The Play Nice Proviso: Two
Hey baby, come over here and shut them tight
Ask anybody in Hollywood who had worked with him and they would readily and happily testify that Jensen Ackles was a nice guy. A little reserved, maybe, but definitely nice.
Co-stars, directors, producers, press - even the paparazzi, when they cared enough to give a damn, would attest to that. Ask anyone else; family, friends, heck even ex-girlfriends, and they would back that claim up and then some.
But Jared Padalecki just brought out the absolute worst in him. Jensen knew this. He felt it bristling under his skin every single time the man came near him: his hackles rose, his adrenaline levels kicked up a notch and his fight-or-flight responses became amplified. It was unfuckingbelievable, and it pissed him off even more that Padalecki knew this and exploited it.
Case in point: The Critic’s Choice Awards.
He deserved a goddamn Oscar for keeping his shit together with a smile on that red carpet. Hell, he deserved the fucking Nobel Peace Prize. The fucking fucker had tried to kiss him. Kiss him! On the mouth! Right there, in front of God and everyone. In front of the cameras, which translated into goddamn gossip rags and YouTube videos saved for all eternity.
Sonofafuckingbitch.
And of course, Jensen had not been able to retaliate. And thank God for his quick thinking and superior response time to pranks of any kind (thanks largely to the fact that he counted Michael Rosenbaum amongst his closest friends) because he had just managed to dodge what could have been the kill-shot to his career, he had been that angry. Retaliation was seriously in order. He just needed to be smart about it.
Stupid fucking contract.
Jensen fumed as he slammed the door to his hotel room shut. Or tried to. Of course, the damn thing had a spring catch and it refused to slam, instead swishing silently shut as if mocking him and his entire existence.
He viciously tugged his tie off and yanked it over his head, abandoning his jacket and kicking off his shoes. He just wanted to pound his fists into something, preferably something that looked like Padafuck’s face, so freaking badly, that he was shaking with repressing the rage within.
The gym, he suddenly thought to himself. He needed to work off this anger, regain some of the Zen that had taken a more-or-less permanent vacation since he had met his co-star.
He was out of his room and hammering away at a heavy punching bag in minutes, relishing the gradual release of stress from his body. An hour later, despite the sweat that was dripping from every crevice in his body and soaking his workout clothes to his skin, he felt calmer.
Until Jared Padalecki strolled into the hotel gym.
The younger man’s mouth fell open in surprise when he saw Jensen, noting the boxing gloves in his hand, his eyes making a languid survey down Jensen’s sweat-slicked, flushed body. He didn’t think it possible, but Jensen felt himself heat up even more at that assessing gaze; nostrils flaring, breath coming in short, shallow gasps, anger rising swiftly and surely. Padalecki, lily-livered coward and dismal excuse for a son of Texas that he was, turned tail and ran. Jensen’s mouth curled into a snarl and before he could think the better of it, he tossed the gloves aside and chased after his co-star.
The pursuit - not unlike a predator chasing down his prey - ended with him tumbling Padalecki into the hotel’s outdoor pool, the resultant gigantic splash attracting way too much of the wrong kind of attention (girls with cell phone cameras and the goddamn, ever-present paparazzi). So, instead of drowning the bane of his existence like he wanted to, he had ended up ‘playfully’ horsing around in the pool, laughing together (although he bet Padalecki was really laughing at him) and stopping just short of belting out the chorus to the Dirty Dancing theme song since they looked like they were having the time of their fucking lives.
Jensen got the hell out of the pool when the thought of first-degree homicide suddenly seemed justifiable.
Just grin and bear it, Ackles, he told himself, shut your goddamn eyes to everything around you and just grin and bear it. He wouldn’t - couldn’t - give Padalecki the satisfaction of getting to him.
Filming was great.
The reception to the show was great.
The rapport with the writers, producers, other actors and the crew was great.
With the obvious exception of course. That? Not so great.
