entry 081 - if you need love with no condition (2/5)
Title: If You Need Love With No Condition (Cause Down In Hell's Kitchen)
Author: jamie_love13
Beta-Edited: Franziska.
Pairings/Characters: Oh. Dear. God. Uhm. Okay. Jared/Jensen. Jeff/Jim. Steve/Chris. Chad/Sophia. Katie/Danneel. A brief past mention of Jared/Chris Evans (Imagine the hotness!). Gordon Ramsay. Scott Liebfried. Heather West. Jean-Phillipe Susilovic.
Word Count: 44, 469 Words in 5 Parts.
Rating: NC-17/R
Summary: Jared never thought he'd be in Hell's Kitchen, but as he goes through the challenges, he also never thought he'd fall for someone like Jensen. However, he has a game to win, and he has to put his feelings on the back-burner. He just hopes he can actually do it.
Disclaimer: Definitely don't own. And I definitely do not believe any of this is true. It's all fake. All of it. Well, except for Heather West winning season two, and other mentions of past seasons of Hell's Kitchen.
Warnings: None? Well, no. Cock-blocking and extreme waiting for the 'big' finale. More of a look of the guys in the kitchen, and not there relationship, but I tried. ;)
Notes: This thing was a fucking monster!!! It was my baby though. Go check out my acknowledgements/more notes page for more things. :)
Previous Chapter
When Jared opens his eyes again, everything is bright and hurts, causing him to quickly shut them again and groan. After a few minutes, Jared covers his eyes with his hand before slowly opening them up again, looking around as he spots his team surrounding him with worry in their eyes and features, causing Jared to scrunch up his face in confusion.
“What happened, guys?” He asks quietly, unsure of why he’s on the hard floor just outside the kitchens but a little kick in his brain states that he does indeed know why he’s on the floor. He slowly makes his way into a sitting position, looking over at Jensen as he helps him up, being able to see the worry that is written clearly in Jensen's face.
“Jared, you fainted.” Jared looks over to see a paramedic next to him, plus Chef Ramsay and damn, that is not awesome at all. He hasn’t fainted in front of a lot of people in quite a long time and it makes Jared look down and blush, nervousness and embarrassment making his cheeks turn red.
“It appears you haven’t had enough glucose in you and -“
“Yeah -“Jared interrupts, running his fingers through his hair and looking down in shame. He always found it ironic that a chef like him is diabetic, and definitely tries to hide the fact from everyone he knows, but it looks like the competition had gotten to his schedule and fuck, how could he not remember. No, how could he not make himself take his medication for the diabetes and pretend to forget about it.
“Are you gonna be alright, man?” Jeff asks, and Jared nods his head, rubbing his face quickly before smiling at the people around him.
“Make sure you take your medication, Jared. What I’ve seen from you - you’re good, and you could go far.” Jared turns his head towards the Chef and smiles slightly, while blushing even more than before because he knows this just put a huge bulls eye on his back. He can hear everyone laugh, and hears the Chef tell everyone to let him up and help him if he needs it before he returns to his office.
***
An hour later, Jared is lying on his bed wearing a sweater and his boxers, his hand splayed out on his stomach as he watches Jensen search through his bags, looking for his medication. After a few seconds, Jensen rises to his full height, holding Jared’s medication out to him.
“Is that it?” Jared nods his head, and while Jensen helps Jared take said medication, Jared smiles slightly.
“Thanks, Jen,” Jared says quietly, ducking his head and looking at Jensen with his eyes wide.
Jensen nods his head before running his hand through Jared’s hair, and god that feels so good.
Jared’s eyes are closed and he’s extremely comfortable on his bed as he feels Jensen’s fingers scratching lightly over his scalp, knowing he hasn’t felt like this since his own father walked out on them and his mother couldn’t bring herself to comfort Jared and his siblings in any way anymore.
After a few minutes, Jared hears Jensen whisper a goodnight before he’s falling asleep.
***
The next morning, Jared wakes up and slowly gets ready for the day - and the next challenge. Jared’s in the bathroom with Chad, talking about how his team is dealing with the loss of Chris and who the leader might be when Genevieve walks in wearing the smallest and tightest shorts you could think of, alongside her bra. Jared quickly looks over at Chad and rolls his eyes as Genevieve whispers a ‘hello’ to him and touches his arm.
“Hello Genevieve,” Jared says dully, not wanting to really talk to the girl. He glares at Chad as he watches his friend chuckle at Jared, and it takes everything Jared has not to hit the man.
“We should get to know each other better, Jared.” Genevieve purrs and it takes even more restraint to not grimace in front of the mirror at Genevieve’s words.
“Uh, maybe later, okay?” Jared states quickly, rushing out of the bathroom to wake up his roommate. He knows he should remind Genevieve that he’s gay and definitely not going for females any time soon (or at all, considering his past), but he just can’t bring himself to do so because he knows she won’t listen to him, especially during this time.
When he finally gets to their shared bedroom, he jumps on Jensen's bed. “Wake up, Jen! Wake up! It's an earthquake, we have to get out!” Jared shouts as seriously as he can manage and watches amused when Jensen startles awake. His serious tone breaks and he bursts into laughter when Jensen nearly falls out of bed, but Jared catches him quickly.
“Asshole,” Jensen grumbles without much venom in his voice as he rubs his eyes with his fists.
Jared eventually stops jumping on the bed and returns to his own to sit at the edge.
“Sorry man, I had Genevieve bugging me and needed to get the hell away from her.” Jared says, before standing up and patting Jensen good-naturedly on the back.
“Come on man, we’ve gotta leave for the challenge soon.” He states as he leaves the room, turning on the light to make sure Jensen stays awake, knowing that if he doesn’t do so, Jensen will go back to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, Jared and everyone else is slowly making their way to what they can assume is the car of Hell’s Kitchen. Of course, they don’t actually know, since they’re being led by the appropriate Sous Chefs, with blindfolds on. Jared can hear some of the ladies whimpering a little - no doubt Genevieve, actually - and rolls his eyes behind the blindfold before nearly hitting whatever it was that made him stop.
“Ow, dude.”
“Sorry, Jeff.” He replies, before slowly continuing his way. When he hears Chef Scott say ‘up,’ Jared lifts his foot and hefts his self up before finding his way to an available seat, no doubt being squished between Jeff and Jensen, which isn’t all that bad.
Jared doesn’t know how long they’re in the car, just knows that he can feel every bump and rock that the vehicle hits, knows that with each bump, Jared grimaces, biting his lip, feeling himself become tense more and more. After a while, he can feel Jensen’s fingers on his upper thigh, and creating goose bumps onto Jared’s neck.
He tries his hardest not to let out a groan, but he soon finds himself loosening up, especially when Jensen goes higher up his thigh with each stroke. Jared bites his lip even more when Jensen skims past his dick, can feel it tightening in his jeans and hardening within seconds. At this point, he lets a small groan out of his mouth, and can hear Jensen laugh lightly before turning to where he thinks Jensen is and leaning in to whisper.
“Swear to god, Jen, don’t start something you can’t finish.” He hears Jensen chuckle, can feel it vibrate through his body and clenches his jaw.
“Alright, I’ll stop. But only because I can feel the car stopping and know how embarrassing it would be for you to have to exit the car with a hard on.” Jensen says quietly, and Jared lets out a sigh of relief, glad at the somewhat odd generosity Jensen has shown, and thinks of his grandmother before he gets out of the opened door when he hears Scott say his name.
He stands still with everyone next to him, and when Scott tells them to take their blindfolds off, Jared does so slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the bright lights. He looks around and sees everyone else doing the exact same thing he’s doing. When he catches Jensen’s eyes, he lets out a small smile and arches his eyebrow suggestively, his smile growing wide. He watches as Jensen shakes his head with a smile on his face, and Jared faces forward and can see a factory like building in front of him. He can smell blood prominently and scrunches up his nose and wrinkles it at the smell. He looks towards everyone and can see that they have no idea where they are,
“Alright, let’s make our way through the doors, where we’ll find Chef Ramsay waiting for us!” Jared hears Chef Heather yell and everyone nods their heads before slowly making their way through the doorways and then, the building. After a few minutes, the smell of blood is even more prominent than before and after a few more seconds, they enter a room full of it, with thousands of cows hanging upside down in the room. Standing in the middle of it all is Chef Ramsay, with his hands behind his back, his chef’s jacket buttoned and pristine. Jared smiles slightly at the sight, but it soon turns into a grimace when he turns around and sees Genevieve puking into a basket.
Once she has finished vomiting, Jared, and everyone else, turns around to look at Chef when he clears his throat, some people nearly jumping out of their skin when they realize Sous Chef’s Scott and Heather are standing next to him. Ramsay clears his throat once more, and anyone still talking immediately quiets.
“This is a cow that has yet to be butchered into the pieces that you normally know them as.” Ramsay starts. He resumes to tell everyone what their challenge is - that in the other room, there are two sets of cows. There are the cuts of the cow, which they have to label, and after they’ve labeled it, they have to arrange the cuts on a Velcro cow correctly so. Once Chef has described their challenge, Jared’s team has to choose two people to sit out on the challenge. After some deliberation, the team chooses Jeff and Genevieve, Jeff because he has admittedly stated he doesn’t know cuts very well and Genevieve because she didn’t even know what they were doing.
With Danneel, Katie, Jensen and Jared ready to do the cuts - and c’mon, with two players from Texas - they were ready to roll with the challenge.
When Ramsay says go, the first person from each team - Jensen and Jim - go and label each of the cuts that they can. Jensen ends up with labeling half of them correctly, while Jim only did a quarter of them correctly. Then it's Katie's and Sophia's turn, who both label three correctly; then Danneel and Chad, who both get none correct and lastly, Jared and Steve, both from Texas. Jared labels the rest correctly, while Steve had one incorrect, and Jared runs over to the Velcro section, and stood for a minute, shocked that everything has completely slipped his mind.
“Fuck” he whispers quietly, bouncing on his feet. He can hear his team yelling at him, and zones in on Jensen’s voice, listening to him and his expertise. After a few seconds, Jared gets back into the action, quickly labeling the Velcro cow, and jumping up and down when Ramsay states that he has won the challenge for his team.
After everyone has calmed down - from either the excitement or the disappointment - Chef Ramsay stands in front of his second in commands, staring at them all with intense eyes before showing a slight smile.
“Winners, you will get a wine tasting at the most pristine Wine brewery known in this area and a diner made by myself and two other famous chefs.” The red team cheers in happiness at that, knowing that they won’t be having the punishment.
“Losers - you will be butchering beef that we need for the service tomorrow.” Chef says, and Jared feels sorry for the blue team, knows that butchering meat is no easy feat. The teams make their way back to the Hell’s Kitchen cars, watching the scenery go by as they drive back to the restaurant and dorms.
***
An hour later, Jared, Jensen, Jeff, Danneel , Genevieve and Katie are making their way to the brewery for the wine tasting. All five of them are talking happily with one another, pumped up for their reward of winning the challenge. They get into the vehicle and within the minute, are on their way.
“Christ Jared, you did great in that challenge,” Jeff says, sipping a glass of champagne in the limousine that’s taking them to their reward. Jared blushes and smiles, stops himself from looking down and instead, thanks the older man, eyes sparkling with mirth. The six of them continue talking as they drive away from Hell’s Kitchen, about how they feel while in the kitchen, how they can help each to get better, both in their communication skills and their cooking skills. After that, the conversation slowly slides into how Genevieve can become a better chef, and instead of shutting down like she normally would, she listens.
