Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Trevor checked the time once more. 9:17. Chris was officially 17 minutes late to a meeting he called himself last night, which was incredibly unlike him. After the disaster of yesterday’s Spirit of Christmas recording, Chris had angrily stomped up to Trevor as soon as the cameras cut, requesting a meeting first thing the next morning. (Thankfully Chris had put on a bathrobe but he was still wearing the snowman make-up, so it was only because Trevor was holding up the chimney for Max, Vanessa and Annie to crawl out underneath that he didn’t point and laugh at him.)

Now, the director was nowhere to be seen. Trevor was sat waiting in the small office attached to the rehearsal space they were allowed to use due to Max’ connections with the BBC. It was a little room within the bigger space, with a window watching the stage, so even when Chris was in here doing his administrative work, he could comment on the rehearsals happening. And he did. A lot. It scared Trevor the first couple times but he had since gotten used to hearing Chris shout something about lines or props or something or other from seemingly nowhere. There was a small table facing the window covered in papers, folders and other such clutter, and a couple of shelves and cabinets on the back wall with archival information on past BBC productions. There was only one terribly uncomfortable wooden chair, which is why Trevor found himself leaning against the desk.

He pulled out his phone to shoot Chris another message when he heard the door opening and footsteps rushing in. Chris Bean, director of the Cornley Drama Society, the snowy old snowman himself, came running through the door, jacket barely hanging onto his shoulders, holding his backpack in his hand, hair everywhere and scarf loosely wrapped around his neck.

Panting, he muttered, “Sorry I’m late, bus trouble.”

Trevor raised an eyebrow. “I told you I could pick you up.”

“I didn’t see that message. Had a bit of a late one last night.”

Trevor grinned. “Oh, did you now? Have fun in the pub after the recording?”

Chris shot him a death glare. The entire society had gone out for drinks afterwards, and Trevor was smart enough to not stay for more than one drink. He had a meeting with Chris first thing in the morning after all. Chris must’ve been persuaded by the others to stay a bit longer.

“Your head’s pounding isn’t it?”

“No it isn’t,” Chris said, as he walked towards the desk to put his bag down and started taking his jacket and scarf off. Very gingerly, Trevor noted. He laughed and reached into his bag.

“Here, some ibuprofen. You obviously don’t need to take it, I brought it for Robert for rehearsal later today, figured he’d need it. Just… putting that on the table,” Trevor said as he slid a crumpled little box of painkillers over to where Chris was standing by the desk. Chris looked at it for a moment, then up at Trevor.

“Thank you,” Chris muttered as he took it.

“Anytime. Now. You called a meeting and were then promptly 20 minutes late to it, so it must’ve been important. What did you want to talk about?”

Chris stared at him incredulously. “Are you serious? What do I want to talk about? Trevor, were we at the same recording yesterday? So many things I want to talk about, number one being, use prop alcohol for the love of God! We nearly killed Robert with the amount he drank!”

“That was his own fault I might add! He wasn’t forced to drink it.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“If he were truly as great as an actor as he says he is, he would’ve…” Trevor trailed off, distracted by something.

Chris has taken off his jacket and the cardigan he was wearing underneath to reveal a grey T-shirt. This was an odd occurrence to begin with, Trevor didn’t think he’d seen Chris in a T-shirt since that one rehearsal over the summer when the rehearsal room became so hot due to the lack of windows that everyone had stripped down as much as they felt comfortable to, leaving most of the cast in their underwear. Chris only shed the outer layer of a cardigan; Trevor felt hot just looking at him.

The thing that caught his eye back in the office was his left upper arm. It was covered in clingfilm with white tape keeping the film in place.

“What?”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, this?” Chris looked at the clingfilm on his arm as if he hadn’t noticed it before Trevor mentioned it. He mumbled something under his breath.

“A what?”

“A tattoo,” Chris admitted. Trevor looked at him, eyes wide in surprise.

“You? A tattoo? Chris Bean? Got a tattoo?”

“Yes I did, well noticed.”

“Who are you and what have you done with our director?” Trevor joked.

“Shut up Trevor,” Chris snapped back.  After a moment of silence in which he sat down at the desk and started organising the papers, he quietly added “I was drunk.”

Trevor could sense a hint of embarrassment from the tone in Chris’ voice. He couldn’t figure why, from what he could see it was a nice-looking tattoo. It was a tiger all in black ink. He’d seen people do worse when drunk, Robert whining about his ex-wife on the BBC last night was certainly up there.

“It suits you.”

Chris paused for a moment before he started unpacking his bag. “Thank you.”

“Why a tiger?

“Good question. I’d tell you if I remembered.” Trevor started howling with laughter. Chris gave him a disapproving look which made him keep laughing.

After dramatically wiping the fake tears from his eyes, Trevor asked, “So, are you gonna get it removed then?”

Chris shrugged. “It has to heal first. 6 to 8 weeks.”

Trevor whistled. “That’s a long wait.”

“That, and I need to pay for it. I’m not exactly swimming in money at the moment.”

“How did you pay it to begin with?”

“I offered the artists free tickets to any play of the week.”

“Come on, the tattoo isn’t that bad, no need to punish them,” Trevor joked, met again with a disapproving look from Chris.

“’M only joking. Tell you what though, the others are gonna love it!”

“The others aren’t going to be finding out anytime soon, are they?” This was another one of those favours Chris wanted to ask of Trevor, he recognised the tone in his voice. It was the same tone he used when he suggested breaking into the BBC studio to film their version of A Christmas Carol. And just like he did then, Trevor folded almost immediately.