Just yesterday, they had almost come to blows again... so, yeah. Sometimes, their epic feud - which had to be waged under the guise of friendship and good humor in public, and also in front of guest stars and directors, Jesus - just wore him down. Not that he was backing away from the fight - not at all. No Ackles in the history of Texas had ever backed away from a fight. Some of them were goddamn idiots who should have known better, but none had ever backed down. The word ‘coward’ was not in the Ackles’ vocabulary.
But... it just tired him out sometimes. And Padalecki had the energy of an enormous Chihuahua on speed. And Jensen just had to keep up, to best him, to rise to and fucking own the occasion. And try not to channel Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon and bemoan: I’m too old for this shit.
He was just exhausted, drained and looking forward to crawling into bed and it was barely noon. So of course that’s when the Network Minions decided to visit the set. The same men: Numbers One, Two and Three. Jensen wondered if Bob Singer had tattled on him about the almost-incident from the day before and groaned as he slid down lower in his director’s chair, his knee accidentally bumping into his co-star’s thigh.
“What?” Padalecki growled, sounding a lot like Jensen usually did. He tried not to be impressed.
“Satan’s Minions approaching,” he muttered instead, and Padalecki frowned at him before looking in the direction of his gaze.
“Aww, shit.”
“Is that Eric?”
“Yeah. What the hell did you do this time, Ackles?”
“What did I do? Squat, dipshit! I’ve been on my best behavior.”
“Yeah, like yesterday when you...”
“Shut the fuck up. You know you started that shit. Aw, fuck, here they come.”
“Mr. Padalecki, Mr. Ackles,” Number One greeted them. “We come bearing news.”
“Of the Apocalypse?” Jensen deadpanned. His co-star snorted by his side, and Eric looked as if he was about to choke on air.
“No, not right now. Perhaps in another season or two if we last that long,” Number One replied seriously.
Eric blinked at One, slowly and somewhat awestruck, and Jensen could almost see the demented wheels turning in his boss’ head, but Eric quickly shook himself out of it before turning excitedly to face them, as if he couldn’t wait another second to spill his news. “We’ve been renewed!”
“What? Whoa!” Padalecki exclaimed, looking over at Jensen who kept his expression carefully neutral. It wasn’t all that difficult. He could feel the cold fingers of dread gripping his insides in a vise. Another fucking year of this? Really? Sometimes, he wasn’t sure if he could make it another fucking week. He had to have heard wrong. Right?
“We just got the green light for Season Two, guys!” Eric exclaimed, and Jensen just barely suppressed a groan. He was so royally screwed.
“That’s awesome, Eric!” Padalecki yelled, both of them hopping in place in their enthusiasm. Idiots, Jensen thought with an eye-roll. Which was when Jensen realized that his lack of response had not gone unnoticed by the Minions, all three of whom regarded him with unwavering interest. They were so freaking weird. He squinted at them, quite unable to keep the suspicion from showing on his face. They squinted right back at him. In unison.
Yeah. Nothing creepy about that, he thought caustically, shuddering involuntarily. Then Padalecki slapped him on the back - or walloped, more accurately - and he was distracted by practically falling out of his chair and onto an ecstatic Eric. Jensen schooled his features into a smile as he hugged Eric, but over his producer’s shoulder, he glared daggers at his smirking co-star.
Then he heard that they - all of them - had been booked to make appearances at various conventions over the summer hiatus. Great. Now he had an entire summer of smiling and nodding and playing fucking nice to look forward to and oh God… he really was getting too old for this shit.
The Chicago convention also played host to the Network Minions. Who apparently didn’t trust them to keep their shit together whilst in such close proximity to each other and in a public forum. Who also thought it would be a good idea for Supernatural’s own Mulder and Scully to hit the town together and be seen being the bestest friends they could be. Who even picked the restaurant, and arranged a fucking photo-op and wall signing for their favorite stars. Who then watched their every move; yes, even at the restaurant, not so surreptitiously from the sidelines. At least the Minions didn’t try and order Jensen’s fucking dinner for him, because he wouldn’t have been responsible for his actions then, contract or no contract.
