What happens now Chapter Ten

[cillab42]

The interview was being held in the old armory that had been converted into a rec center with basketball courts and a track. It was something that was familiar to Jensen but he was nervous, or rather the cameras made him nervous. So did Anderson Cooper. The man was gorgeous and had more confidence in his pinky than Jensen did in his entire body and now he was going to have to discuss what Sterling did to him.
He knew that he should not be in this position had he not let his anger overtake him, but what’s done is done. Now Sterling was going to be someone’s bitch and he felt good that he was the one to put a stop to the man’s reign of terror.
At first the interview was going well, while the questions weren’t softball, they neither were easy either, but with Jeff sitting next to him and Jared somewhere in the building, he could handle it.
“Now Jensen we’ve all seen your mother on television stating that you got what you deserve because of your sexual orientation and you’ve expressed your hurt about that…”
He should have known that the host’s hesitation wasn’t going to be good, but fool that he was, thought that he was prepared until the question was completed.
“…but what was your reaction when you discovered that your mother was not only helping the police gain evidence on you since you’ve been released, but was the reason that you were jailed in the first place?”
He gasp from his left told him that Jeff was not aware of that fact either, but from all of the work he’d put in to contacting Jensen’s family and working to free him, this was no surprise that Jeff was unaware of this.
“No. She wouldn’t… you’re lying!” Jensen barked.
“She’s waiting in the next room, why don’t you ask her,” Anderson said with what Jensen was sure to be false concern.
There was no getting around facing her again, but this was different, all of the anger that he’d had for everyone else could be placed at the feet of his mother. With tears coursing down his cheeks he followed Anderson, Jeff and the cameraman to the next room to face his mother.
When they entered the room, there was pandemonium. He had only expected his mom, but his dad and Josh were there along with Juliana Ford and all of them were yelling at Donna.
The reporter didn’t stop the ruckus because it was good television, but Jeff, peacemaker that he was, made an attempt. The yelling and fast flying accusations stopped flying when the others noticed that Jensen was in the room.
It was Donna who spoke first.
“Look at the little pansy crying. I would have thought that all of that time in jail would have made you harder than that but I guess not,” she sneered.
“Mom, please…” he begged.
“I am not your mom. I don’t have a faggot son…”
“Don’t you call him that,” Alan defended his son, “It’s not Jensen that’s no longer a part of this family, it’s you Donna.”
“It didn’t bother you when Josh was calling him that in court, did it? Big Texas man having a faggot for a son,” she taunted. “Back then you just wanted it all to go away, didn’t want the stench of what he was on you, well I made it go away.”
Alan’s deep red blush told Jensen that part of what she said was true, that his father had been embarrassed, but his defense told Jensen that embarrassment over his sexual orientation was something his dad could get over and there was a possibility of salvaging their relationship.
With the help of security, Anderson Cooper finally stepped in and got the room under control and seated everyone.
When everyone was seated Jensen took a look at his surroundings, the rec center that he and his friends had spent the summers and some weekends playing pick-up games had undergone a drastic change.
There were lots of chairs and a small stage, and the room was filled to capacity. It reminded Jensen of the town hall meeting his parents dragged him to when he was fifteen when the city workers wanted a raise. His dad was on the city council and he had to mediate and thought that it would be good for Jensen to see how democracy worked.
He should have paid more attention to the lesson because the men in power won and as punishment, the worker bees had their hours increased for an increase so small that it was taxed away.
Hopefully he will fare better than the worker bees.
As they took their seats on the stage Jensen located Jared in the crowd, his long hair and height made him easy to spot in the crowd. Once he spotted Jared he felt some of the nerves ease away and he began to relax a little as he joined Jeff and all of the other players in this farce on stage.
“Donna,” Anderson addressed the angry woman who was shooting daggers at her son and her husband. “I have to ask; want to understand why it was more preferable for you to see your son locked away giving the true perpetrator free reign to continue to abuse innocent kids?”
Like everyone else in the room, Jensen waited for Donna’s answer, but from the sullen look on her face, he thought that she was going to be defiant and refuse to answer, but then her suddenly soft voice silenced the room.
“He wasn’t supposed to go to jail, they were just supposed to scare him.”
“Well, I think you succeeded,” Alan snarked. “You tore our family apart. Dad died because he thought that that boy molested a kid.”
“All he had to do was say that he wasn’t gay!” She shouted before pointing at Jensen, “The Amell kid was smart, he denied liking boys and left, but not you. You had to let everyone know that you liked boys, so you left them no choice but to prosecute the degenerate they had in custody.”