“Ugh, fine. But you owe me.”

“Of course. How about a free tattoo?”

Chapter Text

“Can I pour you a brandy?”

“Sure.”

I could certainly do with one at this point, Trevor thought to himself as he stood by the side of the wrong set for the scene. He’d been so confident that this time, he’d gotten the set change right. But no, the bloody BBC crew had to fuck it all up by confusing him. He watched as Chris awkwardly walked up to the water dispenser and started pouring water into a little conical paper cup. Scratch that, I’m gonna need something stronger.

For the final change, he’d decided he’d ask the cast to help. Jonathan had gotten himself locked in the bathroom, so he was out. Vanessa was still recovering from the treadmill incident in the previous scene, which left Robert, Sandra and Dennis, all three of whom had different ideas of which scene they were moving the set to. He really wanted Annie to help, as she was the most useful of the actors, having been in his position before, but she had to be on stage, kissing Chris. He remembered when they had their first read-through, the silence after the stage directions were read was palpable.

“I just don’t get why it has to be me!” Annie ranted at him during a break. They were both stood outside, Trevor went out for a smoke and Annie followed him as she usually did. It was a routine they started when Annie was still the Cornley stage manager. During the breaks they’d go outside, smoke, and bitch about the production. Annie has since given up smoking, but the ritual stayed in place.

“Couldn’t it have been someone else? There are two other girls who could’ve done it.”

Trevor exhaled smoke. “What, you think Sandra kissing Chris is a good idea? Her and Max have been joined by the hip ever since Peter Pan, I don’t think you could pry those two away from each other with a crowbar. And Vanessa already kissed him last episode, and that didn’t exactly work out now did it?”

Annie huffed. “Suppose not.”

“Besides, what’s the big deal? Surely he’s not that bad a kisser.”

“Alright, just ‘cause you wanna kiss him doesn’t mean the rest of the cast does as well,” Annie fired back with a devilish grin on her face.

“I don’t wanna kiss him!” Trevor replied, playfully punching her. He regretted confiding in her during a particularly rough tech. “Just because I told you what my first impressions of Chris were doesn’t mean they’re still true.”

“Sure, of course. I believe you. We’ve gotta get back inside.” Trevor rolled his eyes and waved her off, indicating to his still unfinished cigarette. Annie shrugged and said “Well, don’t get too jealous of me,” while walking to the stage door before blowing him a kiss and disappearing inside. She missed Trevor flipping her off before quickly finishing his cigarette and joining her back inside. It was true; he’d had a small, teeny tiny crush on the willowy architecture student he’d seen around campus. That’s partly what inspired him to join the production crew for Murder at Haversham Manor. (The extra credit also helped.) He’d seen him around campus, sitting in the library hunched over various textbooks, on his way to class, wearing dorky sweaters and cardigans.

Chris never saw him, until Annie invited him along to a rehearsal to introduce the two. She’d mentioned they needed a techie and it would qualify as a credit and Trevor jumped at the chance. He always told people it was only for the credit, as he felt like he had quite the persona to keep up and “joining a silly play to get closer to a crush” didn’t exactly fit that persona. Besides, the crush faded within five minutes, after Chris insisted Trevor get on stage and act out some Shakespeare as a sort of audition.

“I’m not gonna be on stage!”

“Just in case we need you to understudy!”

“How likely is that going to be?”

“Not likely at all, we’re incredibly professional.”

Annie eventually gave Chris a stern talking to, after which he came back and welcomed Trevor aboard the production. The crush had definitely worn off though. Praise be to Annie for talking Chris down, Trevor didn’t enjoy reading at the best of times, let alone Shakespeare in front of a judging audience.

Now, Annie was in some sort of corpse locker instead of a cupboard because of the screwups. None of which were Trevor’s fault, he’d decided. Just because no one could read his handwriting on the running list. He had been told by Chris to type it out but he didn’t have the time, what with the risk assessments he had to complete for the six different sets, three of which would be halved and on wheels. All the pieces of sets will be put onto castors that can handle the weight of the set (true) and will be fitted with brakes (not entirely true).

“Mind if I finish the bottle?”

Oh God.

Trevor watched, powerless, as Max said his line and Chris looked at the water dispenser. He knew Chris, working with someone for almost a decade will do that to you, he knew he’d go the extra mile for any scene, and he did. Moments later, Chris Bean, director of the Cornley Drama Society was soaked, head to toe, drinking as much of the water pouring down his front as he could. As the audience roared with laughter, Trevor found himself trying to cover his eyes, but he couldn’t. It was like a car crash; he couldn’t look away. His eyes kept going over Chris’ frame. From where he was standing, he could make out some of the freckles on his arm, as well as the outline of a tiger in black ink. It was the first time Trevor had seen it since the meeting after Spirit of Christmas, Chris had done very well keeping it hidden from the rest of the group. It helped that it was still cold out, cardigans and sweaters were still socially acceptable. In fact, it had been so well-hidden and Trevor had been so busy with work, he’d almost forgotten it was there. He felt his cheeks heat up slightly, from second-hand embarrassment he assumed, as his eyes kept going over his silhouette. He was transfixed by the way the white shirt clung to Chris’ arms. His gaze kept falling onto the black outline of the tattoo.

“Now that’s what we call in the industry, a sopping wet cat of a man,” Robert remarked next to him, snapping Trevor out of a daydream he wasn’t aware he was having.

