Chapter Text
‘You know,’ Jim Beaver commented with a quick, side-long glance at his companion, ‘you could look a little less like you’re being driven to your execution.’
With a long, drawn-out huff, his passenger, dirty-blonde hair artfully spiked, green eyes swivelling in his direction, freckles sprinkled across his face, turned to glare at him.
‘May as well be’ he grumbled.
Jim sighed. ‘And they call you overdramatic’ he muttered sarcastically.
Jensen Ackles, the youngest son of billionaire business man Alan Ackles, didn’t dignify his old friend with a response.
In the space of the last two weeks, his life had basically been turned upside down. And that sucked because Jensen liked his life, dammit, it was comfortable and easy and, above all else, fun. He was 24, single and rich. It was basically the perfect trifecta. Boozy weekends, endless parties, a stream of attractive, young men blessing his bed (never for more than one night, oh no, because Jensen didn’t do commitment), the odd drug-fuelled night here and there (a snort of a white line went a long way when someone was hungover, Jensen had learned). Zero responsibilities, zero worries and thousands upon thousands of dollars. Alan grumbled, as parents are wont to do, about carelessness, scandals and his “play boy ways,” but it never went beyond that. Jensen knew and accepted that he couldn’t keep his lifestyle forever – he figured, and his father was aware he was sure, that he’d settle down and become a responsible adult sometime around 27, or 28. Start actually doing something with his life. He figured he’d had a few more years before the party ended, but apparently life had other plans.
Life could go suck it, Jensen thought as he glared out of the car window.
His mother Donna Ackles’s, more primary concern was his complete and utter lack of meaningful relationships in his life. With an older brother already settled, married and working as a doctor, and a younger sister well on her way to attending college and probably finding her Prince Charming, Jensen figured, though, she already had the other kids to provide her with grandchildren and daughters/sons-in-law. The pressure was off him, right?
But, as it turned out, there may have been some element of truth in Donna’s nagging to stop with the one-night stands before someone got hurt. Only, she’d probably thought that “someone getting hurt” meant a broken heart or scandal or damaged reputation. Not that, you know, “someone getting hurt” would mean Jensen was almost suffocated to death with a plastic bag tied around his neck.
Yeah, a bit different.
It started with death threats to Alan Ackles – from some anonymous source, demanding money and retribution for some perceived wrong that Alan had done in running his business. A group claiming that Alan was responsible for the fall of their own company, and demanding he pay the costs he'd caused them to lose. They couldn’t pin point the source, and apart of upping security, didn’t really think too much on it. Then the death threats changed and became more specific – specifically targeting Jensen that is. Threats against his life unless Alan didn’t pay the exorbitant sum of money. Alan took that a little more seriously – for all that he bemoaned Jensen’s lifestyle, he loved his son, loved his entire family.
Jensen, on the other hand, didn’t really take it altogether that seriously at all.
Which is why he’d continued to party and drink and generally be as care-free as he’d always been. His father attached a bigger security detail to follow him, which Jensen, rather than thanking his father for the concern, was more annoyed about, seeing them as “cramping his lifestyle.”
He’d met a guy.
It was at a jam-packed club and Jensen was drunk and the young, lithe-bodied, dark-haired man had been giving him eyes all night across the dance-floor. He was exactly Jensen’s type – thin, long-limbed, come-hither eyes. There was no way that he was going to say no.
They’d hooked up. Grinding and making out on the dance-floor. The young man had whispered filth in his ear, then with a dirty smile, suggested they go back to his, go to somewhere more private. He’d led Jensen out the back door and they’d given the security detail the slip amongst the heaving mass of sweaty bodies and pounding music. He’d gotten willingly, happily into the cab, arrived at an apartment and followed the man in.
They’d started getting hot and heavy, open mouthed kisses and groping hands and Jensen was in his element, drawing moans and whimpers. The man had drawn back and Jensen had chased his kisses, but had been cut off with an offer of a drink. The buzz of alcohol had died down in the midst of the hooking up, so Jensen accepted. Whisky was poured, he took a gulp. They went back to kissing and –
And things started to tilt, started to feel woozy.
He’d broken off the kiss and swayed, slid off the bed to the floor, trying to apologise, trying to say that something felt off, but only getting out slurred words and noises. The man – his blurry form sliding in and out of focus, doubling and tripling, stood dispassionately above him.
