Chapter Text
A girl in Jensen’s class was suspended for sending a topless picture to her boyfriend.
Jensen thought – still thinks – it was stupid. Both students were eighteen, and if the guy hadn’t been an asshole about something so awesome, the school staff wouldn’t have freaked out and held the most awkward assembly ever to warn teenagers about the Dangers of the Internet. He had rolled his eyes along with his friends, because the information being spewed at them was so painfully obvious and cliché, Jensen felt embarrassed for the teachers shifting behind the podium.
Jensen knows if Mr. Beaver or Mrs. Cortese were with him now, they would be thoroughly and utterly disappointed him. Mr. Beaver would clap him on the back of his neck and say, didn’t you listen to a word we said, son? Kids these days, think they know everything. Mrs. Cortese would stare at him with those deep, soulful eyes, and he would lose himself in the sparkle of her lip gloss while she bemoaned reckless, impulsive youth.
But Jensen is bored. He’s just been shipped from his father’s house – his childhood house, his home – to his mother’s strange new two bedroom ten miles away. He can’t just walk to Steve’s or Chris’ house now. The DirectTV still hasn’t been set-up, and although he has a TV, all of the DVD’s are at home – at dad’s, he mentally corrects. He must have watched every movie and series on Netflix that he could ever possibly be interested in. He doesn’t have a Facebook, because he doesn’t like small, mundane talk in person, let alone online, and he doesn’t really get Tumblr, Reddit or Twitter.
There’s always porn, but even a fourteen year old boy needs to give his wrist and dick a break every now and then.
So. Jensen knows what he’s doing is stupid. But it’s not boring, and he’s not an a complete idiot; it’s not like he’s going to post nudes on the internet, seriously, and he didn’t need a school seminar to tell him that, because he does have a little thing people in Texas like to call common sense.
He logs onto a Sons of Anarchy room and logs off two minutes later. He checks out the Alt. Rock room and leaves when user notwithoutmylunchbox starts chatting furiously with EbonyWayX about Fall Out Boy’s triumphant return.
He hovers over the LGBTQ (queer and questioning) link, but doesn’t click. Instead he watches the way the letters slide and flicker color, and wonders if he would somehow look different, too, if he really did press the mouse.
His mom calls and he nearly falls back in his chair, glancing over his shoulder to make sure she is ringing from her office and not floating outside of his window, peering into his room and his soul the way she does whenever he’s doing something he knows he shouldn’t be. She tells him she’s going to end up spending a few more hours at work than she intended, and there’s money on her dresser for him to order pizza. He wants to tell her, Mom, I have a debit card now, that’s what it’s for, but he just smiles and tells her to drive home safe.
Jensen places his order online but doesn’t shut the chat window. After he’s finished, he un-minimizes the chat and hovers over the same room.
This time, he clicks.
There are a few people logged in. WeAreTheUnicorn posts a reply Jensen doesn’t understand to someone that must have been talking before he joined the room. Frowning, Jensen decides he’ll just Netflix South Park until his pizza is delivered. He is getting ready to exit when boisboisbois responds to the conversation with a link.
boisboisbois: if ur lookin 2 c sum dick insted of just typin about it
Jensen wrinkles his nose at the atrocious spelling and shortcuts. He hates agreeing with his grandparents but it does irrirate the shit out of him when Danneel sends him a string of jumbled numbers and letters. When the link and the description meet in his head, Jensen feels heat burn from his belly to his cheeks.
Babyiwasbornthisgay: THIS ISN’T THAT TYPE OF CHAT ROOM
WeAreTheUnicorn: This is supposed to be a safe space for people to talk. If you’re just going to post links to those places, you can leave this chat.
boisboisbois re-posts the links and adds young and hung!!!11 before logging off the room.
Taking a deep breath, Jensen hovers over the link.
Oddly, he feels less hesitant clicking this one.
There is a garish red splash of words over a dull grey background.
BY CLICKING ENTER, YOU AGREE THAT YOU ARE 18 YEARS OR OLDER. SITE MAY CONTAIN ADULT CONTENT.
Jensen clicks ‘enter.’
ARE YOU SERIOUSLY 18 YEARS OR OLDER?