“Shut up and get to your mark,” he shot back and walked away, ready to move his half of the set. He knew he was going to get an earful from Chris when he next saw him, but for the rest of the play (which thankfully wasn’t long), he couldn’t help but worry about Chris being cold.

Chapter Text

By far, Trevor’s favourite place in the BBC rehearsal studio was the workshop. It wasn’t a large space, but it had all the necessary tools to make the props and smaller set pieces they didn’t have the budget to outsource. It was also far away enough from the main rehearsal space so he could work in peace and play music out loud rather than through headphones which was a bonus. Every single play they did there was a challenge for Trevor to overcome. It was the toy machine in Spirit of Christmas, the decoding computer in The Pilot (which wasn’t the pilot), and this week it was a fully functioning horse costume for Dennis. It was proving difficult to build, partially because of a lack of skill, Trevor found himself quite adept at carpentry but not at horse costume building, and partially because of the insane requirements for the horse.

Just before Trevor turned on the old CD player covered in sawdust, he heard the office door slam. While the workshop was a corridor away from the rehearsal space, it was closer to the office, close enough at least to hear the frantic footsteps of a very angry-sounding director. Trevor walked out to the rehearsal space where he saw Sandra and Robert holding croquet bats.

“Highly unprofessional behaviour,” Robert stated as he started playing around with the bat and immediately broke it. Sandra shot him a look as Trevor sighed. Another bloody prop to fix.

“Well, it is! Storming off like that. What an absolute diva.” Robert dropped the broken croquet bat at his feet and wandered off to his bag.

“The blood mechanism still wasn’t working, it spilt red wine all over Chris’ shirt, he’s went to grab a spare,” Sandra helpfully filled in.

“Red wine? Why were you using red wine?” Trevor questioned as he picked up the bits of bat.

“It was all we had,” Max sheepishly answered from the audience.

“Clever thinking,” Trevor noted as he searched around his pockets for a roll of tape. Max beamed at the compliment. Suddenly, from the office came a bang and a shout.

“Although maybe not the cleverest,” Annie remarked.

Trevor shrugged. “He’s fine.” Another bang and a slightly more exasperated-sounding shout. “I’ll just go and double check,” he added, quickly making his way to the door, leaving the others to continue rehearsing the scene (although knowing them, there was a high chance they’d end up goofing off while Chris was away, they usually did that when there was no one making sure they stayed on track).

Trevor carefully opened the door and came eye to eye with a very frustrated Chris and a pile of files on the floor.

“Is everything alr-“

“The sodding blood went everywhere!” Chris spat.

“I can see that,” Trevor retorted, folding his arms around the croquet bat he was still holding and leaning against the doorframe. He watched Chris pick up the files and drop them on the table with a resounding thud.

“It’s wine by the way.”

“Wine?! Why on Earth are they using wine?”

“They’re resourceful.”

“Where did they even find it?”

Trevor shrugged. He watched the realisation hit Chris that his cream-coloured shirt had been covered in red wine, and before he could say anything Trevor spoke up. “You looking for the lost and found?”

Chris took a steadying breath. “Yes.”

“It’s on top of that cupboard, all the way at the back, I’ll get it.” Trevor put the croquet bat on the messy desk and reached for the back of the cabinet to pull out a cardboard box with LOST N FOUND written on it in big block letters. He rummaged around in it for a second as Chris took a seat to calm down a bit.

“Not sure if you’ll find anything good in here.”

“I don’t care, as long as there’s something I can wear so we can keep rehearsing, I don’t want to lose too much of today’s rehearsal.”

“How’s about this?” Trevor triumphantly held up a T-shirt with the torso of a cartoon woman in her bikini.

“Alright, maybe I do care a little bit.”

“Fair enough. How’s about…” Trevor rummaged a bit longer, then held another T-shirt up, “this one?”

“Trevor, I somehow think me wearing a T-shirt that reads ‘I’m with stupid’ with a big arrow pointing up will not get the others to take me seriously.”

“Good point,” Trevor said, dropping the T-shirt back into the box. He could feel Chris was still quite tightly wound and figured he needed to calm him down before letting him back in the rehearsal room. He didn’t want a repeat of that one rehearsal that ended with Chris having to buy an apology dinner for everyone. Although the meal was lovely, he probably should have apologised beforehand, as Chris ended up wearing some of the food. The longer Trevor worked with the drama society, the more he learnt about de-escalating situations. That was partly his job as a stage manager, to act as a go-between between the actors and director, so he had to find out pretty quickly how to calm both sides down enough for at least a civil conversation. However, he was still a little shit-stirrer at heart, especially with the rest of the cast after a couple of drinks, he often ended up bitching about an incident that occurred between him and the venue crew. The best way to disarm Chris when he was like this was to distract him completely, so that’s what Trevor intended to do. He glanced at Chris who was looking out of the window into the rehearsal space. Trevor followed his gaze and could clearly see the actors goofing off. Swiftly closing the curtain, forcing Chris’ attention back to the situation at hand, Trevor continued rummaging through the box.

“Oh my god”.

“What?”

“You’re not gonna believe this.”

“What is it?”

“I found your missing shoe.” Trevor held up a single leather sandal. Chris sighed in response.

“Very funny.”

“No, but Chris, think about the implications! Who loses a single shoe?”

“I don’t know Trevor, maybe they were in a hurry.”

“But a shoe!”

“Maybe… I don’t know, there’s probably a reason. Let me have a look.”

