Chapter Text
Jensen was bored out of his skull. He hadn’t even wanted to go to his cousin’s school that afternoon but it was the kid’s first big Friday game as captain of the lacrosse team and Jensen just didn’t have the heart to say no to him. As proud as he was of Nick, watching a bunch of high-schoolers chase each other around with big sticks wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time.
He made it all the way through the first half before he was too restless to sit still any longer. Nick’s team, the Haverford Academy Hellcats, were leading St. John’s Prep in a complete blowout. The Hellcats were really good, and they could afford to be thanks in large part to some very generous alumnae boosters. St. John’s didn’t stand a chance quite frankly and Jensen soon got tired of watching his cousin mow them into the grass. He decided to just wander around the campus a bit, figuring he’d be back in plenty of time to treat Nick and his friends to a celebratory pizza when the game was over.
The campus of Haverford Academy was set on an enormous country estate just outside the upscale bedroom community of Westbrook, Connecticut. The old stone buildings of Haverford predated much of the neighboring towns and were flanked by pristine sports fields, tree-lined courtyards, and an enormous white-columned library. The posh private academy was a far cry from Jensen’s own lackluster high school experience, most of which he spent in shop class. Everyone knew that Haverford boys were destined for greatness. They were being groomed to become pillars of the financial world, top legal minds, and political power players. Someday soon Nick would be just like them if his father had anything to say about. Until then, Jensen felt it was his duty to be a bad influence on his straight-laced cousin. The guy needed to have at least a little fun before he was chained to a desk for the rest of his natural life.
Jensen ambled through the network of walking paths that criss-crossed the Haverford grounds without any real direction in mind. He’d only ever seen the athletics building when he picked Nick up a few times after practice and was curious to see what the rest of such an elite institution looked like from the inside. The campus was quiet except for the distant sounds of the lacrosse game and the dull clunk of his own motorcycle boots on the stone walkways. Most of the students had gone home for the day already. He ran into the occasional teacher toting their briefcases towards their cars, but surprisingly no one paid him much notice aside from the odd backward glance. They must have been too eager to start their weekends to waste time hassling him because he knew full well that he stuck out at Haverford Academy like a sore thumb. He was four years too old to be a student and his worn leather jacket wasn’t exactly up to the strict uniform code.
Jensen was passing through one of the covered cloisters that ran alongside the old stone buildings when he heard shouting coming from somewhere nearby. They were young mens’ voices punctuated by the thick thwack of fists connecting with flesh. It sounded like a fight. He ran towards where he thought they were coming from to see what was going on.
As he rounded the corner of the building he saw them in the middle of the courtyard. Three teenage alphas, all of them wearing Haverford Academy Wrestling t-shirts, were beating up on a skinny floppy-haired kid.
“Hey! Hey! Cut it out!” Jensen shouted, wading in the thick of the fight. He shoved the bullies back away from the defenseless boy who was cowering in a ball on the ground. “What the hell you do little pricks things you’re doing?”
“Who are you? His bodyguard?” one of the boys asked with a smart-ass edge in his tone. He looked to be the ringleader of the bunch.
“No,” Jensen replied with deadly calm. “I’m the guy who’s going to kick your ass if you ever even think of touching him again.”
“Come on, Derek,” one of the other boys said. He was glancing around nervously and tugging on his friend’s arm. “Let’s get out of here. He’s going to get us in trouble.”
“Yeah, man,” the third chimed in. “I can’t get another suspension. My dad will freak.”
“You better listen to your friends, Derek,” Jensen warned. “Get lost.”
Derek stared Jensen down like he was ready to take a swing at him, but after a few more insistent tugs on his arm from his buddy he stalked off mumbling angrily under his breath. The other two had to almost jog after him just to keep up.
When they were gone, Jensen turned to the boy on the ground. “You okay, kid?”
The boy sniffled, his eyes hidden by the long fringe of hair that had fallen over his downturned face. “Not really,” he answered shakily.