“It’s just - you need to be able to accept help, Genevieve.” Jensen states while playing with his hand, looking around at everyone else.
“Not only that, you need to be able to accept when you’ve made a mistake,” Danneel adds, putting her arm around the younger girl and patting her shoulder. Genevieve nods her head and her eyes squint and Jared can’t help but sigh.
“Genevieve, it’s still early in the game and you can get better,” Jared states, looking at her softly, and when she nods her head, he’s satisfied.
“…How?” He hears her ask timidly and looks over at Jeff, hoping the older man could take this one for the team.
“Well, like Danneel and Jensen said, you can accept help and your mistakes, but it’s more than just that, Gen.” Katie replies instead, joining Genevieve’s other side. Genevieve nods her head and bites her lip before tilting her head in question.
“You can try and do better in challenges, you can listen to the Chefs, you can-“ Katie begins, stopping when she can’t think of anything else and knows that she’ll need to if Gen will take them seriously.
“You can read the recipes and memorize them like we all have,” Jeff interrupts, inevitably saving Katie from being in the front of a famous Genevieve temper tantrum.
“Okay. Right after the reward, I’ll start.” Genevieve says, nodding her head and Jared bites his lip, unsure if she’ll truly keep to that pact, and when he looks around, he can see everyone else on his team is thinking the exact same thing.
***
When the team finally enters the brewery, they all stop talking and look around the building in awe. It's big, the ceilings are high enough that they have to tilt their heads back completely; which causes a sore neck once they straighten it. They can see plenty of wine bottles, wine drums and people working around the factory. When they finally catch sight of the wine master, they smile and walk over to him smiling. Shortly after, they find that their wine tasting is going by way too quickly. They all get to taste samples of different wines, some of them (mostly Jeff) drinking more than they should - but most of them drink less than they could. After an hour of being in the brewery, their tour guide shows them to a room nicely lit with a round table and Chef Ramsay standing in front of it. When they finally get to the table, Ramsay is all smiles, saying hello to them, letting them sit next to whomever they want. The end product ends up with Chef Ramsay, Jeff, Danneel, Jensen, Katie, Genevieve and then Jared. Jared feels lucky to be sitting next to Chef Ramsay, but at the same time, he’s a flutter of nerves because of the fact that he’s sitting next to Ramsay.
“How is everyone?” Chef asks and pretty soon after, everyone is taking turns talking to him, telling him about their day, how everything has been going. Sooner than later, the topics turn into family and relationships and things turn slightly awkward.
“So, basically, I’m in a relationship with Katie over there, and Jeff’s in a relationship with Jim on the opposite side.” Danneel says, pointing to the people in question and laughing while she takes a sip of her wine. Jared smiles as Chef laughs back, but that smile vanishes with Chef’s next words.
“What about Jensen and Jared?” Chef grins, his accent becoming more pronounced after a few sips of his drink. Everyone but Jared and Jensen laugh at that comment. Jared looks down and blushes, completely missing Jensen’s reaction and that just causes everyone else to laugh even more so than before.
“Yeah, they’re not in a relationship….yet!” Katie replies giggling as she looks at the pairs blush. When the chef opens his mouth in shock, Jared notices Jensen smiling at him lightly and Jared just blushes even more so than before.
“No bloody way!” He says, his eyes going wide and everyone laughs again at that, which just causes Jared to shake his head and blush a hell of a lot more than he’s used to.
“Wow. You guys absolutely are not?”
“Ah, nope, we’re not together,” Jared chuckles while scratching his forearm nervously. He can’t really stand to look directly at the Chef because of his embarrassment, so instead he looks at Danneel and smiles lightly, trying to get rid of the redness he knows is on his face. Danneel smiles back and it’s a light smile, one that says she’s sorry for all of the embarrassment that he’s being faced with.
While Jared sits there and listens to everyone talking about them, Jared can’t help but think about how well he gets along with everyone. They’ve only known each other for a short period of time, but Jared has a strong bond with nearly everyone that’s in this competition, which is kind of frightening for someone like Jared. It scares him, but he’s looking forward to getting to know the others and definitely looking forward to the unknown feelings.
“Jay?” Jared looks over to Jensen and smiles lightly, yawning behind his mouth and stretching. The movement causes Chef to laugh and stand up.
“It’s probably about time for you to get out of here and rest,” He states, wishing everyone a goodnight and patting them on the back or hugging them as he leaves.
***
It’s nearly one in the morning when their limousine pulls up in front of Hell’s Kitchen and most of them are so tired that they stagger out of it, unsteady but slowly regaining their balance. When they finally make their way up to the dorms, the opposite team laughs at them, believing they’re drunk, but Jared just doesn’t care, even when he hears Chad say that they’ll suffer for it when their asses are kicked at the following service. Jared wants to snort at that, he really does, but he finds himself way too tired to even bother opening his eyes up properly, so instead, he just makes his way to his shared room with Jensen, opening the door and then laying on the bed so he can fall asleep. However, as tired as he was on his way to the bed, once he’s finally hit the actual bed, he feels wide awake, pent up energy cursing through his veins, which just causes him to sigh. When the door opens and a string of light comes through the door, Jared turns his back away from it, and towards Jensen’s bed.
“What’s up, man?” Jensen asks him, taking off his boots while sitting on his own bed. Jared looks up at him through his bangs and blows them away, watching as they fall back into his eyes.
“I can’t fall asleep, dude.” He replies, snuggling deep into his blankets. He watches Jensen take off his jeans, watches as they slide down his thighs slowly, cursing when they go over his cock which, shit, definitely seems large and full. Jared finds himself licking his lips in desire. Once Jensen’s pants are off, Jared follows his hands to his shirt, which Jensen is slowly lifting up over his head, showing his flat stomach with abs full of magic, no fucking doubt because shit, Jared is suddenly hard just at the mere sight.
“Jensen?” He says, licking his lips again and looking up at the older man. He sees Jensen tilt his head in curiosity as he comes closer and thank god because Jared does not want to get up from the comfortable position he’s in. Once Jensen sat down on the bed and is close enough, Jared frees his hand of the blankets covering him and puts it on Jensen’s cheek, bringing him even closer, until he can close his eyes and touch his lips to Jensen’s. After a few moments of waiting patiently for Jensen to react, he finally does and lets his tongue touch Jared’s lips, allowing Jared to open them up and let Jensen explore.
The kiss lasts for countless minutes, with the both of them moaning in pleasure. Jared’s fingers are running through Jensen’s hair when he pulls away and smiles. Jared whimpers at the loss, not wanting the older man to move away from him. When Jensen puts his forehead against Jared’s though, Jared suddenly feels exhausted and sighs lightly.
“Go to bed, Jay.” Jensen whispers, kissing him lightly. Jared nods, but needs to say at least one more thing, needs for Jensen to know that what has happened - what is happening between them is something important to Jared, something he’s definitely not taking lightly, by the way his heart flutters every time he sees the older man.
“Hey, Jen?” Jared groans, snuggling in closer, watching as Jensen turns around and smiles.
“Yeah, man?” He says, his smile still on his face, though it’s somewhat tense and Jared hates that.
“Jensen,” He says once more, grabbing Jensen’s hand and pulling him closer to him, knowing he has to get this out for sure, before Jensen pulls away both physically and emotionally.
“Jensen, that kiss, it was…” When Jensen starts pulling away, Jared literally has to tighten his hold and nearly shouts out a no.
“Jared…”
“Jensen, this is serious for me. We might not be able to do anything now, but I need you to know that I want to... you know... later, okay?” Jared says and when Jensen nods his head and kisses him affectionately one more time, Jared finally falls asleep, calm and sated.
***
When Jared wakes up the next morning, he blinks his eyes open to see Jensen staring at him, and smiles lightly.
“Were you serious about last night, Jared?” Jensen asks, biting his lip and looking away, a deep red tinge in his cheeks. Jared watches Jensen as he does this, and smiles back before sitting up slowly.
“I was dead serious, Jensen. I want to get to know you better, I want to be able to take you out on a date, cook for you-“ Jared says, smirking, smiling when Jensen laughs at his statement.
“I want to be able to hold you, kiss you, make -“
“Guys, c’mon, Ramsay wants us downstairs,” Jeff yells, pounding on the door, causing Jared and Jensen to jump up away from each other as their bodies had gotten closer together, in shock before rushing to get dressed. Within a minute, they’re both hurrying downstairs with their chef’s jackets on and nerves in their stomach. Today is still early, not nearly close to opening for tonight, only a prep day, really, so the only reason Chef would call them down is if he had something important to say. That thought alone scares Jared, and looking over at Katie and
Genevieve, he knows they’re feeling the same thing. Once everyone is down in front of the kitchens, Chef comes down and stares at them, causing each of them to move about.
“Currently, the red team has six members and the blue team has four members,” he begins and the nerves in Jared’s stomach begin fluttering like crazy. He looks over at Danneel discreetly and gulps, knows that she’s nearly having a panic attack because none of them want to lose anyone from this team.
“Danneel,” Chef states, and Jared can feel his eyes go wide, fear settling in his stomach, definitely not wanting her to change teams.
“Take off your jacket, and put on this blue one,” Ramsay finishes, throwing Danneel the jacket. Jared watches as Danneel plays with the jacket for a minute before sighing and slowly pulling her jacket off and putting the blue one on, hesitant and not wanting to upset Chef, but being upset herself at having to change sides, all the while looking at her team with regret and sorrow in her eyes, not wanting to leave them.
“Go join your new team, Danneel,” Chef states, and Danneel nods, before lining up with the blue team, next to Sophia, who rubs her arm in understanding. Ramsay nods and Jared thinks he can see sympathy in his eyes, especially after last night’s dinner but before Jared can take a second look, his eyes are the same.
“Go prep your kitchens,” Chef says with the teams going off in to their kitchens, the red team feeling Danneel’s loss heavily.
~***~//~***~
The prepping of the kitchens happens fast and furiously, Jared’s team trying their best to forget about their loss. However, it’s not exactly easy, since whenever they look up, they can see Danneel struggling to find her place in her new team.
As the chef comes down from his office, everyone can hear him talking to Danneel, telling her that she needs to be a leader for this team, and Jared watches as Danneel nods her head and gets to work, quickly talking to Steve as she does so. Jared knows that Steve has been slowly getting his leadership skills on, and while Jared watches the two of them talk, he just knows that
Danneel is saying how they’ll both lead, so that way, Steve can shine. Jared watches as Steve nods his head and it causes Jared to smile slightly before finishing the prep on his scallops.
“Jeff, how is your station coming?” Jared hears Jensen shout across the kitchen, but tunes out Jeff’s response, instead deciding to focus on the fact that his prepping is finished and decides to go and help Katie, who’s prepping the meat station, which isn’t her easiest section.
The two of them work together, helping one another with the other meat recipes that Katie needs to know. Every now and then, Jared catches Katie looking over at Danneel and biting her lip before looking down with worry on her features.
“Danneel kept me going in the kitchen, Jay. When she saw I was about to fail, or was going too far out of my capability, she helped me climb back up,” Katie says quietly, and Jared realizes exactly what Katie’s worried about.