Chris stood up and took hold of the box and took it to the desk to rummage in it with one hand, leaning on the desk with the other. Trevor stood next to him and leant with his back against the desk, crossing his arms.

“What’s that?” Chris asked, pointing to the croquet bat.

“Robert broke it after you left.” Chris, sighing, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’m going to have a word with him.”

“Chris, it’s fine, I’ve got it under control, see?” He pulled the LX tape out of his pocket. “I was about to fix it but I thought I’d check up on you first.”

“With bright red tape?”

Trevor looked at the tape. “It’s not that bright.” Before Chris could say anything, he added, “but I’ve got other tape, don’t worry, I just happened to have this on me.”

Chris took another steadying breath. Trevor noted Chris had paid attention in the stress management workshop recommended by Vanessa and actually followed some of the advice that was given to them. What had started out as a silly idea turned out to be quite the beneficial afternoon for the group. “Why did you have red tape on you?”

“I was using it to cover the hoover for the horse’s tongue.”

Chris chuckled. “You’d use tape to make our costumes wouldn’t you?”

Trevor laughed. “I did, that one time, remember?”

“Oh god, don’t remind me, my arms were covered in tape residue for weeks.” Despite the grimace on Chris’ face, he seemed slightly less tense, and the distraction was clearly working. Chris continued picking at the various items in the lost and found box.

“What’s the weirdest thing you think anyone’s ever found in the lost and found?”

Chris shrugged. “I lost my scarf in Tesco one time, and when I went to ask if I could look around their lost and found and I found seven of the same T-shirts.”

“What?”

Chris looked up. “Seven yellow T-shirts, all the exact same.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah, it confused me so much I almost forgot what I was in there for.”

“I can imagine.” Trevor looked at the wall opposite the desk and let a small silence fall as Chris carefully continued rummaging through the items. Chris was taking his time. It wasn’t that big a box, Trevor thought to himself.

“When I worked at a coffee shop someone left all their belongings. They came in specifically to study, got all set up, laptop, notebook, diary, everything, and then they just up and left without their stuff. We kept an eye on the table for a couple hours but they never came back.” Trevor turned to look at Chris who was staring at him in disbelief.

“What?”

“You worked at a coffee shop?”

“Yeah, I worked at a coffee shop.”

“You? A coffee shop?”

“Yes? What’s so hard to believe about that?”

Chris shrugged. “The coffee you make is always terrible.”

“Oi! I don’t have a fancy coffee maker here like I did there, don’t blame me.”

“Only a bad workman blames his tools,” Chris shrugged.

“Well I never said I was any good at it,” Trevor added with a sheepish grin. He met Chris’ eyes and saw the man opposite him was smiling, one hand in the lost and found, the other hanging by his side. He’d relaxed considerably Trevor noticed. This was the Chris he could really get on with. The one who wasn’t so uptight about everything, when after a show he relaxed and let loose a little. Chris had a very witty sense of humour which always had Trevor howling with laughter. It wasn't often Trevor got to see that Chris, but when he did, he made the most of it. Chris opened his mouth to say something when they heard a loud crash from the rehearsal room. Both of them tensed up but relaxed as soon as they heard a chorus of actors shouting the word “cabbage”. A suggestion from Vanessa, after the thousandth time everyone ran into the room when all that happened was Dennis knocking over a metal drink bottle. If you heard a crash and someone yelled “cabbage”, it wasn’t a “drop everything someone is dying” emergency.

“Thank God for cabbage. Never thought I’d say that out loud.” Chris laughed quietly and brought his attention back to the box as Trevor started twirling the LX tape around his index finger.

“What happened to the stuff?”

“What sorry?”

“What happened to the stuff that person left behind? The one in the coffee shop.”

“Got put in the lost and found box, and as long as I worked there it didn’t get claimed. Only worked there for another two days though so not sure what happened after that.”

“You were that bad huh?”

“Some guy was being a prick to one of the girls I worked with, so I threw his drink over him. My manager wasn’t too pleased.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“He shouldn’t have been a prick to his employees then,” Trevor added with a cheeky grin. Chris looked at him to verify if he was joking or not. Trevor’s face gave nothing away.

“Remind me not to cross you,” Chris said and continued looking through the box.

“And yet, you do, almost every rehearsal,” Trevor teased. “Nah, only joking. You haven’t pissed me off that much yet.”

“And somehow I still end up with a drink over my shirt.” Trevor laughed. He noticed the clock on the wall and stood up. “Well, this horse isn’t gonna make itself. Did you find a suitable shirt?” Trevor asked as he walked towards the door.

“Yeah,” Chris held up a black T-shirt.

“Cool, leave the other one in the workshop somewhere for me, I’ll see what I can do to get the stain out.”

“Thank you Trevor.”

“Course. Right, see you in a bit,” and with that Trevor headed back to the workshop, purposefully ignoring the clamouring he could hear coming from the rehearsal room.

He was expecting to see Chris when he dropped the shirt off, but at one point Trevor looked up from where he was working on the floor to stretch and saw a perfectly folded cream shirt covered in red wine sitting on the worktop. Chris must’ve left it and dashed off back to rehearse. After a quick Google search, he went into the small kitchen (which looked more like a cupboard with a sink in it) to rummage around for some white vinegar. Thankfully this must not have been the first red wine stain that needed to be cleaned here, as he found what he was looking for pretty quickly and got to work scrubbing. It took him a good twenty minutes, but the stain had mostly gone. Looking at his work proudly he hung it up over the radiator (which wasn’t on, they heated the rehearsal room and only when it got really cold, Max’s family at the BBC privileges didn’t cover the heating bills) and went back into the workshop to look at his to-do list.

