Work Text:
The setting sun is blinding you on its long journey below the horizon. You squint against the light at the block of apartments as you pull your vehicle into a stop alongside the curb. You really hope you’re at the right location. You’re not sure if you trust your crewmates to have given you the right address. You honestly did not really want to be here at all. Many of the crew for this particular production had worked with Colt before, so it really was wildly unfair that you had been unanimously volunteered to check up on the man after he was a no-show for the past couple days. Sure, he had called, but no one had actually laid eyes on him to verify his condition.
You put your car into park and open the door to step out into the evening heat. You immediately feel smothered by the warmth, and you reach across your center console to grab the items crowding your passenger seat. You withdraw, burdened, and nudge the door closed with your knee. You manage to hit the lock button on your key fob before you duck into the small parking garage. A flood of relief washes over you when you immediately spot Colt’s obnoxious brown and yellow truck. There are surfboards still resting in the bed of the Chevy. It’s parked haphazardly with no regard for anyone else’s need for the space. You’re in the right place at least. You skirt around it, eyes scanning for apartment numbers. You mutter his unit number under your breath while you look for it. You’re juggling a heating pad, multiple ice packs, and a bag of food. You’re not sure what you’re going to be walking into.
After what feels like an eternity of searching, you finally locate what you hope is his front door. With your hands full, you contemplate figuring out how to knock. You finally decide to just bang on the wood with your elbow. There’s no response or any whispers of movement. You sigh and hit it again, more aggressively. You know he’s home. The lifted monstrosity in the parking garage is proof enough. He avoids going anywhere without it.
You double down and are in the middle of hammering on the door for a third time when you finally hear muffled cursing gradually getting louder as the apartment’s occupant gets closer. To your relief, it’s Colt Seavers himself who yanks the door open hard enough you’re briefly worried he’s going to pull it right off the hinges. You open your mouth, about to launch into a bantering complaint about how he left you to rot on his doorstep when you register what exactly you’re looking at.
The man crowding the doorway is wet, straight from an interrupted shower. His shaggy, blond hair is falling into his eyes. The light from the setting sun reflects an orange glow on the water droplets racing down his body. He looks like he’s on fire. You drag your eyes from his obscenely exposed chest to his face. You try to pretend that you’re not talking to a very damp, very naked man preserving the last dregs of his modesty with only a towel wrapped around his narrow hips. You’ve just agreed with yourself not to acknowledge how large his hand looks clutching the fabric.
“Where’s the fire?” He asks. His annoyance fades away at the realization that you’re the one bothering him out of the blue.
“The guys sent me on a welfare check. We haven’t seen you in a few days.”
“I’m clearly alive so you’re welcome to-” He pantomimes you leaving by walking his fingers in the air “-report back that I haven’t died yet.”
“Welfare, not proof of life. Besides, you look like shit and I brought some supplies.” You argue, raising your arms to show your wares.
He looks like he’s thinking about pushing the issue, but he deflates, exhausted. He purposely lets out a dramatically weary sigh and gives you only the barest amount of space to get past him. You squeeze through the door, grazing against his wet arm. You hear him close and lock the front door behind you while you openly gawk at his apartment.
“You live like this?” You ask, slightly aghast. The place is a mess. There are plants and exercise equipment everywhere. The stuntman hovering behind you clearly has his priorities.
“Sure do. Just going to go finish rinsing off. I’d say make yourself comfortable but you’re already on your way,” he remarks, casting an amused glance at the way you’re wobbling while trying to extract yourself from your shoes with no hands.
You frown at his back as you watch him skirt around you and head in the direction of his bathroom. He’s moving jerkily, almost stumbling. His back is definitely messed up. You really hope it’s something that you will be able to assist with in some capacity. You know first hand how stunt work takes a toll on the human body.
Following the sound of a television, you manage to make your way to the living area. You shove over some electrolyte packets and gardening tools on his coffee table to make room for the bag of food that you brought for him. The heating pad and ice packs get dumped on the floor next to one of the legs. As for yourself, you settle in on his couch to wait. You’re not surprised to see that he’s left an Indiana Jones movie playing on the screen. It seems like the kind of thing he would watch.
From the bathroom, you hear some muffled complaining before the shower kicks on. The sound of the rushing water does little to cover the noise of the shower curtain hooks on the rod as he wrestles with the material. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, thankful you didn’t hear Colt fall trying to get over the edge of the tub. The last thing you wanted was to wrestle your naked crewmate while on the phone with emergency services.