“They knew who the real perpetrator was but yet they still prosecuted an innocent kid while you - his mother - stood by and let it happen?”
“Yes they knew, we all knew that it was Jim Beaver, even Colin knew who it was that attacked him and he said nothing,” she accused.
If she was going to say something else Donna didn’t get a chance because her words were cut off by a vicious slap from Juliana Ford. “Don’t you dare! All this time you knew who did this to my son and you let that asshole go free to hurt others? You let your own child suffer and on top of that, the Tal kid’s death is on your hands. What kind of monster are you?”
“Jensen feels that way as well, he thinks that Colin is just as responsible for him being locked away too,” she deflected the accusations by passing them on to her child.
“Jensen, please tell her that that’s not true,” Juliana turned to him, “Colin was the victim.”
He could lie and tell the good people in the community what they wanted to hear, but he wasn’t so sure that he would still be accepted, because even if he didn’t rape Colin, he was still queer in the small Texas town of Bennettesville.
“Jensen, he was just a kid, he’s just a kid now and he’s been through so much, he doesn’t need this,” Juliana defended her son.
“She’s right Jensen, let us not forget the victim, and as his mother stated he was just a kid none of this is his fault,” Anderson agreed, “he’s still a kid, so don’t heap anymore problems on the young man’s head.”
With a shaking voice Jensen addressed Anderson and Juliana; “So was I! Y’all have seen me as this monster for so long that you forgot that I was sixteen years old when I was arrested. Colin may have been a kid, but while I was being brutalized he was getting help and he’s gotten better, and I got raped by Sterling Brown, so yeah I partly blame him.”
Loud gasps were soon replaced by the bussing of conversations from the audience, but they were shocked into silence when a teenager walked from the shadows to the stage.
“I’m so sorry Jensen - so goddamned sorry,’ Colin Ford cried. “Jim Beaver apologized but he kept coming and about a week after you went to jail he showed me a picture of you and I just. Your mom told me she’d keep me safe as long as I didn’t tell anyone, so I didn’t.”
“Why mo-Donna,” Jensen echoed the angry woman’s sentiment, “why did you let them send me to jail? I would have rather you had thrown me on the streets than what you did to me. You gave me hands down the worst coming out story ever.”
“Jensen…” Donna said in a voice full of contrition.
“That wasn’t bad enough but then you took Colin into our home and let him date McKenzie and then you made him be silent about who hurt him?”
By this time Anderson was letting the scene play out, if the players needed prodding then he would interject with a statement or comment.
“I really do hate the fact that you were gay, I tried to be like the rest of the family and say hey, that’s okay, but it wasn’t. Not to me. I saw this as a chance to get to retract your announcement, because at that time you’d only ever told family. When I realized that you were actually going to be convicted, I couldn’t stop them. When I threatened to give up Jim Beaver, they played recordings of our conversations like this was some made for TV movie.”
“You still could have done the right thing, mom,” Josh admonished from his seat in the audience.
“They were going to hurt Mack, and I already sacrificed one of my kids.”
“Why didn’t they just arrest Beaver and then there wouldn’t have been this mess?” Anderson asked.
“Because Jim had something he was holding over their heads,” she shook her head, “I believe that it had something to do with selling drugs at the high school, so they weren’t going to touch him. The problem was they needed to arrest someone and I unknowingly handed them Jensen.”
“I just received a text from the state police, and Jim Beaver has just been arrested and Sheppard and Roché will be shortly,” Jeff announced and sent the room into a fury of conversations.
Jensen let all of the craziness swirl around him as he went to find Jared in the crowd. By the time he had reached the big man, Gen and Danni were standing beside him.
“Things are looking good for you now, huh?” Gen asked.
“Sweetie I’m so happy for you, this shit is finally over,” Danni gushed as she reached out to hug him.
He would like to believe that but he knew that a lot of things were just beginning. There were still some more shows to make appearances on and he decided that he wanted compensation. He couldn’t live off Jared and there was no way that he was able to work, so he would do as Jeff had originally asked him to do and sue the state.
The ride back to the halfway house was silent, Jensen was not sure he wanted to go back there, so he decided to go home with Jared.
There was a sadness that he was not going to get to say good-bye to Loretta and Mike, but if he didn’t have to then he had no plans to go back the place where there were nothing but bad memories and reporters waiting for him. Jeff arranged to get his meager belongings, and he would meet with Loretta later.
Besides, Loretta and Mike were friends, they had been the first two names programmed into his phone.
