Fic: RPS (Jared/Jensen): In It for Love [18 / 18] | NC-17 | 9550 words
Title: In It for Love [ 18 / 18 ]
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: 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): Jared and Jensen and the rest of the cast are reunited as the show comes to an end.
Word Count (fic): 136,690
Word Count (part): 9550
Disclaimer: Never happened, no affiliation.
Master Post: Master Post
A/N: \o/ DONE.
Part 17 | Master Post
The Reunion Show
Jeff’s assistant was terrifying. She stood no higher than five foot three, with her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, but Jensen was petrified of her. He was hiding it well, but he had a feeling that she’d cut him if he gave her half a chance. So he was sitting exactly where she had told him to, on the end of the long couch (which was thankfully not zebra-stripped) with his hands in his lap, because she looked just that pissed. Beside him was Danneel and on the other end of the couch was Misha was grinning from ear to ear and Jensen desperately wanted to talk to either of them but he didn’t dare. The woman kept shooting him nasty looks. Granted, those looks were probably more for Mike behind him (who kept poking the back of his head, the fucker) but Jensen wasn’t going to take any chances. They were all supposed to be waiting quietly for filming to start on their “live” (that would be “live” as in ten minute delay kind of live, just in case) show and Jeff’s assistant wasn’t taking any chances that they wouldn’t fuck it up. Jensen really didn’t think that he blamed her any for that: Mike had already nearly broken a camera and he thought that he’d seen Justin pocketing random items from the set already.
Jeff was somewhere off-stage, barking orders. About what, Jensen wasn’t too entirely sure. Jeff had left everything in the very capable hands of his little Napoleon.
He’d gotten a chance to meet everybody just a few minutes before, gotten their phone numbers, just like he’d promised he would (of some, anyway)-Mike had slapped him on the back and nearly knocked him over; Tom had been a little more reserved with a handshake and a warm smile; Misha had hugged him much to Jensen’s surprise, followed closely by Danneel and Sandy. Ben had scared the hell out of him when not only had he hugged Jensen but actually picked him up off the floor. Jensen had had one brief second of panic when his toes left the ground but Ben had put him right back down again, laughing. Jensen had let out a relieved laugh, feeling silly about the little bit of adrenaline still coursing through his system and had turned to the next person in the room only to come face-to-face with Felicity’s too polite smile. She looked like she was about to shatter.
…Or kill someone. Either/or, really. Jensen had quickly sidled away, waved weakly at Justin-he was enthusiastically waving to everyone like he was the Pope or something, so Jensen thought that it would only be polite to wave back-and dodged the simmering storm that was Katrina. The would-be singer had thrown a fit insisting that she get the spot closest to Jared when the PAs were busy trying to line them up, Jensen thought, in order of elimination. Which mean that the spot closest to Jared was his. She could fuck off.
Sandy and Danneel hadn’t moved an inch, either and, with the three of them plus Misha occupying the couch in the front row, that left absolutely nowhere close for Katrina to sit. Of course, she’d actually been offered a chair in front, due to her height, but she’d refused, seeing as how it would be on the end. Jensen didn’t know why she was even trying, though. It wasn’t like she even had a chance to try and argue her way into a better position.
Ben, Lita, Mike and Tom were all sitting one row behind Jensen, completing the final eight configuration with the other six house members that didn’t last as long on the show, sitting marginalized on the edges. Georgie certainly looked a lot happier than she’d had a few months ago and Mary was positively glowing.
“Quiet on set!” a voice boomed out and Jensen stared at Jeff’s assistant, amazed that her tiny body could get so loud. She slashed her hands at them and at the assembled audience, glaring everyone down into submission-even Katrina finally sat down-before finally ceding the floor. Jensen breathed a sigh of relief because he was only moments away from getting to see Jared again. With that knowledge, however, also came tension because he was only moments away from being on camera again.
It would be worth it, though, he knew. He just had to live through it first. It didn’t help that the cameras that they were using to film the “reunion episode” were of the huge, couldn’t-be-hidden-with-a-semi and should-possibly-come-with-own-team-of-mules-to-pull variety. They were ginormous, on wheels that ran across the entire length of the set. Godzilla cameras. Jensen was currently fighting the urge to go run panicking through the streets of Tokyo.
Jeff emerged from behind one of said mutant cameras, stepping up onto the stage. “Thank you all for coming,” he announced, both to the housemates and to the audience in the background that Jensen was carefully ignoring.
By focusing on the camera-thing, he could almost pretend that the “live” studio audience didn’t even exist-and that said live studio audience had his parents, his little sister and Chris of all people sitting out in it-Chris who had punched Jensen in the arm after watching the final episode saying, “You fucker,” while the camera had faded to black on Jared and Jensen, standing there on the beach and Jensen had just grinned. He couldn’t help it-he’d won. It was all right there and it wasn’t his fault that, as Chris had said, “You had me feeling sorry for your loser ass and this entire time, you won, you punk?” Jensen had just shrugged helplessly because there really wasn’t much that he could say. He’d been under contract to keep the results a secret.
Chris had understood. Eventually.
It had been after he’d slid Jensen a suspicious look, his mouth pulling down into a frown as he asked, “This have anything to do with your mood reversal recently?” He’d rolled his eyes when Jensen had taken too long to answer. “It does, doesn’t it? You were pining weren’t you, you pathetic freak?” Jensen couldn’t even refute it, even though it was only half of the story-it wasn’t like he could actually tell Chris the other part, however-at least not until after the reunion show when the cat would be well and truly out of the bag and there was a better chance that Jeff wouldn’t sue Jared for three million dollars because of a ‘breach in contract.’
They were here now, though. Now everyone knew that Jared had chosen him and he was just minutes away from finally getting a chance to see Jared again, alive and in person, and not just have him exist as a voice on the other side of a phone. His palms shouldn’t be this sweaty, should they? Jensen wiped them on his pants. “Welcome to the reunion episode of In It for Love: the Jared Padalecki Edition,” Jeff said to the audience. “Allow me to introduce your host, Miss Lulu Alveraz.” Jeff made a grand gesture towards the curtains at the back of the set and bowed, backing his way off the set with a smile. Jensen turned with the rest of the crowd to face the curtains, anxious to just get everything over with.
A woman pushed through the red drapes, and posed for the cameras, her hands on her hips and million dollar smile firmly in place. She was only slightly taller than Jeff’s assistant, clad in an orange dress that hugged every generous curve and contrasted with the rather alarming amount of bare skin that she was showing off. “Hi, guys!” she chirped, waving at the cameras and the audience as she stepped forward. “I’m Lulu Alveraz and welcome to the In It for Love: Jared Padalecki Reunion Episode!” She stopped, front and center on the stage, planting her crystalline shoes. “Are you excited?” The audience cheered and her smile grew bigger. “Because I’m excited! So, let’s welcome back our cast!” She turned to face them as the audience kept cheering and Jensen straightened and swallowed. He was trying hard not to panic but it seriously wasn’t easy. He’d take not running away in terror, though. If he could just do that, he thought that he might make it out of this alive.
After all, if he ran, Jeff’s assistant would probably only track him down and slaughter him in the parking lot so that she could wear his skin as a trophy.
“It’s been a great season and we had such a diverse cast this time around. We’re going to take a minute and catch-up with everybody before we bring Jared out, if that’s okay?” No. No that wasn’t okay. But they were just going to have to deal with it. Jensen really didn’t want to have be called out on camera and have to spend time dealing with Lulu who, frankly, despite her naturally darker skin, looked like she spent way too long getting a spray on tan because the orange was starting to overwhelm her. She kind of reminded him of a Willy Wonka reject, actually. Maybe the dessert had been Orange Cobbler.
Lulu took her seat in the middle of the stage, scooting onto the plush red chair that had been provided for her right in between where all the castmates were sitting and the small couch that must be Jared’s assigned spot. Jensen found himself staring at its beigeness, mesmerized.
“So, welcome back, guys!” Lulu chirped again. “How are you all doing? It’s been awhile since we’ve seen some of you!” Jensen had the feeling that Lulu was the kind of person that ended every sentence with an exclamation mark. It was probably how she lived life. “I’ve heard some great news-some of you doing lots of great things!” Lulu’s eyes skittered over to the teleprompter before coming back and focusing on Mary, down near the end. “Mary, you had to leave early, but I hear that you did get that partnership and, word has it that your firm is handling a high profile case!”
Mary nodded, pushing back a lock of her brown hair and looking no less perfect for it, completely and utterly polished. “Yes. I was a hard decision to leave the show but I think it worked out for the best.”
“Mmm hmm!” Lulu turned her sights on Georgie. “And, Georgie, I hear that you’re opening your own gym? And Ben, word on the street is that you’re looking to open a restaurant!”
“If anyone will take a chance on me…” Ben said with a laugh.
“I know that I sure would!” Lulu replied and turned away. “David, our famous sports-star has started doing ads for Nike and, let’s see, Katrina, you’ve been recording an album?”
Katrina flipped her hair and posed for the cameras that centered on her. “I sure have. Enrique has really helped a lot.”
“Enrique Iglesias?” Lulu exclaimed, actually bouncing in her seat a little. “He’s working on your album? Do tell!”
“Well, I really like his sound,” Katrina hedged and Jensen immediately started putting two and two together. Apparently, Katrina had not changed one bit since he’d last seen her. “He such a big inspiration-”
“Mmm, okay, okay,” Lulu said, cutting in. “Let’s see, Justin, you’re scoping out the scene, I hear, which is awesome! Felicity, you might have ties with Zac Efron? That’s amazing!” Jensen noted how Lulu seemed to be filtering every bit of information, not letting the ones that she thought were possibly bullshit slip right on by. It was kind of impressive, actually. He wondered just how many of these shows that she had done over the years. “And, wow, Mike and Tom-you two have teamed up in more than one way! You created quite the scandal on the show, hooking up with each other instead of Jared but it looks like it really worked out for you two and your careers!”
Mike wrapped an arm around Tom. “A good photographer and a perfect model-always a match made in heaven,” he proclaimed and delivered a smacking kiss to Tom’s cheek as Tom smiled despite looking away in embarrassment.
“Oh? And when do we get to see your newest collection?”
Mike laughed, shaking Tom a little. “Well, some of those definitely aren’t fit for public consumption, if you know what I mean!” Twin spots of color appeared in Tom’s cheeks and he pushed Mike away.
“Ooh la la!” Lulu said, tittering. “Then I’ll want to see them even more! Speaking of the risqué, Lita, I hear that you’re starting in a new Vegas show! About strippers?”
Lita smiled and leaned forward, pushing her already huge breasts out even more. “Yeah, after the show ended, I was approached by an agent who asked me if I’d be interested. A lot of people this that it’s just, you know, typical Vegas showgirl, but it’s not-it’s a main headlining event and serious work.”
“I’ll be sure and go and see it when it comes out!” Lulu replied. “Now, Danneel just posed for a spread in Elle which is fantastic and I’m totally buying two copies, I promise! And Misha-you’ve been a busy boy! During the past few months, you’ve started a new charity? Tell us about that!”
Jensen jerked his eyes over to Misha, as surprised about the news as Lulu was acting to see Misha smiling happily. “Helping Paws. It’s a charity that benefits homeless animals, rehabilitates them, provides them with medical care and places them in new homes,” he said, for once his usual joking manner gone. “We take on the hopeless cases-the ones that no one else will. Too many animals are killed each year for being considered too much trouble and not worth the effort. Helping Paws would like to change that. In addition, we also train service animals and provide them free of charge to those who need them.”