Paranoid, embarrassed, Jensen shifts in his chair and clicks ‘yes I am seriously 18 years or older’.
OKAY. WE BELIEVE YOU. (NOT REALLY. ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE 18?)
Jensen clicks ‘yes’.
DO YOUR PARENTS KNOW YOU ARE TRYING TO GET ON THIS SITE?
Jensen huffs and fully intends to exit the site. It’s probably a scam. He is going to click whatever answer they have laid out and end up downloading malware to every computer in the block, or something. When Jensen looks over the entry link, it reads ‘I’m old enough to see dudes taking their clothes off online, Jesus Christ!’ His fingers hesitate over the corner ‘x’.
Fuck it, Jensen thinks even as his face flushes. Chris is good with computers, and Jensen wouldn’t have to tell him it was gay porn that fucked his up.
The chat opens in a new window and several other pop-ups with obscene sounds, moans and squelches, erupt onto the screen beside it. Jensen quickly exited out of them, mortified even as he sat alone.
There is a pop-up asking for his e-mail and telling him to create a password and username. He types in one of the fake g-mails he uses for porn, decides on nenson for a name – it’s not like he’s ever going to be on this site again – and opts to use it for his password, too. Once he’s accepted, he sees another screen with a list of current users: only eight names, including his own, flash in the corner.
Several comments are written across the screen, but Jensen’s eyes are focused on the pictures in the middle of the page. They both show a boy who can’t be eighteen, is maybe sixteen at the most. The first photo is a chest and up shot, and the fuck has included his face in the picture. He’s handsome – hot, Jensen thinks with a rush, the stupid dude is hot. The second picture is a chest and down shot, and stupid dude is sporting a heavy bulge in his dark, too tight briefs.
Jensen’s gut drops, frozen and burning and twisting into his throat, and his thighs tremble as he twitches in his own loose boxers.
Erins_Party: Sorry boys, time to *get off* ;) TTYL!
Stupid dude loses 1,000 hotness points.
There are several lines of disappointment at seeing stupid dude sign out. A new message flashes onto the screen.
Captainmorgan: I just wanted to see cock today.
Jensen laughs, a little surprised and disbelieving at the words and his own reaction.
Collinit: I just wanted to see something young and pretty today.
Jensen doesn’t laugh at that. He gulps, suddenly feeling tight lipped and dry mouthed and like some molten and molasses is crawling through his veins. Stupid dude looked pretty and pretty young, so Jensen doesn’t really know what this Collinit guy is complaining about.
Harley: I believe young and pretty just *got off*
It’s difficult to read shade over the internet, but Jensen is sure Harley just threw some heavy shadows in stupid dude’s direction. He smiles again, feels as if he can breathe a bit easier, and the heat in him simmers lower.
Collinit: What about you, nenson? What did you want to see?
Jensen swallows. Heat pierces him like a lance, igniting his nerves until he begins to twitch in his seat. He should exit, close the chat room, shut the computer down.
He doesn’t, but he doesn’t reply either. He doesn’t do anything except sit and watch the screen; he doesn’t think he can.
Collinit: What are you looking for? First time here?
Suddenly, Jensen realizes he has no idea what he is doing here. He is about to exit the chat room and never, ever think of it again when a new messages appears.
Harley: You’re not young and pretty, are you? ;D
Jensen is thrown by the emoticon, but instead of rolling his eyes, he snorts and shakes his head.
He finds his hands moving to the keyboard without really thinking about it. He realizes what he is doing and his fingers hesitate above the keys.
What could be the harm, really, in exchanging a few messages? It’s not like he’s going to post selfies with his face or dick in them.
nenson: Young. I don’t really know about the pretty.
Jensen has been told that he’s handsome, always by adults who reach to pat his head or pinch his face, and he’s seen girls, locked tight in their circles, watching him, whispering and giggling about him when he looks their way. But he doesn’t know if he’s pretty. He doesn’t know if he wants to be.
Harley: Aw, now. I’m sure you’re pretty pretty.
Jensen thinks, clever, and is going to type his amusement when he remembers this isn’t Facebook chat with the girl he had a crush on when he was twelve.
Collinit: Why don’t you post something?
Captainmorgan: You could post a picture and then we could see, but I’m sure Harley’s right.
