Chapter Text
"No. You're not alone …”
Keller snaked his hand down to Beecher's fly with purpose, caught up in the moment of giving the only comfort he understood. “Operation Toby” flew out of his mind and over the walls that pressed in on them. In this moment, all that mattered to Keller was making Beecher feel something other than the anguish simmering below, threatening to overwhelm them.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” Beecher roared and cowered simultaneously.
Nearly shocked out of his all encompassing grief from the unexpectedly solid warmth of Keller - against his back, hand around his dick - another layer of guilt settled over Beecher. Falling into a man's touch on the heels of his wife's suicide? He couldn't get any lower.
*****
“CUT! That was great guys. Print. 35 for the next set up. Lee, Chris, you're good for the day. Thank you,” the director rambled, graciously yet quickly, unsure if she had seen what she thought she had. Something to look forward to at the dailies tonight, she mused devilishly.
“Asshole!” Lee whispered through grit teeth as he turned on his heel and marched off set.
Chris, somewhat thrown by the vitriol in Lee’s voice, chuckled nervously as he watched him go, trying to brush off the sudden tension that was only heightened when the A.D. snarked, “Wow, do we all get hand jobs?” while handing Lee his robe.
“Fuck you!” Lee snapped as he tied the robe up and made a beeline for his dressing room without looking back.
Oh shit, there he goes again! Chris thought with a resigned sigh as he tried to make small talk with the crew, killing time until he could go speak to Lee in private, away from the watchful gaze of those who were far too inquisitive.
*****
Checking over his shoulder for unwanted eyes and ears, Chris took a deep breath and knocked on the door. “Lee?”
“Asshole!” Lee huffed, his voice muffled, his anger unmistakable. Chris could hear him pacing on the other side of the door and knew that something between them - something he couldn’t quite put his finger on yet could not deny - had begun scratching its way to the surface.
“Does that mean I can come in?” he asked, deliberately keeping his voice light.
More rustling. “Yeah,” was the eventual, cryptic reply.
After one more check of the empty hall, Chris opened the door and slipped inside the room, hugging his one escape route as closely as possible lest he had to dodge flying objects or fists. “Listen man, I didn't mea-”
The look on Lee's face stopped him mid-sentence, literally driving the breath from his lungs. Lee’s eyes, usually a playful ocean-blue that, when fixed on Chris’ held an invitation he couldn’t decline if he tried, now sliced at him with a cutting glare of green fury and ... something else.
“I asked you not to do that!!! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?”
Chris expected the anger that flew at him. What he wasn’t prepared for was the confused quiver lurking just beneath.
“You said I could. We talked about it. We rehearsed it. Why are you so pissed?” Chris instinctively went from defensive mode to an offensive counter attack. He felt like he was arguing with his wife, which in itself made no fucking sense. He came to work to get away from that shit, not to play it out with a co-worker. And since when did Lee strike such a personal chord with him?
“I said you could grab me through my shorts! Not hold … my dick!” Lee struggled to maintain a commanding tone, but it quickly dissolved into an embarrassed whisper. “Why did you do that?”
“Listen, you were already flopped out anyway. I just went with it. I didn't blow you in front of the crew for Christ's sake!” Chris responded way too sharply for the way he felt and desperately hoped his protestation didn’t have the opposite effect of suggesting he was falling more on the “caught with his hand in the cookie jar” side of the line than “possible sexual harassment at the workplace.”
“Thank God for that!” Lee retorted sarcastically, throwing up protective walls as fast as he could, knowing full well it would also set Chris on edge.
“Maybe I should ...” Chris muttered, looking to the floor then the door behind him before settling a steady gaze back on Lee. “You wouldn't be so fucking wound up all the time!”
“You're such an asshole,” Lee muttered, some of the fight draining from him while a flood of conflicting feelings, all centered on the man standing across from him, raced through his body. Sounding more explanatory, almost pleading, he added, “You know I am nervous enough about this whole arc. I don't need you throwing me curve balls in the middle of a scene.”
“If you got over all this bullshit you wouldn't be so nervous. What are you so worried about?” Chris edged away from the door and further into the room, past Lee, mindful of those blazing, searching eyes following his every move - near, far, right, left. Frustrating as he was, Lee had gotten completely and utterly under Chris' skin like nothing he had ever experienced before on a job. At least he hoped it was still just a job.