“Wow! That sounds like a lot!”
“I’m very proud of how well the organization is doing. We recently just received several large donations that have helped us expand.”
“Congratulations!” Lulu said. “Which leads us straight to our resident superstar! Sandy McCoy. You must have shocked everybody when you decided to come on this show!”
Sandy laughed behind her hand. Jensen swallowed and titled back as he saw the cameras start to zoom in on her because she was sitting right beside him. “I did. They couldn’t believe that I really wanted to go through with it! But it was such an awesome experience, I can’t regret it for a minute. Reality shows get such a bad rap and it’s just not true.”
“That it is not! So, you’re shooting a new movie?” Lulu probed.
“Yes!” Sandy wiggled in her seat, excited. “Secret Lives. We start filming next month and I’m playing a ‘super spy who gets caught up in a web of deceit spun by a mysterious stranger that I meet on a train.’ That’s straight from the tag-line. The mysterious stranger is, of course, played by the very handsome Taylor Lautner-very up and coming. We’re lucky to have snagged him in between Twilight movies!”
“Oh, you are!” Lulu exclaimed, pretending to fan herself. “Of course, we all would have preferred Jared for the role but I’m sure that Taylor will do great!” And then, Lulu turned her terrifying sights on Jensen. There was a lump in Jensen’s throat. “Speaking of, Jared, Jensen you were his top pick.” Lulu paused for a moment as if waiting for a response that Jensen didn’t know how to give. She only let it lapse for a second, though, before she picked it up and ran with it, evidently knowing a cold fish when she saw one. “Well, looking at you, I can definitely say that Jared has great taste! Now, you’re a New York Times Best Selling author and I hear that you’re working hard on a new book!”
Jensen nodded slowly and licked his lips. “Yeah,” he said and realized that he should probably follow everyone else’s cue and fill in a few details. This was just a strange press conference-he’d done those before. He could do this. “It’s due to be published in about a year. Leaves of the Maple Tree.”
“Very cool,” Lulu said and then turned back to the main audience, letting Jensen off the hook. “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, all of our castmates this season are extremely talented and have so much going on! Now that we’ve caught up with them, though, are you ready to meet Jared?”
The response from the audience was deafening, shouts and cheers with a few piercing whistles and looking like a writhing, seething mass until Lulu stood up, laughing, waving them back down with her hands. “Alright, alright! I can see that you are! And we’ll bring him out right after these commercials!”
The entire room groaned and Jensen glanced around, surprised at the collective sound. Unfortunately, he agreed with it. Yet another reason to hate commercial advertisements. And he’d thought that sitting through them at home was bad-it was probably going to be nothing compared to the three minutes of waiting he had to do.
“Trust me,” Sandy said, nudging Jensen as if sensing his anxiety, “Commercial breaks tend to suck-there’s a reason why I really don’t do TV. And at least on talk shows, you don’t actually have to wait through them-you’re usually leaving when they have on one.”
“That would be a plus,” Danneel said and Jensen nodded.
“At least we’re getting paid for it,” Lita chimed in from the back and Sandy giggled.
“Hey, Jenny!” Mike called, leaning over to poke Jensen’s shoulder and get his attention. “Listen, when I said that you could call me any time, I mean that you could call me any time. Day, night, I don’t care. Tommy here might care but I don’t.” Tom rolled his eyes as Jensen smiled. “But I’m thinking about putting together a poker game, you should think about coming.”
“Yeah,” Jensen agreed. “Sounds cool.” It really did. Chances were, hanging around with Mike was liable to be dangerous to Jensen’s health but, he had to admit, he’d rather missed the mayhem. That right there, was a sure sign that Jensen was crazy. He chatted easily back and forth with Mike, though, until Jeff’s assistant shot them a glare.
“We’re back in ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” She counted off the rest with her hand until she hit zero and then Lulu was stepping up front and center as if no time had passed whatsoever.
“And welcome back to In It for Love: Jared Padalecki. It’s time to meet the star of the show so, let’s bring him out!”
Canned music started to play as the audience revved up its cheering again and Jensen didn’t even dare breathe until he saw the curtain move and Jared’s tall form finally emerged. He waved to the audience, mugged for the cameras and then walked straight up to Lulu who met him halfway down the stage to shake his hand. He kissed both of her cheeks and Jensen felt a brief, irrational surge of jealousy before Jared’s attention snapped directly to him and then he was completely and utterly blank, like he was waiting for Jared to fill him up with energy. Jared’s smile was blinding and Jensen’s heart sped up even faster as Jared came closer.
One and a half months. It had been way too long. And they’d really only had a few hours then, too. Jensen was still finding it hard to breathe when Jared walked straight up to him and grabbed his hand, tugging him upward. Confused, Jensen glanced between Jared and the housemates, wondering what he was supposed to do but Jared’s whispered, “Come on, Jen,” made the choice for him. He stood up and let Jared pull him over to the small loveseat and sit him down. Jared sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and beaming at Lulu while Jensen tried hard not to blush. A few months ago, he might have been used to this. He was out of practice now.
Lulu smiled indulgently at them. “Looks like you’re happy with your choice, Jared.”
“Oh, I’m very happy, Lulu,” Jared replied, giving Jensen a squeeze.”
“So I hear that you two have been talking to each other nearly every night since the show wrapped in Tahiti! That is so cute!”
Jared laughed, waving her off. “Well, not every night, right, Jen?”
“Need to sleep sometime,” Jensen shot back, the words just popping out of his mouth before he could even hope to stop them and Jared laughed harder. Christ. His mother was out there. Somewhere, just beyond the lights.
“I keep him up sometimes. Real late.”
“Ooh!” Lulu said. “Sounds scandalous!”
And Jensen really couldn’t let Jared get away with that. “It’s really not,” Jensen said, blandly. “He just calls me and tells me baseball stats.”
Jared shook him while Lulu’s eyebrows rose. “I’ll show you stats,” Jared mock threatened. Then he tilted in close to whisper, “Nine inches of them, right, Jen?” just to make Jensen blush. Fuck it all.
Lulu squealed and clapped like a seal. “He’s blushing!” she said. “How adorable! What did you tell him? What? What?” And, for a moment, Jensen hated her guts. Just for a split second.
Jared gave her his best ‘innocent’ face. “I was just updating him on some of the boring stats I like to tell him.”
“Oh, I’ll bet!” Lulu said with a wink. “Jensen? Any comments on these ‘stats’?” Jensen shook his head in a quiet ‘no,’ mostly because he was still too focused on nine inches and how the hell was a man supposed to think when he had that in his head? Lulu laughed again. “Well, let’s get out of the gutter and move on! So, Jared, we’ve heard from everyone else and now it’s your turn! What have you been doing with yourself these past few months? I’ve heard absolutely nothing and while they do say that no news is good news, there’s also a saying in Hollywood that there’s no such thing as bad press! So, have you been working on any secret projects that you’d like to tell us about?”
Jared smiled, glancing downward before meeting Lulu’s eyes again. Meanwhile, Jensen got his raging blush back down so that he felt comfortable looking up again. His eyes naturally wandered across to the other side of the set, falling on the houseguests, some of which were watching him with amusement-Mike and Danneel-others of which were paying attention to Lulu. A few, though, were out and out glaring and Jensen really just made sure that he avoided looking at the far end of the assembled group. “I’ve been doing a lot of promo work for the show, as you know. Interviews and radio talk shows but, other than that, I’ve really just kept to myself.”
“Nothing new?” Lulu asked, disbelieving. Jensen couldn’t say as if he blamed her. Jared had worked steadily for years now, always have a movie or three going.
“No,” Jared said. “I was…thinking about taking a little break. Maybe like a year or so?” As Lulu pulled a face, expressing her opinion on that decision, Jared fumbled for Jensen’s hand again, gripping it and holding it up. “I think I might have a few plans.”
Lulu said some kind of comment in response to that, but Jensen couldn’t hear her. All he was focused on was his hand held in Jared’s and Jared announcement that had basically said that Jensen was his plan for the next, oh, year. Jensen’s mouth was suddenly dry as he felt a few more insecurities that he’d been harboring drop away. Jared was planning on this working out, wasn’t he? He had to. That’s what he was saying, right here, on live national TV.
Jensen knew that he was grinning like a loon but he really didn’t care at the moment.
“-some clips of the show,” Lulu was saying as Jensen slowly tuned back in. “Now, all the viewers at home have sent in numerous questions and one of the most popular ones is: ‘What is Misha smoking in the confessional?’” The audience erupted in laughter and the houseguests followed suit, including Misha himself. “So let’s roll that tape!” Lulu said, using her mic to get above the noise.
On either side of the set, gigantic TV screens flipped on, showing the confessional booth in all its cheesy glory and Misha sliding confidently into the seat. “First off,” Misha said, “I’d like to thank President Obama for hearing me out. Let me just say that the translating went quite well. The wolves still have yet to finalize negotiations with Alaska, but we are quite hopeful. We’re all concerned, of course, about the oil supplies. After all, without oil, wolves wouldn’t be able to shuttle themselves back and forth to work and the economy would come just crashing down.” The screen cut to a second, separate confessional. “The blue whales are doing fine. Little Timmy just celebrated his first birth. He’ll make a fine dictator just as soon as we elect him. The dolphins, of course, are against this.” Another scene. “I, for one, welcome our Unicorn Overlords. They represent a kinder, gentler form of domination. I’m sure their horns are not at all as poky as people fear.” And again, this time cutting in to show Misha with his arms spread wide and in full song. “The hills are alive with the sound of muuuuusic!” The last one had Misha leaning forward, whispering quietly, “This has been Pirate Radio, your number one source of free information left in the world. Spread the word and fight the power!”
As the clip ended, the audience began clapping again and Lulu had her perfect smile still in place. “Okay, granted,” she said, “there was some variation to how the question was asked, but I think that they all had about the same message: What were you smoking? So, Misha, care to elaborate on your… ‘interesting’ confessional monologues? They were monologues, right? Or should I call them rants? They came across as kind of rant-y.”
Attention zeroed in on Misha who just grinned and shrugged. “They were interesting, weren’t they?” he agreed.
After waiting a beat for Misha to continue, Lulu prompted some more. “Well, what was the point? I mean, did they have some kind of hidden message in them or…?”
“Oh, yes,” Misha said. “I was signaling the seals over in the Indian Ocean. They’re due to attack, you see.”
It was about then that Lulu realized that she might possibly not want to go down this road and, so, wisely backtracked. “Ooookay. I’m sure that our viewers at home will like that answer!” Jensen could almost hear the ‘not’ afterward. “So, we just wanted to show another few clips of Misha, since we had him on the spot. What does the audience think? Do we want to see another clip of Misha?”
The audience cheered. “You were a fan favorite,” Lulu confided. “Though, I think maybe the apple had something to do with that.”
The screen flipped on again to show Misha running amok through the mansion, zooming through the living room and up the stairs, the gigantic fiberglass apple held in his hands. He slowed as he reached the bedrooms, coming down to an almost crawl as he snuck into one of the rooms. The room was darkened, but shapes could just be barely made out on the beds and Jensen recognized the room as Mike and Tom’s. As the watched, Misha slowly peeled back the covers, revealing Mike’s sleeping face and Misha carefully set the apple down next to him before resettling the covers back over Mike. Then he crept out, the door closing just as Mike shrieked and tumbled out of the bed, having come face-to-face with the apple first thing in the morning.