“Hey, I won’t let that happen to you, alright?” Jared says, putting his arm around Katie’s shoulders and hugging her tightly. He feels her nod her head against his chest and after a few minutes of staying like that, she pulls away and lets out a small smile.
“Thanks, man.” Jared nods his head, before helping Katie finish her prep, knowing that Katie could go for as long as she keeps her cool.
Within the next half hour, Katie and Jared finish Katie’s prep and decide to help Genevieve with hers, as she has actually admitted to needing help. They take ten minutes to help Genevieve, by writing on tape and putting the tape in their correct sections, a la the first season Jared’s ever seen, thank you Ralph. When the two of them, and Jensen and Jeff who had joined in on them helping Genevieve later, feel confident with their last teammate, they walk away and finish their own stations, just in time for Chef to come down.
He stands in front of them all and looks at them before quickly nodding his head.
“Let’s go, yeah? Hell’s Kitchen opens up in two minutes.” He says, clapping his hands and walking away.
***
During this service, both kitchens are in absolute shambles, trying their hardest to not have any more mistakes on this day. Jared’s busy focusing on helping Katie with her station, now that all of his appetizers are gone, but it’s not easy with Genevieve always getting in between them and asking them for help. Jared can only sigh in annoyance before putting Genevieve out of his mind and helping Katie. Not even five minutes later, however, Genevieve is back, and instead of asking for help, she’s taking their current dish - which is nowhere near ready or wanted - to the pass. Jared stares at the younger female before shaking his head and snapping out of his trance.
“Genevieve!” He shouts, not wanting to leave Katie’s station because of all the dishes actually cooking.
“Jared, go and stop her. I’ve got it here.” Katie says, swishing all of the pots and pans in front of her and nodding her head towards Genevieve. Jared nods his head before leaving the station and rushing over to Genevieve while shouting her name, which just causes Sous Chef Scott to hit his side and tell him to shut up. Jared nearly laughs at that, but he’s caught Gen, so he doesn’t.
“Genevieve, bring that dish back!” Jared says, turning her around with his arm on her shoulders.
“What, why? Isn’t it ready?”
“No, Genevieve. We called for you to come back but you didn’t, and there’s no way I’m letting you bring out raw fucking meat to Ramsay.” He sees Genevieve look down and bite her lip in sadness and for a minute, Jared feels pity for her before looking away.
“He’ll yell at you if you bring it up, so just, bring it back and let us cook it, alright?” Jared says slowly, knowing that if he goes any faster, the other girl might have a total mental break down. When she finally nods her head, Jared lets out a breath of relief and ushers her back towards Katie and heads there himself, making sure nothing gets worse.
Once he’s finally there, he hears Danneel shouting in the opposite kitchen, and using his height he can see her cradling her hand and bites his lip in worry. He watches as she walks towards a bowl full of ice, thanks to Heather, and while she does so, she’s still shouting orders towards everyone, making sure they all do the things they need to do correctly. Jared watches as Chef Ramsay nods his head and tells her to go to the medic, and Jared turns around when he hears his name being called by Jensen, who’s working on the garnish station.
“What do you need help with, man?” Jared asks, watching as Jensen flounders a little bit.
“These garnishes over-“Jensen stops talking when he hears the Chef yelling in the other kitchen. Everyone in the kitchen stops what they’re doing quickly and looks over at the opposite kitchen, watching as Jim runs his hands through what little hair he has, before they continue their stations.
“Yeah man, alright.” Jared says, quickly grabbing one of the pans and adding more of a kind of garnish to it, making sure nothing burns or is undercooked. After a few minutes, Jared asks Katie if she’s ready to go up and then Jeff if he’s ready and when they all give a positive, Jared goes up to the pass with the garnish, and soon after, everyone else follows.
Within the next hour, Jared and his team get out the rest of the entrées and soon start working on getting all of the deserts out, which is Genevieve’s station.
“Genevieve, if you need help, ask us for help!” Katie shouts, getting the used pans clean, while Jensen works on the garnishes for the desserts and Jared finishes the plating. Genevieve nods her head and after a few minutes, the team finds themselves completing their service, and with Scott, they let out a little cheer as they watch the opposite team finish their own service, Danneel and her burnt hand included.
***
Both teams are lined up completely inside their respective kitchens, their bodies aligned tightly, their hands either crossed against their chest, at their sides, or linked behind their backs and their heads looking at the chef attentively. Currently, Ramsay is standing in front of the pass, looking at them all with a look in his eyes that most people would be afraid of, but the teams are on a small high from both kitchens completing service and not letting anything get to them this time.
After this had been going on for a few minutes, Ramsay lets out a small smile that Jared thinks only he sees, and then he opens his mouth.
“I am incredibly impressed right now, with both of your kitchens,” Ramsay says, his arms uncrossing and going behind his back instead.
“You both finished service today!” Ramsay says, his voice clearly showing his happiness over that fact alone.
“However,” Chef begins and Jared can feel himself biting his lip in angst.
“However, there is still a losing team, and it hurts me to say this, but, blue team, you’re the losers.” He finishes, and Jared feels himself sagging in relief but yet worried for Danneel and her position on the blue team.
“Danneel, you were the best of the worst tonight. I want you to nominate two of your fellow teammates and tell me them in a half hour. Off you go,” Chef claps and Jared watches Danneel nod her head, everyone saying ‘yes chef’ in reply before walking off.
Within a few minutes, the two teams are at their dorms or hanging around by the patio outside. Currently, Danneel, Jensen, Katie and Jared are outside on the patio while Steve and Jim are outside, but not at the patio station. Everyone else is inside, either making something to eat or getting something to drink.
“I really don’t know who to pick, Jay,” Danneel says, biting on her nails as she takes a sip of her water bottle. Jared nods his head as Katie rubs comforting circles on Danneel’s back and Jensen flicks the top of Jared’s lighter. The group is silent for a few minutes, making room when Steve and Jim come and sit with them, and Jared decides to help out.
“You just have to think rationally, Danni, which two people did not do well tonight.” He watches as his friend nods her head and flicks her eyes to the group around them, biting her lip and twirling her hair around her finger.
“What do you guys think?” Danneel finally asks after thinking about it for five minutes, her lip nearly split open from biting it so hard. Jared can see Jensen open his mouth when Jared hears Jim speak up instead.
“I’m not an idiot - I know I did badly tonight. You can put me up, Danneel, and there won’t be any hard feelings.” Jared can see Danneel try and tell Jim that she would never nominate him but with one look, she looks away and closes her eyes, letting out a deep breath and looking at Jim with sadness.
“I still need a second person, though.” Danneel snorts and Jared nods his head, thinking about the people on the opposite team and how well they did tonight. However, Jared can’t really think of anything, being so busy with his own team.
“Who did you guys see that wasn’t up to their potential?” Jensen asks, shrugging, still playing with Jared’s lighter and a cigarette, like he’s trying to decide if he should decide to light up, even though he doesn’t even smoke. Jared snorts at the thought, smiling when Jensen looks at him confusedly, and then looking back at Danneel to watch as she thinks about her new team.
“Shit. Chad, I’m afraid to say, didn’t do the best.” Danneel replies, and Jared watches Steve and Jim nod their heads in agreement and Jared can feel his heart plummet to his stomach, not wanting his best friend to be gone.
“I’m sorry, Jay.” Danneel says softly, her eyes holding a sadness in them and Jared shares a small smile with her before scratching his stomach and getting up. When he finally reaches Danneel, he kneels down in front of her and quickly whispers to her, nodding his head and letting her know that no matter what she does, he won’t mind and there won’t be hard feelings. After that, he leaves to stretch himself before going downstairs.
Within ten minutes, Jared and his fellow teammates are sitting in a circle at a table behind Chef Ramsay, while the blue team is lined up in front of him, Danneel, Steve, Chad, Sophia and Jim, closely together as a team, not knowing what’s going to come. Jared can see the team looking worried about this elimination, and even he feels worried about this elimination, not wanting to see someone he likes going.
“Danneel, have you made your decision?”
“Yes, chef.” Danneel replies, straightening herself up and biting her lip.
“What are your nominations?”
Danneel takes a deep breath, shifting her eyes slightly before saying -“My first nomination is Jim, Chef, because he had his worst service today, and I don’t see him getting back from that. My second nomination, Chef, is Chad-“At this, Jared notices Chad looking completely shocked and has to bite his lip from the face he has required -“Chad, because of the fact that his service has been steadily bad, and he has not become better throughout the course of the competition.” She finishes, taking a deep sigh and looking down afterwards.
“I agree with that, Danneel. Jim and Chad, step forward please.” Jared watches as both people step forward, lining up together and looking at Ramsay with a deer in the headlights expression on their faces.
“Jim, why should you stay in Hell’s Kitchen?” Jared watches as Jim explains why he should stay in the kitchen, including things like how he’s got the skills on the pass and how he’s just getting into the role of leadership.
“Alright, Chad, why should you stay in Hell’s Kitchen?” After a near five minutes of talking, Chef finally shuts Chad up and Jared stops himself from laughing.
“Jim, take off your jacket,” Chef says, and Jared can feel himself take a breath in relief yet feel sadness at the loss of Jim, even though the fellow man isn’t on his team. Looking over at Jeff, Jared can see the loss of someone clearly on his face and pats the fellow man on his back, watching as he nods his head.
“We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Now, fuck off.” Chef says and nods quickly.
~***~//~***~
The next day, both teams are standing in front of the kitchens, watching as Ramsay comes down from his office, wondering what is under the dome in front of them and what it means for their upcoming challenge. When the Chef is finally down in front of them, they shift their body weight, making sure they’re not showing any weaknesses.
“Good morning,” Ramsay says, everyone else replying as they take everything in, curious to know what the next challenge is. As Chef explains its background, Jared moves around listlessly, looking around at everyone as they do the same. When Ramsay finally lifts up the dome to reveal the dish, everyone nearly sputters at what they see, a little hesitant over it.
“Yes, it is a pizza.” Chef says and Jared arches his eyebrows, wanting to know what they’re going to have to do with this pizza. He continues on to explain the role pizza had in his life and Jared tunes out of the talk for a little while, thinking of what he would do to a pizza to make it more fine dining. After a few minutes, Jared snaps back to attention when Jensen nudges him with his shoulders in his side.
“Your challenge today, is to make a regular pizza into a pizza that can be served at a fine dining restaurant.” Chef says, and Jared has to shake his head a little because holy shit, his brain is awesome.
“You have forty-five minutes, starting…NOW!” Chef says, and everyone from both teams starts running towards their prospective kitchens, collecting the ingredients they need to make their own pizzas.
