Big Bang: Hopeless Places 9/15
Jared’s up bright and early the next morning, whistling as he walks into the kitchen and switches on the coffee maker. He used to think he wasn’t the kind of person that would fake their way through a reality television show for half a million dollars. Funny how a month in a mansion full of crazy people can change someone’s perspective on life. Jared’s expecting some sort of morality crisis at some point, but right now he’s doing pretty okay. That is until he returns to their room with breakfast.
Justin’s curled up next to Cowboy, smiling at his sleeping face. He doesn’t look up when Jared walks into the room, just says, “Justina’s downstairs.”
Jared stands awkwardly by the bed for a moment before setting the coffee down on the nightstand and going back to the kitchen. He resists the urge to kick a chair across the room. That’s his bed, his spot. Why the fuck is Justin here so early anyways?
He fumes silently for a few minutes before hearing Justina’s high giggle from downstairs. Time to get to work. Jared climbs down the ladder, ignoring Justin still sprawled on the bed and purposely leaving his shirt behind in the room. He comes up behind Justina and wraps his arms around her, quickly putting an end to her conversation with Kitty. “What’s got you here so early?” he asks, letting his lips brush the shell of her ear.
She leans back into him, fluttering her eyelashes. “You didn’t hear? We’re moving in. Thought it was about time we got to seeing more of you guys.”
Jared’s stomach drops, but he manages a smile. “Perfect.” If the twins are going to be in the house 24/7, that means Justin’s going to be around Cowboy all the damn time, and he’s going to have to stick to Justina like glue. Fucking perfect. He gives Justina a kiss on the temple and heads towards the shower. This morning just keeps getting better.
An hour later and the five remaining house guests are opening the doors to the twins’ new room. It’s on the top floor, door hidden behind a wall covering like their in a haunted house. Jared snorts when the door is revealed, covering it up with a cough when Cowboy shoots him a dirty look. He shrugs at the other man. Could this place get any cheesier?
The room is actually humongous once you step inside, Jared’s surprised no ones stumbled across it before. The twins each have their own master bedroom, bathroom and king sized bed. Of course in matching blue and pink zebra print. He watches Cowboy making himself comfortable on Justin’s bed before heading into Justina’s room.
Superman’s already claimed a spot on the bed when he gets there. Jared takes a seat at the edge, if he’s got any competition with Justina, it’s this guy. He decides to go for friendly, might be the best way to take him out.
“Hey, dude. What’s up?”
It must come out a little forced because Superman props himself up on his elbows, pinning Jared with bright blue eyes. “Not much.”
Jared extends a hand, “I’m uh, Tex.”
Superman seems to snap out of it, smiling at him and shaking his hand enthusiastically. “Superman, I guess.”
Jared laughs, “I know, it’s weird not saying your real name.”
Then Justina walks in and all attention is diverted. Jared feels a slight pang watching Superman talk to her, it looks like he’s really into her. But Cowboy’s right, this is just television, who really knows what’s real.
Jared pushes his way into the conversation, watching Superman’s face fall when Justina latches onto him. His puts his arm around her, getting settled on the bed. As long as he can keep this act going Superman will be gone before he knows what hit him.
Eventually production ushers them out of the twins’ room, assuring them they can come back individually later. There’s another two hours before the challenge, and it’s not hard for Jared to figure out where Cowboy ran off to. The sinks already running when Jared gets there, a dish towel thrown over one of Cowboy’s shoulders.
Jared walks up behind him, resisting the urge to kiss the slice of his neck touched by the sunlight peeking through the curtains. “Look at you, doin’ stuff without me telling you to.”
Cowboy ignores him, swirling his hands through the water lazily.
Jared picks up a dishtowel, drying a plate slowly. Cowboy still hasn’t looked at him, frowning slightly and staring out the window instead. Jared clears his throat. “It’s awesome, the being twins here all the time now.”
Cowboy seems to snap out of is trance, smiling sadly at Jared, “Yeah Tex, awesome.”
They leave for the challenge in a odd mood. After doing the dishes quietly, no dancing, no music. And the other man keeps looking at him wistfully whenever he thinks Jared’s not looking. Jared’s used to crazy bouncing off the walls Cowboy. Not his quiet, brooding twin. Maybe he’s having second thoughts about all this, maybe he’s the one having a morality crisis. Maybe he likes Justin after all? By the time they get to the challenge Jared feels like he’s going to puke, sure Cowboy’s going to rat him out to Justina.
The limo ride is spent in relative silence. Jared realizes that most of the crazies have actually been eliminated, the remaining five are a lot more peaceful than the original fifteen had been.
They pull up to some kind of park, and after some inspection Jared notices there’s a kid’s birthday party going on. There’s a bouncy castle, cake, party hats, the whole nine yards. Justina and Justin walk up once their lined up on the grass, both holding the hand of a little blond girl. The kid smiles, showing off a gap instead of two front teeth.
“I’m Abby, and I’m turning eight today!”
There’s a chorus of confused, “Hi Abby’s. Justina whispers something in the little girl’s ear and she runs off to join the other kids.
