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The beach, Michael thought, was a problem.
He’d turned up for that afternoon’s scenes prepared to cheerfully mock James, who had already been there for hours, about spending the morning on vacation. But it wasn’t a vacation, and the second he got down on his knees in the chilly sand, the wind biting through the shiny new superhero suit, and realized that James had been there for hours, he started to feel the creeping teeth of worry, nibbling around the edges of his cheerfulness.
The sun glittered brightly above them, turning the beach into a postcard-perfect panorama, and sparking tiny golden glints off the waves in the background. Lovely, really.
But the air was sharp, and the wind was icy, and James had already spent four hours lying in cold wet sand. He was trying to be a good sport about this, but, Michael observed, he started shivering every time someone yelled “Cut!”
“Are you all right, then?”
“Fucking Georgia, I thought the American South was supposed to be warm…”
“I’ll make you a martini later. Also, I don’t think Charles says fuck.”
“I think Charles wants to fuck everything that moves. Except right now, when he’s freezing his ass off on a beach in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m sorry. Can I help?”
“No, it’s fine…”
It wasn’t fine. They did six more takes, and after the first three, James was shaking so hard that he could barely talk. He still managed to turn it off for the camera, though, because he was being professional. And he was, as always; every emotion, every single perfect tear, every word.
Michael was used to being impressed by James’s ability to slide effortlessly into his characters, that was a familiar sensation, but this time he almost missed half his lines because he was busy wondering how James could manage such eloquent expressions when his fingers, against Michael’s, felt like ice.
At the end of the fifth take, James closed his eyes, possibly for dramatic effect, but didn’t open them again right away. Michael frowned at him, concerned. “James?”
“I think it’s a bit better, actually. I’m not…feeling as cold.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“One more, guys!”
This time, after the cameras stopped rolling, James didn’t move. Not even the unfairly long eyelashes stirred.
“James?”
No answer.
“James, wake up.” Michael shook him, a little desperately. “Come on…” Oh, god, he’d said he wasn’t feeling the cold as much, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that a symptom of hypothermia, or frostbite, or something else horrifying?
James blinked at him, not quite focusing. “Are we still filming?”
“No!”
“Then why do you look so worried?”
“Because you might be freezing to death.” Michael pulled him up into a sitting position, and watched James blink again, and try to fix those depthless blue eyes on him. This seemed to take some effort. More than it should.
James leaned against him, shivering again, and letting Michael take most of his weight, which Michael attempted not to find terrifying. “Really? That’s…possible.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well, it was going so well…”
“You fucking idiot.”
“Wait…why are you allowed to say fuck?”
“James! You’re done! Go home! Michael, get over here!”
They both turned to look, automatically. Lots of people. Lighting crews. Extras. Assistant directors. Probably all waiting for them to move so that the next scene could start.
“I think they want you.”
“I think you shouldn’t be alone. Can you stand up?”
“Maybe. Do I need toes for that? Because I don’t have any at the moment.”
“All right, come on…”
James, once on his feet, seemed better, as if movement helped. Still not quite steady, but better. Michael held onto him, both arms wrapped around shaking shoulders for warmth. Maybe he should call someone. One of the on-set paramedics.
“Don’t you dare. I’m fine, I’m just cold…”
“How did you know—”
“I can read minds, remember? Also your face. You have a lovely face. Very expressive.”
Could being cold actually make someone delirious? “I want you to go back to your trailer, at least. Shower. Get warm. And I’ll be there to check on you after we’re done, all right?” He got a single nod in response, which set off every single alarm bell in his head. No jokes about Michael being bossy, no protests, not even commentary about being told to go shower?
“Michael! Quit cuddling James and get over here!” That was Matthew.
“I think he’s angry with us.”
“We did break his golf cart.”
“True, but we paid for that…” James shivered again, almost falling over, and Michael watched him with escalating concern. “Are you—”
“I’m all right, I’m going. You should be too; they can’t start without you…”
Michael let go of him, reluctantly, and watched James pick his way carefully across the sand, in the direction of the little cluster of trailers.
“Fassbender! Stop staring at his ass and come on!”
Michael yelled back, “It’s character acting, it’s in your damn script!” and crossed the beach, privately resolving to make the next scene as short as humanly, or superhumanly, possible.
