Fic: RPS (Jared/Jensen): In It for Love [3 / 16] | PG-13 | 6930 words
Title: In It for Love [ 3 / 16 ]
Author: dragonspell
Fandom: RPS
Pairing: Jared/Jensen (and Jared/a slew of other characters including Misha Collins, Tom Welling, Mike Rosenbaum, Danneel Harris, Sandy McCoy and some OMCs and OFCs)
Rating: Currently PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Warnings: AU. Cheesiness. Fandom cliches. The usual drill.
Summary (fic): After a drunken dare, award-winning writer Jensen agreed to on a reality television show to vie for the attention of megastar Jared Padalecki who he's had a crush on for years. Only Jensen doesn't know how he's going to be able to tolerate all the other contestants and their widely varying personalities and he's pretty sure that you're not supposed to be able to get used to somebody filming you 24/7.
Summary (part): The second day of life in the house dawns and that means the first challenge .
Word Count: 6930 (this part)
Disclaimer: Never happened, no affiliation.
A/N: So, uh, this might end up being more than 16 parts...
Master Post: Master Post
Part 2 | Master Post | Part 4
Episode 2 - First Half
Jensen groaned and rolled on to his side. He pulled the covers over his head and tried to pretend that he was dead, at least for a few more hours. Jensen loathed mornings. Only, there was something telling him that he needed to get up-a feeling that he just couldn’t shake no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, niggling away at the back of his head. He sighed, trying to burrow deeper under the covers because the room was entirely way too cold and the faint light coming in from the window was way too bright.
Except that Jensen knew that he didn’t have a window next to his bed. His bed was actually deliberately placed as far away from the window as he could manage. He blinked his eyes open, peeking out from under the blankets, finally noticing where he was and the whole damn, sad, pathetic story came flooding back to him. He was hundreds of miles from home in the tackiest mansion he’d ever seen competing with a bunch of fellow losers and wannabes for the attention of one Jared Tristan Padalecki, Superstar.
Fuck. Jensen kind of hoped that the whole thing was just a bad dream but as he stared at the wall in front of him and it resolutely refused to change into his bedroom, he had to face the facts. Besides, Jensen hoped that, in his dreams at least, he’d be a little bit cooler when meeting the fantastical sex object of his dreams. And that maybe there’d be more sex involved. A lot more.
He groaned and pulled a pillow over his face. It was too much to hope for that he could smother himself but he just wanted to block out the world and its cruel realities for just a little while longer. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t going to wait for him.
Hands shook him roughly and an entirely familiar, too cheery voice proclaimed, “Time to get up Jennybean! Can’t sleep all day!” Jensen was willing to overlook Mike’s wrong assumption-he’d just met the man, after all. That didn’t mean, though, that Jensen was going to forgive Mike after the fucker ripped the covers off the bed.
Jensen came up snarling, grabbing for the blankets and missing due to his general lack of hand-eye coordination in the morning. “Whoa!” Mike said with a laugh. “You’re not as pretty in the morning, are you?”
“God, I hate you,” Jensen groaned, throwing himself back down on the bed. He rolled back onto his side, curling up into a ball and tried to ignore the cold. Fuck this shit. He was going back to sleep and Mike and the blankets could just fuck off.
Mike was unable to take a hint, though. He settled in beside Jensen on the bed. “Seriously not a morning person, hmm?”
Jensen sighed, wishing for the blankets back-it really was too cold to be trying to sleep without them. “…Aren’t you in another room?” he asked, wondering why Mike had felt the need to torture him of all people.
“Yes,” Mike answers. “But considering Justin’s in there throwing a fit because he forgot to pack his special strawberry-apricot shampoo and matching body wash or whatever, I figured I’d be better off in here.” Jensen ran through a few quick scenarios of Mike’s rather grisly death before facing that fact that Mike was probably right-creative writer or not, he probably couldn’t hold a candle to Justin in inventive torture. The kid came off as a charmer but Jensen knew that just meant that he was not to be trusted-hidden depths and all that. “So that means you’re stuck with me, Jenny. Get up and talk.”
Jensen groaned and rolled into a sitting position to glare at Mike who laughed openly. “Aw, Jen, you’re adorable!” Jensen growled and tried to smooth his hair which had to be heading in every direction but straight and reached for his glasses, sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. He rubbed his face and glanced at the clock on the stand, glaring at its impersonal red numerals.
Who the fuck got up at eight o’ five in the morning if they didn’t have to, anyway? He glanced around the room to see Tom smiling at him from his own bed and he was willing to bet that the mound of covers on the mattress in the corner was Mary. Jensen scowled harder. Why did she get to sleep while Jensen had to get up?
“She’s scarier than you,” Mike said, following Jensen’s train of thought. Jensen snorted. “And anyway, Georgie’s off doing yoga, too. Which, I mean, I can dig but apparently when she does yoga, she does yoga. As in do not disturb.”
Jensen still couldn’t believe that he was voluntarily living with these people for the next few weeks. He had to be certifiable. “So,” Mike said, shoving even more into Jensen’s personal space. “Finally got to meet Jared last night. What do you think?” He grinned, bouncing slightly and Jensen glared at him for being entirely too perky.
What did he think of Jared? “He’s…” A ton of images were flying through Jensen’s mind but absolutely nothing that he felt comfortable saying out loud-most tended to involve him sprawled on a bed with Jared overtop of him or Jared naked on a lawn chair or… “Uh, nice,” Jensen finished.
Mike leaned in, like he was sharing a secret, whispering loudly, “You’re blushing.” Fucking A.
Jensen hit him with a pillow. “Get the fuck out of my room already.” It was more a cranky complaint than an actual demand but he was working with what he had.
“Can’t do that,” Mike said, attempting to look sad and looking like an insincere school boy. “ ‘Cause I got this.” He pulled a card out of his shirt, flipping it at Jensen. It landed with a soft thump on Jensen’s lap and Jensen squinted at it. “It says,” Mike clarified, getting to his feet, “that we all have to be downstairs in the kitchen at 8:30. Which is, you know, in…” He pointed at the clock. “About twenty minutes.”
Jensen’s blood ran cold. “What?” That wouldn’t even give him time for a shower if he had to fight back the crowd…
“Yep!” Mike bounced cheerfully out of the room. “See you downstairs! Oh!” He peeked his head back around the jamb and pointed at the lump of passed out model in the corner. “Somebody might want to wake up Dani over there.”
Jensen sighed and rolled himself out of bed, just barely managing to keep himself from falling flat on his face. There was the definite possibility that these next few weeks were going to suck.
With all the shoving and yelling and kicking happening around the bathrooms, Jensen hadn’t had a chance to get his shower, just like he’d expected. Not like he was going to be able to shove his way past the likes of Justin and Lita-who’d got into an absolute epic shouting match, complete with obscenities and stomping feet. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for everybody else, they’d managed to keep it non-physical. For now.
Instead of taking a shower, Jensen had run a comb through his hair, changed into a, thankfully, unwrinkled shirt and jeans and had just slathered on the deodorant and a couple dabs of cologne. That only left him with…
Jensen scratched at the itchy stubble that he hadn’t gotten a chance to shave off and really hoped that it made him look ‘rugged’ or, maybe, ‘artfully sleep-tousled’-whatever moniker the magazines liked to put on it-instead of what he suspected to be much more likely: a slob. Yeah, his day was just going great.
He came down the stairs and rounded the corner into the kitchen to the rather hyena-like laugh that he was starting to identify as Felicity’s. Following close on its heels, though, was Jared’s deeper one and it made Jensen’s heart give a stupid little jump. Fuck but it was too early for this. He was going to be absolutely pathetic until he had some fucking coffee or something-anything to wake up.
As he stepped onto the checkered floor of the kitchen, Jensen had to take a steadying breath because not only was Jared sitting there on a stool in a thin t-shirt and shorts, looking like some kind of angel that had stopped by for breakfast, but holy shit that was a lot of food. The entire kitchen had been transformed sometime when he was upstairs into a food lover’s wet dream. There were piles of pastries and breads and fruit in between stacks of pancakes and waffles and bacon mixed with sausage. Jensen was counting at least four different kinds of syrup, too and wow. The food covered nearly every inch of surface space in the kitchen, except for the edges of the island that they were apparently supposed to be sitting around.
Jared caught sight of Jensen standing in amazement in the doorway and he grinned, waving him over. “Hi, Jen!” he said, his voice brighter and more cheerful than Mike’s but Jensen found that he couldn’t mind. Jared patted a stool next to him and who was Jensen to ignore an invitation like that? Amazingly, he didn’t manage to trip over his own feet to reach the stool, but it was a near thing. It would have been just his damn luck to do so, no matter if he was perfectly capable of the move any other time. He slipped on to the seat, next to Jared’s ridiculously huge and warm body and tried to pretend that his inner fanboy wasn’t shrieking in girly joy.
