he’d tear his hair out if one more person asked him whether or not he planned on backing a gay marriage bill. If Chris was sowing the seeds for this Jensen would make him pay.
Emily took the seat beside him again and laid one delicate hand on his forearm.
“Jen, do you want to leave?”
Tom caught his gaze from across the room, where he was busy trying to escort the rather tipsy Lieutenant Governor away from the open bar. He really needed to make a limit to these things. “No Em. I think I’d really like to dance with my beautiful wife.” Jensen turned in time to catch the flush leaking through her foundation, and then he took her hand and led her out to the floor.
The band obligingly changed to something more appropriate, and Jensen took Emily’s hand and waist and led her into the proper box-step. “I thought you hated dancing at these things.”
He smiled as flashbulbs went off and Tom managed to slip out of the room undetected. “And I thought you loved it. After all, why have a dress that lovely if it’s not being shown off?”
Emily patted him once, her gesture for him to stop and continue all at once. “I was thinking Jen, and don’t be angry, but I really wondered if maybe-“
When she trailed off Jensen schooled his features and swept her into a spin before pulling her back in effortlessly. “Em you know you don’t have to beat around the bush. What is it this time? Charity benefit? Auction?”
One perfectly painted lip disappeared under even white teeth and came out plumper. Calculated and flawless. “I was thinking we should have Marta home for the summer. I don’t like her staying so far away when she’s not in school. She’s still at an age where we can talk her into it. When she has kids of her own though she’s going to want to go on trips with them and-”
The rest went unsaid. Her stodgy old parents would be a thing of the past, and they’d see their baby at holidays and family functions. Eventually she was going to have a family of her own, and Jensen had to be ready for that.
“Yes. I’m behind that plan, but is Marty? You know how she loves her independence. Plus, she may want to spend summer with that boy.” They took a swaying step around another couple that was less coordinated and then settled back into the proper pattern.
“Actually she – well she already agreed. As long as Jared comes with.” Emily flashed her media smile, and the flashbulbs went off again as Jensen pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips. “I hope you’re not angry that I already agreed?”
He thought of spending the summer with the awkward young man. Of having the media take pictures and speculate how serious the relationship was if the notoriously over-protective Governor allowed his daughter to spend so much time with one boy. They’d be discussing Marty’s wedding plans before July.
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Jensen saw Tom tapping his watch across the room as Mike eyed the occupants. They had finally reached the socially mandated three hour stay. He could end this as soon as the music concluded.
“I think it’ll be fine. She’ll behave herself.” Emily slowed their pace for them, and when the music concluded they both clapped heartily. “And if she doesn’t I’ll do something. Plus maybe if she has to face what the consequences of picking such a boy are early she’ll understand what she’s doing.”
Jensen clapped along with everyone else before sweeping Emily into a one-armed hug and leading her towards his PA and bodyguard. “Great. We’ll have a front row seat for their breakup.”
Emily chuckled softly and tucked her head against his chest. “I’m sure it’ll be noteworthy. Artists are notoriously temperamental. It probably won’t last to the beach house.”
---
The second time Jensen spent one on one time with Jared Padalecki was almost the same as the first. He had stormed outside after a particularly strained but polite argument with a Republican senator regarding the possibility of tax increases being on the next ballot. There was some confusion as to where funding came from, and if he thought Jensen was being silly when he said that public schools needed the money then Jensen thought he was being willfully ignorant.
The cigarette was soothing, glorious, and interrupted by more than six feet of artist. “Governor Ackles?”
This time Jensen didn’t bother trying to hold his knee-jerk reaction in. “Jensen. Call me Jensen.” The minute he said it he wished he hadn’t. He could have left it at the more formal title and avoided closing even a bit of the gap between them. Instead he’d just opened the door, and Jared apparently took it for what it was.
Marta’s boyfriend took the seat beside him and looked out over the garden. “Do you always smoke out here?”