As they drove he could see the lights of the cars following them, and panic arose inside him, the reporters were following them, what would happened when they reached Jared’s home. He didn’t want to place him in the way of those vultures just because he was giving him shelter.
After a forty-five minute drive Jared slowed down when he came to a large gate. When he reached the entrance he entered a code and the heavy gate opened leaving the cars tailing them on the outside. They continued driving once they were inside the gate and passed a huge house and Jensen could swear he heard the neighing of horses so he looked around for the source. It was too dark for him to see anything so he settled back into his seat.
Ten minutes later they stopped in front of smaller house. The front porch light was on and Jensen smiled.
“What was that smile for?” Jared asked as he put the large truck into park.
“Nothing, it’s stupid really, I just thought about the motel six ad,” Jensen told him.
“Man I must really need to do some more work if my home reminds you of a cheap hotel.”
“No - you know the ad; we’ll leave the light on for you. I told you it was stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Jared replied, “but it is nice to see you smile and make jokes. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do that.”
Jensen ducked his head and blushed at the compliment, but he jumped back when Jared reached out and lifted his chin up.
“Let’s go inside,” Jared suggested as he ignored Jensen’s reaction.
Jensen followed the tall man inside where he was given a quick tour. The place was gorgeous, gleaming wood and earth tone paint and decorations made the place feel warm and welcome.
As they walked down the hall, it was the moment of truth, did Jared really mean what he said? That he wouldn’t pressure him.
The first door was to Jared’s bedroom and Jared walked inside leaving Jensen trembling with disappointment in the hallway.
“It’s okay, Jensen, I just want to get you something to sleep in before I show you to your room.”
Jensen nodded his head but he didn’t step inside the room. When Jared gave him a pair of cotton sleep pants and a t-shirt, Jensen lowered his head and mumbled, “Thank you.”
When Jensen glanced up, Jared looked as though he was going to say something but changed his mind and walks the few feet to the next door. If he was happy with what he had at the halfway house this was his idea of heaven.
There was a huge king-sized bed that dominated the room with equally larger pieces of furniture to accompany it, but the feature that caught Jensen’s eye were the double French doors that led outside to what looked to be a garden.
He could smell the flowers from the doorway, and was itching to see what was on the other side of those doors, so he waited for Jared to go back to is room so that he could go outside and explore what he could in the dark.
Jared must have known what he was thinking because he walked past him and threw open the doors and walked outside.
“C’mon, Jen,” Jared cocked his head for him to follow.
Once outside he was lost. There were the beautiful yellow roses that Jared had tempted him with, and at first he thought that was the wonderful smell, but a glance to the left told him that it was the stargazer lilies that were putting out that sweet scent.
He was so lost in exploring the garden that he hadn’t noticed that Jared had left until he pressed a beer in his hand.
Embarrassed by his enthusiasm, Jensen took the beer and moved away from Jared and sat in one of the chairs on the patio.
“So tonight,” Jared started.
“No!” Jensen stopped him. “I know that we have to talk, and I’m not trying to get out of it, but please don’t ruin the first peace I’ve found by talking about my fucked up life.”
Jared nodded and pointed to the sky, “Bet you can’t point out a constellation and don’t you dare say the big or the little dipper,” he mocked.
Jensen blushed because that’s exactly what he was going to do because they were the only ones he knew. Jared smiled and pointed out several of them to the blushing man as he explained that his grandfather helped him learn.
After the lesson in stargazing the pair fell quiet and eventually Jared had to go to sleep. The tradeoff for living here was that he had to get up before dawn to get to his jobsite and he was now getting up earlier because he had to pick up Chad along the way.
Because he no longer had a job to report to, Jensen stayed outside in the garden. He knew that there was a comfortable king-sized bed waiting inside for him, but he sat back in his chair and searched for the stars that Jared had just shown him.


Early the next morning when Jared left for work Jensen had finally drifted off to sleep. When he awoke in the garden, at first he thought that he was dreaming, but then he remembered. He was at Jared’s.
It was the heat of the sun that woke him, he felt rested but he’s knows that he hadn’t been asleep long because he remembered the first tendrils of light when he felt his eyes growing heavy.
His clothes were still at the halfway house so he would have to put on the same ones he had on the day before, but he’s spent days lying in his own filth, so this would not be a hardship.
Stretching, Jensen stood up and made his way back into the house and paused to look at the huge king-sized bed and had a flash of him and Jared lying on it.
Where did that thought come from?