It had been the dinner from hell, of course, complete with their usual stilted, mostly monosyllabic ‘conversation’ (if you could even call it that, air-quotes and all) occasionally interrupted by a waiter coming up to their table to find out how they were doing. It could have been worse, Jensen snidely supposed, but for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine how.
Naturally, Padalecki had to bring up their outing while chatting to the fans at the convention the next morning, only more in the vein of a teenage girl talking about her dream date, Jensen thought with a mental eye-roll, pasted-on smile firmly in place.
“We went to Gino’s for pizza. It was an awesome night,” Padalecki was saying, “we even wrote our names on the wall,” he leered playfully in Jensen’s direction. “I wrote: I love Jensen.”
The fans predictably giggled at that, some of them with their hands clutched to their chests and looks on their faces that communicated quite clearly: Can they be any cuter?
“And I wrote: I love Jensen,” Jensen deadpanned to peals of laughter, and the booming sound of surprised delight emitted by his co-star.
“Sounds like a date,” a fan in the front yelled out at Padalecki, “did you kiss him goodnight?”
“Oh, I don’t kiss Jensen,” Padalecki told her, ducking his head shyly before smirking up at Jensen's stunned face, “… in public.”
ComicCon’s Q & A panel may have been entertaining for Jensen, especially since Kripke and Manners had joined them on stage, but he was uncomfortable. He didn’t like crowds at the best of times, and this was perhaps the largest crowd they had catered to so far. Everyone on the panel was well aware of the truth behind the Jensen and Jared Show though, and all of them played up the ridiculous banter war between their two stars; it all went a long way to ease his nervousness. Still, the darkened atmosphere in the room was throwing him off his game. He felt a little hemmed in, a little panicked. He had to almost physically pull himself together when the moderator asked what he thought of the show’s constant comparison to The X-Files.
“I've definitely come in contact with people who have been avid fans of The X-Files who are now fans of Supernatural. And I think they truly like that, you know, duo journey that was... er,” Jensen stumbled over his words, the panic starting to hurt his chest. He almost wheezed out his next breath. “Er... like you had with David and Gillian,” he managed finally, hoping to God nobody would ask him any more questions.
“He's much better looking than Gillian, though,” Jared joked with a leer in Jensen’s direction. It would have been annoying if it hadn’t been paired with a look of concern in his eyes. Jensen blinked at him in surprise, his discomfort momentarily forgotten.
“Can you guys talk about working together and how that relationship sort of developed?” The moderator asked, and she was looking right at Jensen, so he had to force the words past his lips.
“Us two or...?”
“Yeah, you two,” she clarified.
“They don't care about us,” Bob Singer playfully pouted and Jensen forced a smile on his face, focusing on his co-star instead of on the crowd in front of him. And if that wasn’t fucked the hell up, he didn’t know what was.
“Him and I,” he started, blinking rapidly and trying to steady his breathing over the tightness in his chest. “It was something that kind of just happened from the beginning, I think, when we met each other...” Goddamn it, it was getting harder to get the right words out of his mouth. His panicked eyes locked with Padalecki’s, who took one split second to lean towards the microphone.
“With us, I think as far as I know, it was pretty effortless,” Padalecki picked up the reins. Thank God for small favors, Jensen thought to himself, huffing out a gust of air. “I don't think the casting was by design by the producers. We're pretty similar, and we're both pretty laid-back guys. We take our work very seriously. We like to work on our characters and like to have a good time and keep the mood on the set fun. And we just - we just clicked,” he smirked at Jensen, who really couldn’t bring himself to do anything but give him a grateful look. The concern in Padalecki’s eyes heightened, but he continued speaking, his tone becoming more playful. “Like I've definitely worked with my share of people, and I'm sure Jensen has too, that I'm just like: ‘Oh, man, I'm going to work again. I've just got to keep my tongue in my mouth and don't say anything that's going to come back to bite me or just shut my mouth and do my work’," he laid it on thick, tongue firmly in cheek, much to the table’s amusement, including Jensen’s. “But we have a great time. We have a fantastic crew up in Vancouver, and it's just been pretty organic.”