And Jensen, in whatever drug and alcohol haze he was in, realised that he might be in deep shit.
He’d tried to crawl towards the door, but the floor felt like it was shifting and tilting and rolling beneath his feet and when he thought he was on all fours, he’d blinked and realised that no, he was on his side, limbs feebly flailing, everything spinning.
The young man had moved away, was grabbing something, was approaching him again. Jensen tried to roll or move, but his limbs were sluggish and uncooperative. Then the young man dropped down, straddled his hips and slipped the plastic bag over his head.
The panic was immediate – sharp, hot fear exploding in his chest and he’d tried desperately to move his arms, to buck his hips to throw the man off, but nothing was moving, nothing was responding. It was akin to a worst nightmare, where you try to run or move but are completely, totally and utterly paralysed, helpless.
The tape was wrapped around his neck, tight and unyielding and Jensen’s head was rolling feebly on the floor. Everything was distorted by the plastic bag and the drugs, the suffocating heat of the plastic sucking into his mouth. He tried to breath, his chest starting to heave because there was no air, no fresh air.
His eyes rolled wildly in his head, dark spots dancing, the young man still heavy on his hips, staring down at him. He was saying something and Jensen could barely hear him through his own panicked gasping –
‘We warned your Dad.’
The sudden clarity that he was going to die, that this was how he went out made a hoarse sob choke Jensen even more. He didn’t want to die, he wasn’t ready, this couldn’t happen, this –
Then the door had burst open, practically bouncing off the wall with excessive force. There was a gunshot, sharp and loud, and blood sprayed across the plastic bag over Jensen’s face and the man’s head snapped back and his body slumped sideways.
A flurry of movement and activity, someone dragging the heavy body off him and another slicing the plastic bag. A gush of fresh air and Jensen had time to gulp down two breaths, before he turned his head to one side and vomited.
It had turned out that the security detail had seen him leaving with the young man, but hadn’t been in time to stop him. One of them had snagged the taxi id and quickly tailed them both. It had taken a bit to work out exactly which apartment they were in – and a few families and old ladies were given borderline heart attacks by a bunch of muscled men bursting in with guns, realising they had the wrong apartment, apologising profusely and racing out, all in about the space of five minutes – but they’d gotten there in time.
The entire family had started taking the death threats a little more seriously after that.
Which was how Jensen came to be where he was now – a passenger in the seat of the car of one of his family’s oldest friends, Jim Beaver, driving through endless woods, in the middle of Bumfuck Nowehere (ok, actually somewhere in remote Montana) and what feels like a million miles from his home, his family and his life.
They’d decided on a safe-house for Jensen. Until they’d figured out who was behind the threats and caught the culprits, the entire family needed to lay low. As Jensen appeared to be one of the primary targets, they’d decided to ship him to an undisclosed location, somewhere no one would find him or even think to find him.
Enter Jim Beaver.
He’d known the family since… well, since as far back as Jensen could remember. The grizzly haired, beared, baseball-cap wearing old man was a retired federal agent, and had served with Alan in some war at some point and they’d been lifelong friends. They didn’t see each other often – they moved in different circles now. Alan and his family living the high life once his business hit the big-time, and Jim Beaver retiring and preferring the quiet of his home in Texas, with his wife Samantha, on a large acre of land.
When they’d involved Jim, Jensen had thought that Jim’s land would be where he was staying. He wouldn’t have minded that. It was still near a town, still near civilisation. But no, the links to Jim were too easy to track, they’d said. They needed somewhere where there would be no links to the Ackles family, and somewhere entirely hidden from civilisation. And so Jim had volunteered the home of one Kim Rhodes.
Jim and Kim had known each other way, way, way, way back. She'd worked for the FBI at one point, not as an agent, but as a sort of social worker, working with them when kids were involved, the types of kids that no one else knew how to handle. Eventually she'd called it quits on this, bought herself a large portion of farm-land in remote Montana. But she still took in kids from the streets, kids who were selling themselves, kids on drugs, kids with nowhere else to go, no avenue to turn to, no one left to believe in them, and she helped them, as best as she could. Mostly it involved putting the kids to work on her farm. The hard work, she said, helped the kids get purpose.
She didn’t do it so much anymore, Jim explained, when Jensen had baulked at the idea of living with what he considered to be “teenage junkies” – she lived basically alone now, having stated she was “too old for this shit anymore”, which had had Jim chuckling when he said it.