“At the forty minute mark, everyone should taste each pizza and decide which one to bring up,” He says and Jared takes that in before going through his ingredients. He immerses himself in the cooking of his pizza, first by making the dough from scratch the way his momma taught him and then by making the white pizza sauce to put on after the dough is made. He’s lucky enough to have all of the ingredients available to actually make the sauce, thank god. When he looks at the time, he realizes that he just has enough time to put his toppings on, thankful that he had cut them all up and grated the cheese beforehand. The cheeses he’s used are limburger cheese - though just a slight amount, what with its strong flavor and horrible foot odor smell - parmigiano cheese, mozzarella - which he has put in the crust -- and provolone cheese, a combination which Jared finds absolutely delightful, though he knows some people do not, if the cheese are not separated, divided and used in an equal amount that compliments all of the flavors. For his toppings, he has decided to use lobster, pineapple and good old chicken. With just enough time, Jared has put his pizza into the oven, shutting the door and letting out a sigh of relief, praying that his pizza will taste good enough. He quickly looks around and sees that everyone else has put their pizzas into the ovens as well and each member is now describing their dishes. He joins in on the group, listening as Genevieve explains her dish and can’t help but wrinkle his nose at the sound of what she’s used - complete limburger, rabbit and olives, while using green tomatoes as a sauce base. He then listens as Jeff explains his dish, thinking to himself that if it wasn’t for the octopus, he would totally eat it. Katie’s dish sounds pretty good too, what with her using Gouda cheese, caviar and clams; Jensen’s dish is definitely interesting - chicken, orange zest and garlic, with a cheddar cheese and no sauce. When Jared begins describing his dish, he can see everyone looking thoughtful at his choices, a few of them nodding their heads, a couple more shaking theirs.
When the time comes, each person takes out their pizza, cutting it and taking bites out of each, talking about which one they would choose. They automatically say no to Genevieve’s pizza - Genevieve included once she actually tastes it, and it’s tied nearly with the other dishes. Jensen and Katie like Jared’s dish, while Katie and Jared like Jensen’s and Genevieve likes Jeff’s. With three minutes left to choose, and Chef constantly calling the time, the team makes the choice to use Jensen’s dish, but not without some motivation from Jared, who says he can just eat his pizza afterwards, his team knowing he could eat the whole thing by himself. Jared watches as Jensen nods his head and wipes his hands on his jacket, sighing nervously before looking over at Jared quickly and biting his lip. Jared walks towards Jensen slowly, angling his body to match Jensen’s, nudging the fellow man’s shoulders with his own, letting a small smile appear on his lips to try and calm Jensen down. He watches as Jensen fiddles with his jacket, continuing to bite his lip and sigh and Jared can only do one thing to calm Jensen down.
“Hey,” he says, his voice rough from the heat of all the pizza he tried repeatedly, twisting Jensen’s body towards his by pulling on Jensen’s wrist. As Jensen looks up at him and blushes, Jared can’t help but find him adorable.
“Your pizza is great, Jensen, and it will do great out there, alright?” Jared says softly, lowering himself by bending his knees and looking at Jensen’s eyes, while putting his hands on Jensen’s shoulders. Jensen lets out a deep breath and relaxes his body before nodding his head. He looks up at Jared again and smiles, still nodding his head before rushing away and finishing his pizza, searching for Jared’s eyes every few seconds and smiling gratefully.
Within a few minutes, both Jensen and Steve are up at the pass with their pizzas ready to be tasted. He can see that Steve is just as nervous as Jensen and that Steve’s pizza looks just as good as Jensen’s and Jared knows that this battle is going to be a close call. Jared barely pays attention as Chef Ramsay makes his way towards the two friends, and instead, chooses to pay attention to Jensen, trying not to get too carried away with his observations. Jared can’t help but notice that Jensen is nearly as tall as him, his hair a mess from constantly running his fingers through it in stress but definitely making the older man look pretty hot. Jared shifts his body briefly, wondering why the two of them connected so well with one another and so quickly at that, until he hears the cheers of a team and quickly looks around, realizing that his team has won the challenge - again. Jared lets out a brief, apologetic smile at the other team - Danni especially, knowing that she misses being with them - and then a quick smile at Jensen for having the winning dish before quickly turning away and letting out a deep breath. It scares Jared how well Jensen and him clicked - and he knows he’s being repetitive with this thought, but fuck, he’s never clicked with someone so quickly before, or had anyone so similar but different from him at the exact same time. He lets out another sigh and wonders where these questions are coming from before turning around and standing straight to hear Ramsay’s punishments and rewards. He can’t focus on anything though, even the award, and it isn’t until everyone is leaving and Jensen looks at him with worry in his eyes that Jared snaps out of his funk.
“You okay, man?” Jensen asks, patting Jared’s shoulder before rubbing into it and Jared sighs, biting his lip and shakes his head, his eyes going wide.
“We need to talk…about everything, Jensen.” Jared says, watching as Jensen’s eyes go wide before he nods, gulping. Jared nods his head before walking away with his team and putting his hands behind his back, slowly letting Danneel walk with him.
“Are you good, man?” She asks, looping her arm through his, walking like a soldier, causing him to laugh lightly.
“I don’t know, Danni. I feel like - like everything is going really fast with everything.”
“And it scares you?” She asks, walking normal again and looking behind herself quickly, arching her eyes at the sound she thought she heard before shaking her head in confusion.
“It scares the shit out of me, Danni - especially since I know I can see the prize in my future,” Jared replies, biting his lip for letting that one sentence slip out of his mouth and causing Danneel to stop walking completely, which subsequently leads to Jared being pulled back quickly. Jared looks at Danneel with his eyes wide and her eyes are wide as well, before he finds himself laughing.
“Fuck, right?” He laughs, continuing their walk to the dorms. Danneel nods her head, before stopping the two of them again, which causes Jared to look at her in confusion.
“Just, be honest with him Jare, alright?” She says, her eyes shining bright. Jared tilts his head and furrows his eyes, unsure of how to continue with this discussion.
“You guys have become one of my closest friends - just, don’t make me choose, okay?” She says, nodding her head and Jared smiles, nodding back before taking a step back and shooing her away so he can talk to Jensen.
***
It’s a couple of hours later - and a really deep conversation with Jensen later- that the two of them leave their bedroom with their jackets on and get ready to go down to service. When they leave the room, they walk straight into Danneel and Katie, and watch as they both smile and tilt their heads.
“Well?” Katie asks, moving her body in anticipation. When Jared looks down and blushes and Jensen nods his head briefly, Katie screeches in excitement, clapping her hands and jumping up and down in happiness. Jared is still blushing when she stops and he slowly looks up with a grimace of fear on his face.
“We’re happy for you, Jay,” Katie says quietly, squeezing his biceps and walking away, Danneel following her with a smile on her face. Jared looks towards Jensen and smiles briefly before following the females towards the kitchen, ready and pumped for service tonight.
***
Once everyone is down in their respective kitchens, the teams separate and prep their kitchens, for anything and everything that could happen tonight. Jared and Jeff are currently working on the garnish station tonight, and Jared cannot help but look towards Genevieve, who is working the entrée section tonight, by herself, and Jared is definitely worried about that. Without even looking around the kitchen, he knows everyone feels the same - Genevieve included, by the set of her shoulders and how slow she’s doing everything. The prep time goes by quickly and before Jared knows it, Chef is yelling for Jean-Phillipe to open Hell’s Kitchen. Many different people are pouring into the dining area, causing a reverberation to come through.
Pretty soon after that, Ramsay is calling out their first ticket and Jared can feel his heart beating faster in his chest. He gets ready to cook, only to find that he doesn’t do well with Jeff next to him. He tries his hardest to work with the guy, but it isn’t exactly easy and he can’t help but wonder why he’s never noticed his not-so-well chemistry in the kitchen with Jeff.
He can hear Genevieve being yelled at, not by Ramsay, but by Katie, but he doesn’t have the time to look up and see what’s happened, because the Chef is yelling at Jeff and him, which just causes Jared to get nervous and mess up even more, which fuck, when did that start happening to Jared? He can feel Jensen’s eyes on him but he can’t afford to look up, instead keeps his eyes on his dish and pays attention to that, needing to fix his mess up.
He’s finally out of the hole - with Chef’s agreement - when Jared turns around to pick up the risotto, only to see that it’s burnt and that Jeff is looking at it in confusion. Jared lets out a guttural scream, loud enough to cause the kitchen to stop and Ramsay look over at them from the other kitchen, before Jared realizes he needs to calm the fuck down or risk going home. Jeff looks at him with sorrow in his facial features, and Jared takes a few deep breaths before restarting the risotto.
Everything is falling to pieces when the next bad thing happens to their team - an entrée that was returned and complained as being too undercooked for the person. Genevieve deflates and Jared can see Chef Scott barking at her, and when Jared looks closer, he realizes that Genevieve just tried to flirt her dish up the pass, which caused Scott to yell at her, and after a couple of minutes of going back to his dish, he can suddenly hear Chef shouting at her to get out, and he knows instantly that his team is officially screwed.
The rest of the evening goes by quickly, the rest of the team making a few more mistakes, the other team making a few more alongside them. Jared can feel the sweat on his brow and his pants clinging to him in all of the wrong places, and he feels so screwed but continues to go on his merry way.
With one scream, the kitchen goes to a standstill, everyone looking up at the sound, to see Chef yelling at the opposite team to get the hell out and when he turns to their team, not even saying anything, but everyone knows that he wants them out, too.
The two teams make their way back to the dorms, tired and stressed, knowing just how badly they did and knowing that no one is completely safe tonight.
“Aright, who wants to go up, who should go up, et-fucking-cetera,” Katie says, wiping her forehead and pushing her hair back before falling on the couch she’s in front of.
Jared sighs before looking up and biting his lip - “Put me up. I deserve it. God knows how many times I fucked up tonight.” He says, picking a hangnail on his thumb before looking at everyone’s shocked faces. He sees Jeff nod his head and it takes everything Jared has not to snarl at Jeff in annoyance, and Jared knows Jensen sees it and wants to do the same thing but he stops himself before anything can happen. Jared’s thankful for that, but that raises the issue of who should also be on the chopping block.
After talking about it for a few minutes, everyone has decided that Genevieve should join Jared and Jared can’t help but feel his heart pounding in his stomach - his fucking stomach - and he gets up, walking to his room to pack.
A few minutes later, the bedroom door opens and Jensen walks in, choosing to sit on Jared’s bed instead of his own and after a few seconds of Jensen looking at Jared, Jared finally breaks down, sitting on the bed and letting his head fall, hiding the tears that are rolling down his cheeks. He feels Jensen wrap his arms around him, and he can only feel thankful at that. Within ten minutes, Jared has finally calmed down and unwraps Jensen’s arms from him, smiling at him weakly before getting up to finish the packing.
“You’ll be fine, man.” Jensen says as Jared zips his luggage up.
***
The teams are making their way down to the kitchens, ready to face their doom. Ramsay is standing in his normal spot, ready to talk to the group, ready to know their nominations. The ceremony goes by quickly, Jared and Genevieve stepping forward after everyone has said their piece.
When Chef asks for them to explain why they should stay, Jared tries his hardest to convince Chef to let him stay - and eventually it pays off.
“Genevieve, you’re just not good enough. Please, take off your jacket and say goodbye to your team.” Genevieve nods and quickly says goodbye, and Jared can only feel a rush of happiness flood through him and nods his head as Chef says goodbye. Jared came close to losing today and it’s just something he can’t stand so he vows to try harder now, whooping once they’re out of the kitchen, hugging Danneel in the air out of happiness and pulling Jensen away from the group and kissing him against the wall.
Jared slows himself down, allowing his hand to caress Jensen’s cheek, feeling Jensen’s arms go around his waist and bring him in closer. He lets out a small moan, and breaks the kiss apart, panting into Jensen’s mouth and smiling at him. Jensen smiles back before pushing Jared lightly away.
“Glad you’re still here, Jare,” he says, patting his cheek and walking away, letting Jared watch him do so, moving his hips knowing he is being watched.