There were other shots of the apple-floating in the hottub, in the pool on one of the rafts with a martini in the holder, sitting harmlessly in the refrigerator as Tom stared at it in disbelieving shock and it randomly appearing outside of the mansion’s various bathrooms when people were inside. Jensen’s eyes widened. How had he missed this? He had a few vague recollections of Misha carrying around the apple, shuttling it to and fro but…
As the clip ended, Lulu cut in again, her voice rising over the giggles from the castmates-Mike being the loudest, still having not recovered from his opening scene. “It appears that that apple had quite the adventures in the house!”
“God, that stupid thing…” Mike said, covering his face.
“No one ever expects the Apple Inquisition!” Misha said with a grin and Mike broke down into giggles again while Tom groaned.
“I’m so glad that one didn’t make the cut,” Tom said quietly.
“So, Misha! How is the apple these days? The last time we saw it, Jared was leaving it in your, apparently very capable, hands.”
Misha smile grew wider as he folded his hands in his lap and leaned back into the seat. “The apple and I are doing quite well, thanks for asking. It’s waiting for me at home. I expect the dishes to be done and the bed to be made.”
“Ah, the life of an apple,” Lulu said and promptly changed the subject while Misha chuckled to himself. “Misha wasn’t the only one of the houseguests to get up to some weird, wacky hijinks. Mike, too, led quite a few. And we’ll see those right after these commercials!”
Mike groaned and Tom poked him with an elbow. “Serves you right,” he said.
Jensen would have watched more but Jared was turning in his seat toward Jensen and, well, there were priorities. Watching Mike and Tom flirt definitely took a backseat to flirting himself. It also didn’t help that Jared had resumed his old habit, his thumb rubbing circles against the top of Jensen’s hand. “I missed you,” Jared said.
Jensen ducked his head. “Missed you, too,” he said quietly, feeling just a little bit ridiculous for having to do this in front of hundreds of people. He was desperately wishing that they’d at least been given a few minutes to see each other before the show-just enough to get the initial awkward catch-up out of the way.
“That’s good,” Jared said. “That’s really good. Not you missing me-except that that’s totally what I mean and…I’ll stop now.”
Jensen smiled, still keeping his head down and staring at how his hand fit into Jared’s. “That’s okay,” he said. Jared babbling wasn’t something that Jensen minded.
“Talking on the phone’s not enough.” Jensen had to agree with that statement. “I was upset with Jeff when he wouldn’t let me see you.”
“You asked him?” Jensen asked, finally looking up-not really startled that Jared had wanted to do so but more that he’d dared to go against Jeff. Again.
“Of course I did!” Jared said. “I’ve been waiting weeks and then to know that you’re in the next room but I can’t go see you? God, Jen, I could have broken down the wall. …I think I might have tried.” Jensen laughed quietly and Jared mock pouted. “No, seriously. But she threatened to chop off my balls if I did.” He pointed his chin over at Jeff’s assistant. “And I believed her, Jen! I believed her!” Jared’s eyebrows were drawing in close, giving him the hopeless puppy dog look and Jensen laughed harder. “And I thought, ‘hey, Jensen’s got a use for those balls, so I’d better keep them.’ See, Jen? I did it all for you!”
“So self-less,” Jensen teased.
“I am!” Jared insisted. “You just have no idea what else I want to do all for you.”
Jensen had a few guesses-hopes, some of them-but none of which he particularly wanted to voice out loud where a stray microphone could pick them up. He ducked his head and looked away, studying the floor even as a smile threatened to break his face in two.
“Knew you’d like that,” Jared said.
“And we’re back in ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” Jensen winced as they were cut off but shut up obediently, biting back any other comments he wanted to make. Even Jared shut his mouth-and that was a small miracle in itself.
“And we’re back!” Lulu said. “So, before the break, we were watching a few clips of Misha getting up to some mischief! But he’s not the only one, so let’s see that clip!”
Mike had apparently nearly blown up one of the bathrooms on the lower floor. Jensen hadn’t had a freaking clue. It had involved some cleaning solution, a ping pong ball and the toilet and had ended with Mike covered in toilet paper and Misha nearly crying because he was laughing too damn hard. As Jensen watched the clip, he just shook his head wonderingly because that was so totally Mike. He’d walked around the house wearing one of Lita’s skimpy dresses in a wig, had scared everyone too many times to count, had wrapped the toilet in cellophane more than a few times (Jensen actually remembered one of those) and, then, of course, there was Mike and Misha getting ejected from Jensen’s bathroom as the girls pounded after them.
“Mike. Quite the prankster, aren’t you?” Lulu asked.
“I plead the fifth!” Mike said. “…Or was that I plead for the fifth?”
Tom rolled his eyes. “With you, it’s all the same.”
“That it is!”
Lulu moved them into another clip of all the various work out sessions that had gone on in the little private gym and Jensen was man enough to admit that he might have drooled a little during Jared’s scenes. He wasn’t the only one. Lulu was back to fanning herself after the clip was done and Jensen was once again suppressing a little flare of jealousy. He knew it was irrational-she, after all, wasn’t the one who’s hand Jared was holding. It was actually a rather worrying occurrence and Jensen really hoped that it was disappear after he got to spend a little bit more time with Jared. He didn’t need to be growling at anyone that shot Jared an appreciative look-he’d spend his life doing nothing but being irritated at about a quarter of the damn population! “The cast didn’t always work well together,” Lulu said, oblivious to Jensen’s little fling with the irrational. “Lita, you were pretty infamous at grating on some people’s nerves.”
Lita tittered and played with her hair a bit. “You could say that.”
“I know that you and Felicity and Danneel had it out.”
“Look,” Lita said, “Danneel and I might have had our differences, but we were definitely standing together against that other bitch-”
“What did you call me?” Felicity shouted, jumping up and speaking for the first time since Jensen had seen her. She had her fists clenched at her sides as she glared at Lita. “I dare you to say that again!”
“You heard me!” Lita shot back, standing up as well. “If the shoe fits, princess!”
“Um…hey now…” Lulu’s veneer of confidence was gone and she was looking shakily between Lita and Felicity. “We don’t want any fights… If everyone could just settle down-”
“You should have heard what she said about you after you were gone,” Justin chimed in, innocently. “Something about incest and your father?”
And that was it. Felicity launched herself at Lita, the rest of the cast scattering, abandoning their chairs as Felicity shoved everything and anything that was in her way off to the side, furniture, people-it really didn’t matter. Felicity hit Lita with a flying tackle, taking her down to the floor with a screech and security was rushing the stage but they were a little too slow-Felicity was already up and running like a wild gazelle because Lita the lion had sunk in her claws. Scratches ran down Felicity’s face as she stampeded straight towards where Jared and Jensen were sitting. Lulu shrieked, jumping out of the way, but Jensen was a deer in the headlights, staring at her as she charged, his eyes wide disbelieving. This really hadn’t been what he’d been expecting today. Not at all. Felicity was screaming something about “It’s all your fault,” but Jensen couldn’t figure out who the Hell she was talking about.
A sharp tug on his arm had him moving, though, dodging and skittering off the stage towards the back area behind the curtain. The drapes swished closed just as security had started to encircle Felicity, trying to round her up. Over on the other side, others were holding Lita back and still more were blocking Danneel from joining the fray.
“That was close,” Jared muttered and Jensen finally realized that it must have been Jared who’d pulled him out of Felicity’s way. Jensen nodded sharply and Jared opened a seemingly random door, pulling him inside.
Jensen barely had time to catch a glimpse of the darkened dressing room he suddenly found himself in before Jared was shoving him up against the wall and blocking his view and then the world just went black as the door closed behind them. Jared’s leg pushed between Jensen’s and his mouth was hot and wet at Jensen’s throat. Jensen let out a startled moan as Jared voice came out of the darkness muttering, “Driving me crazy being up there with you, Jen, and not being allowed to touch you like this… Keep thinking about all the nights you kept me up…”
Jensen sagged against the wall, letting it hold him up as he buried his hands in Jared’s hair and kissed him desperately-Jesus, six weeks might as well have been eternity-and rocked himself against Jared’s thigh. Phone sex was great and all, having Jared’s voice purring filth into Jensen’s ear about all the nasty things he’d like to do to Jensen, but it was nothing compared to actually having the real thing right in front of him, doing more than just making promises.
Jared’s hands skated up and down Jensen’s body, like he was trying to affirm that he was real before the dove into Jensen’s pants. Jensen’s breath caught, shocked as Jared’s hot hands wrapped around his dick, fingers moving however they pleased. Jared’s mouth stayed at Jensen’s neck, nibbling and sucking until Jared finally moved back up to Jensen’s mouth, kissing him again. Jensen whined and moved his hands down to push into Jared’s pants as well.
“Fuck, Jen, God, yeah…no fucking clue…” Jensen wrapped on hand around Jared’s cock as his other popped the button on his khaki slacks and pushed the zipper down. Jared whined, his hips starting to thrust in a pleading rhythm as he tried to devour Jensen’s mouth with his own. Jensen started to pant, moving his now free hand down to cup Jared’s balls.
It was like flicking a switch. Jared pulled back, yanking Jensen’s pants down his thighs where they then plummeted to his ankles, before Jared surged forward, his thigh holding Jensen’s legs apart as Jared’s hands worked furiously, a goal clearly in mind. Jensen bit back at Jared’s mouth, catching his lower lip as Jared moaned and then he was coming, his body shuddering and his hands dropping away from Jensen’s dick to cover his own, angling it toward the floor instead of Jensen. Jensen felt a brief moment of disappointment before he realized what Jared was doing-protecting Jensen’s clothes. Jensen never would have thought of that.
In a matter of moments, too, Jared was right back at Jensen, his hands bringing Jensen off in a few quick, hard pulls and Jensen bit his lip, tilting his head back against the wall as he came.
Jared collapsed forward, pinning him to the wall even more as he panted in Jensen’s ear. “Been…dreaming…about this… Love you, Jen.”
Jensen swallowed and didn’t dare open his eyes. He didn’t think he could stand by himself at the moment. “Me, too,” he confessed quietly and Jared nuzzled against his head, nose pushing into Jensen’s hair. It was the first time he’d said it to Jared, but it was something that he’d known about himself for a while. “I love you, too,” he repeated, just to get it clear and out into the open.
Sucking in one last gulp of air, Jared finally pulled away and flicked on the lights, illuminating the dressing room and Jensen found himself staring. He’d been deprived for so long, it was like his mind wanted to save up for another possible famine-out and out trying to memorize Jared’s features. “Meant what I said out there,” Jared said and Jensen knew exactly what he was talking about.
“That’s…good,” Jensen said, licking his dry lips. Jared groaned and bent down to press a kiss to Jensen’s mouth.
“Can’t get enough of you… Might even be hoping for more…” Jared said and Jensen nodded. He agreed with that. He felt like he could happily drown in Jared. “If I asked for that, would you say yes?”
Jensen blinked, his mind refusing to come up with a possible answer for Jared’s question. Something deep down inside of him was screaming for him to do as Jared wanted, to just say ‘yes’ to whatever Jared was saying but he didn’t have a clue to what. “Asked for what?”
“I know it’s really short-term notice and all, Jen, but I really feel this. I feel you. If nothing else, say that you’ll think about it. Please?”
Jensen frowned. “Think about what?”
“Marrying me,” Jared replied, completely taken aback that Jensen hadn’t guessed.
“Marry you?” Jensen repeated, feeling more than a little slow. Marry as in marry marry?
“Yeah. I know it’s only been a few months, Jen, but I’m certain that I want to do this,” Jared said before hastily adding, “If you think it’s too fast, though, I can wait.”
Jensen’s brain was piecing things together very carefully. “You want to marry me?” he asked.