He sounded so miserable that Jensen’s heart immediately went out to him. He always did have a soft spot for the underdogs. “Did they hurt you?” he asked. “Come on, stand up and let me get a look at you.”
The boy wiped his face on the back of his shirtsleeve and stood up. He was taller than Jensen had expected him to be, all clumsy long arms and legs like a puppy that hadn’t yet grown into his feet. He raked a hand through his hair in an effort to tame it and exposed a two inch long cut over his eyebrow. It was shallow enough that it looked relatively harmless. The bruise on his chin however was old enough to already be turning an impressive array of colors. A sign that maybe this little run in with Derek and his crew wasn’t the first time. Otherwise his face was striking. He had hazel-blue eyes with flecks of gold in them, high cheekbones, and soft pink lips. Even the little mole next to his nose was somehow oddly alluring. Unfortunately, Jensen realized where his wayward mind was leading him a little too late. He’d taken an unconscious step closer to the boy, transfixed by how damn adorable he was, and in doing so he got his first real scent of him. As soon as he did, Jensen immediately understood why the other boys had been harassing him and why he was having a hard time keeping his own thoughts from turning R-rated at the moment.
“You’re an omega,” Jensen said in disbelief. “And I think…are you in heat?”
The boy blushed and looked away. “Y-yes. At least I t-think so. It’s my first time.”
Jensen sniffed the air and wondered how he could have missed it before. There it was; the distinctly sweet scent of omega pheromones that drew alphas to them like a siren call. The smell hit him like a drug it was so intoxicating. It made him crave. It made him want to give in to his animal urges and just take with mindless abandon. Even the most level-headed alphas had a hard time controlling themselves around omegas in heat, and Jensen wasn’t exactly the poster boy for self-restraint. Still, he did his best to control himself for the kid’s sake.
“How old are you?” Jensen asked, hoping that a reality check would help curb his raging hormones.
“Sixteen.”
Jensen’s dirty mind supplied the fact that sixteen technically qualified him as meeting the minimum legal age of consent in their state. He had a hard time remembering his own email password and yet his brain was able to deliver that little factoid with remarkable speed. Go fucking figure.
“Don’t worry, kid. It’s a totally normal thing at your age. Happens to everybody,” Jensen told him, trying to make him feel a little better about the situation. “I’m Jensen, by the way. What’s your name?”
“Jared. Jared Padalecki.” The kid stared at him with those cat-like eyes of his. They seemed to stare right through him. “You’re an alpha. But you don’t seem like them though; Derek and his friends. You wouldn’t hurt me, would you?”
“No. No of course not,” he said taking a careful step back to allow some safe distance between them. He would never hurt Jared but the scent of his heat was so inviting that Jensen was finding it really damn hard not to reach out and touch him. He didn’t want to spook the kid after what had almost just happened to him. “So that’s why those guys were bothering you? Because you’re omega.”
“That’s part of it. They’ve been picking on me ever since I transferred here but today was the worst,” Jared admitted. “They said that they’ve been waiting for me to go into heat so they could teach me what omegas were really meant for.” His chin started to wobble and he let out a slow steadying breath before he continued. “Derek tried to push me onto my knees but I wouldn’t stay down. I tried to fight back. That made him angry so he started punching me. That’s when you showed up.”
Jensen’s blood started to boil. He wished he had cleaned that Derek kid’s clock when he had the chance. “None of that was your fault. You get that right? Alphas like that are fucking scum and they deserve to get their asses handed to them for what they did to you. Not all of us are like that.”
Jared bit his lip, worrying it with his teeth. “I know,” he said quietly. He didn’t sound like he really believed it.
Jensen figured it was a good time to change the subject. He didn’t want to let Jared dwell too much on Derek or those other assholes. If the kid started to cry Jensen didn’t trust himself not to just wrap him up in his arms. If that happened, he wasn’t confident that he’d be able to let go.
“I don’t understand something,” he said, clearing his throat. “Fill me in, would ya? I didn’t think Haverford Academy allowed omegas.”