Next Chapter
Author: jamie_love13
Beta-Edited: Franziska.
Pairings/Characters: Oh. Dear. God. Uhm. Okay. Jared/Jensen. Jeff/Jim. Steve/Chris. Chad/Sophia. Katie/Danneel. A brief past mention of Jared/Chris Evans (Imagine the hotness!). Gordon Ramsay. Scott Liebfried. Heather West. Jean-Phillipe Susilovic.
Word Count: 44, 469 Words in 5 Parts.
Rating: NC-17/R
Summary: Jared never thought he'd be in Hell's Kitchen, but as he goes through the challenges, he also never thought he'd fall for someone like Jensen. However, he has a game to win, and he has to put his feelings on the back-burner. He just hopes he can actually do it.
Disclaimer: Definitely don't own. And I definitely do not believe any of this is true. It's all fake. All of it. Well, except for Heather West winning season two, and other mentions of past seasons of Hell's Kitchen.
Warnings: None? Well, no. Cock-blocking and extreme waiting for the 'big' finale. More of a look of the guys in the kitchen, and not there relationship, but I tried. ;)
Notes: This thing was a fucking monster!!! It was my baby though. Go check out my acknowledgements/more notes page for more things. :)
Previous Chapter
When Jared opens his eyes again, everything is bright and hurts, causing him to quickly shut them again and groan. After a few minutes, Jared covers his eyes with his hand before slowly opening them up again, looking around as he spots his team surrounding him with worry in their eyes and features, causing Jared to scrunch up his face in confusion.
“What happened, guys?” He asks quietly, unsure of why he’s on the hard floor just outside the kitchens but a little kick in his brain states that he does indeed know why he’s on the floor. He slowly makes his way into a sitting position, looking over at Jensen as he helps him up, being able to see the worry that is written clearly in Jensen's face.
“Jared, you fainted.” Jared looks over to see a paramedic next to him, plus Chef Ramsay and damn, that is not awesome at all. He hasn’t fainted in front of a lot of people in quite a long time and it makes Jared look down and blush, nervousness and embarrassment making his cheeks turn red.
“It appears you haven’t had enough glucose in you and -“
“Yeah -“Jared interrupts, running his fingers through his hair and looking down in shame. He always found it ironic that a chef like him is diabetic, and definitely tries to hide the fact from everyone he knows, but it looks like the competition had gotten to his schedule and fuck, how could he not remember. No, how could he not make himself take his medication for the diabetes and pretend to forget about it.
“Are you gonna be alright, man?” Jeff asks, and Jared nods his head, rubbing his face quickly before smiling at the people around him.
“Make sure you take your medication, Jared. What I’ve seen from you - you’re good, and you could go far.” Jared turns his head towards the Chef and smiles slightly, while blushing even more than before because he knows this just put a huge bulls eye on his back. He can hear everyone laugh, and hears the Chef tell everyone to let him up and help him if he needs it before he returns to his office.
***
An hour later, Jared is lying on his bed wearing a sweater and his boxers, his hand splayed out on his stomach as he watches Jensen search through his bags, looking for his medication. After a few seconds, Jensen rises to his full height, holding Jared’s medication out to him.
“Is that it?” Jared nods his head, and while Jensen helps Jared take said medication, Jared smiles slightly.
“Thanks, Jen,” Jared says quietly, ducking his head and looking at Jensen with his eyes wide.
Jensen nods his head before running his hand through Jared’s hair, and god that feels so good.
Jared’s eyes are closed and he’s extremely comfortable on his bed as he feels Jensen’s fingers scratching lightly over his scalp, knowing he hasn’t felt like this since his own father walked out on them and his mother couldn’t bring herself to comfort Jared and his siblings in any way anymore.
After a few minutes, Jared hears Jensen whisper a goodnight before he’s falling asleep.
***
The next morning, Jared wakes up and slowly gets ready for the day - and the next challenge. Jared’s in the bathroom with Chad, talking about how his team is dealing with the loss of Chris and who the leader might be when Genevieve walks in wearing the smallest and tightest shorts you could think of, alongside her bra. Jared quickly looks over at Chad and rolls his eyes as Genevieve whispers a ‘hello’ to him and touches his arm.
“Hello Genevieve,” Jared says dully, not wanting to really talk to the girl. He glares at Chad as he watches his friend chuckle at Jared, and it takes everything Jared has not to hit the man.
“We should get to know each other better, Jared.” Genevieve purrs and it takes even more restraint to not grimace in front of the mirror at Genevieve’s words.
“Uh, maybe later, okay?” Jared states quickly, rushing out of the bathroom to wake up his roommate. He knows he should remind Genevieve that he’s gay and definitely not going for females any time soon (or at all, considering his past), but he just can’t bring himself to do so because he knows she won’t listen to him, especially during this time.
When he finally gets to their shared bedroom, he jumps on Jensen's bed. “Wake up, Jen! Wake up! It's an earthquake, we have to get out!” Jared shouts as seriously as he can manage and watches amused when Jensen startles awake. His serious tone breaks and he bursts into laughter when Jensen nearly falls out of bed, but Jared catches him quickly.
“Asshole,” Jensen grumbles without much venom in his voice as he rubs his eyes with his fists.
Jared eventually stops jumping on the bed and returns to his own to sit at the edge.
“Sorry man, I had Genevieve bugging me and needed to get the hell away from her.” Jared says, before standing up and patting Jensen good-naturedly on the back.
“Come on man, we’ve gotta leave for the challenge soon.” He states as he leaves the room, turning on the light to make sure Jensen stays awake, knowing that if he doesn’t do so, Jensen will go back to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, Jared and everyone else is slowly making their way to what they can assume is the car of Hell’s Kitchen. Of course, they don’t actually know, since they’re being led by the appropriate Sous Chefs, with blindfolds on. Jared can hear some of the ladies whimpering a little - no doubt Genevieve, actually - and rolls his eyes behind the blindfold before nearly hitting whatever it was that made him stop.
“Ow, dude.”
“Sorry, Jeff.” He replies, before slowly continuing his way. When he hears Chef Scott say ‘up,’ Jared lifts his foot and hefts his self up before finding his way to an available seat, no doubt being squished between Jeff and Jensen, which isn’t all that bad.
Jared doesn’t know how long they’re in the car, just knows that he can feel every bump and rock that the vehicle hits, knows that with each bump, Jared grimaces, biting his lip, feeling himself become tense more and more. After a while, he can feel Jensen’s fingers on his upper thigh, and creating goose bumps onto Jared’s neck.
He tries his hardest not to let out a groan, but he soon finds himself loosening up, especially when Jensen goes higher up his thigh with each stroke. Jared bites his lip even more when Jensen skims past his dick, can feel it tightening in his jeans and hardening within seconds. At this point, he lets a small groan out of his mouth, and can hear Jensen laugh lightly before turning to where he thinks Jensen is and leaning in to whisper.
“Swear to god, Jen, don’t start something you can’t finish.” He hears Jensen chuckle, can feel it vibrate through his body and clenches his jaw.
“Alright, I’ll stop. But only because I can feel the car stopping and know how embarrassing it would be for you to have to exit the car with a hard on.” Jensen says quietly, and Jared lets out a sigh of relief, glad at the somewhat odd generosity Jensen has shown, and thinks of his grandmother before he gets out of the opened door when he hears Scott say his name.
He stands still with everyone next to him, and when Scott tells them to take their blindfolds off, Jared does so slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the bright lights. He looks around and sees everyone else doing the exact same thing he’s doing. When he catches Jensen’s eyes, he lets out a small smile and arches his eyebrow suggestively, his smile growing wide. He watches as Jensen shakes his head with a smile on his face, and Jared faces forward and can see a factory like building in front of him. He can smell blood prominently and scrunches up his nose and wrinkles it at the smell. He looks towards everyone and can see that they have no idea where they are,
“Alright, let’s make our way through the doors, where we’ll find Chef Ramsay waiting for us!” Jared hears Chef Heather yell and everyone nods their heads before slowly making their way through the doorways and then, the building. After a few minutes, the smell of blood is even more prominent than before and after a few more seconds, they enter a room full of it, with thousands of cows hanging upside down in the room. Standing in the middle of it all is Chef Ramsay, with his hands behind his back, his chef’s jacket buttoned and pristine. Jared smiles slightly at the sight, but it soon turns into a grimace when he turns around and sees Genevieve puking into a basket.
Once she has finished vomiting, Jared, and everyone else, turns around to look at Chef when he clears his throat, some people nearly jumping out of their skin when they realize Sous Chef’s Scott and Heather are standing next to him. Ramsay clears his throat once more, and anyone still talking immediately quiets.
“This is a cow that has yet to be butchered into the pieces that you normally know them as.” Ramsay starts. He resumes to tell everyone what their challenge is - that in the other room, there are two sets of cows. There are the cuts of the cow, which they have to label, and after they’ve labeled it, they have to arrange the cuts on a Velcro cow correctly so. Once Chef has described their challenge, Jared’s team has to choose two people to sit out on the challenge. After some deliberation, the team chooses Jeff and Genevieve, Jeff because he has admittedly stated he doesn’t know cuts very well and Genevieve because she didn’t even know what they were doing.
With Danneel, Katie, Jensen and Jared ready to do the cuts - and c’mon, with two players from Texas - they were ready to roll with the challenge.
When Ramsay says go, the first person from each team - Jensen and Jim - go and label each of the cuts that they can. Jensen ends up with labeling half of them correctly, while Jim only did a quarter of them correctly. Then it's Katie's and Sophia's turn, who both label three correctly; then Danneel and Chad, who both get none correct and lastly, Jared and Steve, both from Texas. Jared labels the rest correctly, while Steve had one incorrect, and Jared runs over to the Velcro section, and stood for a minute, shocked that everything has completely slipped his mind.
“Fuck” he whispers quietly, bouncing on his feet. He can hear his team yelling at him, and zones in on Jensen’s voice, listening to him and his expertise. After a few seconds, Jared gets back into the action, quickly labeling the Velcro cow, and jumping up and down when Ramsay states that he has won the challenge for his team.
After everyone has calmed down - from either the excitement or the disappointment - Chef Ramsay stands in front of his second in commands, staring at them all with intense eyes before showing a slight smile.
“Winners, you will get a wine tasting at the most pristine Wine brewery known in this area and a diner made by myself and two other famous chefs.” The red team cheers in happiness at that, knowing that they won’t be having the punishment.
“Losers - you will be butchering beef that we need for the service tomorrow.” Chef says, and Jared feels sorry for the blue team, knows that butchering meat is no easy feat. The teams make their way back to the Hell’s Kitchen cars, watching the scenery go by as they drive back to the restaurant and dorms.
***
An hour later, Jared, Jensen, Jeff, Danneel , Genevieve and Katie are making their way to the brewery for the wine tasting. All five of them are talking happily with one another, pumped up for their reward of winning the challenge. They get into the vehicle and within the minute, are on their way.
“Christ Jared, you did great in that challenge,” Jeff says, sipping a glass of champagne in the limousine that’s taking them to their reward. Jared blushes and smiles, stops himself from looking down and instead, thanks the older man, eyes sparkling with mirth. The six of them continue talking as they drive away from Hell’s Kitchen, about how they feel while in the kitchen, how they can help each to get better, both in their communication skills and their cooking skills. After that, the conversation slowly slides into how Genevieve can become a better chef, and instead of shutting down like she normally would, she listens.