The moderator looked expectantly at Jensen, and he tried not to grimace. Besides, he had to pick up the gauntlet Padalecki had thrown down. He kept his gaze fixed on his co-star as he spoke; it was easier to breathe that way. “I think it's also just the common love we share for the show. We really look out for each other when we're working with guest directors or whatnot. And I think that it's just that we truly want this to be a great program. So when we're working, if I see something that he's doing or he sees something that I'm doing, there's this, you know, very open relationship.” Like when I very openly yell at him to get his head out of his ass and try this thing they called acting. “We're able to talk to each other and be like, ‘Hey, let's do this. Let's lock this down. Let's get this going. I think we're missing a beat here.’ Stuff like that.” Yeah, not to mention stuff like: Fuck you, Padalecki, that fucking sucked. Pull your shit together. “So it's really neat to have that kind of relationship with your co-star.” The kind of relationship where you can’t fucking stand the sight of him and a Play Nice Proviso needs to be written into your contract so you don’t accidentally-on-purpose kill him.
Padalecki just stared at him, the look in his eyes succinctly conveying one word: Jerk. “Absolutely.”
Bitch. “It's very rare as well,” Jensen intoned earnestly, the sarcasm only evident if you looked close enough. And Padalecki almost never took his eyes off him. The moderator took a question from a fan.
Do you guys ever have any weird dreams after filming the monster-of-the-week episodes?
“I dream that I roll over in bed, and instead of seeing my wife, I see Eric,” Bob quipped.
“Which is horrific. Absolutely horrific,” Eric agreed quickly.
Still caught in a staring contest with his co-star, some goddamn imp of mischief appeared on Jensen’s shoulder and the words spewed from his mouth before he could stop them. “I dream that when I roll over, I see Jared.” Jensen fluttered his not so insubstantial lashes at the man sitting next to him.
“Dude,” he co-star drawled, his tone deep and the look in his eyes so suggestive that Jensen actually gulped. “That wasn’t a dream.”
And then the fucker leaned into him, pursing his lips obscenely. Jensen, his stage-fright forgotten in the onslaught of Jared Padalecki, merely pointed in the direction of the laughing audience, as if to remind him that they were not alone. “Oh yeah,” Padalecki said with a smirk, “dreaming. Definitely dreaming.”
“Maybe that should be in the next episode we shoot. You guys would tune in to see that, right?” Eric deadpanned to thunderous applause and catcalls.
He hated to admit it, but the Supernatural panel at the Paley Festival was a lot of fun to do. This time, Jensen felt more relaxed. It may or may not have been because he knew that his co-star, however strange it may seem, especially given their history, had his back. Oddly, Padalecki also appeared to be more relaxed and looser than usual. It was almost as if they fed off of each other, even on an emotional level.
They slapped palms as they took their seats on stage, seated side by side as usual, and he tried not to notice each time his co-star looked at him with that lazy, hooded gaze, or mirrored his every movement down to the way they were sitting, or leaned into his body like they were the opposite poles of two magnets coming together. It didn’t help that Jensen was actually looking forward to their on-stage verbal warfare. Christ. It was better than sex, it riled him up so good.
And wait just a goddamn minute, had he really just thought that?
He blinked and was quickly pulled into the present by the moderator asking him to elaborate on his experience joining the show. “I went home that same evening as I read for Sam and got a phone call and they said well, there’s this guy - Jared Pada- Pada-something...”