“Jesus, Jen, yes, I want to marry you! I want to move in together and adopt kids from China and tour the world with you!”
“Oh,” Jensen said, unable to think of anything else. He was standing in a backstage dressing room with his pants around his ankles being proposed to by an equally undressed movie star. This kind of shit only happened in the movies or something, right?
“Just, think about it?” Jared pleaded. “There’s no rush, just think about it.”
Jensen swallowed hard. “Okay,” he said. This whole situation had been thrown at him at 100 miles an hour-the show, Tahiti, Jared-and Jensen felt like he’d been doing nothing but trying to play catch up-or worse, hurry up and wait-for the past six months. He’d been spinning around, trying to make sense of everything that was happening, feeling sometimes like little more than an observer in his own life and Jared Padalecki was proposing to him.
Take that, world.
“Thank you, Jen,” Jared said, wrapping Jensen up into a hug. “Thank you, thank you...I can wait, I promise.”
Jensen pushed at Jared’s shoulder, getting a little bit of space because it was probably time to make a choice for himself for once-his biggest one since deciding to go on the show. Or would that be the biggest one since accepting Jared’s apology? “No, I mean, okay,” he said. “To all of it. Or yes. I mean yes.”
It was Jared’s turn to look shocked. “Yes?” he parroted.
“Yes,” Jensen replied more firmly and Jared surprised him with a sloppy kiss.
Jensen’s life, up until six months ago, had been little more than a series of carefully placed safe bets. When he’d been younger, it had been a series of carefully placed, decidedly unsafe bets-like submitting his first novel, a piece that basically bared his soul to anyone that bothered to read it or walking into the bar where he’d first met Chris. Life since then had become a little…boring. And that might have been the very thing that had made him say yes to Chris’s stupid dare in the first place-to make him mail in his application, accept the invitation out, go on the show at all.
Jensen was rather through with safe bets-the greatest things in his life had come because of leaps of faith.
He’d spent nearly three months turning an idly distant crush into a full-on, very real possibility then spent the next three months, losing himself pining. Jensen still wasn’t as sure as Jared was but, damn it. You only lived once.
And Jensen couldn’t think of anything that he’d ever wanted more than to get the chance to make Jared happy.
The set had been cleaned up by the time that they’d finally wandered out, alerted by a searching security guard calling their name. Jared had smiled, big and goofy, same as he’d been doing since Jensen had said yes. Jensen had made sure that they both looked presentable, half-formed second thoughts flickering through his mind. He still couldn’t quite believe that he’d said yes-in all actuality, he barely knew Jared, right? Sure, they’d probably talked on the phone in the past three months than most couples did in a year but…
Jensen shoved the thoughts away because, deep down, somewhere, he knew that he’d made the right choice. His logical side was just getting in the way. Screw that.
Lulu was looking just a little frazzled, but she was hiding it well. Lita was sitting quietly in her seat but Felicity was no where to be found. “Sorry about the delay,” Lulu was telling the audience. “Moving on…” She waited until Jared and Jensen took their seats and then straightened her spine, pretending as if nothing had happened. “So, we all know that Jared didn’t go through this alone. He had a little much needed help found in his best friend Chad Michael Murray. Unfortunately, Chad couldn’t be with us today because he’s on site over in New Zealand-how exciting!-shooting his new movie! Chad, though, didn’t want to miss this and so he recorded a little message for Jared. Let’s watch!”
Lulu sat down in her seat, hunching over a bit now that that cameras were no longer trained on her and Jensen thought that maybe, just maybe, she was indeed human, and not some perfectly engineered perky robot. The fight had visibly drained her. He knew that Lulu Alvarez had hosted other reunion specials for the In It for Love series, but, apparently, none had gotten quite this out of control before.
“Yo, Jay-man!” Chad voice said over the large screen TVs, Chad’s blond hair appearing on them. “Sorry I couldn’t be there for you and all but I got a feeling that you’re doing fine. Just wanted to tell everyone thanks for making such an awesome show. I got stuck out here in the backwoods of NZ, but, hey, I’m making a kickass movie and everybody better watch it! But, Jay, man, you’re the best and you know that I wish you all the best. I also know how pathetic and mopey you’ve been and what you’ve been thinking about and I just wanted to tell you, man, I might give you shit for it, but I totally understand. So, I guess I’m saying good luck! And if it works out, I’d better get a certain call, if you know what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying, right? Because don’t be thinking that you’re going to be asking somebody else-I mean, like, if you want to go with your brother or something, I’d understand, but still, man, I better at least make the cut! Peace out!”
Everyone except for Jensen was staring at the screen in straight out confusion-well, except for Jared. He was smiling down at his lap. Jensen, meanwhile, was staring at Jared. …Had Chad been talking about what Jensen thought that he’d been talking about?
“Well,” Lulu said. “That was certainly interesting. It’s really too bad that Chad couldn’t have been here himself but schedules are hard things to work around.” She shrugged non-committally and pushed on in what Jensen was starting to recognize as her signature fashion. “Unfortunately, we’re running rather short on time, so we’re just going to skip to the main event because we’ve got to get to the question that I’m sure everyone’s been just dying to ask! Only, it almost looks like we don’t even need to ask it! But, still, it’s an In It for Love tradition, so, Jared, Jensen? You both look so lovey-dovey sitting there-did the famous In It for Love luck strike again? Do we have a match?”
Jensen blinked at Lulu before turning his head to face Jared who was smiling easily. Jared winked at him. “You know what, Lulu?” Jared said. “I think that yes, indeed, In It for Love luck worked because I’m really happy with my choice and I’m thinking of a future, you know?”
Lulu beamed. “That’s really sweet, Jared! And how about you, Jensen? You’re well known for being a bit shy but do you think that In It for Love worked for you?”
Jensen nodded hurriedly as she turned her full attention on him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.” Jared huffed a laugh, giving his hand another squeeze and Jensen realized what he’d just said. He dropped his eyes to the floor, a small smile crossing his face. “Yeah, I do,” he repeated, squeezing Jared’s hand right back.
“Well, there you have it folks!” Lulu announced. “Another perfect love match made by In It for Love!” The audience cheered and she waited until after they hit their crescendo before speaking again. “So, listen, it’s been a really awesome show, and I’d like to thank everyone that came out for it. Thank you to the cast for being amazing, thanks to Jared Padalecki for agreeing to be our star, and thank you, the viewing public at home, for watching! See you next time on In It for Love!”
The cameras panned out, music playing over the speakers on the set and Jensen glanced around as Jared laughed. “I think we’re supposed to mingle,” Jared said, pulling Jensen upward. “That’s usually what happens at the end of these shows.”
“It is?” Jensen asked.
“Sure, why not?” Jared replied. “Of course, I only watched the last two seasons but that’s enough to pick out a pattern, isn’t it?”
Sure enough, the rest of the cast was rising from their seats, too, chatting with each other and Lulu who had stepped over to them. That wasn’t so bad-with the exception of Lulu, Jensen had actually lived with all of the people currently on stage for at least a little while. Some he even liked. True, some he didn’t particularly care if he ever saw again (Katrina was still glaring at him) but Jensen figured that he could pretend that he was remotely good at making small talk. For a little while at least. Besides, with the likes of Mike and Misha and Jared and Sandy, Jensen got the feeling that he wouldn’t have to do much talking at all.
Well. Except when Jared said, “So are you ready to meet my parents?” Jensen turned his head to stare, startled and Jared grinned. “Perfect time, Jen,” he said and that was when Jensen realized that it wasn’t just the castmembers standing on stage anymore-the entire audience was joining them. Oh dear Lord… “And I can meet yours,” Jared continued. “Find out what Chris actually looks like, seeing as how you keep talking about him…”
“Or we could just elope right now,” Jensen blurted, only half joking. “Then we don’t we don’t have to meet anyone.” Jesus. Now there was something that he’d never considered when he’d said yes-meeting Jared’s parents. Future in-laws. Of course, it wasn’t like he’d been thinking about very much at all besides the overall giddy feeling that Jared made him feel just by standing beside him.
Jared grinned. “We could,” he agreed. “But I think your momma would be pissed.” Jensen had to give Jared the point-even though he thought that his mother would probably be more hurt than mad. “I gotta make an honest man out of her son and you know that she wants to make sure that I’m going to be able to take good care of you,” he teased. “Besides, Chad would be upset if he couldn’t be at my wedding-you heard him-and I think the short cowboy heading straight towards us would have a few choice words to say, too.”
Jensen’s head swiveled around so that he was no longer looking at Jared but instead at Chris who was, just as Jared had said, making a beeline for them. Chris was smiling but Jensen could see him starting to size up Jared, even from a distance. Now that one, Jensen knew, Jared was completely correct about-Chris would have a few “choice” words to say if Jensen went and ran off with a guy that Chris had never met before. Sometimes, Jensen wondered if Chris knew that he was, in fact, not Jensen’s mother.
Right behind Chris, Jensen could see his family, making their way through the crowd and Jensen knew that it was far too late to run. Then again, he was finally starting to realize that it had been too late for him the moment that he’d stepped out of a car to stand in front of the tackiest mansion he had ever seen.
It was okay, though, because Jared was winking, his dimples flashing as he turned his megawatt, perfect Hollywood leading-man smile on Jensen and Jensen knew that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Three Months Later - Puppy Love: A Sneak Preview
Jesus. Just what the fuck did Jensen think that he was doing here? Jensen pushed away the odd sense of déjà vu and turned to glare at Jared who shrugged apologetically. “We promised,” he said contritely and damn it all if he didn’t pull out the puppy dog eyes. Jensen was trying to work up an immunity to those eyes but in the three months that he’d been living with Jared, he hadn’t quite managed it. Jensen really wanted to point out that there had been no ‘we’ about it and it had been Jared that had done the promising but there was just no saying ‘no’ to that particular face. Fucking A.
“Jeff is so fucking dead,” Jensen growled. The threat was empty and they both knew it but it made Jensen feel better just to voice it. Jared didn’t respond, letting the matter tactfully drop as they both watched the five men that had infiltrated the new house that Jared and Jensen had picked out (spacious, extra rooms, and a big back yard for Harley and Sadie) as they installed cameras at every conceivable angle.
At least this time around, though, Jensen had been able to have a little bit more say in what went on, so he supposed that he should count the few blessings that he had. For one, he wasn’t being shoved into a tacky mansion with zebra-stripped couches and purple fuzzy rugs and gigantic useless plastic apples and a multitude of crazy people. No, instead, it was just him and Jared and the dogs and the rather tasteful furniture that Jensen preferred. And there were no cameras going in the bedroom-he was making doubly sure of that. Plus, he didn’t have to do any stupid challenges, either.
In the end, Jensen really didn’t have anyone but himself to blame-no matter how he wished it was otherwise. He, after all, had agreed to this and had signed his name on the little dotted line. You would think that he would have learned his lesson the first time around but apparently no-he was heading into “seasoned veteran” territory now.
Then again, two million dollars, like Jared’s puppy dog eyes, was an awfully hard thing to say no to.
So. For the next couple of weeks, Jensen figured that he would just have to endure his paid and contracted stalkers-let Jeff get his footage for his little spin-off series so that he could be happy and then Jared and Jensen could walk away with their brand new house completely paid for, courtesy of Kripke Entertainment. “A wedding present” as Jeff had called it.
Jensen glanced over at Jared who smiled at him before crossing his arms and returning his attention back to the installers, even as he nudged Jensen with his shoulder. Despite himself, Jensen smiled and nudged Jared back. After all, it wasn’t like this was the craziest thing that they’d ever done, now was it?