Only a few minutes pass before the water cuts off and you hear the door open. You can’t help but notice that you didn’t hear the sound of his bedroom door closing. There’s just the sound of footsteps and rustling fabric. He emerges, wearing a pair of garish pajama pants. He’s still distractingly shirtless, because why wouldn’t he be? It’s not as though he has a guest that is trying very hard to be normal about this entire situation. There’s a towel draped over his bare shoulders in the effort to contain the mess produced by his sopping wet hair. Trails of water are running down his neck and soaking into the cloth.
Colt practically drags himself over to you. He lowers himself onto the cushion at your side, and makes an effort to avoid leaning against the back of the couch. You turn to face the blond man, taking a hard look at him. He looks even worse up close than he did when he greeted you at the door. Exhaustion is deepening the fine lines in his face and his eye bags nearly have their own luggage.
“How are you doing? Really?”
He gives you one of his goofy grimaces and flashes a thumbs up. He can’t hide the wince as movement pulls at his back muscles. The look you give him in return is unimpressed.
“Can you even function?”
“Barely,” he says with a groan as he tries to get a little more comfortable. He still looks painfully stiff.
You suppress the urge to give him a comforting pat on the leg and instead lean over to dig the meal you had brought for him out of the bag. You shove a tupperware container, a wrapped sandwich, and a plastic fork at him until he takes them. He looks bewildered.
“Eat. The dressing is in the small container hanging out in the salad greens.”
“Did you make this yourself?”
“I’ve worked with you enough times to know how you are, so yes.” You admired the man’s discipline, but it had been cause for concern while you desperately scoured your kitchen looking for something to make that wasn’t going to fall under the umbrella of junk food.
“Maybe I should reinjure myself more often then,” he says with a smirk and raises his eyebrows. You don’t dignify him with a response.
He balances the tupperware of salad on the armrest next to him and sets to work on unwrapping the sandwich. It’s grilled chicken breast with a truly ridiculous amount of lettuce and tomato. You hadn’t dumped condiments on it, not wanting it to get soggy during the car ride.
“I’m here to play nursemaid so can I do something about all of that? '' You gesture to his dripping hair and his hunched over body.
He looks up from the sandwich like he’s holding something precious in his hands. “You made me this. You can do anything you want with me. I’ve only got a few limits.”
You roll your eyes at his suggestive tone before rising up onto your knees. You shuffle closer, knees mere inches away from grazing the outside of his thigh. The towel slips freely from his shoulders and he doesn’t complain when you drape it over his head. You gently work the material over his hair. Colt starts in on the sandwich while you work carefully to dry him without putting unnecessary pressure or movement on him. You take a corner of the towel and wipe away the water that has trailed down his face and his neck. You don’t go any further down than his collarbone not daring to drag the fabric over his chest. You have to cling to some level of professionalism between coworkers. He leans into the touches in the areas you are willing to wipe dry. You pretend not to notice.
He eats like he’s been starving ever since the last day you and the rest of the crew had seen him on set. He probably had been if he was still in this bad of shape days later. You leave him to start in on the salad. On your way to hang the towel over the shower curtain rod to dry, you stumble over a stray weight that had been left in the middle of the floor. You manage to suppress your pained noises despite the tears leaping to your eyes. Why had you been volunteered for this? Your crewmates had been suspiciously giggly and evasive when you had protested. They had just made excuses and jokes about how you were Colt’s favorite person and you being the one to check on him would make his day. What a load of crap.
“What do you usually do for your back?” You ask, coming back into the room and trying to not let on you nearly had your own medical emergency just out of sight.
“Just uh… stick the tens on it and stretch it out.”
“Gotcha. Finish that up and we’ll start on your back,” you tell him. You crouch down next to the coffee table and gather the ice packs. You won’t be using them today. The injury has sat for too long.
“Thanks, nurse,” he responds around a mouthful of greens.
You cross the apartment and pull open the door to the freezer. You cram the ice packs onto an already sizable stack of them sandwiched between the freezer wall and bags of frozen vegetables. The refrigerator itself is covered in receipts, bills, coupons, business cards, brochures… You’re really not sure how Colt is able to find anything. You suppose that it’s all his own brand of organized chaos.
You make your way back to the living room in time to see him clamp the lid back on the tupperware container. You give your head a little shake. The man inhaled an entire sandwich and a salad in under fifteen minutes. Impressive. You hope his stomach handles going from zero to a hundred with more grace than yours would. You don’t feel like holding his hair back while he vomits.
