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Jay is more California than he is Florida.
There’s a storm coming in soon — it was supposed to be a bad one, they’d been warned about it earlier by Jeff; cyclone season and all — but Jay’s down in the water, in his boardshorts and tank top without a care in the world, and Adam really isn’t surprised to learn that he used to live in Newport Beach.
He looks it. Acts it, too. All he’s missing is a surfboard and some type of Vodka-Redbull-Tequila concoction to drink.
Adam can’t stand it.
He trudges through the sand, stopping where it meets the jungle and their unfinished shelter sits — a sorry mess of broken bamboo and half-woven palm fronds that is quickly shaping up to be one of the worst shelters in Survivor history, and he wonders how the hell he got stuck with what was basically a frat house for a tribe.
So there’s Jay — okay, fine, but then there’s Jay’s boy, Taylor, and Adam can’t decide who’s worse. Hannah was right, he thinks, this is like high school all over again and he still hadn’t been invited to come and sit with the cool kids.
Par for the course, he supposes.
Jay has the beginnings of a sunburn on his nose. It’s barely noticeable, only the slightest tinge of pink across the bridge, but it’s guaranteed to peel soon.
They build a real shelter, and it’s nothing like what they had on day one (it’s almost as if everyone on his tribe had started to take things seriously after they had been evacuated last night — funny how that works, right?), and Adam sits back once it’s done and watches as Jay works his magic on Michelle.
Adam can’t stand Jay and his sunburnt nose and his easy laugh. There’s something about Jay that Adam doesn’t trust, makes him feel a little uneasy, and — What does he do for a living, anyway? Adam racks his brain, thinking back to day one when Taylor, the most millennial of the tribe by a long shot, had suggested they all ‘go around in a circle’ and introduce themselves — real estate agent, that’s what it was.
Real estate, and of course that's what someone like Jay did; he’s too good not to. Adam can’t imagine Jay doing anything else.
When nighttime finally rolls around, Jay’s got Michelle in his back pocket and Adam is starting to think that he might be in trouble.
Vanua wins the first immunity challenge and everyone is all exhausted — yet proud — smiles when they settle around the fire that night.
Taylor and Figgy sit way too close to each other, and they aren’t fooling anyone — how stupid do they think we are?
It’s almost insulting, really, but if they wanted to place that target on their backs, so be it. Adam sure as hell isn’t gonna stop them (let them blow up their own games), but he does make sure that he’s clear on the other side of the fire as he stretches his legs out.
(Adam could say that he’s in the best shape of his life right now, but sadly, that wasn’t saying much. He’s not an athlete. He’s not like Taylor and Jay, probably never will be.)
He dumps the sand out of his shoes. He’s fine with not being an athlete, he decides. He’s resigned himself to it; it’s a fact he’s just gonna have to live with.
It isn’t long before someone interrupts his silent pity party with a: “Hey, man.”
Jay. Adam hates that he recognizes Jay’s voice right off the bat, hates that he doesn’t even need to look over.
“Hey.”
“You’re from Cali, right?” Jay asks.
This time, Adam looks. He looks, and he keeps his answers short, every word calculated, because he doesn’t know what to make of Jay yet (small talk, what’s Jay’s game? What angle is he trying to work? ).
He’s still not a hundred percent on Jay, Jay the smooth-talking real estate agent who could — and, hell, probably does — have a million tricks up his sleeve.
“Yeah.” He nods, then adds: “San Francisco.”
Jay grins. The sunburn on his nose is peeling. “Sick, dude. That’s really fuckin’ sweet.”
“Have you been?”
“Nah,” Jay laughs. Adam does, too. “Not to San Fran. I’d love to go sometime, though.”
Adam doesn’t tell Jay that he thinks he’d fit right in.
The sky grows darker. Their conversation ends there, and Adam tries his best not to let his mind wander.
Fiji is hot in the mornings, exponentially hotter than anything Adam was used to back in San Francisco (but, there, he did have AC, to be fair): the sun hadn’t fully risen yet and here Adam was, shrugging his sweater off and, instead, balling it up and placing it underneath his head like some sort of makeshift pillow. It isn’t comfortable.
With eyes half-shut still, Adam groggily looks around. And oh, God — Jay is sound asleep right next to him. How the hell did that happen?