“They don’t. I’m supposed to be the first,” the kid replied shyly. “But they don’t really want me here. Nobody here does.”
The matter-of-fact tone that Jared used when he said it made Jensen angry all over again. How could anyone treat such a sweet kid like that? Making him feel like he wasn’t wanted. “That can’t be true,” he said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I mean If it was, then why did they let you in?”
“My grandmother donated the money to build them a new auditorium. They kind of had to after that.”
“Oh.” That made sense. Jensen had a hard time imagining how much money that must’ve cost but it had to be a ton. Jared’s grandmother sounded like a real ballsy old lady to pull a power play like that. Unfortunately for Jared, the school didn’t seem to be holding up their end of the deal like they should. No way would they allow any of their other students to be treated like this.
“This is such bullshit,” he said, outraged on Jared’s behalf. “You’re an omega in a school full of entitled alpha brats. Doesn’t the administration have to do something to make sure that you’re safe? I mean they had to know that this day was going to come eventually.”
“They made me agree to board here full-time. Supposedly so that they could keep a better eye on me.”
“They’re clearly doing a banner job of that,” Jensen snarked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was just so they could charge my grandmother more money,” Jared agreed. “Then they gave me heat suppressants to take so I wouldn’t go into heat until after I graduated. At least that’s what was supposed to happen. Derek and his friends stole my backpack two weeks ago. My pills were in the outside pocket.”
Jensen wanted to put his fist through something. Preferably Derek’s face. The little shit had been planning this. “Did you tell anyone about it? The school nurse? Your parents?”
“The nurse, Ms. Claybourne, said that because it wasn’t an emergency priority that she’d send for more when she got around to it. I guess she hasn’t yet,” Jared said with a shrug. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his grass-stained khaki pants. “And my parents can’t do anything to help because they’re dead.”
“Shit, Jared. I’m sorry.” Jensen felt awful for him. Life seemed to have dealt Jared a pretty crappy hand so far. It just wasn’t fair. No one seemed to be looking out for him when he so clearly needed protecting.
“It’s okay.” Jared said, dropping his eyes to the ground. “It was a car accident; Christmas Eve of last year. A stupid drunk driver.” His jaw twitched, tension evident there at the bitter memory. “My grandmother took me in after that. She was the one who wanted me to go here just like my dad did. She thought it would be good for me, you know? It’s one of the best schools in the country and she knew that my dad made a lot of friends while he was here.” The way Jared said it made it sound like making friends wasn’t something he considered himself to be very good at. “Then the Haverford admissions people told us no and it became like her mission in life to get me in anyway. That’s why a lot of people here hated me before I even showed up.”
“People get freaked out with change; anything that’s different or anything that they can’t control.” Jensen told him, speaking from personal experience. “They think it’s going to rock their boat. Especially when they’re narrow-minded jerks.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Jared said, glancing up to meet Jensen’s eyes. The corners of Jared’s mouth curved up in a small smile. Dimples appeared like parenthesis on either side of his cheeks.
Jensen wanted him even more in that moment, if that was possible. He wanted to see him smile like that all the time. What’s more, he wanted to be the reason for that smile.
He shook his head, trying to physically clear the thought from his mind. It had to be Jared’s heat. That was the only explanation for why he was going all soft-hearted for the kid. Part of him was ready to bolt, get the hell out of there before he got any more involved than he already was. But another part of him was genuinely concerned for Jared. He felt responsible for making sure that he was going to be okay.
“You, um, you can’t talk to your grandmother about any of this?” Jensen asked. “She sounds like somebody who can make shit happen when she wants to. I bet she’d raise all kinds of hell if she found out about what life is really like here for you.”
Jared’s face fell. “I can’t. She worked so hard just to get me in. I want her to think I’m okay, you know? I don’t want to let her down.”
“You’re not letting anyone down.” Before he could think better of it, Jensen closed some of the distance between them and put a comforting hand on Jared’s shoulder.
Big mistake. Big fucking mistake.