Of course it wasn’t that easy.
Lighting problems, camera issues, people forgetting lines…a two-minute scene stretched into thirty, and then forty, and the fifth time a microphone accidentally fell into the shot, Michael began wondering whether it might be worth it to start yelling at the sound crew. He’d never been inclined to throw temper tantrums on set—it’d never seemed a productive course of action—but he was starting to see the appeal right now. Knowing that the crew was trying hard and wouldn’t deserve it really didn’t help.
Finally, finally, everything came together just right, and someone said the magic word “wrap,” and he bolted in the direction of the trailers without even saying goodbye to Kevin, who had been watching his increasing restlessness with some sympathy and had just opened his mouth, most likely to ask whether Michael was okay.
He should probably apologize to Kevin later. Right now he had other priorities.
The air inside James’s trailer was warm with steam, which was good, because that meant that at least he’d made it into the shower. Michael spent a minute being relieved by this before realizing that James was apparently still in the shower, which made no sense, because James was generally not the sort of person to spend over an hour on that particular activity.
He wondered briefly what it said about him, that he knew such things about James’s shower habits. Probably nothing good.
“James?”
No answer. Maybe James couldn’t hear him over the water. The door to the tiny bathroom was ajar, so he ventured a bit closer, and tried again. “James? Are you all right?”
Still no answer. James was generally not the sort of person to ignore someone calling his name, either, and Michael pushed the bathroom door all the way open and stepped inside. He’d be perfectly happy to let James yell at him for the invasion of privacy, if that meant that James was fine and capable of yelling.
Sand crunched under his feet; James’s discarded suit sat in a disconsolate blue-and-yellow heap on the floor, taking up most of the available space. Michael’s own suit, which he hadn’t bothered to remove, was sticking to his skin and damp with the humidity.
But none of that mattered, because he’d spotted James, curled up on the floor of the shower, shaking like a leaf despite the near-scalding water.
He dove into the shower, suit and all, and scooped James off the floor and into his arms. James blinked at him. “When did you get here?”
At least, that was what it sounded like. He was still shivering, and it was a little hard to tell. “You didn’t hear me?”
“I thought so…but it’s hard to hear much from down here. Except the water. Are you wearing your suit in the shower? Because you’re going to be in trouble for that.”
“I really don’t care.” He ran his hands across James’s skin, still cold despite the superheated shower, and tried to rub some warmth back into him. “I think I should call someone.” The paramedics. An emergency room. Possibly an airlift to the nearest person who could help.
“Oh…no, don’t bother people on my account. Besides, it’s getting better.”
“That’s not reassuring, you are aware.” The suit was getting in the way, clinging to his arms, and probably also not comfortable to lean against; Michael managed to get most of the top half unfastened and peel it off one-handed, keeping one arm around James. Body heat, he thought. Wasn’t that something else one was supposed to do for a hypothermia victim?
“So…possibly I’m hallucinating from the cold—does that actually happen? Because it would make hypothermia much more interesting—but are you attempting to be naked in my shower?”
“Only half. You’re completely naked in your shower.” Which was, he belatedly realized, very true. James naked, even shivering, was beautiful, all pale skin and surprising profusions of freckles, and he really shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts when James might be freezing to death. He probably shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts ever, but that’d been a lost cause from the first day they’d met.
“Also, hypothermia isn’t interesting. And you’re not making a lot of sense, you know. Are you sure I shouldn’t—”
“No, that was just a normal sentence, sadly. Sorry. I’m fine.” James looked up at him, thoughtfully. “You know, I always thought being naked in the shower with you would involve much more fun. And also the ability to feel my fingers, of course.”
Oh, and now he was thinking about naked showers with James, and just how much fun that would be. The potential for extremely embarrassing encounters had suddenly increased by a dangerous amount, even though it really shouldn’t’ve, because James had only meant it as a joke, of course; certainly James wasn’t really having thoughts about the two of them in his shower, because James was far too nice a person to ever share the terribly inappropriate fantasies that ran through Michael’s head every time his co-star looked at him, or touched him, or smiled.
James put a hand on his leg, and Michael silently panicked, because in about a minute James might end up inadvertently sharing some of those fantasies after all, and now was not the time for that, if there ever was a time for that. James needed help. Needed him.