He rolls over, now facing Zeke instead of Jay, and he’s going to have to force himself to get up soon — there’s tons of work to do around their camp that he could get a head start on while everyone is still sleeping, get some brownie points, maybe — but he’s exhausted. Last night was rough. Adam wasn’t particularly used to sleeping on bamboo either, let’s just say, and why hadn’t he prepared for that?
(You’d think a super-duper fan would know better.)
It’s brighter out when Adam eventually stirs awake again. He sits up, rubbing sore, tired eyes.
“Gooooood morning!” Jay is damn near yelling, and Adam already knows that Jay’s got enough energy alone to last him thirty-nine days and then some, probably, but the grin on his lips only proves it further.
Adam, not much of a morning person, doesn’t answer him.
“How do I look?” Jay teases, uses his buff to push his hair away from his face. A couple curls fall right back down to where they’d been before, almost as if his hair had a mind of its own. Jay sighs, rolls his eyes, laughs like he’s used to it.
And it’s then, while Adam is listening to Jay’s laughter, that he can feel his breath catch in his throat. He attempts to cover it up with a laugh, too; probably fails. It’s too loud, too fake. Jay probably sees right through him and, in a game as ruthless as Survivor is, the thought of that is enough to make Adam sick to his stomach.
There’s no telling what someone like Jay could do with something like that.
But Jay’s good, remember — even if he did pick up on the way Adam’s cheeks had flushed a bright red like no tomorrow, the way Adam had stuttered over his words like a fool, he didn’t let it show. Kept joking around like always, hardly ever fazed.
Jay’s good. Adam’s just gonna have to be a little bit better.
So Adam spends the rest of his afternoon strategically avoiding Jay, which isn’t really all that hard, he learns. Jay’s too busy with the Triforce, thank God (and fuck that stupid name).
Adam is sitting on the beach with Hannah, Zeke, and Mari, finishing up a shell of rice as the waning sun paints the Fijian sky in purples and oranges, and he finally feels like he’s got a solid alliance, finally feels like he’s found some people he can trust. Mari thinks she can pull in Michaela and Will, and then they’d be set.
“What do you guys think of Jay?” he asks, offhand.
His question earns a collective shrug from his fellow tribemates.
“Haven’t really talked to him that much,” Mari mumbles. Adam nods silently, agrees with her. It seems to be the consensus among the group. “He seems like an okay kid, you know, but he’s really tight with Taylor and Figgy…”
“Yeah.” Adam wishes he wasn’t. He can’t stand Taylor. Can’t stand Taylor, can’t trust Jay. “We’ve gotta break that alliance up. If we lose next time, and here’s hoping that we don’t, but if we do… ”
Mari picks up where he left off. “Figgy.”
Adam probably trusts Figgy the least, but Jay’s still right there with her.
He’s glad that he and Mari are on the same page.
“Can I tell you something I haven’t told anyone else out here yet?” Adam asks once only he and Mari are left sitting on the beach — Hannah and Zeke had called it a night a while ago.
“Of course,” Mari replies without pause, not missing a single beat. Like she always does, like it’s a no-brainer.
Adam looks over in her general direction. He can’t really see her — it’s hard to see anything when it’s as dark out as it is right now, and maybe that’s a good thing.
“I’m gay.”
There is a moment, a split second, where Adam regrets ever opening his stupid mouth in the first place. Going into the game, he hadn’t planned on telling anyone . Point blank. But then Mari is hugging him (Adam doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s kinda squeezing his neck a little too hard, and he feels silly for ever regretting it), and she’s saying, “I’m so proud of you, Adam. Thank you for telling me.”
It’s definitely a good thing that it’s so dark outside, Adam decides, because he sure as hell doesn’t want Mari to see that he’s crying.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” he whispers into her shoulder, and he’s almost positive that his shaky voice gives him away regardless. Oh well .
“I would never do something like that. I promise.” Mari pulls away. Doesn’t miss a beat.
Adam looks up at the sky, up at the stars he could never quite see back in San Francisco no matter how hard he tried, and whispers, “Thank you.”
Adam is sitting cross-legged inside the Vanua shelter when Jay walks up like he owns the place.
“Ah, man, I’m beat,” he says (and was it so hard for Jay to speak at a normal volume? Whatever happened to using your inside voice?), sprawling out across the flats of bamboo. He drapes an arm over his face.
