Chapter Text
Jensen was tired. Oh so very tired. Tired of Gretchen's endless perkiness, tired of 6am make-up calls, tired of fake enthusiasm. This morning was "Create your flower arrangements!" and he really couldn't handle any more exclamation marks. Too much. Was it possible to have perkiness fatigue?
He leaned heavily against Jared as the van drove them to the studio. Jared was one of those freaky morning people - apparently it came from having to be up at the crack of dawn to walk his dogs every day.
"You doing okay, Jen?"
"No," he mumbled into Jared's shoulder. "M'sleepy."
Jared reached around with his huge arm and pulled Jensen close. "Then sleep. I'll wake you when we get there."
"Y' so sweet," he managed. He nuzzled closer, inhaling the delicious scent that was pure Jared. (Freshly showered Jared, even better.)
He thought he felt a soft kiss to his temple. It was nice, whatever it was. The craziness was serving its purpose of making them closer all the time: the more stressful situations they endured together, the more it seemed like it was Jared and Jensen versus the world. The one person in the house who ‘got’ him, who stood by him even as they were threatened by the weekly eliminations.
It was nice seeing Jared first thing in the morning. And Jensen was starting to realise how much he would miss him if they were eliminated. (Not that he could let that happen. Sure, they’d now had their first failure, but so had a lot of teams who were still in the running.)
“We’re gonna kick ass today.” Jared was speaking softly and Jensen didn’t know if it was to him, or just trying to pep himself up. He smiled in agreement.
“Yeah.”
They weren't going to lose again.
---
"Dammit!" Jared yelled, kicking the car tyre. The task had seemed simple enough. Visit three wedding reception venues in one afternoon, collecting a menu and a quote from each. It seemed they'd breeze through it until they'd managed to get stuck behind an overturned semi-trailer on the freeway at peak hour. The first place had been booked out for the next 2 years, and the second place took one look at them and told them they had no interest in taking part in a reality tv show. By the time they'd made it to the third reception venue, the office was already closed for the day and they'd had to beg the manager for five more minutes of his time.
As a result, the quote they had was useless (they hadn't discussed any of the specifics beyond anticipated number of guests), they had no idea of the what the venue actually looked like (because the sun was setting) and now, on the way back to the studio, the car had managed to get a flat tyre.
The suspicious part of Jensen's mind jumped to sabotage. He wouldn't put this above Blair. Or Jack. Or maybe even Natasha. Hell, half the house would probably do something like this to get ahead if they had to.
"What are we gonna do now?" Jared directed his question at the camera crew who just shrugged in response. They weren't allowed to influence the outcome in any way.
"Hey Jared, it's okay," Jensen said, trying to calm him down. "It's just bad luck. Maybe the others got stuck too. We don't know that we're last."
Jared just stared at him. "Right. We're not last. Not when it's way past our scheduled finishing time and even the crew just wants to go home." He kicked a rock. "I can't believe this happened...we were supposed to get there first!"
And yeah, Jared, as the driver, had chosen the route this time even though the venues were a joint decision. So in a way it was his fault.
Jared stalked away while Jensen looked on helplessly. He hadn't seen Jared angry before. Not like this. And he had absolutely no idea how to handle it.
"Do you have a phone?" he asked one of the crew. They exchanged glances, then one said, "I'm sorry, dude. We have to pretend we're not here."
"Even when something like this happens," added the other. They really did look sorry and Jensen cursed the rule that meant no cell phones during challenges.
He popped the trunk of the car, looking for the spare tyre. It was either this or try and flag down a taxi, and the backstreet Jared had taken, ostensibly to get them back faster, was frustratingly quiet.
Ten minutes later, and struggling to undo the lug nuts, Jensen was also swearing under his breath. Whoever had last put the tyre on must've had superhuman strength. He scowled, wondering if Jared was over his tantrum yet. He could use some help.
He wrenched the tool around, hard, and it flipped out of his hand. "Damn," he swore, watching a bruise quickly appear where his thumb had got caught. The tyre still sat there, mocking him.
"Hey Jared," he shouted into the darkness, "Think I could get some help here?"
No answer.
He twisted again, finally feeling movement, but it took another 20 minutes of sweat, frustration and bruises until he finally got the tyre off. All the while, Jensen grew more and more angry with the fact that Jared wasn't there. So this was how the guy behaved in a crisis? Ugh. For the first time, Jensen found himself wishing he had a different partner.
And now that he thought about it, it was pretty much Jared's fault they'd lost the wedding dress challenge too. Okay, it had been funny, and at the time Jensen had loved being part of the shenanigans. But Misha and Jared had refused to take anything seriously. Had Jared forgotten what was at stake here?
By the time Jared showed up, Jensen was fuming too.