“As you can see we’re having a different kind of party today,” Justin says. “You’re going to be running Abby’s birthday for the next two hours. We’ll be watching from the limo.”
Justina smiles brightly, “Both of us love kids, and we want to see how you guys do around them!”
When they open their own limo door Jared catches a glimpse of TV screens lining the walls, it looks like they’ve got the whole party covered. “Good luck, guys! Our top two picks get a private date tonight!” Justin says from an open window.
The car door closes behind them with a click and children swarm them immediately. The girls have the most of them, some of the kids shying away from big guys like him and Superman.
Superman rubs his hands together nervously, walking awkwardly up to a table to get his party hat. Cowboy gives Jared an amused look before following.
Jared’s distracted the whole challenge trying to figure out if Cowboy changed his mind or not. He straps on a party hat and makes a few stilted attempts at making the kids like him, but minutes in he can already tell who the favorites are.
Everyone adores Kitty and Angel. The girls paint their faces and sing songs with them, tugging at their sparkling clothes and sky high heels. Superman’s making a pretty good effort too, giving airplane rides that have the kids squealing.
Jared tries with a couple but Superman seems to be the big attraction. To be honest he’s a lot better with animals than he is with kids. After a few attempts Jared heads over to the bouncy castle, where Cowboy seems to have gathered all the boys.
Cowboy looks up when he ducks in, party hat askew and huge grin on his face. “Hey guys, this is my friend Tex! Say hi, Tex.”
Jared gives a little wave, but most of the kids don’t look up, apparently unable to take their eyes off Cowboy. Their sitting in a circle around him, hanging on to his every word. Cowboy starts up where Jared must have interrupted him, “So I’m on the back of this bull, and it’s bucking and jumpin’ up and down.” He demonstrates, making the whole floor jiggle and Jared almost fall on his ass.
A red-haired kid pipes up, “Do you ever hog-tie em’?”
Cowboy jumps up, all the kids quickly follow suit. “Of course! I can hog-tie anything.”
“Anything?” About five kids ask at once.
Cowboy picks up the closest one. “I could hog-tie every last one of you!”
Jared barely gets out of the way before Cowboy’s buried under a pile of screaming kids. There’s a couple seconds of pandemonium before Cowboy emerges from the pile, sending Jared a grin. “Hey! Hey! Don’t go after me, first one that ties Tex gets an extra slice of cake!”
Ten sets of greedy little eyes turn on Jared simultaneously. He makes an attempt at escaping out the tent flap, but he’s too slow. Cowboy has him by the ankle, dragging him back in to the fray.
The wrestling match lasts until the girls call out for cake, when predictably the kids all pile out in seconds. The two of them are left behind, panting.
Jared tackles the other man, “That’s for setting all the little brats on me.”
Cowboy bucks him off, making the whole castle tip precariously. “Needed something to get you out of that shitty mood, man.”
Jared remembers with a start the reason for that mood. The smiles slides off his face and he covers the microphone with his hand, “You’re not having second thoughts are you?”
Cowboy glares at him, probably because he really doesn’t want to get in shit with sound again. “Fuck no, why?”
“You’ve been weird man.”
Cowboy gets that same guilty look in his eyes he had when they were doing dishes and he leans against the castle wall. “Listen, whatever we do in here, once we’re done it doesn’t matter okay?”
Jared crawls over to him, not trusting himself to stand up without falling over. “What do you mean? What’re you going to do?”
“Just promise me, it won’t matter.”
Jared leans in closer, trying to understand what Cowboy’s trying to tell him.
Just then there’s a strained whooshing sound from underneath them and Jared feels something give beneath his hands. Within seconds the whole castle is coming down around them, hard ground hitting his knees. Jared’s completely covered in the fabric and by the time he crawls out Cowboy’s standing outside, laughing so hard his eyes are watering.
“Dude, there must have been a hole or something.”
“Probably couldn’t take the weight of your fat ass,” Jared snipes.
Cowboy raises an eyebrow, already turning to go get some cake. “Whatever you say, Sasquatch.”
It’s a good thing the party’s almost over, because the kids are none too happy about their bouncy castle being destroyed. They seem get over it when Cowboy initiates a food fight. Jared dodges a flying glob of icing, pushing his and Cowboy’s conversation to the back of his mind. Whatever Cowboy’s going to do, he can deal with it.
By the time the twins get out of the limo all the kids have gone home and every surface is covered in cake. Angel has chocolate in her hair and Kitty’s shirt is ruined. They’re none too happy with Cowboy. Who actually looks the worst off, having gotten caught half way through and attacked. Jared managed to avoid most of it, but still managed get his face painted by some of the girls. Superman is spotless, which is kind of amazing considering the circumstances. The whole park looks like a war went down in it.
Justin whistles. “You guys sure know how to make a mess.”
Cowboy whoops. Jared smiles to himself, figures he’d be good with kids. He’s just a big one himself. It wouldn’t surprise him if Justin picked him.
“Now the winners,” Justina starts. “Kitty, you were great with the girls, you too Angel.”
“Superman, all the of them loved you. They didn’t want to go home! But Cowboy was the favorite, even if he did ruin the cake.”