“It’s just - you need to be able to accept help, Genevieve.” Jensen states while playing with his hand, looking around at everyone else.
“Not only that, you need to be able to accept when you’ve made a mistake,” Danneel adds, putting her arm around the younger girl and patting her shoulder. Genevieve nods her head and her eyes squint and Jared can’t help but sigh.
“Genevieve, it’s still early in the game and you can get better,” Jared states, looking at her softly, and when she nods her head, he’s satisfied.
“…How?” He hears her ask timidly and looks over at Jeff, hoping the older man could take this one for the team.
“Well, like Danneel and Jensen said, you can accept help and your mistakes, but it’s more than just that, Gen.” Katie replies instead, joining Genevieve’s other side. Genevieve nods her head and bites her lip before tilting her head in question.
“You can try and do better in challenges, you can listen to the Chefs, you can-“ Katie begins, stopping when she can’t think of anything else and knows that she’ll need to if Gen will take them seriously.
“You can read the recipes and memorize them like we all have,” Jeff interrupts, inevitably saving Katie from being in the front of a famous Genevieve temper tantrum.
“Okay. Right after the reward, I’ll start.” Genevieve says, nodding her head and Jared bites his lip, unsure if she’ll truly keep to that pact, and when he looks around, he can see everyone else on his team is thinking the exact same thing.
***
When the team finally enters the brewery, they all stop talking and look around the building in awe. It's big, the ceilings are high enough that they have to tilt their heads back completely; which causes a sore neck once they straighten it. They can see plenty of wine bottles, wine drums and people working around the factory. When they finally catch sight of the wine master, they smile and walk over to him smiling. Shortly after, they find that their wine tasting is going by way too quickly. They all get to taste samples of different wines, some of them (mostly Jeff) drinking more than they should - but most of them drink less than they could. After an hour of being in the brewery, their tour guide shows them to a room nicely lit with a round table and Chef Ramsay standing in front of it. When they finally get to the table, Ramsay is all smiles, saying hello to them, letting them sit next to whomever they want. The end product ends up with Chef Ramsay, Jeff, Danneel, Jensen, Katie, Genevieve and then Jared. Jared feels lucky to be sitting next to Chef Ramsay, but at the same time, he’s a flutter of nerves because of the fact that he’s sitting next to Ramsay.
“How is everyone?” Chef asks and pretty soon after, everyone is taking turns talking to him, telling him about their day, how everything has been going. Sooner than later, the topics turn into family and relationships and things turn slightly awkward.
“So, basically, I’m in a relationship with Katie over there, and Jeff’s in a relationship with Jim on the opposite side.” Danneel says, pointing to the people in question and laughing while she takes a sip of her wine. Jared smiles as Chef laughs back, but that smile vanishes with Chef’s next words.
“What about Jensen and Jared?” Chef grins, his accent becoming more pronounced after a few sips of his drink. Everyone but Jared and Jensen laugh at that comment. Jared looks down and blushes, completely missing Jensen’s reaction and that just causes everyone else to laugh even more so than before.
“Yeah, they’re not in a relationship….yet!” Katie replies giggling as she looks at the pairs blush. When the chef opens his mouth in shock, Jared notices Jensen smiling at him lightly and Jared just blushes even more so than before.
“No bloody way!” He says, his eyes going wide and everyone laughs again at that, which just causes Jared to shake his head and blush a hell of a lot more than he’s used to.
“Wow. You guys absolutely are not?”
“Ah, nope, we’re not together,” Jared chuckles while scratching his forearm nervously. He can’t really stand to look directly at the Chef because of his embarrassment, so instead he looks at Danneel and smiles lightly, trying to get rid of the redness he knows is on his face. Danneel smiles back and it’s a light smile, one that says she’s sorry for all of the embarrassment that he’s being faced with.
While Jared sits there and listens to everyone talking about them, Jared can’t help but think about how well he gets along with everyone. They’ve only known each other for a short period of time, but Jared has a strong bond with nearly everyone that’s in this competition, which is kind of frightening for someone like Jared. It scares him, but he’s looking forward to getting to know the others and definitely looking forward to the unknown feelings.
“Jay?” Jared looks over to Jensen and smiles lightly, yawning behind his mouth and stretching. The movement causes Chef to laugh and stand up.
“It’s probably about time for you to get out of here and rest,” He states, wishing everyone a goodnight and patting them on the back or hugging them as he leaves.
***
It’s nearly one in the morning when their limousine pulls up in front of Hell’s Kitchen and most of them are so tired that they stagger out of it, unsteady but slowly regaining their balance. When they finally make their way up to the dorms, the opposite team laughs at them, believing they’re drunk, but Jared just doesn’t care, even when he hears Chad say that they’ll suffer for it when their asses are kicked at the following service. Jared wants to snort at that, he really does, but he finds himself way too tired to even bother opening his eyes up properly, so instead, he just makes his way to his shared room with Jensen, opening the door and then laying on the bed so he can fall asleep. However, as tired as he was on his way to the bed, once he’s finally hit the actual bed, he feels wide awake, pent up energy cursing through his veins, which just causes him to sigh. When the door opens and a string of light comes through the door, Jared turns his back away from it, and towards Jensen’s bed.
“What’s up, man?” Jensen asks him, taking off his boots while sitting on his own bed. Jared looks up at him through his bangs and blows them away, watching as they fall back into his eyes.
“I can’t fall asleep, dude.” He replies, snuggling deep into his blankets. He watches Jensen take off his jeans, watches as they slide down his thighs slowly, cursing when they go over his cock which, shit, definitely seems large and full. Jared finds himself licking his lips in desire. Once Jensen’s pants are off, Jared follows his hands to his shirt, which Jensen is slowly lifting up over his head, showing his flat stomach with abs full of magic, no fucking doubt because shit, Jared is suddenly hard just at the mere sight.
“Jensen?” He says, licking his lips again and looking up at the older man. He sees Jensen tilt his head in curiosity as he comes closer and thank god because Jared does not want to get up from the comfortable position he’s in. Once Jensen sat down on the bed and is close enough, Jared frees his hand of the blankets covering him and puts it on Jensen’s cheek, bringing him even closer, until he can close his eyes and touch his lips to Jensen’s. After a few moments of waiting patiently for Jensen to react, he finally does and lets his tongue touch Jared’s lips, allowing Jared to open them up and let Jensen explore.
The kiss lasts for countless minutes, with the both of them moaning in pleasure. Jared’s fingers are running through Jensen’s hair when he pulls away and smiles. Jared whimpers at the loss, not wanting the older man to move away from him. When Jensen puts his forehead against Jared’s though, Jared suddenly feels exhausted and sighs lightly.
“Go to bed, Jay.” Jensen whispers, kissing him lightly. Jared nods, but needs to say at least one more thing, needs for Jensen to know that what has happened - what is happening between them is something important to Jared, something he’s definitely not taking lightly, by the way his heart flutters every time he sees the older man.
“Hey, Jen?” Jared groans, snuggling in closer, watching as Jensen turns around and smiles.
“Yeah, man?” He says, his smile still on his face, though it’s somewhat tense and Jared hates that.
“Jensen,” He says once more, grabbing Jensen’s hand and pulling him closer to him, knowing he has to get this out for sure, before Jensen pulls away both physically and emotionally.
“Jensen, that kiss, it was…” When Jensen starts pulling away, Jared literally has to tighten his hold and nearly shouts out a no.
“Jared…”
“Jensen, this is serious for me. We might not be able to do anything now, but I need you to know that I want to... you know... later, okay?” Jared says and when Jensen nods his head and kisses him affectionately one more time, Jared finally falls asleep, calm and sated.
***
When Jared wakes up the next morning, he blinks his eyes open to see Jensen staring at him, and smiles lightly.
“Were you serious about last night, Jared?” Jensen asks, biting his lip and looking away, a deep red tinge in his cheeks. Jared watches Jensen as he does this, and smiles back before sitting up slowly.
“I was dead serious, Jensen. I want to get to know you better, I want to be able to take you out on a date, cook for you-“ Jared says, smirking, smiling when Jensen laughs at his statement.
“I want to be able to hold you, kiss you, make -“
“Guys, c’mon, Ramsay wants us downstairs,” Jeff yells, pounding on the door, causing Jared and Jensen to jump up away from each other as their bodies had gotten closer together, in shock before rushing to get dressed. Within a minute, they’re both hurrying downstairs with their chef’s jackets on and nerves in their stomach. Today is still early, not nearly close to opening for tonight, only a prep day, really, so the only reason Chef would call them down is if he had something important to say. That thought alone scares Jared, and looking over at Katie and
Genevieve, he knows they’re feeling the same thing. Once everyone is down in front of the kitchens, Chef comes down and stares at them, causing each of them to move about.
“Currently, the red team has six members and the blue team has four members,” he begins and the nerves in Jared’s stomach begin fluttering like crazy. He looks over at Danneel discreetly and gulps, knows that she’s nearly having a panic attack because none of them want to lose anyone from this team.
“Danneel,” Chef states, and Jared can feel his eyes go wide, fear settling in his stomach, definitely not wanting her to change teams.
“Take off your jacket, and put on this blue one,” Ramsay finishes, throwing Danneel the jacket. Jared watches as Danneel plays with the jacket for a minute before sighing and slowly pulling her jacket off and putting the blue one on, hesitant and not wanting to upset Chef, but being upset herself at having to change sides, all the while looking at her team with regret and sorrow in her eyes, not wanting to leave them.
“Go join your new team, Danneel,” Chef states, and Danneel nods, before lining up with the blue team, next to Sophia, who rubs her arm in understanding. Ramsay nods and Jared thinks he can see sympathy in his eyes, especially after last night’s dinner but before Jared can take a second look, his eyes are the same.
“Go prep your kitchens,” Chef says with the teams going off in to their kitchens, the red team feeling Danneel’s loss heavily.
~***~//~***~
The prepping of the kitchens happens fast and furiously, Jared’s team trying their best to forget about their loss. However, it’s not exactly easy, since whenever they look up, they can see Danneel struggling to find her place in her new team.
As the chef comes down from his office, everyone can hear him talking to Danneel, telling her that she needs to be a leader for this team, and Jared watches as Danneel nods her head and gets to work, quickly talking to Steve as she does so. Jared knows that Steve has been slowly getting his leadership skills on, and while Jared watches the two of them talk, he just knows that
Danneel is saying how they’ll both lead, so that way, Steve can shine. Jared watches as Steve nods his head and it causes Jared to smile slightly before finishing the prep on his scallops.
“Jeff, how is your station coming?” Jared hears Jensen shout across the kitchen, but tunes out Jeff’s response, instead deciding to focus on the fact that his prepping is finished and decides to go and help Katie, who’s prepping the meat station, which isn’t her easiest section.
The two of them work together, helping one another with the other meat recipes that Katie needs to know. Every now and then, Jared catches Katie looking over at Danneel and biting her lip before looking down with worry on her features.
“Danneel kept me going in the kitchen, Jay. When she saw I was about to fail, or was going too far out of my capability, she helped me climb back up,” Katie says quietly, and Jared realizes exactly what Katie’s worried about.