These guys are vultures, geese-us. Jensen is definitely going to exit now, right now.
Harley: Calm down, boys. We don’t mean to scare you. You don’t have to post if you don’t want to. But I’d like to see you. I’m sure you’re young and gorgeous.
And Jensen hesitates. His fingers tremble on the mouse as he reads and re-reads the message. This guy – these guys – are perverts. Obviously, they’re on an internet chat site asking for pictures of young men. Jensen is, too, but he’s not actively encouraging impressionable teenage boys to post inappropriate photos. He should tell these people to fuck off, get some therapy, watch more – or less? – porn.
nenson: I don’t think I should.
He knows he shouldn’t, actually. Knows that it is stupid and wrong and stupid and that he should not, under any circumstances, post anything.
Harley: Okay. Hey, it’s whatever you want. But just so you know, we won’t post any of this stuff anywhere else on the web. This is a safe place. Whatever happens here stays here.
nenson: Wait, is this a gay porn chat site or a travel ad? Because I’ve been to Vegas before, and it sucked.
Collinit and Captainmorgan respond with ridiculous emoticons.
Harley: Eh, a little of both.
Jensen grins. Before he really knows what he’s doing, he finds himself asking the guys to hold on a sec. It’s embarrassing but the best lighting in the new house is in his bathroom, and he needs a mirror to make sure he doesn’t accidentally catch any of his facial features. There is a dull thrill rumbling as he takes off his shirt. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment.
He isn’t as tan as stupid dude or as muscled He’s a little tall for his age but he’s still skinny. His shoulders have been getting broader while his waist and hips remain tapered; his arms and legs have started gaining strength from lifting weights in gym class, but their lean, not bulging.
Chewing his lip nervously, Jensen angles the camera to capture his image from his throat to the top of his jeans. The line of his blue boxers peaks out above the denim, and he briefly thinks of pulling his jeans up, but it’s not like he’s going to offend the online perverts with a sneak of his underwear. Hell, they’ll probably like it.
Jensen ignores the thrill that flips his belly at the thought and snaps a few more pictures. He turns left, right, twists so he can get a shot of his back, the valley of his shoulders and dip of his spine and beginning curve of his ass. When he’s finished, his entire body is burning with mortification and the same tingling buzz that infected him when he first stepped into the bathroom
After he uploads the pictures to the computer, he clicks back into the chat room, but his fingers feel frozen over the keys. What in the actual fuck is he doing? Is he really going to post these online for strangers, for filthy men who want to ogle his youth and prettiness? Thinking of the situation in such terms should break Jensen out of whatever enchantment the chat has put him under. It doesn’t. Instead he feels another jolting twist of excitement, of arousal, and he spreads his legs in order to relieve the growing tension in his groin.
nenson: I’m back.
Jensen takes a steadying breath before adding, And just so ya’ll know…I might not have been completely honest with those site warnings.
His nerves shake at the admission, and he wonders if maybe he’s too young for these guys. Just because stupid dude looked like he was sixteen, it didn’t mean everyone in the room would be keen on a guy who looked - and actually was - fourteen.
Several responses pop up, mostly from the people who hadn’t been posting earlier, assuring him it’s fine, no one will tell, they just want to see him, see how young and pretty his, no one is going to judge him. When Jensen looks in the corner, there are eleven users in the room instead of seven. He thinks he should feel more nervous, but it only makes him breathe faster.
Jensen posts the first picture. A few moments pass with no response, and as each second passes, a harsh clench begins in his chest. He isn’t sure, but he thinks he might faint – or, worse, cry.
Harley: Holy fuck, you’re fucking beautiful.
Collinit: Wow. Wow. WOW. Pretty does not begin to cover that.
MikenIke: SHIT SON.
Captainmorgan: gorgeous.
tom895: HOT!!!
Harley: Jesus, dude, how could you have been worried at all?
Jensen is overwhelmed by the strong and immediate reactions, both from the other men in the chat room and from himself. He thinks he can feel his entire body flushing, and his face feels so hot he has to close his eyes and imagine pressing his cheeks against the freezer to capture a moment of calm. The attention, the words, dirty compliments from dirty men, makes him feel...he can't really describe it, but it's different than the embarrassment and pride he feels when he catches girls looking at him in class or when one of his friends tells him a sister or cousin thinks he's cute.
