But at least there he never had to sit around for over two days without even getting a nap.
It wasn't like he'd never stayed up way for too long before. He'd even once stayed up longer than the challenge had run so far, back when he'd been planning an especially crazy prank and had to make sure that everything was exactly right on a tight timeframe, but that was completely different. It was one thing to kick how tired you were to the back of your skull and ignore it when you were in the middle of having a good time and could chug down caffeine by the liter whenever you needed a boost, and another thing entirely to keep your eyes open when every minute was more boring than the last one.
At least he was pretty sure that he was doing better than most of the other suckers on the show. He felt like his body had been going in circles for hours, back and forth from being so tired that he needed to fight for every second that his eyes stayed open to being pretty much awake. Every time he felt like he was about to drop he just needed to force himself to keep going until the next time his head cleared up and he'd be good to go.
With nothing better to do he'd started keeping himself occupied by guessing who'd be the next person to fall. It was pretty pathetic that the stupid contest was so boring that that was the best entertainment he could come up with, but his brain wasn't exactly running at top speed and he didn't have much in the way of materials to work with if he wanted to come up with something more interesting on the fly anyway. The next time Chris decided to horde everyone who was still awake towards the confessionals he was gonna need to see if he could sneak off and get some shaving cream, or warm water, or something he could use to take advantage of being surrounded by so many helpless marks for a prank.
He'd had the scrawny little guy from the Gophers pegged as the obvious next one to drop for a while. It had been obvious from the second he stopped trying to hit on the goth chick--and striking out miserably--every two minutes that he had to be at the end of his energy, and the more his head drooped the more clear it became.
In fact, Duncan was so sure that he'd made the right choice that he didn't bother paying attention to anyone else as he waited for the kid to drop off. He didn't even notice Little Miss Priss starting to waver until she practically collapsed on top of him.
"Hey!" he yelped, automatically straightening up to grab Courtney before she could hit the ground. He glanced around as soon as she wasn't at risk of bashing her head open on a rock, but luckily it didn't look like anyone else had noticed him actually being helpful. It wasn't like it was his fault that his parents had drilled him and his brothers on what to do during emergencies until not letting someone concuss themself became instinct, but he doubted anyone would let him stop and explain why he wasn't being his usual menacing self before they started to suspect that he wasn't as bad as they'd thought.
"Let go!" she said as soon as she seemed to realize where she was, managing to sound demanding even with her voice slow and slurred from lack of sleep. "I need to keep... keep..."
"Moving?" he supplied when it looked like she wasn't going to be able to come up with the word on her own.
"Yes. That." She managed to shove herself away from him and back onto her feet, but was only able to sway there for a minute before she started to topple over and he needed to catch her again.
"I wouldn't try that again if I were you, Babe," he told her when she kept shimmying against him like she was trying to go on jogging where she'd fallen. "As fun as it is having a hot girl writhing in my lap, it's time to face facts; you're finished."
"No!" she said, her face screwing up like she was a little kid who just been denied her favorite toy. "I won't give up... can't..."
Duncan was actually a little impressed. He'd had her pegged as the type of useless chick who just loved bossing around anyone she could nag into listening to her, but who wouldn't do a lick of work herself if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely fair when she had carted boxes along with everyone else on the first day, but after she'd chickened out on the cliff dive that had counted as 'absolutely necessary' if she wanted to get back any of the good cred she'd lost with the group.
He definitely wouldn't have expected to see her trying to struggle on even when she'd obviously reached the point where she was almost completely out of it. Maybe he'd judged her too quickly.
"Hey," he said, more gently than he'd usually let himself sound when anyone else was around. It wasn't like it mattered; she was the only one who was close enough to hear him, and she wasn't in any state to remember anything he said after she'd gotten a good night's sleep. No point in wasting menace on somebody too zoned out to appreciate it. "If you're worried we'll still try getting you out for last time if you don't win this one for us, don't be. Even if we were gonna hold a grudge, the big guy crashed a hell of a lot sooner than you did.
"No," she repeated again, but it was obvious that now that she was off her feet her conscious mind had reached its last gasp. Her eyes kept falling shut, and every time they stayed closed for longer before she managed to pop them open again.
Duncan groaned and rubbed his forehead when she began her latest round of movement, now slowed to mostly just weak twitching. He was too damned tired to work out the best way to calm down a crazy woman. "Listen, you did good. Hell, you managed to beat most of the people who were sitting on their asses trying not to wear themselves out, even though you were on your feet the whole time." In a sudden stroke of inspiration he added, "Seriously, you've already gotten an A-plus in staying awake."
She pried her eyes open again just enough to stare dreamily into space. "An A-plus?" she repeated.