And Adam struggles to recall anything Jay’s done today that would make him even remotely as tired as he seems to be, but he figures he can give Jay the benefit of the doubt here. The elements were tough - way more than Adam had initially expected them to be. He hums some sort of reply, agreeing.
They don’t talk about California, and Adam doesn’t ask Jay about Florida (although he’s dying to know anything and everything about it: Florida, as a concept, has always intrigued him). Really, they don’t have any reason to talk to one another; they have nothing in common and Adam knows it. Jay probably does, too.
The sun’s rays had been beating down on them nonstop today and, despite having a roof over their heads, their shelter provided little protection from the overwhelming humidity. Eventually, Adam realizes Jay had fallen asleep.
A smile crosses his lips. He doesn’t let it stay there for more than a couple seconds; he’s well aware of how telling something like that would look on camera. He’d prefer for there to not be any videographic evidence of him staring at Jay for millions to see — That would be a nightmare. Oh, God, would that be a nightmare. He didn’t even want to imagine the shit that everyone on all those online forums would say.
So he gets up and walks clear across camp, far away from the shelter where Jay’s still sleeping in the midday heat. Maybe he could go for a swim. Hell, he could even try to find an idol. Check that off his Survivor bucket list.
“I don’t usually burn like this,” Jay claims later that afternoon, right after Adam had pointed out the (rather gnarly — and, God, that’s not a word Adam would ever use, he must be spending too much time around Taylor and Jay) sunburn on his back.
Adam had been sitting near the water with Hannah, talking strategy but not really talking strategy at the same time (too early, still), and — of course, Jay just had to come over and crash their little party. Of course. Adam’s beginning to think that he’s never gonna be able to completely avoid Jay, much to his chagrin.
Adam chuckles, filling the silence. “Oh, I do.”
“Never, bro,” Jay goes on, shaking his head, and, yeah - he’s all energy and big smiles again. “I usually tan. I swear to God!”
“They should give us sunscreen as a reward,” Adam rambles. Look, it’s not like he’d wanted to strike up this stupid conversation in the first place - there was just no way he couldn’t say something. He hadn’t said anything about the sunburn on Jay’s nose - but, then again, that one wasn’t as bad, and now he kinda has to finish this, “I’d use that way more than I’d ever use fishing gear.”
“More than fishing—? What? No way,” Jay sputters, nearly does a double take. “You’re crazy.”
“Says you.” Adam rolls his eyes.
“Sunscreen would be one lame ass reward,” Jay grins.
“I don’t know,” Adam says, and it comes out a lot more sing-songy than he had intended. It makes him want to puke. “You’re the one with the sunburn…”
“Whatever!” Jay shouts, and by the time Adam can think of another comeback, Jay’s already long gone.
Idiot.
Taylor carries the tribe’s flag into the next immunity challenge, pushes it into the sandy ground with squared shoulders and a smug grin. Overconfidence at its finest, Adam briefly thinks to himself, and maybe that’s why they lose today.
They almost had it, too, until Takali came back at the last second — and then it was too little, too late. Adam knows all too well when a battle just isn’t worth fighting anymore.
So, come sunset, the Vanua tribe heads to their first Tribal Council, torches in hand, and Adam feels like a character inside his TV screen (even says as much to Jeff - “I mean, you’re Jeff Probst! We’re at Tribal Council!” ). It gets a laugh from his tribe — he wasn’t trying to be funny, but he appreciates it nonetheless — and even at the last minute, even as Adam is walking up to cast his vote, it still doesn’t feel entirely real to him.
He writes a name, all caps.
“Figgy,” he whispers to the camera, tries to keep his voice down. It’s a lot more real now: “You’re a sweetheart, but you and Taylor are just way too dangerous. I know you know that. I’m sorry, I had to.”
He doesn’t know why he’s apologizing. It’s just another part of the game, isn’t it?
Hannah is the last to vote. When she returns, Mari shoots her a smile but Adam’s feeling a little uneasy because what the hell took her so long, this was supposed to be an easy vote...
Jeff tallies the votes while everyone waits in silence. Adam stares at the fire, almost hypnotized, tries to lean in a little closer to its flames. He chews on a dirty fingernail as Jeff begins.
Nervous habit.
There’s his vote for Figgy, along with two more — Mari’s and Zeke’s. He knows that for a fact. The remaining seven are all for Mari, and Adam is left sitting there with his mouth open, alternating between staring at Zeke (who looks just as surprised as he is) and Jay (who’s got a big, shit-eating grin on his face).