Felicity was on Jared’s other side, holding onto his left arm with perfectly manicured hands and cooing. Luckily, Jared was a right-handed guy so she wasn’t impairing his ability to eat-not in the slightest because the boy was shoveling down pancakes with cherry topping like they were going out of style. “Oh!” Jared said after swallowing his latest bite. “Grab a plate, Jen!”
Breakfast wasn’t really Jensen’s thing. Most likely because he was usually never up in time for what people considered ‘breakfast time’. He usually rolled out of bed around eleven or noon-ten at the earliest-and stumbled out for some coffee and maybe some toast. He glanced around the nauseatingly high stacks of food, though, and thought that maybe he could make an exception. Just because it really would be a waste. He pulled a waffle off onto a plate and a few pieces of bacon, listening as Misha and Georgie-the two vegans of the group-started talking about the merits of tofu. They were sitting opposite Jared.
In between the vegans and Jared, opposite Jensen, Mike and Ben were laughing over some of the various pranks that Mike had pulled over the years. Sandy and Tom wandered in next at 8:29-both with their hair dripping, the lucky bastards-and Sandy sat down next to Jensen, taking the last available stool as Tom opted to stand. “So everyone have a good night sleep?” Jared asked and there were a round of nods.
“I’ve never met a more comfortable bed,” Mike said and Jared beamed. “Well, okay, so I’ve met some pretty comfortable beds, I was just never allowed to sleep in them considering that the store wouldn’t sell them to me at the same price as the flat slabs of plywood that I normally buy.”
“Well, I wanted you guys to be comfortable,” Jared replied. “Helps in the wooing process.”
“All part of your highly-developed seduction technique?” Misha teased and Jared nodded firmly.
“Hell, yeah. I’ll have you know it’s almost patented.” Danneel and Mary wandered in on the heels of Jared’s comment and, seeing that there was no place left at the island to sit, sat back against the wall. Jared smiled apologetically at them. “Okay, guys, we’re just missing a few people, right?” Jensen glanced around at the absolute sea of quasi-familiar faces surrounding him. “Uh, they’ll probably show up soon. Anyway, so I suppose you all want to know why you’re here.”
“To get to know you, of course,” Misha answered.
“Right!” Jared agreed, snapping his fingers. “That’s exactly what we’re all doing here! Well, that and so I can get to know you better, too! Now, I’m also a bit of a morning person so I figured what better way-”
“But I already know so much about you,” Felicity said, clutching Jared’s arm.
“You do?” Jared asked, looking surprised.
“Yeah! You were born July 19, 1982 and you have an older brother and a younger sister…” Jensen blinked as Felicity rattled off quite a few other facts that were kind of verging into stalker territory. Apparently somebody had done her homework before getting on the show. Jared was nodding along with everything that she said, though, with a thoughtful look on his face. At least until she got to how he liked his coffee. “And though you like sweet things, you really don’t like cream or sugar in your coffee-”
“Uh, actually…” Jared held up his cup which was almost as pale as him. “I do.”
Felicity shook her head. “No, in Memphis Break, you-”
“Uh, my character did, yeah-” Jensen wanted to hit his head against the counter. Apparently Felicity wasn’t aware that there was a difference between Jared and any of the characters that he played. “But I’m not Tim Baker.”
The room fell silent then, nearly everybody staring at the scene, except for Mike who was covering his mouth trying not to laugh and Jensen who was staring at the rest of the room. Awkward.
Justin and Lita chose just then, though, to make their grand entrance, striding in side by side and trying to look like they weren’t trying to shove each other out of the way. “Sorry I’m late!” they said in unison and then glared at each other. Justin looked like he was going to a photoshoot instead of breakfast, his make-up perfectly in place and Lita…well, Lita, apparently thought that they were hitting the strip club up after they ate. Jensen tried not to glare. He really did. It shouldn’t matter what the girl liked to wear-that was her personal choice after all-and he knew that the only reason he was being such a bitch in his head was because of jealousy, pure and simple.
“Oh,” Jared said, waving the pair in, “you’re not late at all! Come on in and grab something to eat. We’re just getting started.” He subtly turned away from Felicity who was still holding onto his arm like he might disappear at any minute and turned towards Mike. “So, Mike, you’re a photographer, right?”
Mike nodded, popping a piece of bacon into his mouth. “Mostly for art shows and whatever but I do commercial work as well.”
“Yeah, I totally saw your shoot for Elle.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Still can’t believe I agreed to do that.”
“Yeah?” Jared heaped a few more pancakes onto his plate. Jesus.
“Oh, yeah. They put shoes on the models’ heads. Shoes. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Though I did ask if the models could stand on their heads.”
Danneel broke down laughing. “Rather have a shoe on my head than have feathers glued onto my skin.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? They did that?”
Danneel nodded and nudged Tom. “Or covered in tar, right?” Tom winced.
“So…wait,” Jared cut in. “They tarred and feathered you guys?”
“Oh, no,” Danneel said. “They just feathered me. Tom, though, him and three other guys got tarred.”
Tom wobbled his hand back and forth. “It wasn’t exactly tar…”
“No but it was supposed to look like it.”
“That’s…” Jared started but Lita cut him off before he could get any more out.
“Worst I’ve ever had to do is be covered in mud.” …Like that was a surprise. Jensen rolled his eyes and hoped that the cameras didn’t catch it. They probably did. Fuck.
Jared, though, was suitably intrigued. “Like mud wrestling?” he asked, a bit excited and sounding for all the world like an oversexed fifteen year old.
Lita nodded and leaned into him, rubbing her boobs up and down his arm. “You know it, baby.”
“That’s awesome,” Jared said, wrapping her in a hug. “So did you win?”
“Always!”
“Mud’s good for your skin,” Misha chimed in, thankfully angling the conversation away from any good points of the mud wrestling world.
Lita smirks at him. “Of course it is. Why do you think my skin’s so smooth?”
Misha shrugged. “Could be Carmilla,” he replied casually and Jensen choked on a piece of waffle.
Jared, though, burst out laughing while Lita pouted, convinced that she’d just gotten slammed but unsure how. “Who’s Carmilla?” she asked, but Jared was already pushing on.
“Ben!” he said, turning his attention to the Marine at the corner of the island. “So, I hear that you just retired from the armed forces?”
“Yeah. My contract was for ten years. I decided not to renew.”
“Any reason why?” Jared asked, slumping his chin on his hand as he leaned over the countertop.
“Yeah,” Ben replied with an easy smile and a slow up and down of the parts of Jared that he could see. “A certain law might have passed but that doesn’t mean that the brass is exactly welcoming it with open arms. Decided I had other opportunities waiting.”
Jared gave Ben an answering sultry look and Jensen felt his heart clench in jealousy. Jesus, but this was going to take some getting used to. “I’ll bet you do. So do you know what you want to do now?”
“No,” Ben replied. “Still thinking about that.”
“Ah.” Jared’s attention slid from Ben, past Misha and Georgie over towards Sandy. “Now, uh, Sandy. Got to say I’m a big fan. Big fan.” Sandy giggled, tossing her head to get her hair to do a flirty little flip. “What you did in Heart Stopper? Amazing work.”
“Thanks.”
“So, uh…” Jared looked at the speckled countertop of the island, oddly shy. “What, uh. What made you decide to put yourself through all this? I mean-I’m glad that you’re here and I’ve got to say, I had a do a few laps around the house when I found out that you’d applied. And not that I wouldn’t want anyone not to be here-”
Sandy giggled again, waving Jared’s increasingly panicked explanations down. “I’ve just had, well, a bit of a crush on you, and had some time off so I figured, why not. I’ve always wanted to meet the great Jared Padalecki.” She winked and Jared blushed-freaking blushed. “I’m a big fan, too. Like, after Tropic Storm.”
Jensen couldn’t fault Sandy’s taste. That’d been one hell of a movie-what with how Jared had spent most of it shirtless and wet and rolling around on the beach with various gorgeous co-stars. Jensen had watched Tropic Storm, too. More than a few times and probably more than should be considered normal, if he was honest.
Hey, sometimes a guy just had a hankering to see a movie about a beach. It just didn’t hurt if that beach also had miles of naked skin and hard muscle on it. Jensen noticed that he was blushing again and cursed to himself. You’d think he was fucking thirteen all over again and suffering through his first damn crush. He just prayed that no one would notice until he got it back under control but that hope was shattered when he heard Mike’s laugh. “I think that’s Jenny’s favorite movie, too,” he teased. Jensen glared. Mike needed to be smothered in his sleep.