“Pada-something?” His co-star asked with a raised eyebrow. Jensen’s mouth quirked in response, knowing full well that Padalecki could guess what the something could have been.
“Yeah, Pada-something... and they’re really liking him for one of the brothers, and I’m like - okay. So, of course I look him up online, and he’s...”
“He thought I was hot...”
“This guy’s smokin’ hot! I can’t play his brother!” Jensen grinned at the audience, genuinely amused, as Padalecki cracked up beside him. What? He had a sense of humor - so sue him. He hadn’t actually had this much fun in a public forum before, it was kind of invigorating. Maybe it had a little something to do with his co-star and how easily he kept up with Jensen when it came to trading witticisms. Then again maybe it was the couple of beers he had guzzled before getting on stage. “But yeah,” Jensen continued, “we went in and that was the first time we’d actually met. And then we did the scene together for a roomful of executives, and uh, that was that.” He paused for effect, smirking at Padalecki. “And we’ve hated each other ever since.”
Padalecki started slightly at that and Jensen smiled as he reached forward to grab his glass of water. “Dude, I poisoned your water.”
So yeah, he was getting as good as he gave, all right.
They continued a weird, wordless one-upmanship with their eyes and bodies even when the other members of the panel were addressed, and yeah, it may not have been the most polite thing to do, but even the producers were getting a kick out of it, constantly bringing up their chemistry, tongue firmly in cheek.
One of the show’s writers and producers, John Shiban, lead that particular charge. “Chemistry is something you can’t manufacture. These guys have it; that’s what makes them so great to write for,” he told the audience.
Jensen played right along with his bosses, turning to gaze soulfully at his on-screen baby brother. Padalecki turned to him with an almost identical look on his face and predictably, leaned in, lips pursed. Jensen just watched him with a coy half-smile and let him come as close as he dared before mockingly reminding him of their - now giddy - audience.
“Worth a try, worth a try,” Padalecki grumbled good-naturedly, but Jensen noticed an honest-to-goodness blush on his cheeks as he drew back, chuckling and hiding his face with his jacket. And if Jensen just happened to look utterly charmed as he kept his gaze on the younger man, well, chalk that down to good acting.
At the convention in Vancouver, for the first time, Jensen faced the fans without the usual swarm of butterflies in his stomach. It went surprisingly well, especially after he reminded himself that he was a fully-grown man and not a shy little girl, and if that didn’t work, he could always resort to this little thing he did for a living: you know, acting.
His co-star stumbled on stage when Jensen’s time was up, and of course, he couldn’t do it without creating a spectacle of himself while he was at it. Jensen leaned back lazily in his chair and peered at Padalecki with a snide smile. “I’m sorry, sir. What was your question?”
Padalecki grinned back at him and damned if Jensen didn’t feel a little thrill of anticipation at that look. “Not mine, not mine, not mine...,” he insisted.
“Okay,” Jensen humored him.
“It was anonymous,” Padalecki mockingly reassured him. “What do you say to the - what many say are true accusations...”
“Uh huh?”
“That Jared’s character - that’s my character,” he emphasized as if Jensen needed to be reminded. He stifled a laugh at that, but the fans didn’t hold back, clearly enjoying their banter as much as he suspected they themselves did. “I mean, that Sam is better looking...” Padalecki rested his forearm on Jensen’s shoulder, knowing it would annoy him more, “...taller, younger - okay, we can lose younger - than your character?”
Jensen paused for effect, marveling at how he never needed to think about what he was saying with this man, who was, for all intents and purposes, his nemesis.
“You have to ride shotgun.”
Padalecki barked out a laugh, conceding the point to Jensen with a knowing look as he squeezed Jensen’s shoulders a couple of times.
And in spite of the lingering animosity that lay beneath this facade they put on for the fans, there was something in the way Padalecki touched him that was fast becoming familiar, and Jensen was suddenly confronted with the startling realization that he would probably recognize that touch anywhere.