Adam feels like an idiot. Jay had got him. Klein, 0, Starrett, 1.
Look, dude, I was just playing the game, Jay had told him (and he had sounded almost apologetic about it, although Adam could just chalk that up to the sleep deprivation playing tricks on him), I had to do what was best for me. You get it, right?
And Adam gets it, he does; he would’ve done the same thing had he been in Jay’s shoes, and, really, it was a brilliant move on Jay, Taylor, and Figgy’s part (but he doesn’t tell them that. He never would).
Adam falls asleep in the sand that night, alone near the fire, his stomach in knots. He’s got an arm angled uncomfortably underneath his head, shivering although the fire is burning bright.
He didn’t come here to lose, but neither did Jay.
The sun rises early the next day. Adam’s pulled from a rough sleep, wakes up to the sound of stifled laughter, hushed voices. Everything sounds far away - he might still be dreaming.
There’s an awful cramp in his arm; he can barely move it. He shakes the sand from his hair, head pounding.
Adam had spent most of last night listening to Hannah’s laundry list of excuses as to why she’d voted out Mari, then subsequently trying his best to play peacemaker between Hannah and Zeke, caught in the middle of the crossfire and wishing that he wasn’t. It was exhausting.
“Can’t we just talk about this tomorrow?” Adam had finally broken down and begged, after having had enough of their incessant bickering. Miraculously, they had agreed.
But he’d never really been good at this whole peacemaker shit (he had never needed to be), and now it’s tomorrow and talking things over with Zeke and Hannah is the absolute last thing he wants to do, if he’s being honest.
They end up meeting at the well anyway. Adam’s still half-asleep, half-listening. Zeke seems like he’s in a slightly better mood than he was last night. Hannah is all apologies, heavy bags weighing her eyes down as if she hadn’t slept at all. Knowing her, that theory wasn’t too far-fetched.
It’s weird around camp without Mari.
And Adam, anxiety spiking after (or maybe because of?) their conversation, spends his afternoon scouring the island for an idol, a clue — anything , really, because yes, Hannah is still his friend and yes, he ultimately forgave her, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s on the bottom of the tribe (thanks to her), and besides, who the hell would pass up an idol?
When he somehow finds it — hidden inside a coconut, of all places, that Adam had just barely managed to crack open (again, not an athlete) — he doesn’t tell anyone. Just shoves it in his pocket (and later, buries it in his bag, wrapping it up carefully inside his sweater), returns to camp and hopes he’s able to fade into the background.
It’s easy to, he soon realizes; at least, it is when Jay’s a part of the Vanua tribe.
Because — Jay is the life of the party. Big smiles that draw you in, lovely and beautiful and bright just like the stars in the sky above, full of restless energy, overflowing and tumbling and crashing dangerously, not unlike the ocean’s waves. Adam knows he isn’t any of that.
It’s annoying as all hell, and Adam would never admit this to a single soul, but he’s fine with hanging back, cast in Jay’s shadow if it’ll take all the attention off of him, keep him in the game a little longer.
(Here’s hoping that it does.)
Adam opens his eyes on the morning of what he thinks is day thirteen and wonders how the hell he’s still here.
It is, by all accounts, a God-given miracle that Vanua hadn’t gone to Tribal Council since the night they blindsided Mari (and Adam, in the process). Adam was next on the chopping block and it was obvious; he knew for a fact that he would’ve been sent packing in a heartbeat if they’d lost another challenge.
But it’s day thirteen, and Adam is still here, and he grins despite himself as they all shuffle around in the sand, taking their places on new mats, greeting new tribemates after Jeff had told them to drop their buffs.
Adam had pulled a purple buff. Takali.
Jay ends up on Ikabula. Adam almost laughs when Jeff tells the newly formed Ikabula tribe that they’ll be starting over from scratch, heading to a completely new beach.
So Jay drew the short stick, but Adam isn’t exactly lucky, either: he learns that he’s stuck with both Figgy and Taylor, half the goddamn Triforce, and it’s suddenly not as funny anymore.
Great.
“Yo, I fuck with this tribe,” Taylor announces loudly upon their return to the Takali shelter. Figgy laughs, and Adam wishes he shared in their enthusiasm.