“I think we all kind of liked that one,” Georgie said easily and Jared’s ears were still pink. Jensen found that he rather liked it.
“Actually,” Jensen said, summoning up his courage, even if he was still technically staring at the countertop, “my favorite movie’s Tears Will Fall.” That was the movie where Jared had simply blown him away with acting ability. Before then, he’d just thought of Jared as a pretty face attached to a good body-eye candy, basically. It was after watching that movie that Jared Padalecki had become a bit of an obsession.
Justin, of the twinktastic emo-ness, screwed up his face. “I’ve never even heard of that one.” Again, Jensen thought, big surprise there. Justin didn’t strike him as the type to notice obscure indie films, award winners or not. On the flip side, he probably knew the main actors for every blockbuster in the past year. Setting his sights and all that.
Jensen risked a glance at Jared and found him grinning back and Jensen’s breath caught in his throat because screw Jensen’s melodramatic thoughts earlier about Jared being an angel. This man was obviously some kind of deity. He was glowing enough to be seen from space and Jensen felt himself warming just by being close.
“It was an indie film,” Jared replied, just before his big hand smoothed over Jensen’s shoulders, melting him into a pile of goo. “That’s my favorite, too,” he murmured and pressed a small kiss to Jensen’s temple.
Holy fucking Christ. Jensen thought he could happily die at the moment and the only thing keeping him from turning on Jared right then and there and demanding a real kiss, barely knowing the man or not, was the knowledge that they weren’t alone. His heart was beating at Mach fucking 10 and he was pretty sure that he was about to do something completely embarrassing like maybe faint but he was saved by Jeff of all people.
“Hey, Jay,” Jeff said, peeking his head into the kitchen. “We’re all set up and ready to go if you are.”
“Oh! Okay, Jeff. Thanks!” Jared’s arm was still wrapped around Jensen’s shoulders, feeling just about perfect, and he gave Jensen a friendly shake as he addressed the rest of the crowd. “So, guys, time for the first challenge. Are we ready?”
There was a chorus of yeses and a few dubiously teasing maybes and Jared smiled. “Okay! Let’s go meet Chad.” Jensen had almost forgotten that Chad Michael Murray was even part of this. He wondered if the man would be as slimy as he had been last night or if he looked cleaner in the light of day.
After all. Anybody that hung around with Jared couldn’t be all that bad, right?
The producers were steadily cornering everybody and dragging them into the closet. Jensen thought that this was rather counterproductive considering Jared rather needed the guys OUT of the closet, but whatever.
He was just considering himself lucky that he wasn’t considered ‘interesting’ enough to be forced into Jeff’s little ‘confessional booth’ (i.e. the closet-the man could slap a fancy name on it but it didn’t make it any less closet-like). So far, though, Jensen knew for a fact that Lita had been hauled in no less than three times, Justin twice and Mike, Misha and Sandy at least once. He also knew that his reprieve was probably coming to an end.
Jared led the group to the backyard where apparently a volleyball court had been set-up sometime during the night-complete with sand. Jensen stared incredulously at the sight because they couldn’t be fucking serious. Except that, yes, Chad was standing in the middle of the new sandbox, tossing a volleyball back and forth between his hands and dressed in red basketball shorts and a blue wifebeater (with the whiteness of his skin, he looked positively patriotic). Fucking A.
Jensen quickly checked out the group, wondering just who was going to be his competition here. Georgie was probably going to wipe the floor with them. Sandy, too. Hell, Jensen couldn’t tell. For all he knew, Lita and Justin played beach volleyball in their spare time as well.
At least Jensen had one thing going for him: he was a sports junkie. He’d never wanted to make a career out of it because why ruin a perfectly good hobby but he did spend a great deal of his free time playing. Chris called him a freak for that, but, then again, Chris preferred to spend his time lifting weights which was just endless repetition with no way of ‘winning,’ so Jensen was sure that Chris was really the crazy one. Sure, volleyball wasn’t exactly his sport of choice (Jensen was personally more fond of the likes of basketball or lacrosse) but he figured it was doable. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d played, after all.
“So, I think you know what this is all about?” Chad asked with a smirk. “Time to play ball, bitches.”
Jared glanced around at the group. “Anybody not know how to play volleyball? No?” He smiled. “Okay then. I managed to convince everybody to let you guys have a fairly easy challenge first before I let them start launching us into all sorts of crazy stunts because I figured that you’d appreciate that. You’re going to be divided up into two teams, one blue, one pink-”
“Lightish red,” Chad interrupted. When Jared turned to glare at him for stealing his thunder, Chad tried to look innocent. “What? Dude, I don’t care how gay a guy is, you’re one of the few guys that actually enjoys wearing pink-it’s lightish red.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Lightish red. Otherwise know as pink.”
“Whatever,” Chad retorted with a grin.
“I’ll whatever you.”
“You wish.”
Apparently deciding that he couldn’t win a game of childish insults back and forth with Chad, Jared gave up. “ANYWAY, it's just a game of volleyball and whichever team wins, wins a group date with me.” There was a round of clapping and Mike’s piercing catcall of a whistle and Jared ducked his head, grinning at the ground. Jensen glanced around wondering just who his group would be and what their chances would be of winning. A date with Jared Padalecki-even a group date-wasn’t something that he wanted to miss out on just because somebody was afraid of a ball. “And out of the winning team, I’ll choose a MVP for a solo date later on. Sound fair?” Jensen knew with the likes of Georgie and Ben around, he probably didn’t have a chance in Hell of winning that, but it was a nice thought.
Another round of nods and Chad stepped forward. “So listen up! I’ve got the teams right here! Your uniforms are at the ends of the court and after I finish reading off this list, you’ve got five minutes to suit up and then it’s game on!” A few of the houseguests were frowning at this-though if it was at the thought of being on teams or of having to redress in five minutes, Jensen couldn’t be sure.
“Blue Team! Tom! Felicity! Mike! Lita! Justin! Danneel! The rest of you losers are pink! Suit up!”
The houseguests scrambled for their respective ends of the court, Jensen included because five minutes was five minutes. That didn’t mean that he missed Jared’s little, “Dude. Don’t call them losers.” Chad said something in response but Jensen was too busy pulling his shirt off over his head.
He knew that afterward, he was probably going to hate himself for this-especially when Chris replayed it for him on slow-motion-but at the moment, Jensen didn’t really fucking care. He shoved down his pants, hauling on the pink athletic shorts over his black boxer briefs-though where the producers had found pink men’s shorts he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. In fact, he decided that he wasn’t even going to worry about the whole pink angle, either, because Ben was already proudly wearing it and he was butcher than Jensen ever had a prayer of being.
Scrambling for purchase in the sand, Jensen trotted himself onto the court, looking around at his teammates. Mary stood to his left looking a little nervous but determined. Behind, Georgie was looking confident. She caught his eye and winked at him. Well, at least somebody knew what they were doing here. Even Ben over in the far corner was clenching his jaw in a bit of a peculiar way. Jensen looked across the next at the opposite team who were huddled-huddled!-and deep in discussion, undoubtedly about the best way to slaughter their opponents.
“Alright guys!” Jared said, his voice booming across the yard, his hands cupped around his mouth. “So, I know that we’ve got a couple of pros at beach volleyball here and I was thinking that maybe they wanted a little bit of time to give some pointers to everybody else. Felicity, Georgie?” Georgie, Jensen would have guessed but Felicity? He stared at what he’d thought had been just a bored little rich girl and watched her nod hard like she was preparing to go into battle. Oh God. She had probably been the Napoleon of her High School team. “Get with your teams and figure out your strategy!”
“Already on it, Jared!” Felicity replied, giving him a thumbs up.
“60 seconds, bitches!” Chad yelled, setting a stop watch.
Jared touched Chad’s arm, fingers sliding over his bare bicep. Jared was grinning again and, God, it was good… “Dude, you can’t say that word on TV.”
“Says who?” Chad asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Jensen!” Jensen turned away from the shining miracle that was Jared Padalecki’s skin in the sunlight toward Georgie who was huddling the team. “Alright,” she said, throwing her arms around the nearest two people-Misha and Sandy-and bending them in. “I figure that we’ll keep this simple-no big tricks, we’re just playing our best. Sound good?” Everyone nodded and she clapped her hands, breaking the huddle. “Alright!”
They fell into position, Sandy, Mary and Jensen filling out the first line while Georgie took the serve in the back with Misha and Ben. Jensen stared resolutely through the net at Mike who winked. Fucker.