So no teenage junkies. Which was a plus, Jensen figured, and just one single plus in a whole god damn plethora of crosses, which included but was not limited to: little to no civilisation, no social interaction and goddamn farm work.
So yeah, maybe he was feeling a little like he was going to his own execution, sue him. He’d almost been killed, had his whole life turned upside and was now being shipped to a halfway home for wayward kids. He figured he was entitled to a little self-pity.
‘How much farther have we got to go?’ he asked Jim.
Jim drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of the car. ‘Maybe… two hours or so?’ he answered.
Jensen let out a groan and slumped his head against the window. ‘Two hours? You’re kidding me right? Jesus Christ, how does she stand it? Livin’ so far away from… from everything?’
Jim chuckled. ‘Some people like the quiet,’ he replied. ‘’Sides, there’s a town about an hour west of her house so it ain’t that bad.’
‘And by “town” you really mean, three houses, one shopping centre and a rundown pub, don’t you?’
Jim pursed his lips. ‘Don’t be stereotypin’, boy,’ he reprimanded, before he quirked a smile, ‘there’s at least five houses there.’
Jensen groaned again, slumped further against the window and closed his eyes. ‘Just… wake me when we get there,’ he sighed. ‘Or, you know, better yet, don’t wake me up, ever, and I can just sleep through this whole goddamn nightmare.’
Jim rolled his eyes and purposefully clicked on the radio and cranked the music. Jensen scowled, tightened his eyes shut even more and silently hated the entire world.
******
Despite what Jensen considered to be Jim’s unwarranted and entirely cruel attempts to keep him awake with a radio that seemed to only be able to play country music – and not even good country music, but the bad kind of country music, usually performed by some washed up wanna-be who bemoaned his long lost love, who, you know, probably wouldn’t have left the dude if he’d just given up his stupid dreams of becoming a country music star and actually started to provide for her…
Despite this, and Jim’s accompanying off-tune humming and attempts to sing, he actually managed to drift off into sleep for the remaining two hours of the trip.
However, he sort of wished he’d never fallen asleep, when his dreams took a turn from making out with Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortenson in full Lord of the Rings regalia (Lord of the Rings may or may not have been one of his guilty pleasures) to a blurred apartment, tilting floors and dispassionate, blank eyes, a heavy weight on his hips, pinning him down and – and – and – and not being able to breathe, he couldn’t breathe, something was smothering his mouth, the taste of plastic and the sour taste of fear and terror and –
And Jensen jolted away with a start and a gasp, wrenching upright in his passenger seat. His heart thundered in his chest, pounding at twice the normal speed, his mouth dry with fear, the remnants of the dream clinging to him.
He scrubbed a hand roughly across his face to rid the lingering feel of plastic against his skin, taking a deep, trembling breath.
When he lowered his hand he saw Jim looking sideways at him from the driver’s seat. ‘You ok, son?’ his gruff voice was tempered by underlying concern.
Jensen avoided his gaze. ‘’M fine,’ he said roughly.
‘Uh-huh, right,’ Jim said sceptically, shaking his head a little. ‘Well, in any case, we’re here now, so it’s ‘bout time you woke up from your beauty sleep.’
Jensen glanced out the window, for the first time realising that the road beneath the wheels had been replaced with bumpy rough gravel as they drove down a long, stony, gravel driveway.
He leant forward a little to peer at the house at the end of the driveway. It was huge, he’d give Kim Rhodes that, at least three storeys high, but unlike the mansions he was accustomed to seeing in his neighbourhood, all polished paint and perfection, this mansion was semi crumbling, had a ramshackle quality about it – patchy paint, undoubtedly do-it-yourself amateur repairs, mismatching curtains and, hell, even some repairs had been done in substances completely differing from the core structure of the house. It was, thought, Jensen had to admit, homey. Which surprised him, because he would have thought that his initial reaction to anything less-than-polished would have been disdain, but there was something undeniably endearing about this house.
There was a small cottage he could make out that was behind the mansion and to one side, a ways back from the main mansion, it’s own little self-contained structure, quaint and semi hidden by some larger, shadowy trees and what looked like a magnificent garden. There was a barn to the other side as well, a chicken coop that Jensen could also make out. Large paddocks surrounding the house and the driveway they were trundling down, and Jensen could make out horses, cows and sheep ambling through the fields. He couldn’t see any veggie gardens and figured they must be behind the mansion, out the back, joining with the magnificent garden that semi-hid the cottage.