He doesn't feel cute - these men don't think he's cute. They think he's pretty, gorgeous, beautiful, hot - sexy. Is this what its like, he wonders in a fever haze, to feel sexy?
The girl - the one who got in trouble - told Chris' older sister that was why she sent the pictures to her boyfriend. She said it made her feel sexy. Chris thought that was a fucking stupid reason. The girl's boyfriend - the one who didn't get in trouble - said she was a slut. Jensen had curled his hands into fists: he hadn't understood what she meant, but he knew it didn't make her a whore, something wrong.
When Harley tells him he's probably the prettiest person he's ever seen and asks if he has anymore pictures, Jensen doesn't feel like a slut or a whore. Maybe a little wrong, maybe just breath of it, but not much, not really. He feels flattered, enamored, excited. He feels even sexier. It's intense, so new and strong, and he can understand how that girl might have let her brain drift closed to keep chasing this heat.
nenson: A few more, yeah.
He posts one where he is standing on the side, one of his arms stretched across his stomach and his hand resting on his hip. He frowns when he realizes how prominent the freckles on his shoulder are at that angle and in that light.
But then Harley responds: Jesus, prettiest freckles I've ever seen. You got those everywhere, beautiful?
There is a chorus of agreements and similar questions. As Jensen answers, Yeah, and I hate every damn one of them, the mound in Jensen's jeans is hotter, harder, twitching against the too soft fabric of his boxers.
It's weird, because if this was just porn Jensen was watching, he'd already have his pants around his thighs, hand wrapped around himself while he struggles to keep his eyes open and on the screen. But he hesitates to touch himself. It seems egotistical, somehow, fucked up, getting off on strangers getting off on these pictures of himself - which aren't porn, he may be half-naked but it's the upper half, and it's not like he's doing anything in them.
After another profile, after a flurry of more comments, Jensen looks to the users and sees at least twice as many names as he had when he logged in. That should certainly make him nervous, scare him, should make his hands fly to exit from the site. It only sharpens the ache in his gut and cock. He presses his palm to the bulge in his jeans and closes his eyes, applies even more pressure, and lets his mouth drop in a heavy breath.
Collinit: You shouldn't hate those! They're beauty marks, you know.
Breathless, Jensen moves to type with one hand while he keeps the other as a heavy weight between his thighs.
nenson: Then I must be the most beautiful person in the world. Those stupid things are everywhere.
Harley: Think you might be.
Jensen's blush deepens. He hopes his previous messages don't make it seem like he's fishing, here, like he's desperate for compliments and attention. Rubbing himself, he thinks that it might not be the freckles comments alone that make him look like that.
Captainmorgan: So...you got those freckles *everywhere*, eh?
Jensen would smack himself if his hands weren’t already otherwise occupied, because he walked right into that. He wonders if the other users think he’s being coy, flirty, trying to coax them into coaxing him.
The sharp, sudden ring of the doorbell scares the fuck out of Jensen. His soft, breathy noise of pleasure slides into a gasp of surprise. He’s more embarrassed by the gentle noise than his state of arousal at first, but when the doorbell rings again, he’s completely mortified by the bulge in his pants.
The pizza, Jensen remembers. He thinks of closing out the chat room and never, ever logging in again. But something makes his fingers move - maybe the years of his mother drilling politeness into his head, because somehow it seems like it would be rude to just leave forever without saying anything, without saying thank you to the creepy pervs who made him feel things he’s never felt before.
nenson: I gotta go, guys. I...
Jensen bites his lips, then backspaces.
nenson: Sorry kids, I gotta get out of here.
Jensen pauses. It’s stupid, these people probably won’t care, but he types and presses enter.
nenson: Thanks.
He doesn’t wait for any responses. The doorbell rings again. Jensen's face is stained, blood red and blood hot. He tries to adjust himself in his jeans, make it look like he hasn't been doing exactly what he's been doing, and heads down the stairs.
"Be there in a second!" Jensen yells loudly as he runs to the living room to get the twenty his mother left.
When he gets to the door, he takes a deep, steadying breath.