“Hah!” Georgie said as she lobbed the ball over the net. Danneel in the back row bounced it back, giving it to Justin and finally to Lita who, surprise, surprise, knew how to play. Probably because she played in teeny tiny bikinis on some beach somewhere. She jumped, spiking it towards Sandy.
Luckily, Sandy had apparently played before too and had no problems with hitting the dirt. She dove for the sand and just barely managed to deflect the ball up and back to Misha who pounded it up to Jensen. Living in the moment, Jensen tossed the ball over the net and they were off. The ball was bouncing back before he knew it, his team fighting furiously over it before sending it away again. Jensen lost himself in the instinctive moments of his muscles, enjoying the physical pull and the burn. He’d found that he’d missed it-it’d been too long since he’d had a good game. The writing world didn’t exactly give itself over to physical activity.
The Blue Team dropped the ball first, but they weren’t the only ones. Pink had their own fumbles, complete with sand-kicking and grumbling. Jared was running along the sidelines like the world’s largest cheerleader, clapping and cheering and the minutes of the game started to blur into each other. At least until Georgie came rushing up for that last volley across the net, spiking the ball firmly into the other court and straight on past Mike.
“Yeah!” Jared shouted, jumping up, his fist pumping and the Pink Team’s celebration caught Jensen by surprise as they surrounded him because he had been too busy watching Jared’s enthusiastic display. As if he could ignore all that bouncing muscle under a thin white shirt.
“And the floofy Pinks win it!” Chad announced.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Felicity snarled, stomping up to Chad. “I was a Varsity-”
“Hey, whoa! I just call it as I see it!” At Felicity’s glare, Chad bravely turned tail and ran, darting behind Jeff who was a fairly large man. Jeff sighed and grabbed Jared’s arm, pulling him off the sandy court and toward the house.
Jared frowned but obeyed the unspoken order, calling back over his shoulder, “Pinks! I’ll see you in a few hours!” Jensen watched him go, dragged off by the surprisingly strong producer, feeling his stupid heart starting to pine. Yeah. He knew was already good and fucked-and not in the particularly fun way, either. Well. At least not right now.
Georgie was pulled off to the side to be interviewed, sweaty and dirty and happy about it. She gave a few sound bites about what it felt like to win and how excited she was and how she never had any doubts while the rest of the team rushed in the house, presumably to get dolled up for whatever Jared had planned for this afternoon. Jensen went with them.
The Blue Team hung around being chewed out by Felicity about how they sucked and how her little sister could play better than them and there was a confessional waiting to happen. Something told Jensen that the Blue Team wasn’t going to make in for a little while.
The phone call telling them all to meet downstairs came at 12:30 and by then, Jensen had managed to fight his way into an unused shower. Of course, he’d had to be a bit sneaky about it, jumping into a bathroom before anybody else noticed that it was open and locking the door for a little while. Some of the houseguests didn’t mind somebody using the rest of the bathroom while they used the shower but Jensen wasn’t one of them. Living like sardines in a frathouse or not, there were still lines.
With a locked door between him and the rest of the house, he’d not only managed to catch that shower, but he’d managed to shave and Jensen hoped he at least looked presentable now. He was also hoping that not every day would be like this one but he knew that his wish was probably in vain. Shows like this lived for keeping everybody on their toes.
He was waiting with the rest of his former teammates at the foot of the stairs like they’d been told, lined up pretty for the circling cameras and staring at the balcony for Jared to make his grand entrance. Jensen stilled hadn’t gotten used to the feeling of being filmed-it made his skin crawl, frankly, to know that somebody was recording this to show to millions of other people and with that kind of thought, he wanted to shrivel up and die.
Before he could, though, the heavy doors to Jared’s bedroom finally opened and Jared’s heart-stopping grin emerged. Even dressed in a simple button down and jeans the man looked fantastic-there really was no end to this, was there? Jared tried for the stairs to walk down and meet them but Jeff caught his striped shirt, yanking him back towards the balcony. His grin turning sheepish, Jared obeyed. He gripped the railing, leaning out over it. “So, I, uh, want to thank y’all for comin’ on out with me.”
Jensen hadn’t believed that the man could get any hotter but the hint of a southern drawl that Jared had in his voice made Jensen’s knees a little weak. He couldn’t help it. It was practically a Pavlovian response at this point, trained into him from years of living and loving in Texas: hot guy with a drawl equaled nearly instant pathetic swooning. Also, that little bit of Texas made Jensen think of home and warmth at, at this point, he was hard pressed to think of anything hotter. When Jared spoke again, though, the drawl had dropped, just leaving Jensen with an echoing memory.
“I wanted to show you guys all a real nice time for playing so hard,” he said, walking down the stairs now that he’d escaped Jeff’s clutches. “So, I figured, what better way than to take you all to watch a game?”
“Whoo!” Sandy shouted as she and Misha started clapping.
Hitting the bottom of the stairs, Jared held his hands up smiling. “I also wanted to combine one of my interests with this date so I hope you don’t mind.” Jensen tilted his head, wondering what kind of interest Jared meant and hoping like hell it was going to be mud wrestling or something. Jensen really wasn’t much of a mud wrestler. It just looked…kind of dirty. “Now…” Jared held his right hand out for Georgie, “if my MVP would be so kind…” With a little laugh, Georgie took the proffered hand, inciting a worrying kernel of envy in Jensen. It was just a hand. He didn’t actually know Jared, either. Except it really wasn’t ‘just a hand’ when Jared brought Georgie’s up to kiss it. “The limo’s waiting outside,” Jared said, leading them out the front door like a Pied Piper.
When Jared had said that he wanted to combine his interests with the date, Jensen didn’t think he would have ever have guessed what the man meant. He certainly hadn’t been expecting this. Jensen was currently sitting on a hard bleacher bench reliving his high school days as they cheered on a bunch of scrawny teenage girls scrambling across the court, bumping and jumping and spiking the volleyball back and forth between themselves. It’s certainly not where Jensen would have thought that a movie star would go for a ‘first date’ kind of thing. Then again, Jensen had to remind himself, nothing about this situation was even remotely normal.
Not like he minded, though. Jensen found himself rather enjoying it, joining the crowd and shouting along with them. After all, he was just another face in a sea of people at the moment. Sure, he had on a microphone but at least the cameras were being kept out of the bleachers and, for a second, he could pretend that they weren’t even there. For all he knew, they had a fantastic zoom that could pick up a pimple in the back row, but they weren’t right in front of his face for once, and he could deal with that.
Sandy, though, had taken it upon herself to actively relive her high school days-which were probably a bit closer than Jensen’s were. She was acting every bit the cheerleader, running along the sidelines and stirring up the crowd. The entire gymnasium, as well, was absolutely delighted to have a movie star bouncing down the court if the clicking and whirling and flashing of the cameras was anything to go by.
Jared was eating it up with a spoon, too, watching her antics and starting cheers. Jensen was actually wondering what the show was here-the game or the carousing stars supposedly watching said game. Ben was smiling, sitting between Jared and Jensen, and lending his deep voice to the various chants. Georgie wasn’t being outdone, either, and Mary was right beside her, though not nearly as loud.
Jensen wasn’t quite sure what they were all doing here, but he did know that it was kind of fun. He also knew that they weren’t rooting for the home team, sitting in the ‘visitor stands’ and cheering whenever the home crowd hissed and Jensen wondered if this meant that Jared knew somebody on the visiting team. It was entirely possible. The simple explanation would be like a distant cousin or something but Jensen’s imagination was running away with him, suggesting ever increasingly complex plots about Jared rescuing and sponsoring some poor orphan or even having secretly father a kid… Except that for her to be playing, Jared would have had to do that when he was twelve or something.
A large arm landed across Jensen’s shoulders and he started before he realized it was just Ben, pulling him in for a quick hug when ‘their’ team scored. Blushing but happy, Jensen returned the one-armed hug, joining in on the next cheer. He almost felt like he was back home in Dallas again, watching one of his little sister’s games instead of all the way out in California. Granted, his little sister wasn’t exactly in high school any more, but it was still re-centering him, making him feel less overwhelmed and if it wasn’t for the 6 foot 4 movie star just a few people to his right, it would be just about normal.
A brunette girl on their side dove for the ball, just barely bumping it back up for her teammate to spike it and Jensen couldn’t help himself. “YEAH!” he shouted, pumping his arm right along with Ben.
Okay. So maybe not a ‘dream date with Jared’ or anything but it was definitely fun. At least until he glanced over at Jared.
Jared was madly hugging Georgie, jumping up and down with her in excitement, and there was that stupid little knot of jealousy again. Jensen froze, staring, before managing to shake it off and refocus on the game. Whatever. He needed to learn that he wasn’t the only one here and besides-it was Georgie that had won the solo date.