“Hey, I won’t let that happen to you, alright?” Jared says, putting his arm around Katie’s shoulders and hugging her tightly. He feels her nod her head against his chest and after a few minutes of staying like that, she pulls away and lets out a small smile.
“Thanks, man.” Jared nods his head, before helping Katie finish her prep, knowing that Katie could go for as long as she keeps her cool.
Within the next half hour, Katie and Jared finish Katie’s prep and decide to help Genevieve with hers, as she has actually admitted to needing help. They take ten minutes to help Genevieve, by writing on tape and putting the tape in their correct sections, a la the first season Jared’s ever seen, thank you Ralph. When the two of them, and Jensen and Jeff who had joined in on them helping Genevieve later, feel confident with their last teammate, they walk away and finish their own stations, just in time for Chef to come down.
He stands in front of them all and looks at them before quickly nodding his head.
“Let’s go, yeah? Hell’s Kitchen opens up in two minutes.” He says, clapping his hands and walking away.
***
During this service, both kitchens are in absolute shambles, trying their hardest to not have any more mistakes on this day. Jared’s busy focusing on helping Katie with her station, now that all of his appetizers are gone, but it’s not easy with Genevieve always getting in between them and asking them for help. Jared can only sigh in annoyance before putting Genevieve out of his mind and helping Katie. Not even five minutes later, however, Genevieve is back, and instead of asking for help, she’s taking their current dish - which is nowhere near ready or wanted - to the pass. Jared stares at the younger female before shaking his head and snapping out of his trance.
“Genevieve!” He shouts, not wanting to leave Katie’s station because of all the dishes actually cooking.
“Jared, go and stop her. I’ve got it here.” Katie says, swishing all of the pots and pans in front of her and nodding her head towards Genevieve. Jared nods his head before leaving the station and rushing over to Genevieve while shouting her name, which just causes Sous Chef Scott to hit his side and tell him to shut up. Jared nearly laughs at that, but he’s caught Gen, so he doesn’t.
“Genevieve, bring that dish back!” Jared says, turning her around with his arm on her shoulders.
“What, why? Isn’t it ready?”
“No, Genevieve. We called for you to come back but you didn’t, and there’s no way I’m letting you bring out raw fucking meat to Ramsay.” He sees Genevieve look down and bite her lip in sadness and for a minute, Jared feels pity for her before looking away.
“He’ll yell at you if you bring it up, so just, bring it back and let us cook it, alright?” Jared says slowly, knowing that if he goes any faster, the other girl might have a total mental break down. When she finally nods her head, Jared lets out a breath of relief and ushers her back towards Katie and heads there himself, making sure nothing gets worse.
Once he’s finally there, he hears Danneel shouting in the opposite kitchen, and using his height he can see her cradling her hand and bites his lip in worry. He watches as she walks towards a bowl full of ice, thanks to Heather, and while she does so, she’s still shouting orders towards everyone, making sure they all do the things they need to do correctly. Jared watches as Chef Ramsay nods his head and tells her to go to the medic, and Jared turns around when he hears his name being called by Jensen, who’s working on the garnish station.
“What do you need help with, man?” Jared asks, watching as Jensen flounders a little bit.
“These garnishes over-“Jensen stops talking when he hears the Chef yelling in the other kitchen. Everyone in the kitchen stops what they’re doing quickly and looks over at the opposite kitchen, watching as Jim runs his hands through what little hair he has, before they continue their stations.
“Yeah man, alright.” Jared says, quickly grabbing one of the pans and adding more of a kind of garnish to it, making sure nothing burns or is undercooked. After a few minutes, Jared asks Katie if she’s ready to go up and then Jeff if he’s ready and when they all give a positive, Jared goes up to the pass with the garnish, and soon after, everyone else follows.
Within the next hour, Jared and his team get out the rest of the entrées and soon start working on getting all of the deserts out, which is Genevieve’s station.
“Genevieve, if you need help, ask us for help!” Katie shouts, getting the used pans clean, while Jensen works on the garnishes for the desserts and Jared finishes the plating. Genevieve nods her head and after a few minutes, the team finds themselves completing their service, and with Scott, they let out a little cheer as they watch the opposite team finish their own service, Danneel and her burnt hand included.
***
Both teams are lined up completely inside their respective kitchens, their bodies aligned tightly, their hands either crossed against their chest, at their sides, or linked behind their backs and their heads looking at the chef attentively. Currently, Ramsay is standing in front of the pass, looking at them all with a look in his eyes that most people would be afraid of, but the teams are on a small high from both kitchens completing service and not letting anything get to them this time.
After this had been going on for a few minutes, Ramsay lets out a small smile that Jared thinks only he sees, and then he opens his mouth.
“I am incredibly impressed right now, with both of your kitchens,” Ramsay says, his arms uncrossing and going behind his back instead.
“You both finished service today!” Ramsay says, his voice clearly showing his happiness over that fact alone.
“However,” Chef begins and Jared can feel himself biting his lip in angst.
“However, there is still a losing team, and it hurts me to say this, but, blue team, you’re the losers.” He finishes, and Jared feels himself sagging in relief but yet worried for Danneel and her position on the blue team.
“Danneel, you were the best of the worst tonight. I want you to nominate two of your fellow teammates and tell me them in a half hour. Off you go,” Chef claps and Jared watches Danneel nod her head, everyone saying ‘yes chef’ in reply before walking off.
Within a few minutes, the two teams are at their dorms or hanging around by the patio outside. Currently, Danneel, Jensen, Katie and Jared are outside on the patio while Steve and Jim are outside, but not at the patio station. Everyone else is inside, either making something to eat or getting something to drink.
“I really don’t know who to pick, Jay,” Danneel says, biting on her nails as she takes a sip of her water bottle. Jared nods his head as Katie rubs comforting circles on Danneel’s back and Jensen flicks the top of Jared’s lighter. The group is silent for a few minutes, making room when Steve and Jim come and sit with them, and Jared decides to help out.
“You just have to think rationally, Danni, which two people did not do well tonight.” He watches as his friend nods her head and flicks her eyes to the group around them, biting her lip and twirling her hair around her finger.
“What do you guys think?” Danneel finally asks after thinking about it for five minutes, her lip nearly split open from biting it so hard. Jared can see Jensen open his mouth when Jared hears Jim speak up instead.
“I’m not an idiot - I know I did badly tonight. You can put me up, Danneel, and there won’t be any hard feelings.” Jared can see Danneel try and tell Jim that she would never nominate him but with one look, she looks away and closes her eyes, letting out a deep breath and looking at Jim with sadness.
“I still need a second person, though.” Danneel snorts and Jared nods his head, thinking about the people on the opposite team and how well they did tonight. However, Jared can’t really think of anything, being so busy with his own team.
“Who did you guys see that wasn’t up to their potential?” Jensen asks, shrugging, still playing with Jared’s lighter and a cigarette, like he’s trying to decide if he should decide to light up, even though he doesn’t even smoke. Jared snorts at the thought, smiling when Jensen looks at him confusedly, and then looking back at Danneel to watch as she thinks about her new team.
“Shit. Chad, I’m afraid to say, didn’t do the best.” Danneel replies, and Jared watches Steve and Jim nod their heads in agreement and Jared can feel his heart plummet to his stomach, not wanting his best friend to be gone.
“I’m sorry, Jay.” Danneel says softly, her eyes holding a sadness in them and Jared shares a small smile with her before scratching his stomach and getting up. When he finally reaches Danneel, he kneels down in front of her and quickly whispers to her, nodding his head and letting her know that no matter what she does, he won’t mind and there won’t be hard feelings. After that, he leaves to stretch himself before going downstairs.
Within ten minutes, Jared and his fellow teammates are sitting in a circle at a table behind Chef Ramsay, while the blue team is lined up in front of him, Danneel, Steve, Chad, Sophia and Jim, closely together as a team, not knowing what’s going to come. Jared can see the team looking worried about this elimination, and even he feels worried about this elimination, not wanting to see someone he likes going.
“Danneel, have you made your decision?”
“Yes, chef.” Danneel replies, straightening herself up and biting her lip.
“What are your nominations?”
Danneel takes a deep breath, shifting her eyes slightly before saying -“My first nomination is Jim, Chef, because he had his worst service today, and I don’t see him getting back from that. My second nomination, Chef, is Chad-“At this, Jared notices Chad looking completely shocked and has to bite his lip from the face he has required -“Chad, because of the fact that his service has been steadily bad, and he has not become better throughout the course of the competition.” She finishes, taking a deep sigh and looking down afterwards.
“I agree with that, Danneel. Jim and Chad, step forward please.” Jared watches as both people step forward, lining up together and looking at Ramsay with a deer in the headlights expression on their faces.
“Jim, why should you stay in Hell’s Kitchen?” Jared watches as Jim explains why he should stay in the kitchen, including things like how he’s got the skills on the pass and how he’s just getting into the role of leadership.
“Alright, Chad, why should you stay in Hell’s Kitchen?” After a near five minutes of talking, Chef finally shuts Chad up and Jared stops himself from laughing.
“Jim, take off your jacket,” Chef says, and Jared can feel himself take a breath in relief yet feel sadness at the loss of Jim, even though the fellow man isn’t on his team. Looking over at Jeff, Jared can see the loss of someone clearly on his face and pats the fellow man on his back, watching as he nods his head.
“We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Now, fuck off.” Chef says and nods quickly.
~***~//~***~
The next day, both teams are standing in front of the kitchens, watching as Ramsay comes down from his office, wondering what is under the dome in front of them and what it means for their upcoming challenge. When the Chef is finally down in front of them, they shift their body weight, making sure they’re not showing any weaknesses.
“Good morning,” Ramsay says, everyone else replying as they take everything in, curious to know what the next challenge is. As Chef explains its background, Jared moves around listlessly, looking around at everyone as they do the same. When Ramsay finally lifts up the dome to reveal the dish, everyone nearly sputters at what they see, a little hesitant over it.
“Yes, it is a pizza.” Chef says and Jared arches his eyebrows, wanting to know what they’re going to have to do with this pizza. He continues on to explain the role pizza had in his life and Jared tunes out of the talk for a little while, thinking of what he would do to a pizza to make it more fine dining. After a few minutes, Jared snaps back to attention when Jensen nudges him with his shoulders in his side.
“Your challenge today, is to make a regular pizza into a pizza that can be served at a fine dining restaurant.” Chef says, and Jared has to shake his head a little because holy shit, his brain is awesome.
“You have forty-five minutes, starting…NOW!” Chef says, and everyone from both teams starts running towards their prospective kitchens, collecting the ingredients they need to make their own pizzas.