But he’s trying to look on the bright side (he’s an optimist, maybe to a fault back home in his “real life”): the Takali shelter isn’t half bad, they’ve got pillows, blankets, and a hammock, even, and Ken seems like a sweet guy. Like someone Adam could work with, potentially, if he wanted to. (He does.)
It’s a fresh start, after all; how bad could it really be?
Later that night, when Adam’s got his legs all stretched out with his head resting on a pillow, he decides that, yeah, this isn’t bad at all. The roof of their shelter obscures the night sky, the stars, but Adam’d be willing to bet that they’re as beautiful tonight as they have always been.
He can’t think of the stars without thinking of Jay, too — it’s like they’re one and the same.
Adam is awake the next morning before anyone else is.
He doesn’t know what time it is exactly, but he does know that it’s way too early when he gets up, leaves the comfort of the shelter, and walks down towards the ocean. Even the sun hasn’t risen completely yet — the beach is still tinted a slight darkish-blue, the sky seemingly melting into the sea below.
Adam kicks off his shoes. The sand is cool underneath his feet as he watches the waves lap gentle against the shore. He isn’t an early riser by any stretch of the imagination back home, but after nearly two weeks out in the jungles of Fiji, it’s starting to come almost naturally to him. It’s peaceful.
A couple minutes pass before someone sits next to him.
“Morning.” Adam looks over at Ken and gives him a quick smile.
“I see you’re up pretty early, too. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Ken says softly, eyes on the horizon.
“The sunrise?” Adam asks, kinda feels like an idiot afterwards. (Because, well — Of course that’s what Ken was talking about.)
“Yeah. You know,” Ken nods, glancing at Adam now, “During the first few seconds of the day like this, you can look at the sun and it doesn’t hurt your eyes. Try it.”
Adam squints at first, then blinks his eyes open wider. He’s never seen a sunrise like this before; he wishes he had a camera, a phone, something to capture the sight unfolding in front of him. He leans back on his elbows, half his face cast in shadow. His memory is going to have to do. “Hm. Yeah, wow, that… is really beautiful.”
It’s silent for a moment, the sunrise taking center stage, until Adam decides to do something risky - and probably stupid.
“I found an idol,” he blurts. He doesn’t know why he says it — maybe it’s because he really, really wants to work with Ken, needs to get Ken to trust him somehow. “Back on the Vanua beach.”
Ken grins, teeth impossibly white. “Does anyone else know?”
Adam shakes his head. Chews on his lower lip nervously.
“Just you, so far... Promise me you won’t tell anyone?”
“Yeah, of course. I promise,” Ken says, and he does it with such sincerity that Adam has no choice but to believe him.
The sun finishes rising, now sitting high in the sky where it belongs, and Adam doesn’t want to hurt his eyes — so he looks over at Ken instead.
“Sixth person voted out of Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X, Figgy,” Jeff says, pausing for effect as he holds up Adam’s vote. It’d been the last nail in Figgy’s coffin, and Adam can hardly watch as she walks her torch over to Jeff, her head hanging low.
It’s not that he regrets voting her out, per se, but, look — it’s hard to listen to Figgy’s muffled crying and not feel a little bad about it. He catches Taylor staring at him, eyes like saucers, jaw completely slack, and knows that he’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do.
When they return, Adam watches Taylor sulk around camp, quiet for once in the balmy evening glow, and he thinks about how weird a sight it is — Taylor and quiet were practically strangers, acquaintances at best.
“I know you’re upset.” Adam doesn’t wait for Taylor to acknowledge him, just starts talking: “And I’m sorry. I couldn’t vote for Ken. I just couldn’t.”
He actually means it, he’s not just trying to save face (which is weird, too), and Taylor seems like he believes it but there’s a part of Adam that doesn’t fully trust the smile and the nod Taylor had given him at the end of their conversation.
Nothing in Survivor is ever that easy.
He’ll never forget the look of pure heartbreak on Figgy’s face as she left the game; he knows Taylor won’t, either.
He ignores the surprised expressions on everyone else’s faces, too, as they walk single-file into their next immunity challenge sans Figgy. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jay staring at him, shaking his head like a disappointed parent would.
Adam only shrugs, looking away. Now Jay knows what a blindside feels like.
“You fucked up, dude,” Jay tells him, matter-of-fact, at the Merge feast. His jaw is tense, dark eyes steely. “Voting Figgy out.”