The car pulled to a halt in front of the house. Jensen wasted no time in clamouring from the car, eager to stretch his legs out after the long hours driving. He stretched tall and cricked his neck and back and shook his aches out. He turned to the house and started a little when he saw that someone was standing on the front porch, leaning against the porch’s railings, arms crossed in front of her chest.
She was gorgeous, Jensen acknowledged, because as much as his preference was for men, he’d had his fair share of girls too – tiny and petite, with dark brown hair tumbling down her shoulders, big eyes and a wide, pouty mouth. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was glaring with something akin to disgust at Jensen and the fact that her entire demeanour practically screamed that she could kill him in an instant, he’d have even considered trying to hit that during his stay.
He swallowed a little under her scrutiny. ‘Uh, are you Kim?’ he ventured.
There was a bark of laughter from somewhere to his left.
‘I wish!’ a cheerful voice exclaimed. ‘If I looked like that, I’d be tearin’ up Hollywood instead of slummin’ it out here.’
Jensen spun around as a woman approached, having emerged from the barn, a full laundry basket held in her wiry, strong arms. Her hair was dark and cropped short into a pixie cut, her face sharp, but with underlying warmth sparkling in her brown eyes. There were tattoos along her arms and where the laundry basket caught the hem of her shirt and caused it to ride up, Jensen could see more tattoos adorning her abdomen. Jensen hazarded that she was probably a little over forty-five, but the energy crackling beneath the surface was something more akin to a twenty year old.
She turned her head to grin at Jim as he emerged from the car. ‘Jim Beaver, you old dog! You look twice as old as the last time I saw you!’
Jim grinned back at her. ‘And you look twice as young,’ he answered, before moving to approach her. ‘Here, let me grab that for you – ’ he gestured to the laundry basket.
Kim shook her head. ‘Bah, forget about it, wouldn’t want you to put your back out, old man,’ she grinned, then looked to Jensen. ‘And you must be Jensen Ackles. My newest lodger for the foreseeable future.’
Jensen bobbed his head awkwardly. ‘Ma’am’ he said, because he was nothing if not polite, rich or not
. ‘Well, come on then,’ Kim said as the started up the steps onto the porch. ‘Grab your stuff and come on in – you have time to stick around for a coffee, Jim?’
‘I always have time for you, Kim’ Jim answered.
Kim snorted. ‘I see the old silver tongue is still getting a workout,’ she said, stomping to the door and beginning to head inside.
Jim started to follow her, offering the keys to Jensen as he did.
‘I – what?’ Jensen blinked at the key.
Jim arched an eyebrow. ‘To open the trunk? Get your stuff out?’ Jensen blinked again.
‘I – you – I have to carry my own stuff in?’ the words tumbled out before he could stop them.
There was a loud, disdainful snort from the girl on the porch, and she turned away and followed Kim inside, shaking her head. Jensen felt his face flush.
He grabbed the keys. ‘I’ll meet you in there in a sec’ he grumbled.
Jim tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile as he watched Jensen head for the boot of the car. He probably should have warned Jensen a little more about how little airs and graces there would be around this place, but, he figured, this was kind of more fun.
****
By the time Jensen had dragged his suitcase inside (and boy was he regretting packing so much by this point), Kim, Jim and the girl had congregated in the kitchen. He left the suitcase in the hallway and followed the sound of voices, eventually entering the simple, rustic kitchen.
Kim was currently spooning instant coffee into separate cups as she chatted to Jim, who was seated at the rustic, wood table. The girl was leaning against the stainless steel fridge.
Kim looked up at his entrance. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘You want a coffee?’
Jensen’s eyes zeroed on the instant coffee granules. ‘Do you only have instant?’ he blurted out without thinking.
For the second time in less than ten minutes, the girl snorted at him.
Kim laughed. ‘Sorry kiddo, no expresso machines or Starbucks around here,’ she winked at him. ‘It’s instant or nothing, ‘m’fraid.’
Jensen winced a little. In his experience instant coffee was a little like dishwater, but he felt a sudden surge to prove to these people (ok, to the girl) that he could slum it with the best of them.
(It occurred briefly to him that if his idea of “slumming it” was drinking instant coffee, he was probably more of a snob than he realised, but he quickly quashed that thought.)
‘Black, no sugar’ he said determinedly to Kim.