Part 17 | Master Post
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: 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): Jared and Jensen and the rest of the cast are reunited as the show comes to an end.
Word Count (fic): 136,690
Word Count (part): 9550
Disclaimer: Never happened, no affiliation.
Master Post: Master Post
A/N: \o/ DONE.
Part 17 | Master Post
The Reunion Show
Jeff’s assistant was terrifying. She stood no higher than five foot three, with her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, but Jensen was petrified of her. He was hiding it well, but he had a feeling that she’d cut him if he gave her half a chance. So he was sitting exactly where she had told him to, on the end of the long couch (which was thankfully not zebra-stripped) with his hands in his lap, because she looked just that pissed. Beside him was Danneel and on the other end of the couch was Misha was grinning from ear to ear and Jensen desperately wanted to talk to either of them but he didn’t dare. The woman kept shooting him nasty looks. Granted, those looks were probably more for Mike behind him (who kept poking the back of his head, the fucker) but Jensen wasn’t going to take any chances. They were all supposed to be waiting quietly for filming to start on their “live” (that would be “live” as in ten minute delay kind of live, just in case) show and Jeff’s assistant wasn’t taking any chances that they wouldn’t fuck it up. Jensen really didn’t think that he blamed her any for that: Mike had already nearly broken a camera and he thought that he’d seen Justin pocketing random items from the set already.
Jeff was somewhere off-stage, barking orders. About what, Jensen wasn’t too entirely sure. Jeff had left everything in the very capable hands of his little Napoleon.
He’d gotten a chance to meet everybody just a few minutes before, gotten their phone numbers, just like he’d promised he would (of some, anyway)-Mike had slapped him on the back and nearly knocked him over; Tom had been a little more reserved with a handshake and a warm smile; Misha had hugged him much to Jensen’s surprise, followed closely by Danneel and Sandy. Ben had scared the hell out of him when not only had he hugged Jensen but actually picked him up off the floor. Jensen had had one brief second of panic when his toes left the ground but Ben had put him right back down again, laughing. Jensen had let out a relieved laugh, feeling silly about the little bit of adrenaline still coursing through his system and had turned to the next person in the room only to come face-to-face with Felicity’s too polite smile. She looked like she was about to shatter.
…Or kill someone. Either/or, really. Jensen had quickly sidled away, waved weakly at Justin-he was enthusiastically waving to everyone like he was the Pope or something, so Jensen thought that it would only be polite to wave back-and dodged the simmering storm that was Katrina. The would-be singer had thrown a fit insisting that she get the spot closest to Jared when the PAs were busy trying to line them up, Jensen thought, in order of elimination. Which mean that the spot closest to Jared was his. She could fuck off.
Sandy and Danneel hadn’t moved an inch, either and, with the three of them plus Misha occupying the couch in the front row, that left absolutely nowhere close for Katrina to sit. Of course, she’d actually been offered a chair in front, due to her height, but she’d refused, seeing as how it would be on the end. Jensen didn’t know why she was even trying, though. It wasn’t like she even had a chance to try and argue her way into a better position.
Ben, Lita, Mike and Tom were all sitting one row behind Jensen, completing the final eight configuration with the other six house members that didn’t last as long on the show, sitting marginalized on the edges. Georgie certainly looked a lot happier than she’d had a few months ago and Mary was positively glowing.
“Quiet on set!” a voice boomed out and Jensen stared at Jeff’s assistant, amazed that her tiny body could get so loud. She slashed her hands at them and at the assembled audience, glaring everyone down into submission-even Katrina finally sat down-before finally ceding the floor. Jensen breathed a sigh of relief because he was only moments away from getting to see Jared again. With that knowledge, however, also came tension because he was only moments away from being on camera again.
It would be worth it, though, he knew. He just had to live through it first. It didn’t help that the cameras that they were using to film the “reunion episode” were of the huge, couldn’t-be-hidden-with-a-semi and should-possibly-come-with-own-team-of-mules-to-pull variety. They were ginormous, on wheels that ran across the entire length of the set. Godzilla cameras. Jensen was currently fighting the urge to go run panicking through the streets of Tokyo.
Jeff emerged from behind one of said mutant cameras, stepping up onto the stage. “Thank you all for coming,” he announced, both to the housemates and to the audience in the background that Jensen was carefully ignoring.
By focusing on the camera-thing, he could almost pretend that the “live” studio audience didn’t even exist-and that said live studio audience had his parents, his little sister and Chris of all people sitting out in it-Chris who had punched Jensen in the arm after watching the final episode saying, “You fucker,” while the camera had faded to black on Jared and Jensen, standing there on the beach and Jensen had just grinned. He couldn’t help it-he’d won. It was all right there and it wasn’t his fault that, as Chris had said, “You had me feeling sorry for your loser ass and this entire time, you won, you punk?” Jensen had just shrugged helplessly because there really wasn’t much that he could say. He’d been under contract to keep the results a secret.
Chris had understood. Eventually.
It had been after he’d slid Jensen a suspicious look, his mouth pulling down into a frown as he asked, “This have anything to do with your mood reversal recently?” He’d rolled his eyes when Jensen had taken too long to answer. “It does, doesn’t it? You were pining weren’t you, you pathetic freak?” Jensen couldn’t even refute it, even though it was only half of the story-it wasn’t like he could actually tell Chris the other part, however-at least not until after the reunion show when the cat would be well and truly out of the bag and there was a better chance that Jeff wouldn’t sue Jared for three million dollars because of a ‘breach in contract.’
They were here now, though. Now everyone knew that Jared had chosen him and he was just minutes away from finally getting a chance to see Jared again, alive and in person, and not just have him exist as a voice on the other side of a phone. His palms shouldn’t be this sweaty, should they? Jensen wiped them on his pants. “Welcome to the reunion episode of In It for Love: the Jared Padalecki Edition,” Jeff said to the audience. “Allow me to introduce your host, Miss Lulu Alveraz.” Jeff made a grand gesture towards the curtains at the back of the set and bowed, backing his way off the set with a smile. Jensen turned with the rest of the crowd to face the curtains, anxious to just get everything over with.
A woman pushed through the red drapes, and posed for the cameras, her hands on her hips and million dollar smile firmly in place. She was only slightly taller than Jeff’s assistant, clad in an orange dress that hugged every generous curve and contrasted with the rather alarming amount of bare skin that she was showing off. “Hi, guys!” she chirped, waving at the cameras and the audience as she stepped forward. “I’m Lulu Alveraz and welcome to the In It for Love: Jared Padalecki Reunion Episode!” She stopped, front and center on the stage, planting her crystalline shoes. “Are you excited?” The audience cheered and her smile grew bigger. “Because I’m excited! So, let’s welcome back our cast!” She turned to face them as the audience kept cheering and Jensen straightened and swallowed. He was trying hard not to panic but it seriously wasn’t easy. He’d take not running away in terror, though. If he could just do that, he thought that he might make it out of this alive.
After all, if he ran, Jeff’s assistant would probably only track him down and slaughter him in the parking lot so that she could wear his skin as a trophy.
“It’s been a great season and we had such a diverse cast this time around. We’re going to take a minute and catch-up with everybody before we bring Jared out, if that’s okay?” No. No that wasn’t okay. But they were just going to have to deal with it. Jensen really didn’t want to have be called out on camera and have to spend time dealing with Lulu who, frankly, despite her naturally darker skin, looked like she spent way too long getting a spray on tan because the orange was starting to overwhelm her. She kind of reminded him of a Willy Wonka reject, actually. Maybe the dessert had been Orange Cobbler.
Lulu took her seat in the middle of the stage, scooting onto the plush red chair that had been provided for her right in between where all the castmates were sitting and the small couch that must be Jared’s assigned spot. Jensen found himself staring at its beigeness, mesmerized.
“So, welcome back, guys!” Lulu chirped again. “How are you all doing? It’s been awhile since we’ve seen some of you!” Jensen had the feeling that Lulu was the kind of person that ended every sentence with an exclamation mark. It was probably how she lived life. “I’ve heard some great news-some of you doing lots of great things!” Lulu’s eyes skittered over to the teleprompter before coming back and focusing on Mary, down near the end. “Mary, you had to leave early, but I hear that you did get that partnership and, word has it that your firm is handling a high profile case!”
Mary nodded, pushing back a lock of her brown hair and looking no less perfect for it, completely and utterly polished. “Yes. I was a hard decision to leave the show but I think it worked out for the best.”
“Mmm hmm!” Lulu turned her sights on Georgie. “And, Georgie, I hear that you’re opening your own gym? And Ben, word on the street is that you’re looking to open a restaurant!”
“If anyone will take a chance on me…” Ben said with a laugh.
“I know that I sure would!” Lulu replied and turned away. “David, our famous sports-star has started doing ads for Nike and, let’s see, Katrina, you’ve been recording an album?”
Katrina flipped her hair and posed for the cameras that centered on her. “I sure have. Enrique has really helped a lot.”
“Enrique Iglesias?” Lulu exclaimed, actually bouncing in her seat a little. “He’s working on your album? Do tell!”
“Well, I really like his sound,” Katrina hedged and Jensen immediately started putting two and two together. Apparently, Katrina had not changed one bit since he’d last seen her. “He such a big inspiration-”
“Mmm, okay, okay,” Lulu said, cutting in. “Let’s see, Justin, you’re scoping out the scene, I hear, which is awesome! Felicity, you might have ties with Zac Efron? That’s amazing!” Jensen noted how Lulu seemed to be filtering every bit of information, not letting the ones that she thought were possibly bullshit slip right on by. It was kind of impressive, actually. He wondered just how many of these shows that she had done over the years. “And, wow, Mike and Tom-you two have teamed up in more than one way! You created quite the scandal on the show, hooking up with each other instead of Jared but it looks like it really worked out for you two and your careers!”
Mike wrapped an arm around Tom. “A good photographer and a perfect model-always a match made in heaven,” he proclaimed and delivered a smacking kiss to Tom’s cheek as Tom smiled despite looking away in embarrassment.
“Oh? And when do we get to see your newest collection?”
Mike laughed, shaking Tom a little. “Well, some of those definitely aren’t fit for public consumption, if you know what I mean!” Twin spots of color appeared in Tom’s cheeks and he pushed Mike away.
“Ooh la la!” Lulu said, tittering. “Then I’ll want to see them even more! Speaking of the risqué, Lita, I hear that you’re starting in a new Vegas show! About strippers?”
Lita smiled and leaned forward, pushing her already huge breasts out even more. “Yeah, after the show ended, I was approached by an agent who asked me if I’d be interested. A lot of people this that it’s just, you know, typical Vegas showgirl, but it’s not-it’s a main headlining event and serious work.”
“I’ll be sure and go and see it when it comes out!” Lulu replied. “Now, Danneel just posed for a spread in Elle which is fantastic and I’m totally buying two copies, I promise! And Misha-you’ve been a busy boy! During the past few months, you’ve started a new charity? Tell us about that!”
Jensen jerked his eyes over to Misha, as surprised about the news as Lulu was acting to see Misha smiling happily. “Helping Paws. It’s a charity that benefits homeless animals, rehabilitates them, provides them with medical care and places them in new homes,” he said, for once his usual joking manner gone. “We take on the hopeless cases-the ones that no one else will. Too many animals are killed each year for being considered too much trouble and not worth the effort. Helping Paws would like to change that. In addition, we also train service animals and provide them free of charge to those who need them.”
“Wow! That sounds like a lot!”
“I’m very proud of how well the organization is doing. We recently just received several large donations that have helped us expand.”