Jensen would just have to make sure that he won everything else from now on out.
Part 2 | Master Post | Part 4
Author: dragonspell
Fandom: RPS
Pairing: Jared/Jensen (and Jared/a slew of other characters including Misha Collins, Tom Welling, Mike Rosenbaum, Danneel Harris, Sandy McCoy and some OMCs and OFCs)
Rating: Currently PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Warnings: AU. Cheesiness. Fandom cliches. The usual drill.
Summary (fic): After a drunken dare, award-winning writer Jensen agreed to on a reality television show to vie for the attention of megastar Jared Padalecki who he's had a crush on for years. Only Jensen doesn't know how he's going to be able to tolerate all the other contestants and their widely varying personalities and he's pretty sure that you're not supposed to be able to get used to somebody filming you 24/7.
Summary (part): The second day of life in the house dawns and that means the first challenge .
Word Count: 6930 (this part)
Disclaimer: Never happened, no affiliation.
A/N: So, uh, this might end up being more than 16 parts...
Master Post: Master Post
Part 2 | Master Post | Part 4
Episode 2 - First Half
Jensen groaned and rolled on to his side. He pulled the covers over his head and tried to pretend that he was dead, at least for a few more hours. Jensen loathed mornings. Only, there was something telling him that he needed to get up-a feeling that he just couldn’t shake no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, niggling away at the back of his head. He sighed, trying to burrow deeper under the covers because the room was entirely way too cold and the faint light coming in from the window was way too bright.
Except that Jensen knew that he didn’t have a window next to his bed. His bed was actually deliberately placed as far away from the window as he could manage. He blinked his eyes open, peeking out from under the blankets, finally noticing where he was and the whole damn, sad, pathetic story came flooding back to him. He was hundreds of miles from home in the tackiest mansion he’d ever seen competing with a bunch of fellow losers and wannabes for the attention of one Jared Tristan Padalecki, Superstar.
Fuck. Jensen kind of hoped that the whole thing was just a bad dream but as he stared at the wall in front of him and it resolutely refused to change into his bedroom, he had to face the facts. Besides, Jensen hoped that, in his dreams at least, he’d be a little bit cooler when meeting the fantastical sex object of his dreams. And that maybe there’d be more sex involved. A lot more.
He groaned and pulled a pillow over his face. It was too much to hope for that he could smother himself but he just wanted to block out the world and its cruel realities for just a little while longer. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t going to wait for him.
Hands shook him roughly and an entirely familiar, too cheery voice proclaimed, “Time to get up Jennybean! Can’t sleep all day!” Jensen was willing to overlook Mike’s wrong assumption-he’d just met the man, after all. That didn’t mean, though, that Jensen was going to forgive Mike after the fucker ripped the covers off the bed.
Jensen came up snarling, grabbing for the blankets and missing due to his general lack of hand-eye coordination in the morning. “Whoa!” Mike said with a laugh. “You’re not as pretty in the morning, are you?”
“God, I hate you,” Jensen groaned, throwing himself back down on the bed. He rolled back onto his side, curling up into a ball and tried to ignore the cold. Fuck this shit. He was going back to sleep and Mike and the blankets could just fuck off.
Mike was unable to take a hint, though. He settled in beside Jensen on the bed. “Seriously not a morning person, hmm?”
Jensen sighed, wishing for the blankets back-it really was too cold to be trying to sleep without them. “…Aren’t you in another room?” he asked, wondering why Mike had felt the need to torture him of all people.
“Yes,” Mike answers. “But considering Justin’s in there throwing a fit because he forgot to pack his special strawberry-apricot shampoo and matching body wash or whatever, I figured I’d be better off in here.” Jensen ran through a few quick scenarios of Mike’s rather grisly death before facing that fact that Mike was probably right-creative writer or not, he probably couldn’t hold a candle to Justin in inventive torture. The kid came off as a charmer but Jensen knew that just meant that he was not to be trusted-hidden depths and all that. “So that means you’re stuck with me, Jenny. Get up and talk.”
Jensen groaned and rolled into a sitting position to glare at Mike who laughed openly. “Aw, Jen, you’re adorable!” Jensen growled and tried to smooth his hair which had to be heading in every direction but straight and reached for his glasses, sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. He rubbed his face and glanced at the clock on the stand, glaring at its impersonal red numerals.
Who the fuck got up at eight o’ five in the morning if they didn’t have to, anyway? He glanced around the room to see Tom smiling at him from his own bed and he was willing to bet that the mound of covers on the mattress in the corner was Mary. Jensen scowled harder. Why did she get to sleep while Jensen had to get up?
“She’s scarier than you,” Mike said, following Jensen’s train of thought. Jensen snorted. “And anyway, Georgie’s off doing yoga, too. Which, I mean, I can dig but apparently when she does yoga, she does yoga. As in do not disturb.”
Jensen still couldn’t believe that he was voluntarily living with these people for the next few weeks. He had to be certifiable. “So,” Mike said, shoving even more into Jensen’s personal space. “Finally got to meet Jared last night. What do you think?” He grinned, bouncing slightly and Jensen glared at him for being entirely too perky.
What did he think of Jared? “He’s…” A ton of images were flying through Jensen’s mind but absolutely nothing that he felt comfortable saying out loud-most tended to involve him sprawled on a bed with Jared overtop of him or Jared naked on a lawn chair or… “Uh, nice,” Jensen finished.
Mike leaned in, like he was sharing a secret, whispering loudly, “You’re blushing.” Fucking A.
Jensen hit him with a pillow. “Get the fuck out of my room already.” It was more a cranky complaint than an actual demand but he was working with what he had.
“Can’t do that,” Mike said, attempting to look sad and looking like an insincere school boy. “ ‘Cause I got this.” He pulled a card out of his shirt, flipping it at Jensen. It landed with a soft thump on Jensen’s lap and Jensen squinted at it. “It says,” Mike clarified, getting to his feet, “that we all have to be downstairs in the kitchen at 8:30. Which is, you know, in…” He pointed at the clock. “About twenty minutes.”
Jensen’s blood ran cold. “What?” That wouldn’t even give him time for a shower if he had to fight back the crowd…
“Yep!” Mike bounced cheerfully out of the room. “See you downstairs! Oh!” He peeked his head back around the jamb and pointed at the lump of passed out model in the corner. “Somebody might want to wake up Dani over there.”
Jensen sighed and rolled himself out of bed, just barely managing to keep himself from falling flat on his face. There was the definite possibility that these next few weeks were going to suck.
With all the shoving and yelling and kicking happening around the bathrooms, Jensen hadn’t had a chance to get his shower, just like he’d expected. Not like he was going to be able to shove his way past the likes of Justin and Lita-who’d got into an absolute epic shouting match, complete with obscenities and stomping feet. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for everybody else, they’d managed to keep it non-physical. For now.
Instead of taking a shower, Jensen had run a comb through his hair, changed into a, thankfully, unwrinkled shirt and jeans and had just slathered on the deodorant and a couple dabs of cologne. That only left him with…
Jensen scratched at the itchy stubble that he hadn’t gotten a chance to shave off and really hoped that it made him look ‘rugged’ or, maybe, ‘artfully sleep-tousled’-whatever moniker the magazines liked to put on it-instead of what he suspected to be much more likely: a slob. Yeah, his day was just going great.
He came down the stairs and rounded the corner into the kitchen to the rather hyena-like laugh that he was starting to identify as Felicity’s. Following close on its heels, though, was Jared’s deeper one and it made Jensen’s heart give a stupid little jump. Fuck but it was too early for this. He was going to be absolutely pathetic until he had some fucking coffee or something-anything to wake up.
As he stepped onto the checkered floor of the kitchen, Jensen had to take a steadying breath because not only was Jared sitting there on a stool in a thin t-shirt and shorts, looking like some kind of angel that had stopped by for breakfast, but holy shit that was a lot of food. The entire kitchen had been transformed sometime when he was upstairs into a food lover’s wet dream. There were piles of pastries and breads and fruit in between stacks of pancakes and waffles and bacon mixed with sausage. Jensen was counting at least four different kinds of syrup, too and wow. The food covered nearly every inch of surface space in the kitchen, except for the edges of the island that they were apparently supposed to be sitting around.
Jared caught sight of Jensen standing in amazement in the doorway and he grinned, waving him over. “Hi, Jen!” he said, his voice brighter and more cheerful than Mike’s but Jensen found that he couldn’t mind. Jared patted a stool next to him and who was Jensen to ignore an invitation like that? Amazingly, he didn’t manage to trip over his own feet to reach the stool, but it was a near thing. It would have been just his damn luck to do so, no matter if he was perfectly capable of the move any other time. He slipped on to the seat, next to Jared’s ridiculously huge and warm body and tried to pretend that his inner fanboy wasn’t shrieking in girly joy.