Make to-do list

Remind Chris about lunch

Figure out how to make rain on stage

Add rain on stage to risk assessment

Make risk assessment

Sparrow?

Trevor sighed. That goddamn sparrow. He’d had arguments with Chris about it, especially after the whole thing with the bat from The Lodge. They’d come to the decision to still have the sparrow but not on a string, rather on a plank of wood so it would be safer and slightly easier to somehow rig it to move on its own. How he would rig that was the question he had to figure out. Having already glued a stuffed sparrow to a spare stick, he took said contraption and walked past the rehearsal room where he could hear a lot of noise, none of which was relevant to the play. Chris must be out or something, he thought as he walked to the ladder precariously balanced against some of the scaffolding holding the set up. After some deliberation, he decided not to try and climb the ladder while holding the sparrow-stick and looked around the room to see who was free to give him a hand. Jonathan was practising walking around with the rehearsal tray of drinks, and Max was sat in the seating bank writing something on a piece of paper with a look of such intense concentration on his face (the last time Trevor had seen him this focused on something it was on a response to a selfie Sandra sent him, he said he wanted to make sure she got the best response possible, he didn’t want to interrupt that). Sandra and Robert were running through the scene, Annie and Chris were nowhere to be found and Dennis wasn’t in today. There was no costume for him yet, so Chris figured it best to get him in when he could practice with the costume to minimise confusion. That left Vanessa, who was sat in the front of the seating bank with her legs tucked under her in a very uncomfortable-looking position, hunched over what Trevor knew to be a scarf she was crocheting. She didn’t have a lot of lines in Harper’s Locket so it wasn’t uncommon for her to be sat tucked away in a corner of the auditorium, either going over lines or attempting to relax (despite the general chaos of the rehearsal room) by doing some crafts. This week it was crocheting. She picked up crafts incredibly quickly, and she’d made everyone small handmade gifts for their birthdays. Trevor had received a little pouch with his band logo embroidered on it for all the spare drill bits that he may or may not have nicked from the BBC workshop. They had boxes and boxes of them anyway.

“Vanessa? Have you seen Chris?”

She looked up from her crocheting and shrugged. “Think he went to find you. He said something about rain?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Vanessa winced slightly at his angry tone. “Sorry Trevor.”

“No, sorry, not you. Chris.”

“Oh,” Vanessa said and visibly relaxed.

“Do you know where he went?”

“He went towards the workshop I’m pretty sure,” Max interjected, leaning in from the other side of the seating bank. “Or the office. One of the two.”

So, Chris was in one of two places, the only two places in the theatre the drama society was authorised to be other than the rehearsal space. Wonderful.

“Thanks Max,” which was met with an enthusiastic thumbs up and with that, Trevor set off to find the director, sparrow stick still in hand, and as soon as he turned the corner into the hallway between the rehearsal space and the workshop practically ran into him.

“Ah Trevor, there you are. I wanted to talk to you about-“

“The rain thing, I know, I’m working on it.”

“Perfect, thank you so much. Another thing I was meaning to tell you,” Chris started, looking at the notebook he was holding in his hand. Trevor stopped listening the second he saw what he was wearing. It was a black short-sleeved T-shirt that only just about seemed to fit him. It looked rather a snug fit, a very faded album cover slightly stretched out across his chest, but he could recognise that album anywhere. A Duran Duran album cover. It dawned on Trevor that Chris was wearing one of his old shirts. Trevor blinked in disbelief. He couldn’t remember the last time he wore that shirt

He'd been so lost in thought that he hadn’t realised he had been staring at Chris’ chest while he was speaking.

“Hello? Earth to Trevor?”

The only intelligent thing Trevor could come up with to say was, “That’s my shirt.”

“What?”

“That’s my shirt.”

“Well, do you want it back?”

“What?”

“I said, do you want it back?”

Trevor finally wrenched his eyes away from the album cover and met Chris’ eyes before suddenly realising what he’d said.

“No. No! No, it’s- it’s fine, it, eh, it, suits you. Sort of.”

“Oh. Thank you very much, Trevor. I didn’t know you listened to the Dire Straits.”

“What?” Trevor looked at the album cover again and realised he must not have properly looked at it, as it did in fact say Dire Straits.

“Yeah, it’s Dire Straits, says so here on the label,” said Chris as he turned around to try and show Trevor the label on the back of the shirt. In doing so, the T-shirt rode up ever so slightly and showed a sliver of pale white skin. Trevor felt a blush crawl onto his face, he couldn’t believe he got it wrong, it was supposed to be his favourite bloody band.

“Huh. So it is. Must’ve got confused. They both begin with D I suppose. Looks like one of my shirts. Not that I’d mind you wearing one of my shirts! Just, y’know, caught me off guard. If you ever wanna borrow any of my shirts, you know where to find me!”

A silence fell between the two men, one standing holding a notebook, the other standing holding a sparrow on a stick. Trying to hide his embarrassment, Trevor asked “What was the- uh, the thing you wanted to ask me about?” to break the silence which he felt was going on for far too long.

Chris blinked and said, “Just wanted to remind you about the sparrow, but I see you’ve got that under control already,” and he pointed to the sparrow in Trevor’s hand.

“Yes! Yeah, got it under control.”