Justin sends Cowboy a huge smile, and Jared fights to keep the smile on his face. He wants Cowboy to win the date, but at the same time he doesn’t want to share him.
“We’ve decided the winners are Kitty and Angel. Superman and Tex you were kind of stand-offish, and Cowboy, you deflated the bouncy castle.”
Angel practically screams before jumping into Justin’s arms and Kitty looks just as pleased. They all pile back into the limo covered in cake, with a promise from the twins to pick up the two winners later.
Cowboy’s back to normal on the way home, apparently having forgotten what he was thinking about before. He smears even more cake on Jared and spends the whole ride blaming him for deflating the castle with his belt buckle. Which is probably true, but he doesn’t seem to care about losing the date. Unsurprisingly, Jared doesn’t either.
Kitty and Angel leave an hour after returning to the mansion. The house is even quieter with the girls gone. Superman’s nowhere to be found and even Cowboy can’t make us much noise as fifteen people used to. Jared sits in the living room and spreads out on the couch. He still has icing in his hair, but all in all it wasn’t a bad day.
That night Jared can’t shake the feeling that something’s off between them. Cowboy makes pancakes for supper, fluffy and perfect. After eating they spend hours in the arcade, trying to beat each others scores at pinball. Jared tries to let loose but there’s a tension that just won’t go away. Cowboy’s smile is strained, like he’s forcing himself to have fun. Jared thinks back to the bouncy castle and wonders again what Cowboy thinks he won’t forgive him for.
Cowboy must notice his shift in mood because he rubs the back of his neck soothingly, his back blocking them from the cameras. Jared wants so badly in that moment to give it all up, they don’t really need the money. But they’re so close already and if Cowboy want this, he does too. Cowboy sounds tired when he murmurs close to Jared’s ear, “Let’s hit up the confession for a bit.”
Jared sits with Cowboy in his lap for the hundredth time this month and wonders how he didn’t see this coming. Even from the beginning they were way too close to just be friends. He tightens his arms around the other man, letting him do all the talking. At least they still have this.
“And then Gigantor here popped the bouncy castle and lost me the challenge!” Cowboy’s trying his hardest to sound pissed, but his mouth is lifting in a smile.
Jared rolls his eyes, knowing Cowboy can’t see him from where he’s sitting. “Whatever dude, I wasn’t the one that started throwing cake around.”
As usual they leave the booth happier than when they went in. The pair of them are curled up in the Holy Grail within the hour. The sticky note pad is sitting between them, nothing on it so far back a crude drawing of a dick. Cowboy’s been quiet for awhile, wide awake, which is odd for him.
Jared picks up the pad,
What’s wrong?
Cowboy glances at it, letting out a huff of breath and chewing on his lip.
Now that the twins are here. Should be with them more.
Jared furrows his eyebrows, well duh.
So?
Cowboy underlines “with them” three times, sending Jared a pointed look.
Aw, you’ll miss me? Jared writes.
Cowboy turns his back to him, curling into an even tighter ball. Jared slings and arm over his waist, burying his nose in the other man’s neck. He’s pretty sure the camera’s won’t be able to make them out in the dark.
Cowboy doesn’t relax, he must be really serious about the whatever secret he’s keeping. Jared rubs his nose against Cowboy’s neck until he pushes back into a him, letting out a little sigh when Jared presses his lips to the knot of his spine. Jared falls asleep thinking about how when they win, every night will be like this.
Jared wakes slowly, groaning under his breath. He can feel Cowboy trying to wriggle out of his arms, but there’s no way it’s morning yet. He cracks open one eye to peer at the clock, 2:34 AM. What the hell?
Cowboy manages to get free, walking towards the bathroom without a second glance at Jared. When he gets back, Jared lifts the sheet to let him back in but the other man gives him a regretful look, tucking it back in. Jared’s opens his mouth to ask him what he’s doing, but Cowboy raises a finger to his lips, eyes pleading. Jared lets him wrap the blue blanket tight around his shoulders, ghosting a kiss over his forehead. When Cowboy pulls back his eyes are wide, green shining in the low light.
“You promised,” he whispers, breath smelling like fresh toothpaste. Jared’s too sleepy to figure out what he’s talking about and he makes an aborted gesture to pull Cowboy back into the bed. The other man turns away, carefully climbing down the ladder. Jared waits thirty seconds before following him.
Cowboy tip toes down the hallway, stopping in front of the gaudy painting that covers the twins door. He opens the hinge with a creak and glances around once before slipping inside. Jared stands in the hall for a minute, body gone numb. He stumbles back up the ladder in a haze, flopping back into bed and pulling Cowboy’s blanket tight around him. So that’s what he meant when he said ‘with them’. Fuck.
Jared stares up at the darkness of the ceiling, trying to ignore the red blink of a camera in the corner of his eye. This is a competition, you have to do some things in order to win. They’re going to win. They’re going to have a house with a big tub and a barbecue and dogs. This is rational, this makes sense. Cowboy still left their bed to go sleep with Justin and he made Jared promise that it would be okay. But it’s not okay, it’s fucking not okay.
Jared watches the minutes tick by on the alarm clock, telling himself he's not waiting for Cowboy to come back.
Episode Nine