Felicity was on Jared’s other side, holding onto his left arm with perfectly manicured hands and cooing. Luckily, Jared was a right-handed guy so she wasn’t impairing his ability to eat-not in the slightest because the boy was shoveling down pancakes with cherry topping like they were going out of style. “Oh!” Jared said after swallowing his latest bite. “Grab a plate, Jen!”
Breakfast wasn’t really Jensen’s thing. Most likely because he was usually never up in time for what people considered ‘breakfast time’. He usually rolled out of bed around eleven or noon-ten at the earliest-and stumbled out for some coffee and maybe some toast. He glanced around the nauseatingly high stacks of food, though, and thought that maybe he could make an exception. Just because it really would be a waste. He pulled a waffle off onto a plate and a few pieces of bacon, listening as Misha and Georgie-the two vegans of the group-started talking about the merits of tofu. They were sitting opposite Jared.
In between the vegans and Jared, opposite Jensen, Mike and Ben were laughing over some of the various pranks that Mike had pulled over the years. Sandy and Tom wandered in next at 8:29-both with their hair dripping, the lucky bastards-and Sandy sat down next to Jensen, taking the last available stool as Tom opted to stand. “So everyone have a good night sleep?” Jared asked and there were a round of nods.
“I’ve never met a more comfortable bed,” Mike said and Jared beamed. “Well, okay, so I’ve met some pretty comfortable beds, I was just never allowed to sleep in them considering that the store wouldn’t sell them to me at the same price as the flat slabs of plywood that I normally buy.”
“Well, I wanted you guys to be comfortable,” Jared replied. “Helps in the wooing process.”
“All part of your highly-developed seduction technique?” Misha teased and Jared nodded firmly.
“Hell, yeah. I’ll have you know it’s almost patented.” Danneel and Mary wandered in on the heels of Jared’s comment and, seeing that there was no place left at the island to sit, sat back against the wall. Jared smiled apologetically at them. “Okay, guys, we’re just missing a few people, right?” Jensen glanced around at the absolute sea of quasi-familiar faces surrounding him. “Uh, they’ll probably show up soon. Anyway, so I suppose you all want to know why you’re here.”
“To get to know you, of course,” Misha answered.
“Right!” Jared agreed, snapping his fingers. “That’s exactly what we’re all doing here! Well, that and so I can get to know you better, too! Now, I’m also a bit of a morning person so I figured what better way-”
“But I already know so much about you,” Felicity said, clutching Jared’s arm.
“You do?” Jared asked, looking surprised.
“Yeah! You were born July 19, 1982 and you have an older brother and a younger sister…” Jensen blinked as Felicity rattled off quite a few other facts that were kind of verging into stalker territory. Apparently somebody had done her homework before getting on the show. Jared was nodding along with everything that she said, though, with a thoughtful look on his face. At least until she got to how he liked his coffee. “And though you like sweet things, you really don’t like cream or sugar in your coffee-”
“Uh, actually…” Jared held up his cup which was almost as pale as him. “I do.”
Felicity shook her head. “No, in Memphis Break, you-”
“Uh, my character did, yeah-” Jensen wanted to hit his head against the counter. Apparently Felicity wasn’t aware that there was a difference between Jared and any of the characters that he played. “But I’m not Tim Baker.”
The room fell silent then, nearly everybody staring at the scene, except for Mike who was covering his mouth trying not to laugh and Jensen who was staring at the rest of the room. Awkward.
Justin and Lita chose just then, though, to make their grand entrance, striding in side by side and trying to look like they weren’t trying to shove each other out of the way. “Sorry I’m late!” they said in unison and then glared at each other. Justin looked like he was going to a photoshoot instead of breakfast, his make-up perfectly in place and Lita…well, Lita, apparently thought that they were hitting the strip club up after they ate. Jensen tried not to glare. He really did. It shouldn’t matter what the girl liked to wear-that was her personal choice after all-and he knew that the only reason he was being such a bitch in his head was because of jealousy, pure and simple.
“Oh,” Jared said, waving the pair in, “you’re not late at all! Come on in and grab something to eat. We’re just getting started.” He subtly turned away from Felicity who was still holding onto his arm like he might disappear at any minute and turned towards Mike. “So, Mike, you’re a photographer, right?”
Mike nodded, popping a piece of bacon into his mouth. “Mostly for art shows and whatever but I do commercial work as well.”
“Yeah, I totally saw your shoot for Elle.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Still can’t believe I agreed to do that.”
“Yeah?” Jared heaped a few more pancakes onto his plate. Jesus.
“Oh, yeah. They put shoes on the models’ heads. Shoes. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Though I did ask if the models could stand on their heads.”
Danneel broke down laughing. “Rather have a shoe on my head than have feathers glued onto my skin.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? They did that?”
Danneel nodded and nudged Tom. “Or covered in tar, right?” Tom winced.
“So…wait,” Jared cut in. “They tarred and feathered you guys?”
“Oh, no,” Danneel said. “They just feathered me. Tom, though, him and three other guys got tarred.”
Tom wobbled his hand back and forth. “It wasn’t exactly tar…”
“No but it was supposed to look like it.”
“That’s…” Jared started but Lita cut him off before he could get any more out.
“Worst I’ve ever had to do is be covered in mud.” …Like that was a surprise. Jensen rolled his eyes and hoped that the cameras didn’t catch it. They probably did. Fuck.
Jared, though, was suitably intrigued. “Like mud wrestling?” he asked, a bit excited and sounding for all the world like an oversexed fifteen year old.
Lita nodded and leaned into him, rubbing her boobs up and down his arm. “You know it, baby.”
“That’s awesome,” Jared said, wrapping her in a hug. “So did you win?”
“Always!”
“Mud’s good for your skin,” Misha chimed in, thankfully angling the conversation away from any good points of the mud wrestling world.
Lita smirks at him. “Of course it is. Why do you think my skin’s so smooth?”
Misha shrugged. “Could be Carmilla,” he replied casually and Jensen choked on a piece of waffle.
Jared, though, burst out laughing while Lita pouted, convinced that she’d just gotten slammed but unsure how. “Who’s Carmilla?” she asked, but Jared was already pushing on.
“Ben!” he said, turning his attention to the Marine at the corner of the island. “So, I hear that you just retired from the armed forces?”
“Yeah. My contract was for ten years. I decided not to renew.”
“Any reason why?” Jared asked, slumping his chin on his hand as he leaned over the countertop.
“Yeah,” Ben replied with an easy smile and a slow up and down of the parts of Jared that he could see. “A certain law might have passed but that doesn’t mean that the brass is exactly welcoming it with open arms. Decided I had other opportunities waiting.”
Jared gave Ben an answering sultry look and Jensen felt his heart clench in jealousy. Jesus, but this was going to take some getting used to. “I’ll bet you do. So do you know what you want to do now?”
“No,” Ben replied. “Still thinking about that.”
“Ah.” Jared’s attention slid from Ben, past Misha and Georgie over towards Sandy. “Now, uh, Sandy. Got to say I’m a big fan. Big fan.” Sandy giggled, tossing her head to get her hair to do a flirty little flip. “What you did in Heart Stopper? Amazing work.”
“Thanks.”
“So, uh…” Jared looked at the speckled countertop of the island, oddly shy. “What, uh. What made you decide to put yourself through all this? I mean-I’m glad that you’re here and I’ve got to say, I had a do a few laps around the house when I found out that you’d applied. And not that I wouldn’t want anyone not to be here-”
Sandy giggled again, waving Jared’s increasingly panicked explanations down. “I’ve just had, well, a bit of a crush on you, and had some time off so I figured, why not. I’ve always wanted to meet the great Jared Padalecki.” She winked and Jared blushed-freaking blushed. “I’m a big fan, too. Like, after Tropic Storm.”
Jensen couldn’t fault Sandy’s taste. That’d been one hell of a movie-what with how Jared had spent most of it shirtless and wet and rolling around on the beach with various gorgeous co-stars. Jensen had watched Tropic Storm, too. More than a few times and probably more than should be considered normal, if he was honest.
Hey, sometimes a guy just had a hankering to see a movie about a beach. It just didn’t hurt if that beach also had miles of naked skin and hard muscle on it. Jensen noticed that he was blushing again and cursed to himself. You’d think he was fucking thirteen all over again and suffering through his first damn crush. He just prayed that no one would notice until he got it back under control but that hope was shattered when he heard Mike’s laugh. “I think that’s Jenny’s favorite movie, too,” he teased. Jensen glared. Mike needed to be smothered in his sleep.