“Congratulations!” Lulu said. “Which leads us straight to our resident superstar! Sandy McCoy. You must have shocked everybody when you decided to come on this show!”
Sandy laughed behind her hand. Jensen swallowed and titled back as he saw the cameras start to zoom in on her because she was sitting right beside him. “I did. They couldn’t believe that I really wanted to go through with it! But it was such an awesome experience, I can’t regret it for a minute. Reality shows get such a bad rap and it’s just not true.”
“That it is not! So, you’re shooting a new movie?” Lulu probed.
“Yes!” Sandy wiggled in her seat, excited. “Secret Lives. We start filming next month and I’m playing a ‘super spy who gets caught up in a web of deceit spun by a mysterious stranger that I meet on a train.’ That’s straight from the tag-line. The mysterious stranger is, of course, played by the very handsome Taylor Lautner-very up and coming. We’re lucky to have snagged him in between Twilight movies!”
“Oh, you are!” Lulu exclaimed, pretending to fan herself. “Of course, we all would have preferred Jared for the role but I’m sure that Taylor will do great!” And then, Lulu turned her terrifying sights on Jensen. There was a lump in Jensen’s throat. “Speaking of, Jared, Jensen you were his top pick.” Lulu paused for a moment as if waiting for a response that Jensen didn’t know how to give. She only let it lapse for a second, though, before she picked it up and ran with it, evidently knowing a cold fish when she saw one. “Well, looking at you, I can definitely say that Jared has great taste! Now, you’re a New York Times Best Selling author and I hear that you’re working hard on a new book!”
Jensen nodded slowly and licked his lips. “Yeah,” he said and realized that he should probably follow everyone else’s cue and fill in a few details. This was just a strange press conference-he’d done those before. He could do this. “It’s due to be published in about a year. Leaves of the Maple Tree.”
“Very cool,” Lulu said and then turned back to the main audience, letting Jensen off the hook. “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, all of our castmates this season are extremely talented and have so much going on! Now that we’ve caught up with them, though, are you ready to meet Jared?”
The response from the audience was deafening, shouts and cheers with a few piercing whistles and looking like a writhing, seething mass until Lulu stood up, laughing, waving them back down with her hands. “Alright, alright! I can see that you are! And we’ll bring him out right after these commercials!”
The entire room groaned and Jensen glanced around, surprised at the collective sound. Unfortunately, he agreed with it. Yet another reason to hate commercial advertisements. And he’d thought that sitting through them at home was bad-it was probably going to be nothing compared to the three minutes of waiting he had to do.
“Trust me,” Sandy said, nudging Jensen as if sensing his anxiety, “Commercial breaks tend to suck-there’s a reason why I really don’t do TV. And at least on talk shows, you don’t actually have to wait through them-you’re usually leaving when they have on one.”
“That would be a plus,” Danneel said and Jensen nodded.
“At least we’re getting paid for it,” Lita chimed in from the back and Sandy giggled.
“Hey, Jenny!” Mike called, leaning over to poke Jensen’s shoulder and get his attention. “Listen, when I said that you could call me any time, I mean that you could call me any time. Day, night, I don’t care. Tommy here might care but I don’t.” Tom rolled his eyes as Jensen smiled. “But I’m thinking about putting together a poker game, you should think about coming.”
“Yeah,” Jensen agreed. “Sounds cool.” It really did. Chances were, hanging around with Mike was liable to be dangerous to Jensen’s health but, he had to admit, he’d rather missed the mayhem. That right there, was a sure sign that Jensen was crazy. He chatted easily back and forth with Mike, though, until Jeff’s assistant shot them a glare.
“We’re back in ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” She counted off the rest with her hand until she hit zero and then Lulu was stepping up front and center as if no time had passed whatsoever.
“And welcome back to In It for Love: Jared Padalecki. It’s time to meet the star of the show so, let’s bring him out!”
Canned music started to play as the audience revved up its cheering again and Jensen didn’t even dare breathe until he saw the curtain move and Jared’s tall form finally emerged. He waved to the audience, mugged for the cameras and then walked straight up to Lulu who met him halfway down the stage to shake his hand. He kissed both of her cheeks and Jensen felt a brief, irrational surge of jealousy before Jared’s attention snapped directly to him and then he was completely and utterly blank, like he was waiting for Jared to fill him up with energy. Jared’s smile was blinding and Jensen’s heart sped up even faster as Jared came closer.
One and a half months. It had been way too long. And they’d really only had a few hours then, too. Jensen was still finding it hard to breathe when Jared walked straight up to him and grabbed his hand, tugging him upward. Confused, Jensen glanced between Jared and the housemates, wondering what he was supposed to do but Jared’s whispered, “Come on, Jen,” made the choice for him. He stood up and let Jared pull him over to the small loveseat and sit him down. Jared sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and beaming at Lulu while Jensen tried hard not to blush. A few months ago, he might have been used to this. He was out of practice now.
Lulu smiled indulgently at them. “Looks like you’re happy with your choice, Jared.”
“Oh, I’m very happy, Lulu,” Jared replied, giving Jensen a squeeze.”
“So I hear that you two have been talking to each other nearly every night since the show wrapped in Tahiti! That is so cute!”
Jared laughed, waving her off. “Well, not every night, right, Jen?”
“Need to sleep sometime,” Jensen shot back, the words just popping out of his mouth before he could even hope to stop them and Jared laughed harder. Christ. His mother was out there. Somewhere, just beyond the lights.
“I keep him up sometimes. Real late.”
“Ooh!” Lulu said. “Sounds scandalous!”
And Jensen really couldn’t let Jared get away with that. “It’s really not,” Jensen said, blandly. “He just calls me and tells me baseball stats.”
Jared shook him while Lulu’s eyebrows rose. “I’ll show you stats,” Jared mock threatened. Then he tilted in close to whisper, “Nine inches of them, right, Jen?” just to make Jensen blush. Fuck it all.
Lulu squealed and clapped like a seal. “He’s blushing!” she said. “How adorable! What did you tell him? What? What?” And, for a moment, Jensen hated her guts. Just for a split second.
Jared gave her his best ‘innocent’ face. “I was just updating him on some of the boring stats I like to tell him.”
“Oh, I’ll bet!” Lulu said with a wink. “Jensen? Any comments on these ‘stats’?” Jensen shook his head in a quiet ‘no,’ mostly because he was still too focused on nine inches and how the hell was a man supposed to think when he had that in his head? Lulu laughed again. “Well, let’s get out of the gutter and move on! So, Jared, we’ve heard from everyone else and now it’s your turn! What have you been doing with yourself these past few months? I’ve heard absolutely nothing and while they do say that no news is good news, there’s also a saying in Hollywood that there’s no such thing as bad press! So, have you been working on any secret projects that you’d like to tell us about?”
Jared smiled, glancing downward before meeting Lulu’s eyes again. Meanwhile, Jensen got his raging blush back down so that he felt comfortable looking up again. His eyes naturally wandered across to the other side of the set, falling on the houseguests, some of which were watching him with amusement-Mike and Danneel-others of which were paying attention to Lulu. A few, though, were out and out glaring and Jensen really just made sure that he avoided looking at the far end of the assembled group. “I’ve been doing a lot of promo work for the show, as you know. Interviews and radio talk shows but, other than that, I’ve really just kept to myself.”
“Nothing new?” Lulu asked, disbelieving. Jensen couldn’t say as if he blamed her. Jared had worked steadily for years now, always have a movie or three going.
“No,” Jared said. “I was…thinking about taking a little break. Maybe like a year or so?” As Lulu pulled a face, expressing her opinion on that decision, Jared fumbled for Jensen’s hand again, gripping it and holding it up. “I think I might have a few plans.”
Lulu said some kind of comment in response to that, but Jensen couldn’t hear her. All he was focused on was his hand held in Jared’s and Jared announcement that had basically said that Jensen was his plan for the next, oh, year. Jensen’s mouth was suddenly dry as he felt a few more insecurities that he’d been harboring drop away. Jared was planning on this working out, wasn’t he? He had to. That’s what he was saying, right here, on live national TV.
Jensen knew that he was grinning like a loon but he really didn’t care at the moment.
“-some clips of the show,” Lulu was saying as Jensen slowly tuned back in. “Now, all the viewers at home have sent in numerous questions and one of the most popular ones is: ‘What is Misha smoking in the confessional?’” The audience erupted in laughter and the houseguests followed suit, including Misha himself. “So let’s roll that tape!” Lulu said, using her mic to get above the noise.
On either side of the set, gigantic TV screens flipped on, showing the confessional booth in all its cheesy glory and Misha sliding confidently into the seat. “First off,” Misha said, “I’d like to thank President Obama for hearing me out. Let me just say that the translating went quite well. The wolves still have yet to finalize negotiations with Alaska, but we are quite hopeful. We’re all concerned, of course, about the oil supplies. After all, without oil, wolves wouldn’t be able to shuttle themselves back and forth to work and the economy would come just crashing down.” The screen cut to a second, separate confessional. “The blue whales are doing fine. Little Timmy just celebrated his first birth. He’ll make a fine dictator just as soon as we elect him. The dolphins, of course, are against this.” Another scene. “I, for one, welcome our Unicorn Overlords. They represent a kinder, gentler form of domination. I’m sure their horns are not at all as poky as people fear.” And again, this time cutting in to show Misha with his arms spread wide and in full song. “The hills are alive with the sound of muuuuusic!” The last one had Misha leaning forward, whispering quietly, “This has been Pirate Radio, your number one source of free information left in the world. Spread the word and fight the power!”
As the clip ended, the audience began clapping again and Lulu had her perfect smile still in place. “Okay, granted,” she said, “there was some variation to how the question was asked, but I think that they all had about the same message: What were you smoking? So, Misha, care to elaborate on your… ‘interesting’ confessional monologues? They were monologues, right? Or should I call them rants? They came across as kind of rant-y.”
Attention zeroed in on Misha who just grinned and shrugged. “They were interesting, weren’t they?” he agreed.
After waiting a beat for Misha to continue, Lulu prompted some more. “Well, what was the point? I mean, did they have some kind of hidden message in them or…?”
“Oh, yes,” Misha said. “I was signaling the seals over in the Indian Ocean. They’re due to attack, you see.”
It was about then that Lulu realized that she might possibly not want to go down this road and, so, wisely backtracked. “Ooookay. I’m sure that our viewers at home will like that answer!” Jensen could almost hear the ‘not’ afterward. “So, we just wanted to show another few clips of Misha, since we had him on the spot. What does the audience think? Do we want to see another clip of Misha?”
The audience cheered. “You were a fan favorite,” Lulu confided. “Though, I think maybe the apple had something to do with that.”
The screen flipped on again to show Misha running amok through the mansion, zooming through the living room and up the stairs, the gigantic fiberglass apple held in his hands. He slowed as he reached the bedrooms, coming down to an almost crawl as he snuck into one of the rooms. The room was darkened, but shapes could just be barely made out on the beds and Jensen recognized the room as Mike and Tom’s. As the watched, Misha slowly peeled back the covers, revealing Mike’s sleeping face and Misha carefully set the apple down next to him before resettling the covers back over Mike. Then he crept out, the door closing just as Mike shrieked and tumbled out of the bed, having come face-to-face with the apple first thing in the morning.