“Emily doesn’t care for it. Nasty habit.” Jensen took another long drag and shot the smoke from his nostrils as he considered the moon hanging above them.
“She mentioned you quit when Marty was a teenager. I guess that didn’t take?” Jared’s hands looped around his knees as he pulled them up to his chest, and it made him look young and innocent in the silvery light.
“You’ve discussed me with my wife?” Jensen tried not to let the amount of incredulity show, but the half of Jared’s face that he could see pulled into a bright smile.
“We’ve done lunch once or twice. She was talking about buying one of my paintings. I think she was vetting me for Marty.” If there was a trace of bitterness in Jared’s tone Jensen couldn’t pick up on it.
“She can be quite the protective mama bear.” He wanted the cigarette to be finished so it didn’t look like he was rushing away again.
“I imagine you can be just as bad. Marty told me you probably had a background check run on me. It’s a fair thing to do considering who ya’ll are.” Jared’s fingers plucked at the knees of his jeans as he tilted his head so that Jensen could see all of his face. “I wanted to apologize for last time.”
“What for?” Jensen kept his voice measured as he flicked his ashes and took another drag.
“Flirting with you. I shouldn’t a done that, but I just-I guess I’m kinda built that way. I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”
“And you thought seeking me out alone in the dark again would quell that impression?” It was honest curiosity, and from the smile Jared flashed he got that.
“Well nobody ever said I was a genius Jensen.” Something about the way the man said his name, warm and familiar, sent a shock along his system before he crushed the cigarette under his heel.
His body refused to push upwards and away.
“Several people have called me a genius.” He cut his eyes to the right and took in Jared’s studious face. “Do you love my daughter?”
“I’d certainly like to think so. She’s a great girl.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
Jared laughed then, the one that Jensen had only heard from a distance, and was so much better up close when he was causing it. “It wasn’t really a question.”
And with that Jared stood, fingers brushing maybe accidentally against Jensen’s knuckles as he disappeared up the path and towards the house.
For the first time in five years Jensen chain smoked until he was able to head inside and relax.
----
In the morning Jensen found himself sitting across the table from Jared as Marta chattered on happily with her mother about their plans for the day. Jensen wasn’t a morning person, and until the coffee properly hit his system he didn’t plan on joining in on anything.
Plus, he hated tennis.
“Jensen? Do you think you and Mike could do that?” His eyes jerked up from the rim of the cup to land on Emily’s wide and guileless ones.
“What?”
She tittered gently, and Jensen resisted the urge to wince. “I knew you wouldn’t hear me.” His wife turned and laid a solicitous hand on Jared’s arm. “The governor’s a big old bear in the morning. He’d love to get your stuff with you. Wouldn’t you Jen?”
Four sets of eyes landed on him, and Mike didn’t bother to hide his grin.
“Yes. Of course. I’ll need to get ready first.”
Emily clapped her hands delightedly and then stood. “Excellent. That gives Marty and I time to suit up and hit the courts.”
Marta shot him a brilliant smile, and Jensen returned it.
---
Jared’s studio was small, but the entire Eastern wall was made up of windows that set the loft alight and made the wooden floors glow with a burnished sheen. Jensen found himself standing in front of a painting of a man, kneeling by a tree in the moonlight, hands up to the branches in the universal gesture of supplication.
Mike was down by the car since this wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, and Jared was puttering around dropping supplies into bags. Jensen was so caught up in the image he missed when Jared stepped up directly behind him.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s miserable.” It came out blunter and gruffer than he wanted, but Jared made an interested noise and Jensen plowed on. “It reeks of despair. I mean it’s beautiful, and well done, but depressing as all hell. Your chiaroscuro is absolutely amazing.”
There was a huff of laughter, and then a large hand landed on his shoulder. “It would be the technical shit you’d pick up on second to save you from discussing the emotions.”
Jensen didn’t shrug the hand off, but he did lock up under the pressure. “Excuse me?”