“What do you mean 'maybe I should'?” Lee asked, sounding alarmed, determined, and curious?
Chris' head snapped up to see Lee's jaw set and arms crossed, silently demanding an answer. Quietly, he groaned at what he was mentally starting to refer to as The Famous Tergesen Non Sequitur. No matter who Lee was with, or how long he had known someone, Chris had seen Lee whip out an obscure comment someone had made months earlier just to pull the rug out from under them and watch them fumble to stay afoot. It was funny as hell when not directed at him.
Wanting to shut down one of Lee's rambling gotchas before it even began, Chris mimicked his posture and took the two steps that brought them face-to-face, nearly nose-to-nose. He figured if Lee wanted to push this, then it was time to push first and push hard. He’d be damned if he let Lee call all the shots. Deep down, Chris knew this was the make it or break it moment that would set the tone between them outside of this room, beyond this moment, frozen in time. And if indeed that subtle ... something ... existed beyond a rehearsal miscommunication, if Lee felt an inkling of what Chris did, it was now or never to clear the air and find equal footing.
Once he knew he had Lee’s undivided attention, Chris launched his first verbal salvo. “What I meant,” he began slowly, drawing out the words, refusing to let Lee, still buttressed by crossed arms, look away, “was One: I think you have some dumb ass, small-town idea that if we play this right, people will think you're a fag. Two-”
“I do not give a-” Lee shot back too quickly, flustered anticipation making him uncharacteristically trip over his words while a slight flush tinged his neck pink.
“Shut up, I'm not done,” Chris cut him off with firm, unwavering intent while keeping his smile mute, clearly beginning to enjoy having Lee on the defensive. “Two: You're always so wound up all the goddamn time, you're like being around a tuning fork. I don't know what's bugging you, but something is.”
“I don't think you kno-”
“Three: -” Chris stepped a half step closer so his forearms pressed against Lee's, making them both sway slightly from the surge of electric contact. “Three … I think what's bugging you is that a pretty big part of you is at least a little damn curious, and would really, …” Chris took a deep breath, not willing to back down after coming this far, but feeling something snap in his head, warning him that he wasn't just talking to Lee anymore, he wasn’t simply teasing him, but was treading too damn close to a confession himself, “... really like me to.”
Speechless. For the first fucking time since they’d met, Lee was at a complete loss for words. And as Chris noted with a small sense of victory, they were both slightly breathless. He watched Lee's mouth move around silent words, holding pleading, uncertain eye contact Chris couldn't read.
Giving every warning without actually announcing it, Chris uncrossed his arms and moved another half -step, his heart beating more erratically than he wanted to admit, and pressed himself against Lee. He took another deep breath, defiantly holding Lee's confused and angry yet wanting stare, and lowered his left hand in a repeat of the day’s earlier exploration. Quickly, surely – through the robe, through the fly, and around Lee's cock.
Lee grit his teeth in response, the clicking sound booming in Chris’ ears. Staying still, so very still, Chris simply held him in a warm fist, allowing himself to feel the hot, impossibly silky flesh pulse as Lee thickened in his hand. Whoa, that's different, Chris thought, his brain condensing his sense of touch to just his hand, feeling tiny twitches in his palm and flickers in his fingers he never bothered to notice when he handled his own dick.
With a silent shudder, Lee finally blinked. Gotcha, you stubborn bastard! Chris let a slight smile curl at the corners of his mouth and pulled his hand in a firm, long stroke up Lee's more-than-half-hard cock, fingertips dancing in a slow circle over the damp head as he let go.
“I like it, too,” Chris whispered in a broken croak he very nearly didn’t recognize as his own voice and, most certainly, didn't want to think about.
“Fuck ...” Lee grunted, low and breathy, worriedly accepting, as Chris let go and stepped back.
After a moment’s pause, Chris turned and walked out, hoping he could make it down the hall without being seen, willing himself not to think of Lee standing alone in the room, aroused and flushed. Instead, Chris was consumed by his own unbidden thoughts, his own unwanted discovery detailed in the fluttery pulse refusing to calm down, aching cock searching for release, and ocean-blue eyes he couldn’t escape whenever he closed his own.