He'd known that the promise of a good grade would get through to her; she was obviously one of those weirdos who was so into school that they'd do extra credit work even when they already had an 'A' average. He rummaged through his pockets and found the wrapper from a candy bar he'd had during the last food break they'd been allowed, then stretched out to snatch a burnt-out twig from the edge of the fire. With the charred end he scratched the grade onto the blank back of the wrapper, then he handed it over to her. "There. You can stick it on your fridge when you get home."
Finally Courtney let her body go limp against him. "Sleep would be nice," she mumbled. "If it's really okay."
He couldn't believe that she was still hesitating, but he stopped bothering to try convincing her. Instead he just helped her get ready for sleep. "Arms up," he said after inching out from under her, using the same no-nonsense tone he'd used to pull on his youngest brother way back when his parents still trusted him to babysit. It worked just as well on her as it had on him; she followed the order to easily that Duncan wondered if she had any older brothers or sisters of her own, but he didn't waste much time thinking about it before he pulled her sweater over her head and folded it into a mat she could use as a pillow. "Okay, you can lie down now," he said after knocking away any pebbles that could dig into her back and laying out the sweater. "Man, Princess, I'd say that you'd better feel lucky that you're so out of it that I'm willing to play nice, if I wasn't counting on you forgetting this completely tomorrow."
"That's nice," she said muzzily, the meaning of his words clearly not actually making it into her head. Just the way he wanted it.
In the last little bit of kindness he was willing to offer he yanked her shoes off for her, knowing from experience how much it sucked to pass out with the things still on, and as far as he was concerned that should have been it. He'd kept a teammate from wandering off and probably falling off a cliff or something if she had managed to get back up on her own, and with all the editing Chris and his minions were going to have to do to cut the whole stupid awakeathon down to a half-hour show he figured that he wouldn't need to worry about anyone else seeing him go soft for a minute or two. The next day she'd remember nothing, and he could just go back to ignoring the bossy chick as much as possible.
That's how it should have gone.
Instead, when he tried to move away and find a new place to sit she suddenly reached out to grab his arm. "Duncan, you're still awake," she said, staring at him like she'd only just noticed who she'd been talking to all that time.
"What gave it away, Babe?" he asked, rolling his eyes.
"Hey, Duncan. Hey," she said, tugging on his arm until he leaned down into whispering distance and she could hiss, "Kick their Gopher butts." When he pulled back she was grinning at him, bright and honest and a far cry from the usual practiced preppy smile she kept almost constantly plastered on her face when she was awake enough to have more self-control.
He stared until he realized what he was doing, then shook himself out of it. "I, uh... yeah," he said dumbly, the only reply he could come up with. It seemed to be enough for her; a minute later she closed her eyes for good.
Well, he thought as he settled himself back onto one of the log stools he'd abandoned earlier, that had been unexpected. Not the bad type of unexpected, but man she wasn't the type who'd usually catch his eye at all.
Eh, it was probably just because he was so tired.
o 0 O 0 o
He felt half-dead by the time he was finally able to go back to his cabin and the bed waiting for him in it. Dragging himself the last few hundred meters from the campfire ceremony area to the cabin sucked so much that he wished they'd just left him on the john when they found him and let the ceremony go on without him. Sure, it would have blown when he woke up with his body aching from sleeping in that position, but the pain would have been worth it just for the chance to keep sleeping until he woke up on his own.
Just keeping himself on his feet with each step he took stole almost all of his attention, so he didn't even notice the hand that settled on his shoulder until the person it was attached to said, "Um, Duncan?"
"What?" he snapped, whirling around to glower at the person stupid enough to bother him.
Courtney flinched back a little, then seemed to catch herself and straightened up again. "This might be a crazy question, but did you..." she started, then glanced from his glare to the piece of paper she was holding in her hand and back again. After a moment she frowned, and shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. I must have had a weird dream or something; what I was going to ask about couldn't possibly be true."
Duncan surprised himself by actually feeling a little disappointed when she tucked the candy wrapper into her pocket, writing him off entirely. Which was completely stupid, of course. He shouldn't be anything but glad that she'd forgotten his momentary niceness as completely as he'd expected, and that his tough guy image was safely intact.
But he didn't let any of that show. Instead he forced his glare to turn into a smirk and smarmed, "Dreaming of me already, Princess? Tell you what; wait until I'm rested up and we can see about making those dreams come true."
She grimaced and turned sharply away from him. "Ugh! You're so vile, I can't believe I believed for a moment that you might have-- No, it's too ridiculous to even talk about!"
He watched her storm away, his smirk stretching a little wider, before he started back on the path to his bed. Maybe Little Miss Priss could be interesting after all.