"Thanks for the help back there," he said sarcastically.
Jared just ignored him. They didn't speak at all on the long drive back to the studio - Jensen driving this time - and Jensen couldn't wait for this day, no, this entire week, to be over.
---
They were last. Dead last. Jensen was mortified. But wait - and he did a quick headcount of all of the teams there - there was one team missing. Natasha and Clint. Dare he hope they'd failed? But that wasn't possible, they were invariably first!
Maybe they were so far ahead they'd already left and gone home.
"Jared, Jensen, you know what this means," Gretchen said soberly. "By being our last team to arrive, and failing the wedding dress shopping task earlier this week, you are our bottom couple this week and up for eviction."
If he hadn't been so pissed at Jared, he would have reached out for his hand. Not yet. They couldn't go home yet. It was way too early - the show had weeks to go and they weren't even close to winning.
He didn't want to say anything even though he knew the cameras were waiting for a reaction. He didn't trust himself to speak.
---
So this was what it was like, being up for eviction. There were just three teams at the studio the next morning - Stiles and Lydia, Ana-Maria and Jack, and Jared and Jensen. The mood was black.
Stiles tried to cheer everyone up. "It's not so bad, guys," he said. "We just do some interviews, get to watch a montage of the previous week, then wait around a lot." Stiles and Lydia had been up for eviction pretty much every week. It wasn't that they were failing the challenges, it was more the lack of chemistry that was their problem. (Or the fact that Lydia pretty much slapped him every time he attempted to steal a kiss.)
"Well, I don't even know what we're even doing here," said Ana-Maria. "I thought the wedding dress I chose was quite beautiful!"
"That's the problem, love," said Jack. "It wasn't."
Lydia had apparently chosen her dress on her own and completely ditched Stiles for the day, despite his protests that he was a fashion queen.
As for Jensen, he was worried. The other two teams had been in the bottom three before and been saved by the voting process. It was his and Jared's first time. They had no freaking idea how popular they were at this point. Would anyone vote to save them? Or would this whole ride be over way too soon?
He glanced at Jared. The stress of the past week had got to both of them. They weren't fighting, not exactly, but he couldn't say that Jared was his favourite person in the world right now.
They had to sit together on stage and during the past few weeks, they’d been sitting closer and closer. This time, Jensen didn’t want to cuddle up to Jared. But how would that look? Would they lose their voting edge? Would their fans decide they were over? He knew he had to suck it up and, well, act, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be dishonest with Jared; even though things were a little strained right now, he still respected the other man far too much than to lie to him.
But hadn’t he been lying all along? Was omission a lie? In a way, Jensen was lying to absolutely everyone.
The director was still busy setting things up so Jensen buried his face in his hands, just trying to breathe. He wished he’d talked to Jared the previous night, just to clear the air, but Jared had gone straight to bed. And now Gretchen was going to make them talk to each other about everything that had happened.
“Hey Jensen?” Jared was speaking softly, his eyes on the ground, trying not to draw attention to them. “I know this sucks. I just… I’m sorry about this week.”
“Sound check!” yelled the director, interrupting any possibility of a real conversation. Gretchen adjusted her mike and the noise level increased.
Jared tried again. “Look, I know this show is really important to us. We don’t want to go home.” On that, Jensen could agree, even if he didn’t know if dating Jared was a good idea any more. “And something I learned from my-“ and then Jared cut himself off, hesitating before he continued, “Something I learned once is that even if you’re upset with someone, if you hold hands, it helps you get through it.”
Jensen lifted his head and glanced at him. Jared looked so earnest, so honest. Like a puppy who was worried he might get kicked.
“I know you, Jensen, and I know you feel something.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Can you try this with me? Just so we can get through this interview?”
Jensen took Jared’s hand. It was as clammy as his own and he knew it wasn’t just because of the hot stage lights. Part of him wanted to pull back, but Jared was right. There was a reassurance there as they were about to face the gauntlet. Despite everything, they still had each others’ backs.
The live show started with montages of the past week. Jensen cringed as he saw excerpts of the tasks; parts were edited in a way to make it look like they’d been fighting the entire time. “Well boys, you had a tough week!”
Jared gave a rueful smile. “I guess it looks that way, and the truth is, I wasn’t feeling that well and poor Jensen here felt the brunt of that.”
What? Jared was taking the fall for them? He gave Jared’s hand a gentle squeeze in support. “And hey, no relationship is perfect all the time, right?” Jared gave his best Hollywood smile to Gretchen and the audience. The audience cheered but Gretchen kept stony-faced and glanced at her notes.
“I have to say, Jared, we were all pretty surprised when you stalked off and left Jensen to do all the work.”