There were other shots of the apple-floating in the hottub, in the pool on one of the rafts with a martini in the holder, sitting harmlessly in the refrigerator as Tom stared at it in disbelieving shock and it randomly appearing outside of the mansion’s various bathrooms when people were inside. Jensen’s eyes widened. How had he missed this? He had a few vague recollections of Misha carrying around the apple, shuttling it to and fro but…
As the clip ended, Lulu cut in again, her voice rising over the giggles from the castmates-Mike being the loudest, still having not recovered from his opening scene. “It appears that that apple had quite the adventures in the house!”
“God, that stupid thing…” Mike said, covering his face.
“No one ever expects the Apple Inquisition!” Misha said with a grin and Mike broke down into giggles again while Tom groaned.
“I’m so glad that one didn’t make the cut,” Tom said quietly.
“So, Misha! How is the apple these days? The last time we saw it, Jared was leaving it in your, apparently very capable, hands.”
Misha smile grew wider as he folded his hands in his lap and leaned back into the seat. “The apple and I are doing quite well, thanks for asking. It’s waiting for me at home. I expect the dishes to be done and the bed to be made.”
“Ah, the life of an apple,” Lulu said and promptly changed the subject while Misha chuckled to himself. “Misha wasn’t the only one of the houseguests to get up to some weird, wacky hijinks. Mike, too, led quite a few. And we’ll see those right after these commercials!”
Mike groaned and Tom poked him with an elbow. “Serves you right,” he said.
Jensen would have watched more but Jared was turning in his seat toward Jensen and, well, there were priorities. Watching Mike and Tom flirt definitely took a backseat to flirting himself. It also didn’t help that Jared had resumed his old habit, his thumb rubbing circles against the top of Jensen’s hand. “I missed you,” Jared said.
Jensen ducked his head. “Missed you, too,” he said quietly, feeling just a little bit ridiculous for having to do this in front of hundreds of people. He was desperately wishing that they’d at least been given a few minutes to see each other before the show-just enough to get the initial awkward catch-up out of the way.
“That’s good,” Jared said. “That’s really good. Not you missing me-except that that’s totally what I mean and…I’ll stop now.”
Jensen smiled, still keeping his head down and staring at how his hand fit into Jared’s. “That’s okay,” he said. Jared babbling wasn’t something that Jensen minded.
“Talking on the phone’s not enough.” Jensen had to agree with that statement. “I was upset with Jeff when he wouldn’t let me see you.”
“You asked him?” Jensen asked, finally looking up-not really startled that Jared had wanted to do so but more that he’d dared to go against Jeff. Again.
“Of course I did!” Jared said. “I’ve been waiting weeks and then to know that you’re in the next room but I can’t go see you? God, Jen, I could have broken down the wall. …I think I might have tried.” Jensen laughed quietly and Jared mock pouted. “No, seriously. But she threatened to chop off my balls if I did.” He pointed his chin over at Jeff’s assistant. “And I believed her, Jen! I believed her!” Jared’s eyebrows were drawing in close, giving him the hopeless puppy dog look and Jensen laughed harder. “And I thought, ‘hey, Jensen’s got a use for those balls, so I’d better keep them.’ See, Jen? I did it all for you!”
“So self-less,” Jensen teased.
“I am!” Jared insisted. “You just have no idea what else I want to do all for you.”
Jensen had a few guesses-hopes, some of them-but none of which he particularly wanted to voice out loud where a stray microphone could pick them up. He ducked his head and looked away, studying the floor even as a smile threatened to break his face in two.
“Knew you’d like that,” Jared said.
“And we’re back in ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” Jensen winced as they were cut off but shut up obediently, biting back any other comments he wanted to make. Even Jared shut his mouth-and that was a small miracle in itself.
“And we’re back!” Lulu said. “So, before the break, we were watching a few clips of Misha getting up to some mischief! But he’s not the only one, so let’s see that clip!”
Mike had apparently nearly blown up one of the bathrooms on the lower floor. Jensen hadn’t had a freaking clue. It had involved some cleaning solution, a ping pong ball and the toilet and had ended with Mike covered in toilet paper and Misha nearly crying because he was laughing too damn hard. As Jensen watched the clip, he just shook his head wonderingly because that was so totally Mike. He’d walked around the house wearing one of Lita’s skimpy dresses in a wig, had scared everyone too many times to count, had wrapped the toilet in cellophane more than a few times (Jensen actually remembered one of those) and, then, of course, there was Mike and Misha getting ejected from Jensen’s bathroom as the girls pounded after them.
“Mike. Quite the prankster, aren’t you?” Lulu asked.
“I plead the fifth!” Mike said. “…Or was that I plead for the fifth?”
Tom rolled his eyes. “With you, it’s all the same.”
“That it is!”
Lulu moved them into another clip of all the various work out sessions that had gone on in the little private gym and Jensen was man enough to admit that he might have drooled a little during Jared’s scenes. He wasn’t the only one. Lulu was back to fanning herself after the clip was done and Jensen was once again suppressing a little flare of jealousy. He knew it was irrational-she, after all, wasn’t the one who’s hand Jared was holding. It was actually a rather worrying occurrence and Jensen really hoped that it was disappear after he got to spend a little bit more time with Jared. He didn’t need to be growling at anyone that shot Jared an appreciative look-he’d spend his life doing nothing but being irritated at about a quarter of the damn population! “The cast didn’t always work well together,” Lulu said, oblivious to Jensen’s little fling with the irrational. “Lita, you were pretty infamous at grating on some people’s nerves.”
Lita tittered and played with her hair a bit. “You could say that.”
“I know that you and Felicity and Danneel had it out.”
“Look,” Lita said, “Danneel and I might have had our differences, but we were definitely standing together against that other bitch-”
“What did you call me?” Felicity shouted, jumping up and speaking for the first time since Jensen had seen her. She had her fists clenched at her sides as she glared at Lita. “I dare you to say that again!”
“You heard me!” Lita shot back, standing up as well. “If the shoe fits, princess!”
“Um…hey now…” Lulu’s veneer of confidence was gone and she was looking shakily between Lita and Felicity. “We don’t want any fights… If everyone could just settle down-”
“You should have heard what she said about you after you were gone,” Justin chimed in, innocently. “Something about incest and your father?”
And that was it. Felicity launched herself at Lita, the rest of the cast scattering, abandoning their chairs as Felicity shoved everything and anything that was in her way off to the side, furniture, people-it really didn’t matter. Felicity hit Lita with a flying tackle, taking her down to the floor with a screech and security was rushing the stage but they were a little too slow-Felicity was already up and running like a wild gazelle because Lita the lion had sunk in her claws. Scratches ran down Felicity’s face as she stampeded straight towards where Jared and Jensen were sitting. Lulu shrieked, jumping out of the way, but Jensen was a deer in the headlights, staring at her as she charged, his eyes wide disbelieving. This really hadn’t been what he’d been expecting today. Not at all. Felicity was screaming something about “It’s all your fault,” but Jensen couldn’t figure out who the Hell she was talking about.
A sharp tug on his arm had him moving, though, dodging and skittering off the stage towards the back area behind the curtain. The drapes swished closed just as security had started to encircle Felicity, trying to round her up. Over on the other side, others were holding Lita back and still more were blocking Danneel from joining the fray.
“That was close,” Jared muttered and Jensen finally realized that it must have been Jared who’d pulled him out of Felicity’s way. Jensen nodded sharply and Jared opened a seemingly random door, pulling him inside.
Jensen barely had time to catch a glimpse of the darkened dressing room he suddenly found himself in before Jared was shoving him up against the wall and blocking his view and then the world just went black as the door closed behind them. Jared’s leg pushed between Jensen’s and his mouth was hot and wet at Jensen’s throat. Jensen let out a startled moan as Jared voice came out of the darkness muttering, “Driving me crazy being up there with you, Jen, and not being allowed to touch you like this… Keep thinking about all the nights you kept me up…”
Jensen sagged against the wall, letting it hold him up as he buried his hands in Jared’s hair and kissed him desperately-Jesus, six weeks might as well have been eternity-and rocked himself against Jared’s thigh. Phone sex was great and all, having Jared’s voice purring filth into Jensen’s ear about all the nasty things he’d like to do to Jensen, but it was nothing compared to actually having the real thing right in front of him, doing more than just making promises.
Jared’s hands skated up and down Jensen’s body, like he was trying to affirm that he was real before the dove into Jensen’s pants. Jensen’s breath caught, shocked as Jared’s hot hands wrapped around his dick, fingers moving however they pleased. Jared’s mouth stayed at Jensen’s neck, nibbling and sucking until Jared finally moved back up to Jensen’s mouth, kissing him again. Jensen whined and moved his hands down to push into Jared’s pants as well.
“Fuck, Jen, God, yeah…no fucking clue…” Jensen wrapped on hand around Jared’s cock as his other popped the button on his khaki slacks and pushed the zipper down. Jared whined, his hips starting to thrust in a pleading rhythm as he tried to devour Jensen’s mouth with his own. Jensen started to pant, moving his now free hand down to cup Jared’s balls.
It was like flicking a switch. Jared pulled back, yanking Jensen’s pants down his thighs where they then plummeted to his ankles, before Jared surged forward, his thigh holding Jensen’s legs apart as Jared’s hands worked furiously, a goal clearly in mind. Jensen bit back at Jared’s mouth, catching his lower lip as Jared moaned and then he was coming, his body shuddering and his hands dropping away from Jensen’s dick to cover his own, angling it toward the floor instead of Jensen. Jensen felt a brief moment of disappointment before he realized what Jared was doing-protecting Jensen’s clothes. Jensen never would have thought of that.
In a matter of moments, too, Jared was right back at Jensen, his hands bringing Jensen off in a few quick, hard pulls and Jensen bit his lip, tilting his head back against the wall as he came.
Jared collapsed forward, pinning him to the wall even more as he panted in Jensen’s ear. “Been…dreaming…about this… Love you, Jen.”
Jensen swallowed and didn’t dare open his eyes. He didn’t think he could stand by himself at the moment. “Me, too,” he confessed quietly and Jared nuzzled against his head, nose pushing into Jensen’s hair. It was the first time he’d said it to Jared, but it was something that he’d known about himself for a while. “I love you, too,” he repeated, just to get it clear and out into the open.
Sucking in one last gulp of air, Jared finally pulled away and flicked on the lights, illuminating the dressing room and Jensen found himself staring. He’d been deprived for so long, it was like his mind wanted to save up for another possible famine-out and out trying to memorize Jared’s features. “Meant what I said out there,” Jared said and Jensen knew exactly what he was talking about.
“That’s…good,” Jensen said, licking his dry lips. Jared groaned and bent down to press a kiss to Jensen’s mouth.
“Can’t get enough of you… Might even be hoping for more…” Jared said and Jensen nodded. He agreed with that. He felt like he could happily drown in Jared. “If I asked for that, would you say yes?”
Jensen blinked, his mind refusing to come up with a possible answer for Jared’s question. Something deep down inside of him was screaming for him to do as Jared wanted, to just say ‘yes’ to whatever Jared was saying but he didn’t have a clue to what. “Asked for what?”
“I know it’s really short-term notice and all, Jen, but I really feel this. I feel you. If nothing else, say that you’ll think about it. Please?”
Jensen frowned. “Think about what?”
“Marrying me,” Jared replied, completely taken aback that Jensen hadn’t guessed.
“Marry you?” Jensen repeated, feeling more than a little slow. Marry as in marry marry?
“Yeah. I know it’s only been a few months, Jen, but I’m certain that I want to do this,” Jared said before hastily adding, “If you think it’s too fast, though, I can wait.”
Jensen’s brain was piecing things together very carefully. “You want to marry me?” he asked.
“Jesus, Jen, yes, I want to marry you! I want to move in together and adopt kids from China and tour the world with you!”