At least, he thought, if James could make jokes about them in the shower, he had to be feeling somewhat better, right? What else might help?
“Will you be all right for just a second? You have tea, or coffee, or something, in here, right?” Hot liquids were also good, weren’t they? Plus he could remove himself from dangerous proximity to all that bare skin for a minute or two.
“Oh, sure…and no, not in the shower…out there somewhere.” James waved a hand at the bathroom door, and by implication the rest of his trailer. “No tea. Just instant coffee. Americans are barbaric.”
“Be right back, then.”
At least the tiny little single-use coffeemaker worked quickly. Michael stared at it, sitting calmly on the shelf, plastic and placid and unperturbed by events, and tried to calm his own heart rate. James was fine. Cold, yes, shaking, yes, but fine. Making jokes. Managing to smile at him. He shouldn’t be this worried.
What if he couldn’t get James warm again? What if he’d taken any longer to get here? What if James had—no. He wasn’t thinking that.
He really wasn’t thinking that, because he couldn’t. The idea of the world without sapphire-ocean eyes and a cheerful accent in it, with a James-shaped absence at its heart, was just…unthinkable. Not a concept that made sense, in his head.
And James was going to be fine, anyway, he thought, defiantly, and grabbed the disposable cup out of the coffeemaker, stuck a lid on it, and ran back into the bathroom.
James had managed to sit up on his own, but he was still shivering, and his eyes were closed. The brightness of the overhead lights drained even more color out of his skin, leaving the freckles stranded against whiteness.
“James? Talk to me.”
“Still here. That was quick…”
“Not really. Are you awake? Look at me.”
They didn’t really fit in the tiny box of a shower; this particular addition to their trailers hadn’t been made for two people. Barely even one, on a good day, and mostly intended for getting sand off before everyone departed for the hotel. Michael carefully maneuvered them around until he had James curled up in his lap, arms and legs wrapped around him, and let his own feet stick out into the linoleum-plated bathroom.
“I made you coffee.”
“You made me instant coffee. Which even you won’t drink. You say it tastes like motor oil.” But James took a sip, anyway, when Michael held it up for him. “Terrible.”
“Sorry. I didn’t have time to go and find your raspberry syrup and whipped cream, or whatever that abomination was that you were drinking yesterday. More?”
“What’ve you got against raspberries? And, unfortunately, yes, I think it does help. I can probably hold that, you know.”
“No, you can’t. I can see your hands shaking. And I have nothing against raspberries in general. Just not in coffee.” He contemplated, momentarily, whether raspberries might belong in the bedroom. Maybe. James liked raspberries.
“This coffee could use all the help it could get.” James looked up at him, the jewel-box blue of those eyes brighter now, more awake, despite all the falling water and steam. Michael, cautiously, let himself be a little relieved by that. “So…we really are mostly naked in my shower, aren’t we? I feel like we should’ve had a first date, at least.”
“I feel like you should drink more coffee.” It did seem to be helping, or maybe it was the shower, or maybe his own body heat, or some combination of everything. But James’s skin was starting to feel warmer against his, and beginning to look better, too. Not quite as chillingly white.
James made a face at him, which Michael took as a promising sign. “The coffee is disgusting.”
“I know.” He hesitated, but he wanted to keep James awake and talking, and he thought about the tone of James’s comment, and maybe he’d only imagined it, but maybe the fact that James kept bringing up the two of them in the shower actually meant something, and he really, really wanted to ask.
Besides, they probably couldn’t get much more intimate than this, and so he might as well say it, assuming he could get the words to behave themselves and come out right. “When you said… just now, were you suggesting… did you mean that we ought to have had a first date?”
“Really disgusting…”
“Oh, thank you.”
“No, not you. The coffee. The not-coffee. You I quite like. I’d be happy if we’d had a first date before you ended up in my shower.” James put his head on Michael’s shoulder, and his wet hair curled around Michael’s neck, as if it wanted to hold on, too.
Michael gazed down at the hair, and managed, “Really?”
“A first date might’ve gone well, yes.” James was smiling; he could feel it.
“So, if we had… wait, did I ask you, or did you ask me?” He caught himself smiling, too. It was contagious, despite everything. Anticipation, running through his bones, under his skin, spilled and shared across all the places they were touching, and there were a lot of places.