Shrugging, Jared said, “Me too. I’m not usually like that. I just had to walk it off for a bit.” He closed his eyes, then shook his head. “That’s something my Dad taught me, that being angry in front of the people you love hurts them more than you are hurting, and I didn’t want to do that to Jensen.”
“Awww,” cooed the girls in the front row.
“What about you, Jensen? Have you forgiven Jared?”
He swallowed, reaching deep inside himself. Trying to find that fine balance between truth and what the audience wanted to hear. “I don’t think there’s anything to forgive. Sure, we had a stressful week, but I dare any couple to handle rush hour traffic and a flat tyre at the same time and come out smiling!”
“I’d be laughing,” quipped Jack from across the stage, “because it means another chance for a beautiful lass to come along and save the day!”
When Ana-Maria shot him a look, he quickly added, “I was of course referring to you, my dear.”
After the audience quietened down, Gretchen continued to probe. “But it was Jared’s fault that you failed the wedding dress task, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
A clip played on the big screen, of Jared cajoling Jensen into trying on a dress.
Summoning up all of his resolve, Jensen plastered a smile on his face. He may not have liked wearing a dress, but the laughs had been worth it. “I’m glad Jared got me to try that; he helps get me out of my comfort zone.” This time it was Jared squeezing his hand in support. “It may not have turned out the way we planned, but we had a lot of fun that day.”
This time, the montage was more forgiving, and showed the endless laughter between Jared, Jensen and Misha both during the shopping trip and after. There was one point where they were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe and as he watched it, Jensen felt a little of the weight drop away. Maybe the show wasn’t gonna throw them under a bus after all. Maybe the showrunners were on their side.
Gratefully, Jensen watched as the attention turned to Stiles and Lydia. Poor Stiles. He was becoming more and more confident with every passing week, but the montage of clips showed at least five instances of his attempts to kiss his girl, with Lydia dodging out of the way every single time.
“Lydia, Lydia, Lydia,” said Gretchen, “are you ever going to give poor Stiles a break?”
“A lady does not easily give away kisses,” she replied primly.
“We’re starting to think that you don’t even like him!”
“She loves me!” declared Stiles. “She just doesn’t know it yet!”
Half the audience laughed and a few of them cheered. Jensen had to admire his bravado. Sometimes he wondered why Lydia was still playing along, but he’d heard a rumour about her desperately needing the money for college tuition. It made more sense than Stiles being her one true love. The next clip showed Stiles’ inept attempts at making corsages – although given that he was constantly being interrupted by Derek, one could argue it wasn’t really his fault.
After grilling the couple for a while, Gretchen turned her attention to the remaining pair.
“So, Jack-“
“Captain Jack!” he interrupted.
“Captain Jack,” she sighed. “Can you explain to us just why you thought a run-down, waterlogged boat would make a good location for a wedding reception?”
He smiled, his gold tooth glinting beneath the stage lights. “She reminded me of me old ship, the Black Pearl.”
“Aye, she was beautiful,” added Ana-Maria and for once, the pair seemed in agreement. They smiled at each other, even leaning in for a quick kiss to endless cheers from the audience. Their montage was also hilarious, juxtaposing clips of Jack and Ana-Maria looking blissfully at home with the ocean in the background with shots of cracking wood, frayed ropes and a drunken skipper snoozing in the corner. “That was after I gave him a nip o’ my rum,” Jack added.
It seemed that the pair hadn’t actually failed their tasks this week, but this was the first time they’d demonstrated any enthusiasm for anything, and Jensen realised that was what would ultimately save them. They thought they were pirates and it was some of the best damn performance art Jensen had ever seen.
That meant it was either him and Jared, or Stiles and Lydia, who were going home and as much as he liked the man, he desperately hoped it was Stiles and Lydia who would lose.
“Well folks, it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for.” Gretchen’s voice was hushed. “We’ve tallied the votes and it’s time to reveal just who gets to continue their journey to the altar, and whose romance must end.
“Has Ana-Maria and Jack’s voyage of love reached an ill-fated end?
“Will our two Texan heartthrobs walk alone, after realising they’re not as compatible as we thought they were?
“Or is it time for Stiles to give up on conquering his lady-love and look closer to home instead?”
The music got louder and Jensen’s heart was pounding. He hated this. Absolutely hated this. He was sweating profusely under the hot lights and glancing over at Jared, he could see he wasn’t the only one. Jared’s jaw was locked and he was grimly staring forward.
Even in his moment of tension, he was beautiful. Damn beautiful.
Jensen didn’t want this to end.
Not when he and Jared were on the outs. Not when they hadn’t even kissed yet (and Jensen knew they would. It was just a matter of time.) They still had so much more to learn about each other, so much more to say, so much more to do. They held hands grimly, breathing, waiting.
“And the couple who will be going home tonight is….”