“Alright then.” And with that, Chris walked into the hallway back to the rehearsal space and Trevor let out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. He took a moment to gather his thoughts about what had just happened. Why had he thought Chris was wearing his shirt? And why did it matter if he was? Friends borrow each other’s clothes all the time. Max and Dennis would sometimes swap shirts throughout the day to mess with people, and on some occasions even got Jonathan roped into it. The number of times Annie walked into a rehearsal wearing one of Trevor’s T-shirts because she’d stayed the night at his was bigger than the number of complaints they received. Sandra was known to steal everyone’s hoodies as she was always cold, especially Max’. Then again, they were dating, so that was different. Was it different? Come to think of it, Trevor hadn’t seen her wearing one of Jonathan’s jumpers in ages, or Robert’s. Or even his. His were often covered in some kind of muck from the workshop though, so that was probably why.

So why had the image of Chris wearing what looked like one of his shirts stopped him in his tracks? Maybe because it was so out of character for Chris. Trevor was used to seeing him in light colours, cardigans, sweaters, the whole posh twat, I play golf with father on the weekends vibe Chris had going on, it was odd seeing him wearing a rather tight black band tee. He could definitely pull it off though. The size was fine as well really, he just wasn’t used to it, to seeing the outline of Chris’ chest and stomach so clearly.

As he made his way back to the rehearsal space, he couldn’t shake the image of Chris standing opposite him, wearing maybe the most normal outfit to anyone else but which had for some reason left Trevor a bit of a bumbling mess.

He didn’t have a lot of time to think about it the moment he entered the rehearsal space though, as he was immediately met by a very stressed-out Chris and found himself tinkering with the rain system within minutes to get out of the way of the buses. Downstairs, he could hear Chris and Annie rehearsing their scene.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Kiss me.”

Trevor stopped what he was doing to be nosy and just about caught an incredibly awkward kiss between Chris and Annie. “That’s the second time he’s kissing me Trev! I’m starting to think he does it on purpose,” Annie had said one day after rehearsals in Trevor’s flat. He laughed in response.

“I don’t think he enjoys it any more than you do babe. You’re just the lesser of three evils is all.”

“Oh yeah? Well I’ll show him the lesser of three evils next time he comes near me with a romance in a script, I’ll tell you that for nothing,” Annie huffed, miming rolling up her sleeves. A couple of drinks later, Trevor had been bold enough to ask if Chris was a good kisser. Annie hadn’t been able to stop laughing enough to answer the question.

The kiss looked awkward, sure, but most stage kisses were awkward. He had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach when he saw his best friend Oliver Bishop kiss Sophie Barnes in their high school theatre group. A feeling which, watching Chris and Annie, he wasn’t sure he was remembering or feeling.

Physically shaking the thought from his head, Trevor went back to loosening one of the valves of the rain system. Chris exclaiming “Emily. Emily!” with an outstretched arm to the door Annie had just escaped through, brought his attention back to the actors, and just in time to see that the sleeve of the shirt Chris was wearing had rolled up to reveal a black tiger on Chris’ upper arm. He didn’t hold the pose for long as they swiftly moved on to the next scene with Max, and the tattoo was no longer visible.

“No, cut, cut,” came a booming voice from the audience.

“What is it Robert?” Chris asked, annoyance clear in his voice.

Robert made his way to the front of the stage and started giving notes, which Trevor knew frustrated Chris to no end.

“Listen, if you don’t want him to give notes, you shouldn’t have made him assistant director,” he‘d exclaimed after hearing Chris complain about him for the billionth time. The two of them were sat in the office late one night after a production meeting, lit only by the desk light, the curtains open to show the darkened stage of the rehearsal space.

“I didn’t make him assistant director! He made himself assistant director! And his notes never make sense. ‘Chris, try to play up the lack that’s in the scene’, what on Earth does that mean?”

“Like your tech notes are any clearer! ‘Make the lights more whimsical,’” Trevor said, holding back a laugh.

“You knew what I meant though,” Chris huffed.

“Yeah, I did,” he admitted. Whatever crazy request Chris came up with, Trevor always found a way to make it happen. Including, but certainly not limited to, making it rain on stage. Although he was struggling with this valve. Instructions had never been Trevor’s best friend, he rarely had the patience to read them, but he usually figured out how to work different appliances just by looking at them.

Downstairs, Chris and Annie reset the scene.

“Father is ill. And if he were to find out about us, I… I fear he could not stand the shock.”

“Then you ought not to break it off with me. If you do, I’ll see your father learns everything.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

No one on stage was looking at Chris’ left arm, but Trevor, who was upstage right, had a clear view of it as he continued loosening the valve.

All Trevor could see was the tiger moving slightly every time Chris moved his arm in the slightest, in an almost life-like manner. It was strangely hypnotic, Trevor found himself unable to look away and completely forgot what he was doing. Moments later, although it felt like ages for Trevor, a cold stream of water hit him right in the ear, abruptly bringing him back to the real world. He yelped and tried to move away from the steady stream as quickly as possible, which led to him almost falling off the roof.

A chorus of “Trevor!” and “Are you okay?” came from the ground as he nodded and finally managed to shut the water off. Opening his eyes properly he saw everyone on stage looking up at him, worry evident on their faces, visible even through the conservatory roof.

“Sorry about that, got a bit distracted,” he explained. “Carry on, don’t mind me.” As the others slowly returned to their places, out of the corner of his eye Trevor could see Chris was still looking up at him, but he refused to make eye contact with him for fear of doing something even more embarrassing.