“Oh…I think you asked. I’m shy, you know.”
“About as shy as a hurricane, yes. All right, I asked. And you said yes. Any better?”
“I think I might have fingers again.” James evidently decided to test this by running said fingers across Michael’s arm, experimentally. They felt warm, finally, but maybe that was just the fact that James was touching him.
“Fingers are good. So, where’d I take you on this hypothetical first date?”
“I hadn’t really thought that far, to be honest. Dinner?”
“I’m not terribly original, am I? I think you should finish the coffee.”
“I think you should stop calling it coffee,” James sighed, and took the cup out of Michael’s offered hand in order to drink out of it, this time. “Oh, look, I can hold things now. That’s exciting.”
Actually, it was. And reassuring, and comforting, and other friendly adjectives. Some of the lingering worry eased its way out of Michael’s chest, trickling away along with the splashing water from above them. He watched James take a sip, following the movement of his throat when he swallowed.
“If you want dinner, I can cook for you. How do you feel about Thai food?”
“You can cook?”
“I can. Don’t look so surprised. I might have to be insulted.”
James handed back the coffee cup, and curled up against him again. “I’m not surprised, I’m impressed. I can’t cook, you know.”
“I know.” He’d been there for some of the attempts, especially the memorable popcorn incident that was the reason James was no longer allowed to have a microwave in his trailer. And that was fine; he wouldn’t mind making dinner for James, he thought, because that meant that James would be there, in his apartment. Maybe there could even be a second attempt at naked showering. And, of course, that would suggest that they’d been engaged in prior activities, the sorts of activities that required a shower afterwards.
James, apparently, had not followed him onto this line of thought. Just because James might’ve said yes to their hypothetical date, Michael reminded himself, that didn’t mean that he would be happy to know about his presence in all of Michael’s fantasies, and so he tried to listen to what James was actually saying instead of calculating the likelihood of James agreeing to be naked in his apartment.
“…so you can make killer martinis, and you look fantastic in fishnet stockings—you do, by the way—and you can cook. Is there anything you can’t do?”
Michael mentally filed the comment about the fishnets for later discussion. He might be willing to wear them again, given a very specific reason. “That depends. Do you have toes yet?”
“Ah…mostly.”
“Then, no, there’s nothing I can’t do.”
James actually laughed at that. “Don’t be smug.”
“Don’t be jealous.”
“If I had more energy, you would regret saying that, you know.”
“And then I’d spill terrible coffee on you. Don’t go to sleep.” He’d thought James was feeling better. Some of the worry crept back in, dark and spiky around his heart.
James opened his eyes again. “I’m not. Really. It’s just that the water keeps bouncing off your shoulder and into my eyes.”
“I’m…sorry about that?” He contemplated trying to change positions, but that was sort of a hopeless cause, given the miniscule size of the shower, and the fact that James was leaning on him and he didn’t want to move too much.
“No, it’s fine. You have very attractive shoulders, you know. They’re sometimes a bit distracting.”
James had been looking at his shoulders? Since when? “Distracting?”
“Oh, sorry, was that too much information? I think I’m allowed to confess these things, though. I might be freezing to death.”
“You are not.” It was both a statement of fact—at this point, he was pretty sure James was all right, and he thought James knew that too—and, also, a kind of invocation. By saying it out loud, he could make it even more true.
“No, I’m not. I’m all right, I think.” James wiggled toes, testing them, and then held up a hand and examined it, critically, for shakiness. “Definitely better. I could probably stand up, if you’d like to move.”
“Don’t rush things.” They could stay in the shower forever, if that was helping. He’d figure out a way to make them both comfortable there. Maybe they could get food delivered. And they’d already be here, on location, in the morning. Easy.
“Well, the water’s not very hot, in here, anymore. Also, I have a bigger shower back at the hotel.” James grinned at him. “We could continue this over there, if you still want to join me. Or I can think of other ways for you to keep me warm. Interested?”
“Very. But only if you’re all right.” Interested was not a strong enough word, but he refused to do anything if James wasn’t completely, entirely fine.
“I’m all right. You don’t have to worry. And I meant it about your shoulders. I do like them.”
“James?”