“I think we all kind of liked that one,” Georgie said easily and Jared’s ears were still pink. Jensen found that he rather liked it.
“Actually,” Jensen said, summoning up his courage, even if he was still technically staring at the countertop, “my favorite movie’s Tears Will Fall.” That was the movie where Jared had simply blown him away with acting ability. Before then, he’d just thought of Jared as a pretty face attached to a good body-eye candy, basically. It was after watching that movie that Jared Padalecki had become a bit of an obsession.
Justin, of the twinktastic emo-ness, screwed up his face. “I’ve never even heard of that one.” Again, Jensen thought, big surprise there. Justin didn’t strike him as the type to notice obscure indie films, award winners or not. On the flip side, he probably knew the main actors for every blockbuster in the past year. Setting his sights and all that.
Jensen risked a glance at Jared and found him grinning back and Jensen’s breath caught in his throat because screw Jensen’s melodramatic thoughts earlier about Jared being an angel. This man was obviously some kind of deity. He was glowing enough to be seen from space and Jensen felt himself warming just by being close.
“It was an indie film,” Jared replied, just before his big hand smoothed over Jensen’s shoulders, melting him into a pile of goo. “That’s my favorite, too,” he murmured and pressed a small kiss to Jensen’s temple.
Holy fucking Christ. Jensen thought he could happily die at the moment and the only thing keeping him from turning on Jared right then and there and demanding a real kiss, barely knowing the man or not, was the knowledge that they weren’t alone. His heart was beating at Mach fucking 10 and he was pretty sure that he was about to do something completely embarrassing like maybe faint but he was saved by Jeff of all people.
“Hey, Jay,” Jeff said, peeking his head into the kitchen. “We’re all set up and ready to go if you are.”
“Oh! Okay, Jeff. Thanks!” Jared’s arm was still wrapped around Jensen’s shoulders, feeling just about perfect, and he gave Jensen a friendly shake as he addressed the rest of the crowd. “So, guys, time for the first challenge. Are we ready?”
There was a chorus of yeses and a few dubiously teasing maybes and Jared smiled. “Okay! Let’s go meet Chad.” Jensen had almost forgotten that Chad Michael Murray was even part of this. He wondered if the man would be as slimy as he had been last night or if he looked cleaner in the light of day.
After all. Anybody that hung around with Jared couldn’t be all that bad, right?
The producers were steadily cornering everybody and dragging them into the closet. Jensen thought that this was rather counterproductive considering Jared rather needed the guys OUT of the closet, but whatever.
He was just considering himself lucky that he wasn’t considered ‘interesting’ enough to be forced into Jeff’s little ‘confessional booth’ (i.e. the closet-the man could slap a fancy name on it but it didn’t make it any less closet-like). So far, though, Jensen knew for a fact that Lita had been hauled in no less than three times, Justin twice and Mike, Misha and Sandy at least once. He also knew that his reprieve was probably coming to an end.
Jared led the group to the backyard where apparently a volleyball court had been set-up sometime during the night-complete with sand. Jensen stared incredulously at the sight because they couldn’t be fucking serious. Except that, yes, Chad was standing in the middle of the new sandbox, tossing a volleyball back and forth between his hands and dressed in red basketball shorts and a blue wifebeater (with the whiteness of his skin, he looked positively patriotic). Fucking A.
Jensen quickly checked out the group, wondering just who was going to be his competition here. Georgie was probably going to wipe the floor with them. Sandy, too. Hell, Jensen couldn’t tell. For all he knew, Lita and Justin played beach volleyball in their spare time as well.
At least Jensen had one thing going for him: he was a sports junkie. He’d never wanted to make a career out of it because why ruin a perfectly good hobby but he did spend a great deal of his free time playing. Chris called him a freak for that, but, then again, Chris preferred to spend his time lifting weights which was just endless repetition with no way of ‘winning,’ so Jensen was sure that Chris was really the crazy one. Sure, volleyball wasn’t exactly his sport of choice (Jensen was personally more fond of the likes of basketball or lacrosse) but he figured it was doable. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d played, after all.
“So, I think you know what this is all about?” Chad asked with a smirk. “Time to play ball, bitches.”
Jared glanced around at the group. “Anybody not know how to play volleyball? No?” He smiled. “Okay then. I managed to convince everybody to let you guys have a fairly easy challenge first before I let them start launching us into all sorts of crazy stunts because I figured that you’d appreciate that. You’re going to be divided up into two teams, one blue, one pink-”
“Lightish red,” Chad interrupted. When Jared turned to glare at him for stealing his thunder, Chad tried to look innocent. “What? Dude, I don’t care how gay a guy is, you’re one of the few guys that actually enjoys wearing pink-it’s lightish red.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Lightish red. Otherwise know as pink.”
“Whatever,” Chad retorted with a grin.
“I’ll whatever you.”
“You wish.”
Apparently deciding that he couldn’t win a game of childish insults back and forth with Chad, Jared gave up. “ANYWAY, it's just a game of volleyball and whichever team wins, wins a group date with me.” There was a round of clapping and Mike’s piercing catcall of a whistle and Jared ducked his head, grinning at the ground. Jensen glanced around wondering just who his group would be and what their chances would be of winning. A date with Jared Padalecki-even a group date-wasn’t something that he wanted to miss out on just because somebody was afraid of a ball. “And out of the winning team, I’ll choose a MVP for a solo date later on. Sound fair?” Jensen knew with the likes of Georgie and Ben around, he probably didn’t have a chance in Hell of winning that, but it was a nice thought.
Another round of nods and Chad stepped forward. “So listen up! I’ve got the teams right here! Your uniforms are at the ends of the court and after I finish reading off this list, you’ve got five minutes to suit up and then it’s game on!” A few of the houseguests were frowning at this-though if it was at the thought of being on teams or of having to redress in five minutes, Jensen couldn’t be sure.
“Blue Team! Tom! Felicity! Mike! Lita! Justin! Danneel! The rest of you losers are pink! Suit up!”
The houseguests scrambled for their respective ends of the court, Jensen included because five minutes was five minutes. That didn’t mean that he missed Jared’s little, “Dude. Don’t call them losers.” Chad said something in response but Jensen was too busy pulling his shirt off over his head.
He knew that afterward, he was probably going to hate himself for this-especially when Chris replayed it for him on slow-motion-but at the moment, Jensen didn’t really fucking care. He shoved down his pants, hauling on the pink athletic shorts over his black boxer briefs-though where the producers had found pink men’s shorts he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. In fact, he decided that he wasn’t even going to worry about the whole pink angle, either, because Ben was already proudly wearing it and he was butcher than Jensen ever had a prayer of being.
Scrambling for purchase in the sand, Jensen trotted himself onto the court, looking around at his teammates. Mary stood to his left looking a little nervous but determined. Behind, Georgie was looking confident. She caught his eye and winked at him. Well, at least somebody knew what they were doing here. Even Ben over in the far corner was clenching his jaw in a bit of a peculiar way. Jensen looked across the next at the opposite team who were huddled-huddled!-and deep in discussion, undoubtedly about the best way to slaughter their opponents.
“Alright guys!” Jared said, his voice booming across the yard, his hands cupped around his mouth. “So, I know that we’ve got a couple of pros at beach volleyball here and I was thinking that maybe they wanted a little bit of time to give some pointers to everybody else. Felicity, Georgie?” Georgie, Jensen would have guessed but Felicity? He stared at what he’d thought had been just a bored little rich girl and watched her nod hard like she was preparing to go into battle. Oh God. She had probably been the Napoleon of her High School team. “Get with your teams and figure out your strategy!”
“Already on it, Jared!” Felicity replied, giving him a thumbs up.
“60 seconds, bitches!” Chad yelled, setting a stop watch.
Jared touched Chad’s arm, fingers sliding over his bare bicep. Jared was grinning again and, God, it was good… “Dude, you can’t say that word on TV.”
“Says who?” Chad asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Jensen!” Jensen turned away from the shining miracle that was Jared Padalecki’s skin in the sunlight toward Georgie who was huddling the team. “Alright,” she said, throwing her arms around the nearest two people-Misha and Sandy-and bending them in. “I figure that we’ll keep this simple-no big tricks, we’re just playing our best. Sound good?” Everyone nodded and she clapped her hands, breaking the huddle. “Alright!”
They fell into position, Sandy, Mary and Jensen filling out the first line while Georgie took the serve in the back with Misha and Ben. Jensen stared resolutely through the net at Mike who winked. Fucker.
“Hah!” Georgie said as she lobbed the ball over the net. Danneel in the back row bounced it back, giving it to Justin and finally to Lita who, surprise, surprise, knew how to play. Probably because she played in teeny tiny bikinis on some beach somewhere. She jumped, spiking it towards Sandy.