Adam can count the number of times that he’s seen Jay without a smile on one hand, and it’ll always feel strange. Always.
“No, I didn’t,” Adam fires back anyway, maybe against his better judgement. “You voted Michaela out. Tell me how that’s any different—”
Jay sighs and runs a hand through his curls, the ends crisp with seawater. Adam chews on a bite of pizza, not really tasting it, trying not to stare at Jay. “That’s… Michaela was a threat, dude—”
(He fails. He thinks he always will.)
“Still a bad move.”
There’s a pause.
“Whatever,” Jay eventually says, and Adam knows it’s because he’s got nothing else, knows it’s because some part of Jay probably agrees with him, and it’s difficult for him not to feel weirdly smug about it.
He won this one.
He watches Jay leave without so much as another word, eyes following him all the way down the beach.
They don’t talk much after that. They don’t talk about sunburns and how sunscreen would be a good reward (it wouldn’t, Adam’s realized that now. Jay was right. Adam doesn’t admit that either); Adam never gets to tell Jay that he thinks he’d like California a lot, maybe he should give it a chance if he ever feels like getting out of Florida. And — Yeah, whatever, Adam thinks; Jay would probably bug Adam nonstop about tourist traps and bars and other places that Adam wouldn’t be caught dead in if he were to ever visit. He tells himself he could never keep up with Jay in the real world.
It only makes voting out Michelle and, afterwards, Taylor, a hell of a lot easier. (Though seeing the smile slip from Jay’s face is never easy.)
Taylor doesn’t go out without a bang (Adam wasn’t expecting anything different, not from him), and now the entire Vinaka tribe knows about that advantage he’d found at the Merge feast after Jay’d left, the one he’d been so excited to find, the one that meant the entire world and maybe even more to him, and this time it’s not Jay’s smile that slips.
It’s Adam’s.
Adam breaks down in tears long before he even sees his brother walk out.
He’s sobbing uncontrollably, doesn’t think he could stop even if he tried, and all that’s on his mind is I have to win this one.
He almost doesn’t notice that Jay is crying too, an arm resting around his sister’s shoulders.
“Don’t make fun of me, okay?” Jay says, and it’s directed at his sister (Melanie, Adam learns), but he says it just loud enough so that Adam is able to catch it, too. He knows Jay’s gonna be hard to beat — he isn’t going down without a fight. Adam can see it in his eyes, in the way his jaw is set, the way he’s standing. Like he’s ready to go, ready to play. “You always make fun of me.”
“You can cry this time,” Melanie says. “It’s okay. You can cry.”
(It leaves Adam wondering just how many times Jay has fought back tears for the sake of appearing strong, hits him like a punch to the gut.)
And Adam’s got his advantage tucked away in his bag as always, but he looks over at Jay and Melanie (and Hannah and her mom; David and his dad; everyone, really) and he feels horrible for even thinking of playing it. Feels bad for even bringing it with him to the challenge today.
He wipes his eyes. Evan tells him that mom’s okay. She’s okay, Adam, and she loves you. She’s really proud of you.
“I want you guys all to know,” he starts, still clutching onto Evan’s tear-stained t-shirt with everything he’s got in him, almost as if he’s afraid of what would happen if he were to let go, “They already know this. I actually have an advantage in this game that allows me to steal a reward...”
He pauses. Exhales.
“But I can’t use it.” Adam’s voice breaks. “I can’t — I can’t take you guys away from your loved ones. I can’t do it.”
“You’re a good dude, bro,” Jay speaks up first. Adam turns and looks at him; Jay doesn’t wipe his eyes, but he smiles (and it’s unfair how gorgeous he is even while crying, Adam thinks), and it feels like everything suddenly falls right back into place.
Adam didn’t realize how much he’d missed Jay until right now, missed even their constant back and forth bickering over sunscreen, and he’s genuinely happy when he watches Jay win the challenge, all fight and determination. He wouldn’t dream of playing his advantage, not now. Not now.
“Jay,” Jeff starts, and Adam knows what’s coming next; “Pick one person to join you.”
Everyone collectively sucks in a breath, biting down on dirt-caked fingernails, whispering hopeful pleas under their breath. Adam clasps his hands together.
Jay glances at him from across the sand. For once, Adam doesn’t look away. “You come on, man. You didn’t do it. You come on.”