“How do you want to do this? Floor, couch, or bed?”
He twinges his back when he twists to look up at you. You’d laugh if you hadn’t felt a sting of worry at the way he winced. You know Colt’s a tough man. You have seen him take hit after hit over the past few years. He must be hurting badly to be showing this much sincere discomfort. You’ve seen him ham it up as a joke, but this was the real deal.
“I’m glad one of us thinks I’ll be able to get off the floor. How about you take me to bed, beautiful?”
He heaves himself off the couch and you trail after him into his bedroom. The floor is messy like the rest of the house. You’re not sure if he’s always this disorganized or if it was just something that has resulted from him not being able to keep up with it due to his back. Given the state of his fridge, you’re strongly considering that it’s the former and not the later.
“How do you want me?” The flirtatious tone isn’t quite coming through as intended with him standing like he’s auditioning for the starring role in a live action adaptation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“On your stomach, please. Do you have lotion or anything I can use on you?”
He groans as he makes his way onto the bed and lays face down. He’s unable to relax, the muscles in his back are too tight. “I have some vaseline in the bathroom. Right drawer.”
You set the heating pad down on the bed next to him after plugging it in. You make another trek to the bathroom to search for the aforementioned vaseline. It’s not hard to locate and you manage to dodge the weight this time. You’re not about to wreck your foot on it again. Once was enough.
You settle on the bed next Colt, careful not to jostle him. You swipe your fingers though the vaseline to collect a sizable dollop of the substance. You set the container aside and liberally coat your hands with what you had scooped out. Your eyes catch on the long scar running alongside the stuntman’s spine. It’s pink and raised, a fairly old wound but not old enough to fade to silver. You weren’t there when Colt got the injury. You’d been on another set halfway across the world, but the things you’d heard months later from people who had been present when it happened weren’t good. He had nearly died and if he had… you would have just been left with memories spanning the hours spent with this cocky man. You would have likely said a few words at his funeral, if you had even been able to make it, and that would have been the end of Colt Seavers. He would be just another stuntman who died doing what he loved. The thought puts a pit in your stomach. You push it aside, he’s still alive and he’s waiting for you to get on with the program.
The initial touch of your hands against his bare back causes you both to tense up and go deathly quiet. Your pulse is hammering in your years and you swear you can hear the sound of his throat as he swallows. You try to not knee him in the side as you start to massage the expanse between his broad shoulders. It’s not long before he’s melting into the mattress, relaxing under your touch. You work him over, section by section. You gently knead the raised line of scar tissue, helping to discourage the excess building of collagen. A little lower and he’s groaning when you carefully dig your knuckles into the skin above his waistband, forcing the tight muscles to yield. He’s limp and unresistant when you catch him by the hip and pull his pelvis in your direction to better align his spine.
Thankfully, you spot an already dirty shirt nearby. You pick it up and wipe your hands on it with a grimace. Most of the vaseline has either ended up on the man currently face down on his bed or had absorbed into your palms, but you still didn’t want to risk tracing it through the house before you slathered your hands in dish soap to remove any oily residue. As a final token of care, you lay the heating pad across his lower back and turn it on the medium setting. You’ve done all you can do for him.
Colt is so still and quiet that you’re sure he’s fallen asleep. You turn away from him and inch towards the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb him while you begin your exit from his apartment and back to your vehicle. You nearly leap out of your skin when he shifts enough to catch hold of your forearm. His hand is so large that his middle finger and thumb nearly touch.
“Please stay.” He sounds tired, vulnerable. There’s no charisma or bravado to his voice.
You feel your face soften as you take in his words. “All right.”
You scoot back towards him and lay down on your back at his side. The bed is barely big enough for the both of you like this. It’s intimate, too intimate, especially since your arm is still in his grasp. You can’t bring yourself to mind. The line between being coworkers and whatever this is was blurred a long time ago anyway despite your best efforts to tell yourself otherwise. You're starting to realize your crewmates might have been more aware than you were. Those assholes.
When Colt rises up onto one elbow and leans over, taking all the time in the world to project his intentions, you don’t turn from him. You just bring a hand up to brush his still damp hair out of his face. You guide the stuntman the rest of the way in, your hand migrates to cup his bearded cheek. The kiss you share is inevitable and unhurried. It feels as natural as breathing.