Jensen couldn’t help but react to the heat pheromones circling between them when they were so close to each other. Jared’s skin was warm to the touch under his white uniform dress shirt. It would be so easy to yank it open and send those cute little buttons flying into the grass. Jensen could feel his cock starting to get hard just thinking about pinning Jared to the ground and getting his hands on that long, lean little body of his. He really needed to take a step back but he just couldn’t seem to make his feet cooperate.
Jared looked up at him, his pretty hazel eyes so large and so innocent. “I’m not?”
“No way.” Jensen smiled, using it to mask how hard he was gritting his teeth trying to keep himself in check. Jared needed a friendly ear and some confidence-boosting right now, not another creepy guy hungry to get into his pants. “What if you just told your grandmother about the pills so she could make sure you got a new batch of them?” he suggested helpfully. “It’s probably not going to do you much good now but, you know, for next time. You don’t have to tell her they got taken if you don’t want to. Maybe you could just say you lost them or something. People lose things all the time and it’s no big deal, right?”
“I don’t know. I guess I could.” Jared blushed and dropped his eyes, toeing at a patch of dirt with the tip of his shiny black uniform shoes. “It’s hard to talk to her about that stuff, you know?” He glanced up at Jensen through the thick fringe of his lashes. “I mean, would you want to talk to your grandmother about your sex life?”
Jensen’s brain nearly short-circuited just hearing him say the word sex. “My s-sex life?” he sputtered, yanking his hand away from Jared’s shoulder hastily. “That’s really not…I mean, when I was your age…” Fuck, no. That was not a safe train of thought. He’d been a little slut at Jared’s age to be honest, trying to piss his father off by flaunting his trysts with much older and very married conquests. Most of which had been the mates of his father’s friends.
“Nevermind, I’m a bad example. What, ah, what do you even know about it?” Jensen asked, hoping the question came out a hell of a lot more casually than he meant it. “You’re sixteen. You don’t even have a sex life. Do you?”
Just thinking about the young omega and the subject of sex conjured all kinds of images in Jensen’s mind that he wasn’t exactly proud of. Jared spread out for him, all flushed pink and begging. Those gorgeous eyes going heavy-lidded with arousal and his bubble-gum mouth falling open when Jensen finally gave him what he wanted. It was criminally fucking hot. The thought of anyone else getting to see Jared like that made him feel just a little bit unhinged.
“No.” Jared rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, a little bashful smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Not yet.”
If Jensen didn’t know better he could have sworn that the kid was flirting with him. Jared had to be feeling the effects of his heat starting to kick in by now. He knew full well that Jensen was an alpha but he didn’t seem to be shying away from him at all. Fuck, didn’t he realize what could happen? Of course he did. Derek had made that point for him loud and clear. But then why wasn’t he freaking out or at least trying to get a safe distance away? Unless…
Jensen could see a line of sweat trickling down under Jared’s jaw. It was a struggle not to chase it with his tongue. “Do you know how old I am, Jared?”
Jared looked up at him, absently playing with the end of his navy blue school tie. “Too old to be in high school.”
“I’m twenty-two.” Jensen informed him. He was sure he had a point he was trying to make with that but he couldn’t quite seem to find it. Not when Jared’s tongue darted out to moisten his bottom lip.
“That’s not so old,” Jared replied, answering a question that Jensen hadn’t fully realized he’d been asking. He ducked his head shyly and took a cautious step closer, as if he was nervous that the movement was going to scare Jensen off.
Truth was, nothing short of a nuclear attack would have moved Jensen from that spot. “No?” he heard himself ask.
“No.” Jared took another half step closer, until Jensen could almost feel the heat of his body. He reached out and picked a possibly imaginary piece of lint off Jensen’s t-shirt, then glanced up at him quickly, his eyes wide and dark with the thrill of his boldness. “So you’re not a student, and I know you’re not a teacher. What are you doing here then?”