“It’s you. All locked up and repressed, begging the night for something you don’t know how to word. I painted it after the first night I met you.” Jared’s voice hooked lower, sad and understanding. “Marty’d told me you were a bit of a control freak, but I figured she was just your average annoyed daughter. Now I know better.”
Something hot and angry twisted in Jensen’s gut, and he reached up and gripped Jared’s hand too tight. “And let me guess, this is the masterpiece that’s gonna net you a fortune.” When he turned the expression on Jared’s face didn’t match the tone of his voice. It was curious, but ultimately empty.
“Is that what you think of me? It never occurred to you I was just moved by the visual?” Jared’s hand stroked his jaw, and Jensen glared even as he leaned into it. “By the essence of it. Something so beautiful and so distant. Like a star I can admire but never really touch. That’s right isn’t it Jensen? No one ever really touches you.”
Jensen’s hand finally broke the paralysis and jerked up to stop Jared’s fingers, his tongue sliding out traitorously to taste the salty skin before he tossed the hand aside. “My wife touches me and my daughter touches you. You’re not bringing that into my house.”
---
It’s stupid. It’s possibly the dumbest idea he’s had since high school when he risked everything to have his first sexual experience with Mark Pellegrino.
That whole weekend had been unadvisable, but Jensen had just watched his father disown his brother for being caught by the paparazzi smoking pot. Liam had been given the family version of a severance package and sent to Europe on an indefinite back packing trip. So Jensen ended up at Chris’s house buried as deep into one of Chris’s gay friends as he could be. Mostly because he knew he could never have it again, but also because something about the guy had just gotten to Jensen. He’d been an amateur philosopher, and he’d had no idea who Jensen’s family was. The kid had been from New England.
He’d been so entranced then he was willing to risk staying there too long and drinking too much to pay attention to whether or not the cameras were outside when he left. It had been such a close call that Jensen could still feel the paranoia and panic.
When he met Emily in college he knew he’d found the right woman. The daughter of an oil magnate Emily understood how the world worked. She knew what Jensen needed to make it, and she knew what she’d have to be to help him. Chris had spent the weekend before he announced trying to talk him out of it, insisting that while Jensen may love Emily he’d never be totally happy with her. Jensen didn’t believe it, and until Jared the idea had proved wrong.
Sure, sometimes a man caught his eye just right. The thing was that Emily was everything he needed, and she was such a sweetheart. She understood Jensen, the closed off parts of him and the things he’d never share. She didn’t push and she didn’t pry. Instead she silently acknowledged that Jensen needed space, and he needed focus. Even in the more progressive sections of Texas a gay politician wasn’t going to get far, and arguing that he was at most bisexual wasn’t going to cut it. Time would take that out of the equation, but Jensen didn’t have that time. He needed to win, he needed to succeed, and he needed to do it soon.
Mark, much like Jared, never would have made it under the scrutiny of the public eye. It would have been cruel to subject him to that lifestyle. People had been taking Jensen and Emily’s pictures since after their conception, and the flashbulbs and scandal pages didn’t faze them anymore. To put an unsuspecting, unready person in front of that sort of pressure was inhumane. Look what it had done to Lindsey Lohan for god’s sake.
Jared was going to crumble. He may have dreams of being some kind of famous artist, but he wasn’t one yet. More importantly this wasn’t the sort of fame he was aspiring to. Dating Marty was going to put him under a microscope the same way it had every boy before him, and what they found or didn’t find wouldn’t matter compared to what filled space and sold subscriptions.
All of that went into Jensen’s reasoning for not calling it all off immediately. Jared was only a temptation as long as Marta kept him around, and she was too smart and empathetic to subject him to that sort of suffering for long. No doubt there would be stories, pictures, and eventually something would crack Jared’s happy-go-lucky armor and leave him damaged enough Marty would release him. After that Jensen would never see him again.