He hadn’t had sexual thoughts since he first noticed Stephen Amell, but his mind was suddenly thinking about the hulking giant of a man who had terrified him outside of the church, to the gentle one who shared his grandmother's rose garden and his grandfather's knowledge of the constellations and found that his body along with his mind was thinking about Jared in an entirely new light.
Once the thought of him and Jared in that big bed creeped into his mind, they would not leave. As he soaped his body under the warm spray, he felt his cock thickening and stole his hand down to touch himself.
Instinctively he looked around to make sure that he was alone, before he gently began to stroke himself, and god it felt so good. He was rusty at self-pleasure and it took him a while to remember what he liked, it was like riding a bike but it felt so much better.
He stroked the length of his cock until he came to the head where he swiped the thumb over the sensitive head. He knew that there was precome but he couldn’t feel it because of the soap and water. When his finger caught under the head of the mushroom head, the bundle of nerves were so sensitive that his knees buckled and he had to place one hand on the wall in front of him to keep from falling.
How embarrassing would that be to be found hurt because he couldn’t handle jerking off?
Jensen threw his head back and let himself get lost in the feelings taking over his body, and then he felt it. His hole it fluttered as though he wanted it filled and the thought of Jared being the one filling him made him spill his seed over his hand.
After his shower Jensen scrubbed the shower to rid it of any evidence of what he had done there. It was bad enough that Jared knew what happened to him in prison, he didn’t need the man to find evidence of it.
After the shower Jensen walked around the property, he knew that there were more than the garden that he was so enamored with, and didn’t he hear horses last night? He wanted to see them because it had been so long since he had ridden.
His dad used to keep a horse stabled locally for him and Josh, he wondered if Josh still rode and what had happened to his horse, if their house was any indication, his mom probably sold the gelding.
He found the paddock easily enough and watched the magnificent animals as they ate.
“You must be Jensen,” an amused voice from behind him said.
“Guilty,” Jensen answered as he turned to face the owner of said voice.
Putting his hand over his eyes to block the sun, Jensen took in an older version of Jared and knew immediately that this must be Jared’s dad.
“Hi, I’m Gerald Padalecki,” the man confirmed as he held his hand out to Jensen.
“Jensen Ackles,” he answered as though the man didn’t already know.
Jensen bristled at the man’s words. He knew that he wasn’t what Gerald Padalecki wanted his son to bring home. It was most likely bad enough that his son was gay, but to bring someone like Jensen home was more than likely more than he could handle.
“I know. Jared was supposed to bring you over later, but I think that this might be better, we can talk without him trying to force you down my throat.”

“I told Jared that this was a bad idea. I can be gone,” he informed the man with as much pride as he could muster.
“No-look Jensen I’m sorry,” as he stooped Jensen’s attempt to walk past him.” My choice of words were unfortunate and it was not my intention to hurt you. It’s - when Jared wants something he extolls the virtue of it in excess before I can make up my mind about it. I just meant that I’m glad that we have this time to get to know one another without the big sale.”
“Okay,” Jensen swallowed at the lump in his throat because he really had no clue where he would have gone.
“I think we got off to a bad start, but there are some things that I want you to understand. Jared leads with his heart, but when he asked to bring you here I didn’t hesitate because he has this incredible ability to read people and he’s never wrong.”
“What about Chad?” Jensen mumbled.
Gerald shrugged his shoulders and said “Everyone’s entitled to one mistake.” He squinted his eyes and asked with an intensity that Jensen found hard to bear. “You aren’t with him just because he’s the first person to be nice to you are you?”
Shaking his head, Jensen’s simple answer of, “No,” embodied all of his feelings.
“Good, because I don’t think that Jared has realized what this means for him. That picture of the two of you coming out of the church outed him, and in this small town, there will be repercussions no matter how much he is liked.”
Jensen smiled and let out a silent sigh of relief.
“You ride,” Gerald asked him nodding his head towards the horses.
“It has been a while,” Jensen answered sheepishly.
“Don’t worry,” the elder Padalecki responded. “It’s a bit like riding a bike, except it’s easier because all you have to do is hold on. Come meet Sadie, she’ll be a good horse to get you back into the saddle.”
“Sadie? I thought she was a dog,” Jensen asked confused.
“There is always a Sadie on this ranch. It was my grandmother’s name and my granddad thought that it was cute to do no matter how much it angered her, now it’s a tradition that no one wants to break.”
He rode for an hour in the hot sun and went back to Jared's to take a shower to cool down, and actually lay down in the bed and took a nap.



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