The pizza boy is a few years older than Jensen, a kid he's seen in the hallways a few times. Jensen knows the guy doesn't know him, probably doesn't even recognize him, but he is suddenly gripped tight by fear: the pizza boy is going to know. He is going to look at Jensen and know exactly what he’s been doing, is going to know that he logged onto the site looking for something dark and deep and dirty, that he posted pictures for perverts and got off on them telling him how pretty he was, that he is a pervert, that he did something and is something bad.
“12.49,” the guy says, sounding bored as he drums his fingers on the pizza box.
Jensen blinks. He can feel his blush flickering like embers on his cheeks, inside his mouth. He wants to grab the box and hide his crotch, but if he realizes, logically, that the only way the pizza boy is going to notice his hard on is if he draws attention to it. The pizza boy doesn't know about his erection, doesn't know how he got it or what he's done. The pizza boy just wants his money.
"Uh, right," Jensen says, pressing the twenty to him. "Keep the change, okay?" The boys eyes widen and a smile spreads across his lips - he's pretty, Jensen thinks, but not like Erin...not like Jensen himself. "Thanks. Have a nice day!" Jensen grabs the pizza box, slinks into the house, and slams the door shut.
-
They get new people on the site every day. It's one of the things Jared likes most about it.
Well, that and all the pictures of underage boys.
But this nenson – and what the fuck is that username, Jared doesn’t even know – is different from anyone he’s encountered in the past two years he's co-owned and co-managed youngandhung.org. The kid is quick-witted, more clever and entertaining to actually chat with than a lot of the adults that log in, let alone the boys. Jared had been drawn by the obvious inexperience and apprehension, by the vulnerability and sweetness clearly thrumming underneath the bravado.
When Jensen had told them he'd have pics in a bit, Jared had felt anticipation slice through his chest like it hadn’t in years.
Jared had watched the first picture pop onto his screen with a tense breath. The kid didn't show his face - smart, just like Jared had thought, but not experienced and wise enough to not show himself at all - and he didn't go nude, no pretty - virgin, probably, damn - ass or hard - but probably equally pretty - cock for he and the guys to drool and whimper and damn themselves over. He had only ended up posting four pictures, all relatively tame for the site.
But fuck.
Fucking fuck, the kid had been gorgeous. Jared hadn't been lying when he said the boy was beautiful, had the prettiest freckles he'd ever seen, that he wanted to see more of him. Jared had wanted – fuck, does want - desperately to see more of him.
What kills Jared is when nenson leaves. The boy doesn't immediately close the chat like he's been frightened or caught. He calls them kids, cheeky and adorable, and Jared just wanted to reach into the screen and pull the boy into his lap, wanted to kiss the him senseless and map the rest of those lovely freckles with his tongue.
Then the boy had said thanks. Thanks. Like Jared and the other men in the room had done him some sort of favor by coaxing half-naked pictures from him. Jared had felt a razor pang of guilt, of shame, emotions he thought he’d become completely numb to. He’d pushed himself from his computer desk, dick and chest tight and stinging.
Jared heads out to the small deck outside. The room was meant as a master bedroom, the en suite bathroom and little balcony outside serving as selling points of luxury, but Jared thought it made a better office, since in his line of work, he often found himself needing a space where he could gulp a deep, grounding breath of fresh air while still maintaining enough privacy to hide his erection.
It's not that Jared is under any illusions. He knows he's a deplorable, despicable human being. The fact that he wants such terrible things from young, sweet bodies is the worst sickness lurking in his brain, but it isn't his only defection. He's lied to and manipulated people all of his life - his parents, his siblings, various girlfriends, teachers, bosses, therapists - to hide his lusts, and he's twisted and tainted naivety and innocence to his advantage more than once.
But he's been trying. He doesn't want to go to jail. He doesn't want to be a sick fuck, either, of course, but after decades of trying and failing to purge himself, he still wants who and what he wants and he can't stop, he can't. He can try to stop touching, but he can’t even begin to stop that desire to touch.
He needs to stop touching. Every kid is another stain he can’t wash off of his hands, and eventually it’s going to catch up with him: get him killed, get him thrown in prison. Eventually, it’s going to destroy him.
So Jared's been keeping his hands off of bodies that are under seventeen. He's been doing pretty good at keeping his hands above the age of consent - but of course, that's mostly due to the website. A lot of his ability to refrain from touching has been thanks to his ability to look his fill.