“Yes?”
“If I kissed you, would that help keep you warm?”
“Oh,” James said, surprisedly, happily, “I think you should try,” and Michael leaned over and captured still-moving lips with his own before James could finish the last word. James kissed him back, with enthusiasm. The shower spilled lukewarm water over them, tumbling exuberantly across skin and hair and into the kiss, where Michael ran his tongue along the curve of James’s mouth and James shivered, not from cold, and breathed “yes” against his lips.
James, Michael decided, tasted exactly like delight. Amazing.
At which point James ran a perfectly steady and not-at-all-frozen hand along his chest, down to his waist, and then paused, encountering blue fabric, and started laughing. “Oh, no, you’ve still got your suit on…I don’t think they’re meant to be worn in the shower, you know.”
“I’d be quite happy to take it off for you.” Except, now that he thought about it, they were in James’s trailer, and therefore he would be naked, and while he was pretty sure neither of them would mind that, he had no clothes in James’s trailer for afterwards. Damn. “Or…we could wait.”
“I could go find you something to wear. It’s not as if your trailer’s not next door.”
“I don’t want you to go anywhere.” He was comfortable, despite the fact that his feet were still sticking out of the shower, and James was warm and naked and eminently kissable, and they were happy. Why move?
“If I go find clothes for you, we can go back to the hotel.”
“If we go back to the hotel, can we not wear the clothes?”
“I think not wearing clothes sounds like a wonderful plan.” James untangled himself from Michael’s arms and started to get to his feet; Michael promptly got up, too, and put his arms back around James, not as much because James might need the support as because they belonged there.
They found their way out of the shower, carefully, and James collected articles of clothing, and Michael tried to see whether James could get dressed without them ever being out of physical contact.
“You’re making this very difficult, you realize.”
“And your point is?”
James paused to grin at him, halfway through putting on his sweater, still barefoot, hair falling in his eyes. “No point. Just an observation. I like you touching me.”
“I like touching you.”
“I like you.” That came out a little muffled, as the sweater went on. Michael watched as blue eyes reappeared on the other side, and offered, to them, “I like you, too.”
“I thought you might. Just a bit. Sometimes.” James kissed him again, swift and happy. “Be right back.”
Michael wanted to tell him to wait—James hadn’t even bothered to put socks on, just shoes, and what if it was still cold outside?—but he was distracted by the perfect sensation of James kissing him, of James wanting to kiss him, and by the time he could form words, James was out the door.
Ten minutes later, he found himself staring at that door and trying not to be worried. James was fine, he knew James was fine, and there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why it was taking so long to run next door and snatch up two items of clothing. Of course there was. Had to be.
He had his hand on the doorknob when it turned abruptly and James ran in, apologizing. “Sorry! I ran into Kevin, and he wanted to know how you were, he said you looked very tense earlier and he was concerned—here, I did bring you clothes, I’m sorry, he wouldn’t leave until I said I’d take care of you, and then he laughed and called us adorable, which—are you all right? You look worried. I’m so sorry.”
Michael, wordlessly, put his arms around James, who stopped talking and just held him back. Michael breathed in the scent of him, snuck hands up under the sweater to feel the solid presence of James beneath his touch, and rested his cheek in the damp and fluffy hair, which tickled his face reassuringly.
After a minute, he said, “James?”
“Better?”
“Yes. Um. I think I’m in love with you.”
“Oh, is that so?” James lifted his head to look at Michael, comfortably. “What an astonishing coincidence. I love you, too.”
“You—really?” Somehow he hadn’t been expecting that. And James had said it so calmly. Like it was a matter of undeniable, universally accepted, fact. He couldn’t quite believe it.
“Oh, definitely. Rainbows and butterflies and all that. And you make me happy. Just being near you makes me happy, you know.” James blinked at him, nose to nose. “You really didn’t notice? I feel like I’m always smiling, when you’re around.”
“I love you.”
“I do like hearing you say that. If you get dressed, we can go find the car that will take us to the hotel. And then I can help you can get undressed again.”
“I really, really love you.”
James laughed, and kissed him again, purposefully, which turned Michael’s attempt at putting on clothes into a much more complicated endeavor than usual. But James’s lips felt warm against his, and so, he decided, he didn’t mind at all.