Luckily, Sandy had apparently played before too and had no problems with hitting the dirt. She dove for the sand and just barely managed to deflect the ball up and back to Misha who pounded it up to Jensen. Living in the moment, Jensen tossed the ball over the net and they were off. The ball was bouncing back before he knew it, his team fighting furiously over it before sending it away again. Jensen lost himself in the instinctive moments of his muscles, enjoying the physical pull and the burn. He’d found that he’d missed it-it’d been too long since he’d had a good game. The writing world didn’t exactly give itself over to physical activity.
The Blue Team dropped the ball first, but they weren’t the only ones. Pink had their own fumbles, complete with sand-kicking and grumbling. Jared was running along the sidelines like the world’s largest cheerleader, clapping and cheering and the minutes of the game started to blur into each other. At least until Georgie came rushing up for that last volley across the net, spiking the ball firmly into the other court and straight on past Mike.
“Yeah!” Jared shouted, jumping up, his fist pumping and the Pink Team’s celebration caught Jensen by surprise as they surrounded him because he had been too busy watching Jared’s enthusiastic display. As if he could ignore all that bouncing muscle under a thin white shirt.
“And the floofy Pinks win it!” Chad announced.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Felicity snarled, stomping up to Chad. “I was a Varsity-”
“Hey, whoa! I just call it as I see it!” At Felicity’s glare, Chad bravely turned tail and ran, darting behind Jeff who was a fairly large man. Jeff sighed and grabbed Jared’s arm, pulling him off the sandy court and toward the house.
Jared frowned but obeyed the unspoken order, calling back over his shoulder, “Pinks! I’ll see you in a few hours!” Jensen watched him go, dragged off by the surprisingly strong producer, feeling his stupid heart starting to pine. Yeah. He knew was already good and fucked-and not in the particularly fun way, either. Well. At least not right now.
Georgie was pulled off to the side to be interviewed, sweaty and dirty and happy about it. She gave a few sound bites about what it felt like to win and how excited she was and how she never had any doubts while the rest of the team rushed in the house, presumably to get dolled up for whatever Jared had planned for this afternoon. Jensen went with them.
The Blue Team hung around being chewed out by Felicity about how they sucked and how her little sister could play better than them and there was a confessional waiting to happen. Something told Jensen that the Blue Team wasn’t going to make in for a little while.
The phone call telling them all to meet downstairs came at 12:30 and by then, Jensen had managed to fight his way into an unused shower. Of course, he’d had to be a bit sneaky about it, jumping into a bathroom before anybody else noticed that it was open and locking the door for a little while. Some of the houseguests didn’t mind somebody using the rest of the bathroom while they used the shower but Jensen wasn’t one of them. Living like sardines in a frathouse or not, there were still lines.
With a locked door between him and the rest of the house, he’d not only managed to catch that shower, but he’d managed to shave and Jensen hoped he at least looked presentable now. He was also hoping that not every day would be like this one but he knew that his wish was probably in vain. Shows like this lived for keeping everybody on their toes.
He was waiting with the rest of his former teammates at the foot of the stairs like they’d been told, lined up pretty for the circling cameras and staring at the balcony for Jared to make his grand entrance. Jensen stilled hadn’t gotten used to the feeling of being filmed-it made his skin crawl, frankly, to know that somebody was recording this to show to millions of other people and with that kind of thought, he wanted to shrivel up and die.
Before he could, though, the heavy doors to Jared’s bedroom finally opened and Jared’s heart-stopping grin emerged. Even dressed in a simple button down and jeans the man looked fantastic-there really was no end to this, was there? Jared tried for the stairs to walk down and meet them but Jeff caught his striped shirt, yanking him back towards the balcony. His grin turning sheepish, Jared obeyed. He gripped the railing, leaning out over it. “So, I, uh, want to thank y’all for comin’ on out with me.”
Jensen hadn’t believed that the man could get any hotter but the hint of a southern drawl that Jared had in his voice made Jensen’s knees a little weak. He couldn’t help it. It was practically a Pavlovian response at this point, trained into him from years of living and loving in Texas: hot guy with a drawl equaled nearly instant pathetic swooning. Also, that little bit of Texas made Jensen think of home and warmth at, at this point, he was hard pressed to think of anything hotter. When Jared spoke again, though, the drawl had dropped, just leaving Jensen with an echoing memory.
“I wanted to show you guys all a real nice time for playing so hard,” he said, walking down the stairs now that he’d escaped Jeff’s clutches. “So, I figured, what better way than to take you all to watch a game?”
“Whoo!” Sandy shouted as she and Misha started clapping.
Hitting the bottom of the stairs, Jared held his hands up smiling. “I also wanted to combine one of my interests with this date so I hope you don’t mind.” Jensen tilted his head, wondering what kind of interest Jared meant and hoping like hell it was going to be mud wrestling or something. Jensen really wasn’t much of a mud wrestler. It just looked…kind of dirty. “Now…” Jared held his right hand out for Georgie, “if my MVP would be so kind…” With a little laugh, Georgie took the proffered hand, inciting a worrying kernel of envy in Jensen. It was just a hand. He didn’t actually know Jared, either. Except it really wasn’t ‘just a hand’ when Jared brought Georgie’s up to kiss it. “The limo’s waiting outside,” Jared said, leading them out the front door like a Pied Piper.
When Jared had said that he wanted to combine his interests with the date, Jensen didn’t think he would have ever have guessed what the man meant. He certainly hadn’t been expecting this. Jensen was currently sitting on a hard bleacher bench reliving his high school days as they cheered on a bunch of scrawny teenage girls scrambling across the court, bumping and jumping and spiking the volleyball back and forth between themselves. It’s certainly not where Jensen would have thought that a movie star would go for a ‘first date’ kind of thing. Then again, Jensen had to remind himself, nothing about this situation was even remotely normal.
Not like he minded, though. Jensen found himself rather enjoying it, joining the crowd and shouting along with them. After all, he was just another face in a sea of people at the moment. Sure, he had on a microphone but at least the cameras were being kept out of the bleachers and, for a second, he could pretend that they weren’t even there. For all he knew, they had a fantastic zoom that could pick up a pimple in the back row, but they weren’t right in front of his face for once, and he could deal with that.
Sandy, though, had taken it upon herself to actively relive her high school days-which were probably a bit closer than Jensen’s were. She was acting every bit the cheerleader, running along the sidelines and stirring up the crowd. The entire gymnasium, as well, was absolutely delighted to have a movie star bouncing down the court if the clicking and whirling and flashing of the cameras was anything to go by.
Jared was eating it up with a spoon, too, watching her antics and starting cheers. Jensen was actually wondering what the show was here-the game or the carousing stars supposedly watching said game. Ben was smiling, sitting between Jared and Jensen, and lending his deep voice to the various chants. Georgie wasn’t being outdone, either, and Mary was right beside her, though not nearly as loud.
Jensen wasn’t quite sure what they were all doing here, but he did know that it was kind of fun. He also knew that they weren’t rooting for the home team, sitting in the ‘visitor stands’ and cheering whenever the home crowd hissed and Jensen wondered if this meant that Jared knew somebody on the visiting team. It was entirely possible. The simple explanation would be like a distant cousin or something but Jensen’s imagination was running away with him, suggesting ever increasingly complex plots about Jared rescuing and sponsoring some poor orphan or even having secretly father a kid… Except that for her to be playing, Jared would have had to do that when he was twelve or something.
A large arm landed across Jensen’s shoulders and he started before he realized it was just Ben, pulling him in for a quick hug when ‘their’ team scored. Blushing but happy, Jensen returned the one-armed hug, joining in on the next cheer. He almost felt like he was back home in Dallas again, watching one of his little sister’s games instead of all the way out in California. Granted, his little sister wasn’t exactly in high school any more, but it was still re-centering him, making him feel less overwhelmed and if it wasn’t for the 6 foot 4 movie star just a few people to his right, it would be just about normal.
A brunette girl on their side dove for the ball, just barely bumping it back up for her teammate to spike it and Jensen couldn’t help himself. “YEAH!” he shouted, pumping his arm right along with Ben.
Okay. So maybe not a ‘dream date with Jared’ or anything but it was definitely fun. At least until he glanced over at Jared.
Jared was madly hugging Georgie, jumping up and down with her in excitement, and there was that stupid little knot of jealousy again. Jensen froze, staring, before managing to shake it off and refocus on the game. Whatever. He needed to learn that he wasn’t the only one here and besides-it was Georgie that had won the solo date.
Jensen would just have to make sure that he won everything else from now on out.
Part 2 | Master Post | Part 4