Jensen nearly swallowed his tongue, which made it hard for his mouth to form a coherent response. “Nick. He’s a player. I mean a captain. I mean, he plays lacrosse and he’s the captain of the team. He’s my cousin. And he goes here. I came to watch him play but I hate it. Lacrosse. Not Nick. Nick’s cool. Do you know him? He’s a senior.” He held his breath to stop himself from rambling and making even a bigger fool of himself. His self control was hanging by a very thin thread. He was afraid that if he even breathed too hard on it then it would snap.
“Yeah, I’ve seen him around. He’s one of the popular guys.” Jared nodded. He had to tilt his neck back to look Jensen in the eye they were so close now. A stray lock of hair fell across his forehead. “He seems nice though.”
Before he could think better of it, Jensen gently brushed the chestnut strands back with his forefinger. He didn’t miss the way Jared’s eyes closed for a second when he did it. “Yeah, he’s a good guy,” he murmured, mostly to himself. He could barely concentrate anymore on what he was saying. They both seemed to be using the cover of idle conversation to avoid acknowledging what was really happening between. Now it was just down to which one of them was going to drop the façade first.
“You smell really good,” Jared commented, his tone going a little breathy at the end. He rested his right hand lightly against Jensen’s chest, leaned closer, and took a deep breath in. “Like…alpha.”
Jensen’s hands came up without his permission to frame Jared’s tiny waist. “I do?” he asked huskily.
Jared licked his lips, his eyes almost glowing now they were so fever bright. “I feel funny.”
“You do?” Jensen had a pretty good idea of what he meant by that. Jared’s heat must be peaking hard if he’d been able to handle it up until that point without so much as a complaint. He was going to need some relief and soon. Jensen wasn’t sure how deep the boy was into the throes of it but he knew that a heat that wasn’t properly contained could make an omega deathly ill. “Funny bad or funny good?” he asked, just to be safe.
“Good,” Jared replied thickly. “Really good.” He seemed slightly dazed, the heat now starting to affect him more severely. Suddenly he moved in and pressed himself into Jensen’s body, tucking his head against Jensen’s chest like it was his safe place. “I like you,” he sighed, cuddling against him contentedly.
Jensen knew full well he should have taken off a long time ago. Instead, he’d let his hormones convince him to play with fire. Now it was too late. He couldn’t just leave the kid like this. Jared was a virgin. He might not know what to do on his own. What’s worse, Derek and his friends might get it into their heads to come looking for him again. Just the thought of it had Jensen hugging his arms around the boy protectively.
“Jared, listen to me,” he said. “We need to go. Your heat is getting worse. We need to get you someplace safe where you can ride it out. You said you board here on campus right? Can you show me where your dorm room is?”
“Sure,” Jared replied. He wiggled out of Jensen’s grasp with a mile wide grin on his face and starting off jogging towards one of the older brick buildings on the other side of the courtyard. “Come on!” he called out behind him. “It’s this way!”
Jensen sighed heavily and followed after him at a walk. He didn’t think he could take much more before his balls turned blue and fell off. He was going to help the kid as much as he could but he told himself that he wasn’t going to touch him. The heat was already making Jared loopy. He probably wasn’t in the best position to be making decisions for himself. That meant Jensen would have to do it for him, and as far as he was concerned the best thing for everyone would be if Jared could get through this without getting too attached to him.
No one who knew Jensen would have ever called him responsible. Point of fact, he took a certain amount of pride in being as irresponsible as he could possibly get away with. His boss, Jeff, at the auto body shop who was currently missing part of his left eyebrow could attest to that. But this was different. This was Jared’s first heat, something that he’d never forget. Jensen didn’t want him to look back on it later with too many regrets. That's why he was going to fucking behave himself and make sure that Jared got through the worst of it safely. Then he’d take off and they could both get on with their lives.
He fished in his pocket for his cell phone and sent a quick text to Nick to let him know he’d catch up with him tomorrow. Jared was going to need his full attention for the next few hours at least. He was determined do whatever he could to make sure that the kid was going to be okay. The only problem was Jensen wasn’t sure how he was ever going survive it.