Chapter Text
“There are no words to describe how awkward I feel right now.”
Alex glanced over at Daniel, who stood behind him stock still. “You’re telling me brah. This shit? Not in the contract.” Except thanks to CBS and his own big mouth, pretending to be gay now was in his contract. This though? Not so much.
Daniel stared back down at the impromptu dance floor, watching the familiar blond head of hair bounce around, surrounded by a flock of eager Romeos. “Like, I kinda knew, ya know? Figured at least with the arrest at a gay club, but it’s still…wow.”
Alex nodded. Scott had always joked about being the sensitive artist, but after seeing his photography, seeing his girlfriend Casey, seeing him oogle every pair of tits that walked past it just hadn’t really occurred to him that his friend wasn’t just checking out the ladies. A fine ass was a fine ass, Alex could agree whole heartedly, but this… this was something completely different. Seeing his best friend grinding up against some other dude on the dance floor was surreal. Especially since Scott didn’t drink.
Tonight was completely different from the norm. Scott who didn’t drink was on his way to getting impressively wasted. Scott who hadn’t smoked pot since he was a kid was probably high as well, judging by the smells wafting up from the beach near their friend. It was going to be time soon to go rescue the blond from himself, but right now Alex was still in shock at this change.
It had been two months since Peter Lenkov had passed down CBS’s decree that the “bromance of the century” should be promoted off screen as a romance between the two leads. Before he’d known what was happening the Aussie had found himself suddenly staring at a piece of paper they’d slipped in with his morning rewrites with yellow highlighter brightly reminding him he’d signed off on this before he’d ever had an idea about this.
The artist will agree to all publicity the studio and production team deems necessary to promote the production entitled Hawaii Five-0. Compensation will be fixed at $50,000 per month for consideration of the artist’s promotional services in connection with the production.
Scott had just stared during the meeting, silent for once. Alex had been the cocky one, arms flailing around as he attempted to explain just how ridiculous this was. There was no way he and Scott would date. They liked women. They were both already with women. Even if they were gay Scott dressed like a skateboarding punk in his off time. Hell, he was a skate boarding punk in his off time. And he was messy. If Steve thought Danny was bad, he would shit a brick to meet Scott.
Then man was a bachelor. There was no better way to put that. He left his underwear on the bathroom floor, the milk out on the counter after he drank from the jug, and got crumbs and sand on everything. Granted Alex recognized he still had his OCD bouts. He liked clean counters, but a spill wasn’t the end of the world. His shoes didn’t have to have perfect knots anymore, but he made sure they were organized in his closet. He wasn’t sure Scott understood the concept of a closet.
Peter and the other producers just smiled as Alex wound down, realizing no one was convinced except him. And Scott? Well, Scott was just clearly offended.
“I think this is gonna work out great.”
And it honestly hadn’t been too bad this far. They’d done two or three interviews, and Alex had started to realize that though they’d tried to be more touchy feely than they already did, the only way to really do that was take off their clothes and get horizontal in front of the interviewers. The only way they could sit closer, was in each other’s laps. Hell, no wonder his bromance joke had been taken so seriously.
The first clue should have been the most obvious. Having a girlfriend start to get jealous and snit about how much time you spend with your best friend wasn’t exactly uncommon for a guy. Hell, it was probably up there with the toilet seat argument in reality. But when your girlfriend bitches you out because she was jealous of the actual man, and not just the amount of time spent…well, that was something else entirely wasn’t it?
He hadn’t even told Scott yet that Amber had left him. Told anyone really. He’d taken a weekend trip to Los Angeles under the guise of attending a friend’s birthday party to try and fix things, explain the stupidity of the situation their production company had stuck them in. Shown up at Amber’s door with flowers, three dozen calla lilies, a bottle of wine, and THAT look. The one that had melted her at the beginning. This time he’d just been sat down on the couch and she’d talked. He’d tuned out a lot of it honestly. When she’d started on him needing to recognize what he was feeling and act on it, he’d been baffled for a minute.
“Damnit Alex,” she shook her head, blond hair falling loose. Blond like Scott’s, but not natural. More bottle blond. “Figure it out. When we spend two hours a night on the phone, and about one hundred minutes of that is about how messy he is, the new pictures he showed you, the latest annoying thing he’s done…can’t you get it already? I love you, but I’m tired of dating someone who’s in love with someone else. ”
He’d sputtered, spilling the wine he’d poured himself halfway through her speech down his shirt. “G’arn! I don’t love Scott! He’s my mate yea, but not anything more. It’s not like I crack a fat thinking about him. I-”
Amber just smiled, cutting him off. “You, are head over heels with your best friend. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just sick of holding you back.” So she’d kissed his cheek, and gently pushed him out the door.
Now standing on the balcony a week later with Daniel he still had no clue what to do. Everyone had their ‘one time in college when I was drunk’ story to fall back on when it came to experimenting, but the most Alex had under his belt was three nights after he and Holly had split during Moonlight’s hiatus. Jason Dohring had come and picked his sorry ass up, taken him home, gotten him drunk, gotten drunk with him, and then fallen into bed with him just as easily. They’d known it would never work long term, that anything other than friends would just ruin what they had so it had been strictly one weekend of rebound sex. Amazing rebound sex. Amazing rebound sex with a friend with ‘no strings attached’ benefits.
Then they’d gone back to work as if it had never happened. They were still close friends, but it wasn’t something they needed to revisit. With Scott, he couldn’t do that. From the looks of it the show wouldn’t be over for years to come hopefully, and Scott meant more. He couldn’t just let him go if it didn’t work. They’d still be spending sixteen hours a day together. Still live five houses apart. And he’d still be in…love? Lust? Love?
“Jesus Christ! That is indecent,” Daniel snorted next to him. “I’m soo glad Grace isn’t here. She’d be down there with him and it would probably be even worse.”
“Hmm?” Alex asked, tuning back in only to gasp. That was indecent. He honestly hadn’t known Scott had that type of exhibitionism in him. Scott looked up and grinned and his dick twitched. Yep, Alex was fucked.