Throughout the rest of the scene, Trevor forced all his attention on the task at hand, and when he was finished with that quickly disappeared to the safety of the workshop, where no one could distract him as he worked through the rest of his to-do list. He wasn’t sure what had happened back there but it spooked him a bit. He’d had trouble focusing before, all his school reports said that he couldn’t sit still and wouldn’t pay attention during classes (it wasn’t his fault English literature bored him to tears). He’d usually be extremely focused when at work though. The work he did could easily hold his attention, that’s why he liked it. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Something about this time unnerved him slightly though. It could’ve very easily gone wrong. He could’ve fallen off the roof and damaged equipment or worse, hurt someone. Stuff could easily go wrong, that was only natural (especially for them, given their track record), but every single time someone got hurt because of him he felt so incredibly guilty. How couldn’t he? He saw the drama society as family, they depended on him, and knowing that he let them down, it crushed him. Thankfully there hadn’t been life-threatening injuries, just the odd sprain and bruising.

There was no point in dwelling on what could have happened. He threw himself back into the to-do list he was suddenly determined to finish today. He decided just needed some peace and quiet to sort it out. His eye kept falling towards the cream-coloured shirt hanging over the radiator, but he tried to shove the owner of it out of his mind. The few times he’d let his mind slip he kept seeing Chris wearing the shirt, his shirt, (not his shirt, he had to keep reminding himself), and he’d be right back up on the roof of the conservatory, lost in thought until something brought him back to the real world.

Near the end of the day, he glanced up at where the shirt was drying and found it wasn’t there anymore. Instead, he found a note in Chris’ impossibly neat handwriting. He must’ve hyperfocused, he was sometimes known to do that. One time he spent an entire rehearsal making a pirate ship for Peter Pan and wasn’t aware any time had passed until he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. It was Chris, letting him know it was almost 8 o’clock at night. He had to practically drag Trevor away from the workshop. They were as bad as each other really.

Thank you Trevor.

-C

As if he needed to sign it. Trevor could recognise his handwriting from a mile away. He tucked the note into his pocket and reached for his phone, realising he hadn’t looked at it in a while. Two messages from Chris.

Trevor thought for a moment before typing out a response.

Within seconds, Chris responded.

Feeling a little guilty about telling Chris a white lie, he pocketed his phone and started gathering his belongings. It wasn’t really a white lie though; he genuinely felt a bit weird. Dennis once described to him what his fear of heights felt like. That must’ve been what happened. Weird feeling in his stomach, check. Not being able to look down, check. Feeling a bit shaky, check. Then again, Trevor had spent enough time on lighting rigs and ladders to know he’d never felt a fear of heights before.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to see another message from Chris.

Trevor grinned at his phone.

Trevor put his phone away and continued gathering his stuff before heading over to the office, where Chris was still sat at the desk, frowning over some paperwork.

“Is this what you call hurrying up?” Trevor joked, leaning against the door. He was careful not to come in or take his jacket off.

“I’m looking at stuff for next week’s play, just wanting to make sure the set builders know-“

 “Surely that’s a next week problem.”

“I just want to make sure that-“

“Chris.”

“I’m just going over-“

“Chris.”

“All I’m doing is-“

“Chris.” Chris finally looked up from the paperwork to see Trevor had raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. “Come on, it’s time to go home.”

Chris sighed and put the paperwork down. “Alright. I’ll do it tomorrow,” and with that he started gathering other pieces of paperwork to put in a folder to take home with him.

“How did the rest of rehearsal go?”

“Fine.” Trevor could tell from the curt answer that Chris didn’t want to talk more about it, which usually was a bad sign. “How did you get on in the workshop?”

“Yeah, not bad. Got a fair bit done. I think we’ll be ready to rehearse with the horse costume tomorrow.”

“Wonderful! I’ll try to get Dennis in tomorrow afternoon then.”

“I’ll shoot him a text,” Trevor said as he made way for Chris to walk past him through the doorway.

They spent the walk to the car chatting about their respective plans for tomorrow’s rehearsals, Chris reminding Trevor about the croquet bat and Trevor delighting in telling him he’d already fixed it and would drop it off first thing in the morning. The drive itself was spent in relative silence, broken every now and then by small talk between the two men. They were both pretty spent and more than comfortable sitting together in silence. There was rarely any awkwardness between them, working together in such stressful situations really brought the best and the worst out of each other and they’d seen it all. Considering Chris was quite an uptight person and Trevor was the exact opposite, he felt very at ease around Chris.

So when Chris turned around to smile and wave at him once he got out of the car and Trevor felt the feeling of a fear of heights forming in his stomach, he pretended he didn’t. He simply smiled and waved back before he drove away.

Chapter Text

With everything that had happened with 90 Degrees, Trevor felt he deserved a long holiday. Technically, he did have a few days off before pre-production for season 2 started. Despite the chaos of season 1 they’d been invited back for a second season. Chris was convinced it was because the BBC had faith in them and wanted to give them another chance. (Trevor knew it had been due to Max pulling some strings with his aunt, involving promising a visit from the snowy old snowman himself at his niece and nephews’ school’s Christmas party. Chris didn’t know about that part yet, and Trevor felt it best that he didn’t know about it for a while longer.)

Trevor was excited to spend some time relaxing, but Chris being Chris, he’d scheduled a meeting with him the day after the get out to discuss what needed to happen next, despite Chris himself needing a break. The last time Trevor saw Chris was outside the BBC studio.

“So, what you gonna do with your next couple days off then?” Trevor asked, taking a drag from his cigarette and breathing away from Chris who couldn’t stand the smoke.