Adam bites back a sob. “Jay, I—”
He stops. He doesn’t bother with trying to finish his sentence — maybe because he doesn’t really know what to say next, how to say it; he loves Jay more than Jay could (would) ever possibly know. He can’t put that into words.
Adam sits next to Jay in the hammock, not an inch of space between them as they sway gently in the mid-afternoon heat. No one else is around — or, if they are, they’re too busy to pay attention to the conversation Jay and Adam are in the middle of:
It starts with Adam telling Jay to play his idol tonight.
Jay glances at him, disappointment written in all caps, bold print, on his face. For as long as Adam has known him, Jay had never been able to hide what he was thinking — his facial expressions were always a dead giveaway.
“Am I that big of a threat to you that you have to strip me of everything?”
It’s a question that Adam wasn’t prepared for, but it’s one they both know the answer to and it breaks Adam’s heart to have to say, “It’s the only way that I beat you.”
He laughs (if he doesn’t, he’ll cry), tries to play it off as a joke. Jay, for once, is silent. They both came out here to win — Adam has too much to lose if he doesn’t.
They keep their voices down when they talk about their mothers, and Jay goes on to cover his face with his buff but Adam had already seen the tears shining in his eyes. It was hard to miss, even harder to watch.
“Hey,” Adam says softly. He tentatively reaches for Jay’s hand, and is surprised when Jay doesn’t pull away - if anything, he only squeezes Adam’s hand even harder. “You don’t have to — It’s alright, you can cry.”
(It’s the same thing his sister had told him, and he hopes Jay will finally start to believe it if he hears it enough.)
Jay pulls his buff down. Looks at Adam.
There are times when he can really tell that Jay is older than him. He tends to forget.
He can see the tears that Jay didn’t wipe away again. He smiles, thinks, this is the closest I’ve ever felt to someone before.
The thought doesn’t terrify him like it would’ve on day seven, day fifteen. Yesterday, even.
For a while it feels like it’s only the two of them here on the island together.
A part of him wishes it could be.
“I’m sorry that I lied to you again,” Adam says after he votes out Will.
“Listen.” Jay looks at him like he knows what’s going to happen next. “I respect you fully. I just want you to know that, okay?”
David makes a fake idol with all the precision and attention to detail of a professional jeweler, and, as fate would have it, Jay is the one who finds it. He falls for it just like Adam knew he would.
David, to his credit, is crafty. Dangerous. His idol didn’t look bad at all - and Adam can’t say for sure that he wouldn’t have fallen for it, too, had he not known better.
But he knew better.
Adam could feel his heart split in two when Jay told him.
Jay blows the immunity challenge, forgets to cover the combination he’d solved in record-time, and David wins it instead — it feels like the beginning of the end when Adam watches Jeff place the necklace around David’s shoulders rather than where it belonged on Jay’s. It kinda is, in a way.
Tribal Council that night is bittersweet. Jay walks up to where Jeff is standing behind his podium, does it with the confidence of someone who believes they aren’t going anywhere, and grins when he pulls David’s fake idol out. Adam can hear a couple of shocked gasps coming from the jury at Jay’s big reveal, but he knows what’s going to happen next. He knows there’s five votes for Jay inside of that urn (knows how hard it was to write down Jay’s name five minutes earlier).
“This is…” Jeff holds up David’s idol for everyone to see; Jay’s smile widens, his eyebrows raised, “Not a hidden immunity idol.”
And then Jay’s jaw drops almost comically. He shakes his head in disbelief, and after a minute or two passes, says: “Oh my god, dude, you guys frickin’ got me!”
He crosses himself in vain before Jeff reads the votes, and laughs because he knows what’s coming next, now, too.
Adam had drawn a smiley-face inside of a heart above Jay’s name like that would make it any better, like it would somehow make up for the fact that he had just voted Jay out. (It doesn’t. He isn’t sure what he was thinking on that one.)
“Ah, damn,” Jay stands up. “You got me, you guys. I hate all of you!”
He gives Hannah a hug, shakes David’s hand, groans dramatically as he reaches for his torch.
“To the very end, dude,” Adam laughs, a hand half over his eyes, “To the very end.”
Jay stops short then, standing in front of Adam and looking at him expectantly. Adam hesitates before he finally forces himself to stand up, too, and when he does, Jay pulls him into a tight, rib-crushing hug that feels like home. Adam wishes it didn’t have to end.