Kim nodded and started to prepare his cup as Jensen sat down at the table with Jim.
‘So I understand you don’t know how long you’ll be staying with us?’ Kim asked as she handed out the coffees.
Jensen wasn’t sure how much Jim had told her – about the death threats, the probable danger of having him around – and he fiddled with the mug a little. ‘Uh, yeah… I mean… yeah, we’re not sure how long… just, how long everything’ll be…’ he waved a hand a little, ‘… be, y’know. Crazy. I guess. Might be a while I s’pose.’
‘Great’ the girl muttered somewhere behind him.
Kim rolled her eyes. ‘How about you go sort the laundry Gen?’ she said pointedly to the girl.
The girl sniffed, a little put out, but shrugged her shoulders and left the room, taking the basket of laundry that had been deposited on the ground with her.
Kim smiled at Jensen once she was gone. ‘Don’t mind Genevieve,’ she said. ‘She’s a little bristly at first, but she’s actually a big softie at heart. She’s been here with me for going on six years now, helping me out, helping me keep this place afloat. She’s got a good heart. She’s just… protective.’
‘Of you?’ Jensen said.
Kim suddenly looked evasive. She avoided his gaze. ‘Just… protective’ she answered.
Which, Jensen thought, wasn’t really an answer at all.
‘So listen,’ Kim took a seat, ‘Jim filled me in on what’s going on – the death threats and all – but this place is about as isolated as you can get, so if you’re gonna be safe anywhere, it’d be here.’
‘Alan’s sending some security,’ Jim said. ‘Just in case. They should be here by tonight. Just a few guys – three at most I think.’
Kim nodded. ‘Yeah, he gave me a call to ask if it was ok,’ she answered. ‘I said so long as they ain’t brain dead morons who get in my way, I’m happy to have them around.’
Jim chuckled. ‘I give you a day before you put them to work lifting anything heavy.’
‘Hey, look, if you’re gonna stay here, you gotta earn your keep,’ Kim said, before she swivelled her gaze square on Jensen. ‘Which brings me to my rules.’
Jensen tensed a little. He had a sudden vision of becoming a Cinderella-esq slave, scrubbing floors and cooking meals.
‘I only got two rules,’ Kim continued. ‘One is, like I said, you stay here, you gotta earn your keep. Now, I can see the panic in your eyes, and don’t go getting your panties in a twist just yet – I’m not talkin’ slave labor, kiddo, just helping out around the house. Basic chores – cooking, cleaning and the like. But I’m nothing if not fair – everything you do, I’ll do as well. We all help out equally around here.’
‘All – as in you and Genevieve?’ Jensen clarified.
‘There’s Gen, yeah, and Danni – she works in town, but she boards here too,’ Kim said. ‘And Tahmoh is here from time to time too, helping out at the barn. Takes more than two people to run the place, kiddo.’
‘Right,’ Jensen nodded.
‘Rule number two,’ Kim went on, and she glanced at Jim for a moment, pausing, then looked back at Jensen. ‘Stay outta the cottage.’
‘The cottage?’ Jensen blinked.
‘Yeah, just… stay away from it, ok?’ Kim pressed. ‘The whole area – the gardens, the veggie gardens, the back yard – we got… we’ve already got someone taking care of that, you don’t need to be nosing around there, ok?’
Jensen stared at her, the faint stirrings of unease trickling down his spine. ‘Why?’ he asked.
Kim took a drink from her coffee. ‘That, my boy, is none of your concern. All you gotta do is obey the rules, not question ‘em, got it?’
‘But,’ Jensen protested, ‘I mean – what – is there something dangerous there? I should know about it if it –’
‘Jensen, son,’ Jim interrupted gruffly, catching his gaze and holding it. ‘Just leave it be, ok? This ain’t your house, you’re a guest, and you respect your host, ok?’
Jensen wanted to protest more, wanted to push the matter, force Kim into telling him what was so mysterious and elusive about the cottage and the gardens, but Jim’s stoic face made him swallow the argument back down. There was a hint of pleading in Jims eyes and Jensen thought that this rule number two might be a deal-breaker if he disobeyed it. He didn’t want to be here, that much was true, but – and the phantom scent of plastic filled his nostrils – he also didn’t want to die.
‘Ok,’ he said finally, ‘ok, got it. Two rules. No arguments. Got it.’
And he and Kim clinked mugs to seal the deal.