“Oh,” Jensen said, unable to think of anything else. He was standing in a backstage dressing room with his pants around his ankles being proposed to by an equally undressed movie star. This kind of shit only happened in the movies or something, right?
“Just, think about it?” Jared pleaded. “There’s no rush, just think about it.”
Jensen swallowed hard. “Okay,” he said. This whole situation had been thrown at him at 100 miles an hour-the show, Tahiti, Jared-and Jensen felt like he’d been doing nothing but trying to play catch up-or worse, hurry up and wait-for the past six months. He’d been spinning around, trying to make sense of everything that was happening, feeling sometimes like little more than an observer in his own life and Jared Padalecki was proposing to him.
Take that, world.
“Thank you, Jen,” Jared said, wrapping Jensen up into a hug. “Thank you, thank you...I can wait, I promise.”
Jensen pushed at Jared’s shoulder, getting a little bit of space because it was probably time to make a choice for himself for once-his biggest one since deciding to go on the show. Or would that be the biggest one since accepting Jared’s apology? “No, I mean, okay,” he said. “To all of it. Or yes. I mean yes.”
It was Jared’s turn to look shocked. “Yes?” he parroted.
“Yes,” Jensen replied more firmly and Jared surprised him with a sloppy kiss.
Jensen’s life, up until six months ago, had been little more than a series of carefully placed safe bets. When he’d been younger, it had been a series of carefully placed, decidedly unsafe bets-like submitting his first novel, a piece that basically bared his soul to anyone that bothered to read it or walking into the bar where he’d first met Chris. Life since then had become a little…boring. And that might have been the very thing that had made him say yes to Chris’s stupid dare in the first place-to make him mail in his application, accept the invitation out, go on the show at all.
Jensen was rather through with safe bets-the greatest things in his life had come because of leaps of faith.
He’d spent nearly three months turning an idly distant crush into a full-on, very real possibility then spent the next three months, losing himself pining. Jensen still wasn’t as sure as Jared was but, damn it. You only lived once.
And Jensen couldn’t think of anything that he’d ever wanted more than to get the chance to make Jared happy.
The set had been cleaned up by the time that they’d finally wandered out, alerted by a searching security guard calling their name. Jared had smiled, big and goofy, same as he’d been doing since Jensen had said yes. Jensen had made sure that they both looked presentable, half-formed second thoughts flickering through his mind. He still couldn’t quite believe that he’d said yes-in all actuality, he barely knew Jared, right? Sure, they’d probably talked on the phone in the past three months than most couples did in a year but…
Jensen shoved the thoughts away because, deep down, somewhere, he knew that he’d made the right choice. His logical side was just getting in the way. Screw that.
Lulu was looking just a little frazzled, but she was hiding it well. Lita was sitting quietly in her seat but Felicity was no where to be found. “Sorry about the delay,” Lulu was telling the audience. “Moving on…” She waited until Jared and Jensen took their seats and then straightened her spine, pretending as if nothing had happened. “So, we all know that Jared didn’t go through this alone. He had a little much needed help found in his best friend Chad Michael Murray. Unfortunately, Chad couldn’t be with us today because he’s on site over in New Zealand-how exciting!-shooting his new movie! Chad, though, didn’t want to miss this and so he recorded a little message for Jared. Let’s watch!”
Lulu sat down in her seat, hunching over a bit now that that cameras were no longer trained on her and Jensen thought that maybe, just maybe, she was indeed human, and not some perfectly engineered perky robot. The fight had visibly drained her. He knew that Lulu Alvarez had hosted other reunion specials for the In It for Love series, but, apparently, none had gotten quite this out of control before.
“Yo, Jay-man!” Chad voice said over the large screen TVs, Chad’s blond hair appearing on them. “Sorry I couldn’t be there for you and all but I got a feeling that you’re doing fine. Just wanted to tell everyone thanks for making such an awesome show. I got stuck out here in the backwoods of NZ, but, hey, I’m making a kickass movie and everybody better watch it! But, Jay, man, you’re the best and you know that I wish you all the best. I also know how pathetic and mopey you’ve been and what you’ve been thinking about and I just wanted to tell you, man, I might give you shit for it, but I totally understand. So, I guess I’m saying good luck! And if it works out, I’d better get a certain call, if you know what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying, right? Because don’t be thinking that you’re going to be asking somebody else-I mean, like, if you want to go with your brother or something, I’d understand, but still, man, I better at least make the cut! Peace out!”
Everyone except for Jensen was staring at the screen in straight out confusion-well, except for Jared. He was smiling down at his lap. Jensen, meanwhile, was staring at Jared. …Had Chad been talking about what Jensen thought that he’d been talking about?
“Well,” Lulu said. “That was certainly interesting. It’s really too bad that Chad couldn’t have been here himself but schedules are hard things to work around.” She shrugged non-committally and pushed on in what Jensen was starting to recognize as her signature fashion. “Unfortunately, we’re running rather short on time, so we’re just going to skip to the main event because we’ve got to get to the question that I’m sure everyone’s been just dying to ask! Only, it almost looks like we don’t even need to ask it! But, still, it’s an In It for Love tradition, so, Jared, Jensen? You both look so lovey-dovey sitting there-did the famous In It for Love luck strike again? Do we have a match?”
Jensen blinked at Lulu before turning his head to face Jared who was smiling easily. Jared winked at him. “You know what, Lulu?” Jared said. “I think that yes, indeed, In It for Love luck worked because I’m really happy with my choice and I’m thinking of a future, you know?”
Lulu beamed. “That’s really sweet, Jared! And how about you, Jensen? You’re well known for being a bit shy but do you think that In It for Love worked for you?”
Jensen nodded hurriedly as she turned her full attention on him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.” Jared huffed a laugh, giving his hand another squeeze and Jensen realized what he’d just said. He dropped his eyes to the floor, a small smile crossing his face. “Yeah, I do,” he repeated, squeezing Jared’s hand right back.
“Well, there you have it folks!” Lulu announced. “Another perfect love match made by In It for Love!” The audience cheered and she waited until after they hit their crescendo before speaking again. “So, listen, it’s been a really awesome show, and I’d like to thank everyone that came out for it. Thank you to the cast for being amazing, thanks to Jared Padalecki for agreeing to be our star, and thank you, the viewing public at home, for watching! See you next time on In It for Love!”
The cameras panned out, music playing over the speakers on the set and Jensen glanced around as Jared laughed. “I think we’re supposed to mingle,” Jared said, pulling Jensen upward. “That’s usually what happens at the end of these shows.”
“It is?” Jensen asked.
“Sure, why not?” Jared replied. “Of course, I only watched the last two seasons but that’s enough to pick out a pattern, isn’t it?”
Sure enough, the rest of the cast was rising from their seats, too, chatting with each other and Lulu who had stepped over to them. That wasn’t so bad-with the exception of Lulu, Jensen had actually lived with all of the people currently on stage for at least a little while. Some he even liked. True, some he didn’t particularly care if he ever saw again (Katrina was still glaring at him) but Jensen figured that he could pretend that he was remotely good at making small talk. For a little while at least. Besides, with the likes of Mike and Misha and Jared and Sandy, Jensen got the feeling that he wouldn’t have to do much talking at all.
Well. Except when Jared said, “So are you ready to meet my parents?” Jensen turned his head to stare, startled and Jared grinned. “Perfect time, Jen,” he said and that was when Jensen realized that it wasn’t just the castmembers standing on stage anymore-the entire audience was joining them. Oh dear Lord… “And I can meet yours,” Jared continued. “Find out what Chris actually looks like, seeing as how you keep talking about him…”
“Or we could just elope right now,” Jensen blurted, only half joking. “Then we don’t we don’t have to meet anyone.” Jesus. Now there was something that he’d never considered when he’d said yes-meeting Jared’s parents. Future in-laws. Of course, it wasn’t like he’d been thinking about very much at all besides the overall giddy feeling that Jared made him feel just by standing beside him.
Jared grinned. “We could,” he agreed. “But I think your momma would be pissed.” Jensen had to give Jared the point-even though he thought that his mother would probably be more hurt than mad. “I gotta make an honest man out of her son and you know that she wants to make sure that I’m going to be able to take good care of you,” he teased. “Besides, Chad would be upset if he couldn’t be at my wedding-you heard him-and I think the short cowboy heading straight towards us would have a few choice words to say, too.”
Jensen’s head swiveled around so that he was no longer looking at Jared but instead at Chris who was, just as Jared had said, making a beeline for them. Chris was smiling but Jensen could see him starting to size up Jared, even from a distance. Now that one, Jensen knew, Jared was completely correct about-Chris would have a few “choice” words to say if Jensen went and ran off with a guy that Chris had never met before. Sometimes, Jensen wondered if Chris knew that he was, in fact, not Jensen’s mother.
Right behind Chris, Jensen could see his family, making their way through the crowd and Jensen knew that it was far too late to run. Then again, he was finally starting to realize that it had been too late for him the moment that he’d stepped out of a car to stand in front of the tackiest mansion he had ever seen.
It was okay, though, because Jared was winking, his dimples flashing as he turned his megawatt, perfect Hollywood leading-man smile on Jensen and Jensen knew that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Three Months Later - Puppy Love: A Sneak Preview
Jesus. Just what the fuck did Jensen think that he was doing here? Jensen pushed away the odd sense of déjà vu and turned to glare at Jared who shrugged apologetically. “We promised,” he said contritely and damn it all if he didn’t pull out the puppy dog eyes. Jensen was trying to work up an immunity to those eyes but in the three months that he’d been living with Jared, he hadn’t quite managed it. Jensen really wanted to point out that there had been no ‘we’ about it and it had been Jared that had done the promising but there was just no saying ‘no’ to that particular face. Fucking A.
“Jeff is so fucking dead,” Jensen growled. The threat was empty and they both knew it but it made Jensen feel better just to voice it. Jared didn’t respond, letting the matter tactfully drop as they both watched the five men that had infiltrated the new house that Jared and Jensen had picked out (spacious, extra rooms, and a big back yard for Harley and Sadie) as they installed cameras at every conceivable angle.
At least this time around, though, Jensen had been able to have a little bit more say in what went on, so he supposed that he should count the few blessings that he had. For one, he wasn’t being shoved into a tacky mansion with zebra-stripped couches and purple fuzzy rugs and gigantic useless plastic apples and a multitude of crazy people. No, instead, it was just him and Jared and the dogs and the rather tasteful furniture that Jensen preferred. And there were no cameras going in the bedroom-he was making doubly sure of that. Plus, he didn’t have to do any stupid challenges, either.
In the end, Jensen really didn’t have anyone but himself to blame-no matter how he wished it was otherwise. He, after all, had agreed to this and had signed his name on the little dotted line. You would think that he would have learned his lesson the first time around but apparently no-he was heading into “seasoned veteran” territory now.
Then again, two million dollars, like Jared’s puppy dog eyes, was an awfully hard thing to say no to.
So. For the next couple of weeks, Jensen figured that he would just have to endure his paid and contracted stalkers-let Jeff get his footage for his little spin-off series so that he could be happy and then Jared and Jensen could walk away with their brand new house completely paid for, courtesy of Kripke Entertainment. “A wedding present” as Jeff had called it.
Jensen glanced over at Jared who smiled at him before crossing his arms and returning his attention back to the installers, even as he nudged Jensen with his shoulder. Despite himself, Jensen smiled and nudged Jared back. After all, it wasn’t like this was the craziest thing that they’d ever done, now was it?
Part 17 | Master Post