He knows it’s still beyond fucked up. He understands that starting a website aimed at luring teenage boys into chat sites where they will be further encouraged to bare their skin and souls isn't a good thing, doesn’t make what he wants any less monstrous.
But he’s not touching; he’s just looking. Only looking. it's better than hanging around liquor stores, offering to buy alcohol for minors in exchange for a taste of their boy-sweat, or leaning against the walls in clubs, lurking for boys who snuck in past the bouncer's radar. It's better than dating divorcees to catch glimpses of their teenage sons changing or going to family reunions for the sole purpose of cataloguing how his nephews and young cousins bodies have changed.
Better, because he’s less likely to get caught this way. Because it’s less messy on paper and in his brain. It’s less complicated, less risky, to just watch them, touch himself and look at them through a screen rather than in person through half-lidded eyes, rather than touch them himself. He's never lured one of the chat boys to his bed, just to his website. None of the boys have been used like that, at least not as a result of Jared's site. Misha keeps a careful digital eye on everyone who logs in, and Jeff checks out and takes care of anything suspicious. (Jared's lucky to have them, he understands, men who not only share and understand his perversions but are technological geniuses with connections to the FBI.)
But then nenson logged onto his site. Jared feels like he read the boy's heart in his snarky, nervous comments, feels like he saw something deeper than all that beautiful skin.
Jared’s wanted to break his own rules before, but that want is a constant oil slick sickness, a shard that has been twisting in his gut since he turned 20 and realized he still wanted to be dating like he was 15. Boys have posted pictures and videos and Jared has had to scream and sob like the children he wanted to devour into his pillow. Jared has traced young lips through the computer screen and wanted to find them, take them, just once, and felt raw under the violence of his urges.
But nenson. But this kid.
Jared gazes around the cul-de-sac. He looks at the nice houses of the nice families with the nice lives and knows he is a black hole sucking decency from the marrow of their nice teenage sons. Then he sees one of those nice sons, Jensen Ackles, open the door for the pizza boy. Jared has to take another deep breath, press himself more firmly against the fence.
So maybe there is another boy that makes Jared hurt so sharply with want it almost numbs him.
Jensen is in his young teens, probably just a freshman in high school. He moved in with his mother, a pretty divorcee, and he was exactly the type of kid that would decimate Jared if Jared couldn’t keep it to himself.
If it wasn’t for the site, Jared would have introduced himself to Mrs. Ackles, charmed her, spent the night in an attempt to see the way Jensen’s hair stuck up in the morning, catch a glimpse of skin as he reached for the cereal at the top of the fridge.
Jared runs a hand through his hair. He wonders what it would take to lure someone like little Jensen into the chat room, hates himself, and tries not to stare.
He fails, of course; he always fails, he always looks, especially now that it is all he will allow himself to do. He can see Jensen’s smile, wishes he could hear his sweet laugh, run his nose along that soft hair, taste the shine in it. Jared’s eyes roam Jensen’s chest, dip down to the loose jeans – Jensen never wears the skinny jeans Jared sees all the other kids his age in – with a rip over the front of one thigh.
Jared freezes, blood trembling icy and feverish.
The boy – nenson – was wearing jeans with the same tear.
Jared has seen Jensen up close before, seen how slender his hips and broad his shoulders are, seen the pretty freckles dusted over those smooth cheekbones. He remembers wondering if those freckles spread over his back, his chest, his thighs.
For a moment, Jared thinks there is no possible way.
It has to be a coincidence. But he thinks of Jensen’s pink mouth and youth, the absolutely damning bow of his lean little legs, thinks of how the ridiculous username makes sense when considering the ridiculous real name. He recalls how polite Jensen has been the few times they’ve met, remembers the deep flush of want that made him dizzy when Jensen had thanked him for helping he and his mom the day they moved in.
Thanks.
Oh.
Oh shit.
Jared can feel every good intention he’s been trying desperately to hold onto crumble; he can feel it burn to ash in his dry throat, and when his eyes travel upwards, catch the faint view of a bulge in Jensen’s jeans, he knows none of those well-meaning limits he set for himself will ever rise again.