“Win this damn thing, dude,” Jay whispers.
Tears prick the corners of Adam’s eyes. He feels like he’s suffocating, maybe drowning.
I love you, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he just — pulls away, watches Jay leave (not without cracking a joke first, typical), watches him walk down a dimly lit pathway that’ll take him from Tribal Council to Ponderosa until he can no longer see him anymore, his silhouette swallowed up by the night sky.
Win this damn thing, dude.
Win this damn thing.
Adam goes to the end with Hannah and Ken. (They all foolishly believe that they can beat each other, but Adam knew he won the night he’d voted Jay out — that’s how dangerous Jay was. David, too.)
It’s day thirty-nine and Adam made it. Jay fell three days short.
Adam helps burn down their shelter and Jay doesn’t. Adam will get to plead his case for a million dollars and Jay won’t — Adam is here and Jay is not, and this is what he’d wanted from the very beginning, what he’d fought so hard to accomplish, but it doesn’t feel as good as he thought it would.
(Maybe it would be easier to enjoy it if he still hated Jay like he had at the start of the game.)
The jury files in, one by one, and takes their seats. Jay beams at him from across the room and Adam’s chest tightens like it never has before. He’s so fucked.
His eyes meet Jay’s, beautiful and bright, and Adam sees the cyclone that hit on day two and destroyed their shelter, sees the golden sunshine that came afterwards, sees the waves that crashed endlessly on the shore.
He is so fucked.
He takes a deep breath. If he doesn’t look away now he’ll be swept up by the tide before he even knows what hit him.
So he looks away — he has to; he never said he was brave.
“Hey, man, wait up!” Jay calls once Tribal Council (and the game, and Adam’s dream, too), abruptly ends.
Just like their first Tribal Council, their last hadn’t felt real, either. Adam is still in the middle of trying to process everything that had happened (not an easy task) when Jay waves a hand in front of his face.
“Earth to Adam,” he jokes.
“Huh, what? Sorry,” Adam mumbles absentmindedly, runs a hand through tangled hair that could really use a wash, “Did you say something?”
“Yeah, I said wait up,” Jay laughs. “You okay?”
Adam can feel his voice about to break. “I... I don’t know.”
“Wanna talk?”
“About what?” Adam looks up. The cyclone hits.
“Anything.”
Simple. If only it were that simple.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Adam admits, breathes out something that would’ve resembled a laugh had it not sounded so strained. There’s a million things on his mind that he desperately wants to say, but he bites his tongue, stays silent. (Regrets it a little.)
“Here, how about this,” Jay jumps in where Adam had left off. “I’ll start. I — Fuck, dude. This isn’t easy for me, either.”
Adam briefly wonders what he could’ve meant by that.
“Ah, fuck it, I’m not the best with words,” Jay continues.
Adam shakes his head, about to argue (he had seen just how good with words Jay was during the game), but he doesn’t have time to do so because suddenly Jay’s lips are on his own.
The night air is hot — it hasn’t cooled down quite yet, it isn’t late enough — but Adam shivers as his lips melt into Jay’s, Jay’s hands cupping the sides of his face. Adam lets himself get lost in the feeling, the warmth of Jay’s lips and hands and fingers.
“Jay...” Adam struggles to find the right words once they eventually part. (He’s at a bit of a loss.)
He’ll gladly let the tide carry him away if it means that he gets to look into Jay’s eyes.
Jay smiles. Kisses him again.
“You should come visit me in California,” Adam says softly.
“Or maybe you should come see me in Florida,” Jay teases, still standing impossibly close to Adam. “They don’t have Publix out in Cali.”
Adam laughs, rolls his eyes like he’s so used to doing around Jay. “You’re annoying.”
“Fine, California it is,” Jay huffs, dramatic as always. There’s a grin on his lips. “But only if we can hit up Laguna, skim’s fire there. I’m telling you, dude. It’s unbelievable.”
Adam pretends to think about it for a little too long just to fuck with Jay. He’ll never grow tired of doing so, he thinks.
“Deal,” he eventually says. Jay shoves his shoulder.
“Asshole,” Jay quips. He doesn’t mean it.
And then Adam can’t help it — he leans forward and closes the gap between them once more like there’s some sort of otherworldly, magnetic force drawing him to Jay.
Maybe there is. Maybe he’s a lot braver than he thought he was.