As long as it stayed harmless flirtation. As long as all it amounted to was brief conversations, maybe touches, but nothing else. No more tasting the man’s skin and no more jacking off to the mental images of all that length spread out over Jensen’s expensive Egyptian cotton sheets.
How long had it been since he flirted anyway?
---
The first official week of Jared’s stay Jensen spent in meetings and phone conversations. He saw little of the younger man, and what interaction they had was a part of the enforced family dinners Emily insisted on.
Jensen was too exhausted to spend much time in the garden, and what little he did was Jared-less. Instead he watched as Jared sat beside Marty and laughed at her jokes, ran into them making out in the hallways, and every now and then saw them stumbling in from some club. Tom scanned the papers and the magazines, but nothing terrible ended up on any of the pages and that was just fine. Pictures of them together but nothing serious, and certainly nothing that had to be shut down.
Then Jensen was given a brief reprieve, and Emily decided it was the right time to try a family outing. He felt so guilty for working through so much of their time together that Jensen didn’t even complain when it ended up being the opera. The day before he and Emily were seated in the breakfast nook discussing an upcoming event and sipping coffee when Jared stumbled behind Marty.
Her face was animated the way it had always been when she was little and fixated on something. The first time Jensen remembered seeing that expression the girl had ended up with a horse. This probably wasn’t going to end any better or cheaper.
“Daddy. Daddy. Jared needs a tux. Stat.” Jensen met the young man’s wide eyes over his daughter’s head and then turned to his smirking wife.
“Emily I feel like I’m hearing something, but it’s a little girl demanding for my wallet. We don’t have a little girl anymore.”
His wife’s lips curled wider as she sipped her coffee. “It must be a neighbor’s kid. Don’t give in.”
Marty released Jared’s hand and plopped into his lap wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him the puppy-dog eyes. “Daddy it’s urgent. We’ve got the opera tomorrow and Jared has nothing to wear.”
“Marty I rented a tux at-“
“Men’s Warehouse.” His daughter managed to lace the words with so much derision that even he winced a bit and Jared’s mouth curled down briefly even as he flushed with shame. Marty turned back to him fully and stuck her bottom lip out. “Can’t you get Sheppard to do something? It’s not too late right?”
When Jensen looked back up Jared’s eyes were hooded, and he shuffled his big feet once and looked so awkward and out of place that Jensen honestly felt bad for him. He could picture the scene in his head; Marty looking in Jared’s closet and finding the plastic bag and the mass-produced second-hand tux before launching into the sort of superior tirade only someone who had never worn anything more than a few months old could.
Maybe they had spoiled her a bit. Although Jensen couldn’t talk because he’d grown up with the same money and position. This was more Emily than him though, because Jensen had spent enough time trying to work with people of Jared’s economic status to be so casually cruel as to make him stand by while someone begged for him.
“Stick your lip out a bit further and we can ride it to the coast.” He hadn’t said that to her since she was ten, and her laughter erased the tension in the room and allowed him to relax his arms around her without feeling too bad about Jared’s shabby clothes and obvious shame. “Yeah honey Sheppard can do something. On the other hand I’m sure the tux Jared picked was just fine.”
Emily barked out laughter before shaking her head. “Men. You’ll just never get it.”
Marty nodded sympathetically with her mother’s amusement before leaping up and grabbing Jared’s hands. “You’re gonna love this baby. Sheppard is the best. He made my prom dress!”
Jared’s smile wasn’t quite as bright or lively as usual, but it was there. His big hand smoothed over Marty’s long blonde hair. “Yeah. I bet I will.”
---
The ride to Sheppard’s shop was silent, and Jensen used the time to review campaign fundraising information as Jared stared out the window. Eventually the younger man broke the silence.
“You didn’t have to do this.” When Jensen looked up Jared was still turned away from him, expression a mystery and voice flat and emotionless. “It really was a fine tuxedo.”