“At the forty minute mark, everyone should taste each pizza and decide which one to bring up,” He says and Jared takes that in before going through his ingredients. He immerses himself in the cooking of his pizza, first by making the dough from scratch the way his momma taught him and then by making the white pizza sauce to put on after the dough is made. He’s lucky enough to have all of the ingredients available to actually make the sauce, thank god. When he looks at the time, he realizes that he just has enough time to put his toppings on, thankful that he had cut them all up and grated the cheese beforehand. The cheeses he’s used are limburger cheese - though just a slight amount, what with its strong flavor and horrible foot odor smell - parmigiano cheese, mozzarella - which he has put in the crust -- and provolone cheese, a combination which Jared finds absolutely delightful, though he knows some people do not, if the cheese are not separated, divided and used in an equal amount that compliments all of the flavors. For his toppings, he has decided to use lobster, pineapple and good old chicken. With just enough time, Jared has put his pizza into the oven, shutting the door and letting out a sigh of relief, praying that his pizza will taste good enough. He quickly looks around and sees that everyone else has put their pizzas into the ovens as well and each member is now describing their dishes. He joins in on the group, listening as Genevieve explains her dish and can’t help but wrinkle his nose at the sound of what she’s used - complete limburger, rabbit and olives, while using green tomatoes as a sauce base. He then listens as Jeff explains his dish, thinking to himself that if it wasn’t for the octopus, he would totally eat it. Katie’s dish sounds pretty good too, what with her using Gouda cheese, caviar and clams; Jensen’s dish is definitely interesting - chicken, orange zest and garlic, with a cheddar cheese and no sauce. When Jared begins describing his dish, he can see everyone looking thoughtful at his choices, a few of them nodding their heads, a couple more shaking theirs.
When the time comes, each person takes out their pizza, cutting it and taking bites out of each, talking about which one they would choose. They automatically say no to Genevieve’s pizza - Genevieve included once she actually tastes it, and it’s tied nearly with the other dishes. Jensen and Katie like Jared’s dish, while Katie and Jared like Jensen’s and Genevieve likes Jeff’s. With three minutes left to choose, and Chef constantly calling the time, the team makes the choice to use Jensen’s dish, but not without some motivation from Jared, who says he can just eat his pizza afterwards, his team knowing he could eat the whole thing by himself. Jared watches as Jensen nods his head and wipes his hands on his jacket, sighing nervously before looking over at Jared quickly and biting his lip. Jared walks towards Jensen slowly, angling his body to match Jensen’s, nudging the fellow man’s shoulders with his own, letting a small smile appear on his lips to try and calm Jensen down. He watches as Jensen fiddles with his jacket, continuing to bite his lip and sigh and Jared can only do one thing to calm Jensen down.
“Hey,” he says, his voice rough from the heat of all the pizza he tried repeatedly, twisting Jensen’s body towards his by pulling on Jensen’s wrist. As Jensen looks up at him and blushes, Jared can’t help but find him adorable.
“Your pizza is great, Jensen, and it will do great out there, alright?” Jared says softly, lowering himself by bending his knees and looking at Jensen’s eyes, while putting his hands on Jensen’s shoulders. Jensen lets out a deep breath and relaxes his body before nodding his head. He looks up at Jared again and smiles, still nodding his head before rushing away and finishing his pizza, searching for Jared’s eyes every few seconds and smiling gratefully.
Within a few minutes, both Jensen and Steve are up at the pass with their pizzas ready to be tasted. He can see that Steve is just as nervous as Jensen and that Steve’s pizza looks just as good as Jensen’s and Jared knows that this battle is going to be a close call. Jared barely pays attention as Chef Ramsay makes his way towards the two friends, and instead, chooses to pay attention to Jensen, trying not to get too carried away with his observations. Jared can’t help but notice that Jensen is nearly as tall as him, his hair a mess from constantly running his fingers through it in stress but definitely making the older man look pretty hot. Jared shifts his body briefly, wondering why the two of them connected so well with one another and so quickly at that, until he hears the cheers of a team and quickly looks around, realizing that his team has won the challenge - again. Jared lets out a brief, apologetic smile at the other team - Danni especially, knowing that she misses being with them - and then a quick smile at Jensen for having the winning dish before quickly turning away and letting out a deep breath. It scares Jared how well Jensen and him clicked - and he knows he’s being repetitive with this thought, but fuck, he’s never clicked with someone so quickly before, or had anyone so similar but different from him at the exact same time. He lets out another sigh and wonders where these questions are coming from before turning around and standing straight to hear Ramsay’s punishments and rewards. He can’t focus on anything though, even the award, and it isn’t until everyone is leaving and Jensen looks at him with worry in his eyes that Jared snaps out of his funk.
“You okay, man?” Jensen asks, patting Jared’s shoulder before rubbing into it and Jared sighs, biting his lip and shakes his head, his eyes going wide.
“We need to talk…about everything, Jensen.” Jared says, watching as Jensen’s eyes go wide before he nods, gulping. Jared nods his head before walking away with his team and putting his hands behind his back, slowly letting Danneel walk with him.
“Are you good, man?” She asks, looping her arm through his, walking like a soldier, causing him to laugh lightly.
“I don’t know, Danni. I feel like - like everything is going really fast with everything.”
“And it scares you?” She asks, walking normal again and looking behind herself quickly, arching her eyes at the sound she thought she heard before shaking her head in confusion.
“It scares the shit out of me, Danni - especially since I know I can see the prize in my future,” Jared replies, biting his lip for letting that one sentence slip out of his mouth and causing Danneel to stop walking completely, which subsequently leads to Jared being pulled back quickly. Jared looks at Danneel with his eyes wide and her eyes are wide as well, before he finds himself laughing.
“Fuck, right?” He laughs, continuing their walk to the dorms. Danneel nods her head, before stopping the two of them again, which causes Jared to look at her in confusion.
“Just, be honest with him Jare, alright?” She says, her eyes shining bright. Jared tilts his head and furrows his eyes, unsure of how to continue with this discussion.
“You guys have become one of my closest friends - just, don’t make me choose, okay?” She says, nodding her head and Jared smiles, nodding back before taking a step back and shooing her away so he can talk to Jensen.
***
It’s a couple of hours later - and a really deep conversation with Jensen later- that the two of them leave their bedroom with their jackets on and get ready to go down to service. When they leave the room, they walk straight into Danneel and Katie, and watch as they both smile and tilt their heads.
“Well?” Katie asks, moving her body in anticipation. When Jared looks down and blushes and Jensen nods his head briefly, Katie screeches in excitement, clapping her hands and jumping up and down in happiness. Jared is still blushing when she stops and he slowly looks up with a grimace of fear on his face.
“We’re happy for you, Jay,” Katie says quietly, squeezing his biceps and walking away, Danneel following her with a smile on her face. Jared looks towards Jensen and smiles briefly before following the females towards the kitchen, ready and pumped for service tonight.
***
Once everyone is down in their respective kitchens, the teams separate and prep their kitchens, for anything and everything that could happen tonight. Jared and Jeff are currently working on the garnish station tonight, and Jared cannot help but look towards Genevieve, who is working the entrée section tonight, by herself, and Jared is definitely worried about that. Without even looking around the kitchen, he knows everyone feels the same - Genevieve included, by the set of her shoulders and how slow she’s doing everything. The prep time goes by quickly and before Jared knows it, Chef is yelling for Jean-Phillipe to open Hell’s Kitchen. Many different people are pouring into the dining area, causing a reverberation to come through.
Pretty soon after that, Ramsay is calling out their first ticket and Jared can feel his heart beating faster in his chest. He gets ready to cook, only to find that he doesn’t do well with Jeff next to him. He tries his hardest to work with the guy, but it isn’t exactly easy and he can’t help but wonder why he’s never noticed his not-so-well chemistry in the kitchen with Jeff.
He can hear Genevieve being yelled at, not by Ramsay, but by Katie, but he doesn’t have the time to look up and see what’s happened, because the Chef is yelling at Jeff and him, which just causes Jared to get nervous and mess up even more, which fuck, when did that start happening to Jared? He can feel Jensen’s eyes on him but he can’t afford to look up, instead keeps his eyes on his dish and pays attention to that, needing to fix his mess up.
He’s finally out of the hole - with Chef’s agreement - when Jared turns around to pick up the risotto, only to see that it’s burnt and that Jeff is looking at it in confusion. Jared lets out a guttural scream, loud enough to cause the kitchen to stop and Ramsay look over at them from the other kitchen, before Jared realizes he needs to calm the fuck down or risk going home. Jeff looks at him with sorrow in his facial features, and Jared takes a few deep breaths before restarting the risotto.
Everything is falling to pieces when the next bad thing happens to their team - an entrée that was returned and complained as being too undercooked for the person. Genevieve deflates and Jared can see Chef Scott barking at her, and when Jared looks closer, he realizes that Genevieve just tried to flirt her dish up the pass, which caused Scott to yell at her, and after a couple of minutes of going back to his dish, he can suddenly hear Chef shouting at her to get out, and he knows instantly that his team is officially screwed.
The rest of the evening goes by quickly, the rest of the team making a few more mistakes, the other team making a few more alongside them. Jared can feel the sweat on his brow and his pants clinging to him in all of the wrong places, and he feels so screwed but continues to go on his merry way.
With one scream, the kitchen goes to a standstill, everyone looking up at the sound, to see Chef yelling at the opposite team to get the hell out and when he turns to their team, not even saying anything, but everyone knows that he wants them out, too.
The two teams make their way back to the dorms, tired and stressed, knowing just how badly they did and knowing that no one is completely safe tonight.
“Aright, who wants to go up, who should go up, et-fucking-cetera,” Katie says, wiping her forehead and pushing her hair back before falling on the couch she’s in front of.
Jared sighs before looking up and biting his lip - “Put me up. I deserve it. God knows how many times I fucked up tonight.” He says, picking a hangnail on his thumb before looking at everyone’s shocked faces. He sees Jeff nod his head and it takes everything Jared has not to snarl at Jeff in annoyance, and Jared knows Jensen sees it and wants to do the same thing but he stops himself before anything can happen. Jared’s thankful for that, but that raises the issue of who should also be on the chopping block.
After talking about it for a few minutes, everyone has decided that Genevieve should join Jared and Jared can’t help but feel his heart pounding in his stomach - his fucking stomach - and he gets up, walking to his room to pack.
A few minutes later, the bedroom door opens and Jensen walks in, choosing to sit on Jared’s bed instead of his own and after a few seconds of Jensen looking at Jared, Jared finally breaks down, sitting on the bed and letting his head fall, hiding the tears that are rolling down his cheeks. He feels Jensen wrap his arms around him, and he can only feel thankful at that. Within ten minutes, Jared has finally calmed down and unwraps Jensen’s arms from him, smiling at him weakly before getting up to finish the packing.
“You’ll be fine, man.” Jensen says as Jared zips his luggage up.
***
The teams are making their way down to the kitchens, ready to face their doom. Ramsay is standing in his normal spot, ready to talk to the group, ready to know their nominations. The ceremony goes by quickly, Jared and Genevieve stepping forward after everyone has said their piece.
When Chef asks for them to explain why they should stay, Jared tries his hardest to convince Chef to let him stay - and eventually it pays off.
“Genevieve, you’re just not good enough. Please, take off your jacket and say goodbye to your team.” Genevieve nods and quickly says goodbye, and Jared can only feel a rush of happiness flood through him and nods his head as Chef says goodbye. Jared came close to losing today and it’s just something he can’t stand so he vows to try harder now, whooping once they’re out of the kitchen, hugging Danneel in the air out of happiness and pulling Jensen away from the group and kissing him against the wall.
Jared slows himself down, allowing his hand to caress Jensen’s cheek, feeling Jensen’s arms go around his waist and bring him in closer. He lets out a small moan, and breaks the kiss apart, panting into Jensen’s mouth and smiling at him. Jensen smiles back before pushing Jared lightly away.
“Glad you’re still here, Jare,” he says, patting his cheek and walking away, letting Jared watch him do so, moving his hips knowing he is being watched.
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