“I bet it was.” It was the best he could offer. Sure, he felt for Jared and his pride, but at the end of the day it was what Marty wanted. Jensen wasn’t willing to choose Jared’s side on this.
“Is it always like this with ya’ll? Things gotta be just perfect for the public eye?” If there was bitterness or accusation Jensen couldn’t hear it. The questions were delivered much like comments on the weather. He’d never heard anyone deal with such a sensitive topic without some feeling their voice.
“Yes. It always is.” He almost added that Jared should get used to it or get out, but it seemed too mean-spirited. Instead he put the papers down and gently touched the young man’s shoulder. “You okay?”
When Jared finally turned Jensen saw that the expression he’d been wearing throughout the conversation was one of pity. It threw him so far off his game for a moment Jensen couldn’t remember what the point of the conversation had been.
“I’m fine. I don’t live in a world where the price of a man’s clothes is a deal-breaker. If I’da said no I wouldn’t be going to this shindig tomorrow would I?” Jensen realized his hand was still on Jared’s shoulder, and he couldn’t find the will to lift it.
“No. We would have left you at home like a shameful secret.” It was best to get it out. To break whatever was building here between them because Jensen couldn’t do it physically. Couldn’t put distance there and he wanted to so badly.
What was happening? Jensen had never been this stupid or reckless before. Everything in him cried out to grab Jared and pull him in. To taste the mouth that was currently implying that Jensen’s life was faulty in comparison to Jared’s. To understand what it was about the young man that made it so impossible to look away.
He’d never felt this way before. Not even in those heady first days after meeting Emily when all they did was make out and laugh like the whole world was their joke. His hands were cold, his gut was burning, and he was pretty sure if Jared didn’t kiss him soon he would kiss Jared.
“You don’t even have the slightest clue how sad that is, do you?” Jared was leaning forward, eyes locked on Jensen’s mouth and one hand brushing against his knee.
“Not as sad as having to rent a smelly tux from a discount retailer.” The hand on Jared’s shoulder finally moved, but the trajectory was upwards as it stroked the graceful neck and then buried itself in that soft hair. The texture was incredibly soft, and Jensen wound his fingers in it before giving a brief and hard tug. Jared, big as he was, followed the pull like he was helpless.
“Much sadder. Poor, repressed, ignorant rich people.” The hand on his knee slid up to his thigh, squeezed once, and Jensen suppressed a moan. He tugged Jared’s hair again so that his face was tilted and his mouth only centimeters away.
“Shut the fuck up.” Then their lips met, and all the cliché bullshit Jensen had heard about in stories came true for the first time. Electricity sparked from mouth and fingers, all pretenses gone as Jensen hungrily devoured Jared’s mouth. Jared’s lips were as soft as his hair, slick with spit and opening almost instantly so that Jensen could plunge his tongue in and taste more.
His other hand, the one not manhandling Jared’s head, gripped at the muscle and bone of Jared’s hip while Jared’s hands roamed over everything and his mouth stayed soft and pliant under Jensen’s pressure.
There was the sweet sound of Jared groaning into his mouth, the wet noise of their tongues and lips clashing, and the rustle of fabric as their hands tried to touch and grab everything. Then the car stopped and Jensen practically flung the younger man away as he moved across the limo’s bench seat to put as much space between them as possible.
“Jensen I-“ Jared’s usual control was broken, replaced by a need mingled with guilt. Guilt. Because, after all, he had just been kissing his girlfriend’s father. His girlfriend’s married father.
“Let’s get you fitted.” Jensen hears how cold he sounds, distracted and distant, and hurt joins the emotional party on Jared’s face before it’s swept away and buried under understanding.
Mark calls Jared a moose no less than five times. He charges Jensen an extra five hundred dollars for the rush job, but Jensen can see the glee in Mark’s eyes as he faces the challenge of Jared’s long limbs and slim hips.
When it’s over Jensen is so caught up in reliving the moment and trying to dismiss it that he misses the cameras going off.
Next part
Master post