“Days off?”

“Yeah, y’know, they happen when you don’t have to work.”

“Trevor, we have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning.”

“What? Since when?”

“About two days ago?” Trevor must’ve looked confused, as Chris continued, “It was during the recording of 90 Degrees, we were sitting on the mat together, watching the next scene and I suddenly remembered we’d have to go through our returns policy with the BBC for next season so I asked you for a meeting.”

“I was not watching the next scene,” Trevor replied indignantly, tossing his cigarette on the ground and stomping it out. “I was checking you over and not listening to a word you were saying, too focused on making sure you were alive. You could’ve suggested licking Satan’s bollocks and I would’ve agreed to it. I take my job as first aider very seriously.” It was true; ever since their disastrous run of Peter Pan, Trevor was determined to get first aid training. He told the others it was because everyone in the cast was incredibly accident prone and he was sick and tired of being on a first name basis with all the staff at the A&E. In reality, he wanted to be as prepared as possible. Seeing Annie lying there after she passed out made him feel so incredibly helpless. That night he couldn’t sleep properly. He kept seeing all his cast, his friends, in the same position. At that moment he vowed to do everything in his power to never feel that way again. Stuff still went wrong, but at least he felt more prepared.

Chris looked down. “Oh. Apologies. Can we schedule a meeting for tomorrow?”

“No.” When Chris looked up, frowning in confusion, Trevor elaborated. “Okay, right, I don’t know about you, but I need some time off where I’m not constantly in fight or flight mode brandishing a roll of gaff tape. Can’t we postpone it for just a few days? I know for a fact we’ve got at least two weeks’ leeway for preproduction; you were lookin’ over my shoulder as I made the schedule. It’s been a really intense couple of weeks, for both of us for that matter, don’t you think you deserve some time off too?” Without intending to, he glanced at Chris’ wrists, which Chris shoved further into his jacket pockets, trying very hard to conceal a pained wince.

Chris had instinctively braced his fall to the ceiling by holding his hands out and hurt his wrists as a result. Nothing was broken, Trevor made sure of that, but there was a fair bit of swelling. Chris had also gotten the wind knocked out of him for a few minutes. Throughout the rest of the play, Trevor kept a close eye on Chris to make sure he was breathing alright. He’d never been more grateful that he’d managed to convince Chris to let him put a mat there. He couldn’t bear to think of what would have happened otherwise.

“I’m fine, I work better under stress.”

“Chris, your jaw has been clenched for the past three hours, your eyebags have bags and you’re wearing clothes I know for a fact you’re wearing because you haven’t had time to put a load of washing on for a while. Should I go on? I can think of more examples.”

 “No no, that’s fine, thank you.”

So thankfully, after some persuasion (and maybe some thinly veiled threats), Chris had taken a few days off. Well, Trevor assumed he wasn’t working during those days, as they didn’t see each other after 90 Degrees. He used to enjoy the times between shows where he wouldn’t have to see everyone all the time, but he’d quickly discovered he actually enjoyed spending time with the others. It wasn’t the people he needed a break from, but the job itself. The society usually planned a dinner together in the time between shows, sometimes they’d watch the episodes or recordings of the performances, sometimes they’d play boardgames. Chris never attended, despite always being invited. The director was rarely seen outside of rehearsals and meetings. Even Trevor, who saw him the most out of the entire society, rarely saw him as anything but the frustrated director trying to wrangle cats. The few calm moments between them he cherished.

There hadn’t been any big scares like the one on the conservatory roof. Trevor just attributed that to tiredness and overworking. He simply stopped thinking about it altogether, pretended it didn’t happen. He ignored the looks he’d get from the others every time he went up a ladder the week after and they stopped eventually. It was nice the others were worried about him, but there wasn’t anything to be worried about. Trevor was fine.

When they finally did have the meeting at Chris’ flat, Trevor was glad to see he hadn’t been working on Play of the Week nonstop. His flat was tidier, way tidier than it was when he dropped him off after 90 Degrees. Trevor never judged him; he simply knew it was a sign of working too much. His flat was usually the same after a run, he’d spend at least one day resting before tackling the mess he’d be left with after a get out.

Chris himself was looking slightly better too. He answered the door with slightly more colour in his face, holding a green bowl of muesli and yoghurt. (No more clenched jaw, Trevor noted.)

“Ah, Trevor. Come in,” as he stepped aside to let Trevor in.

“Hiya, y’aright?” Trevor asked as he untied the laces of his combat boots and kicked them in the vicinity of Chris’ neat shoe rack. He took off his jacket and hung it up before following Chris into the living room, where he’d already made himself comfortable at the small dining table against the back wall. He’d only been at this flat a couple times; Chris had recently moved. He hadn’t told anyone, Trevor was the first to find out when Chris turned down Trevor’s offer for a lift home.

“I’m alright, how about you?” Chris asked as he squinted at his laptop, undoubtedly pulling up the paperwork they needed to go over.

“Not bad. Caught up on some crap telly and avoided anything theatre related. Exactly what I needed. Right now what I need though is a drink, you want a tea or coffee or anything?”

“I’d love a cup of tea actually, thank you,” Chris said as he handed him an empty mug standing next to the laptop without looking up from the screen.

“I’ll make it then, shall I?” Trevor joked as he took the cup from him and walked into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

They must’ve boiled the kettle at least four times before they moved on to the alcohol at the end of the meeting. It had been productive; it usually was between the two of them. Chris was very good at keeping Trevor on topic, but Trevor in turn was good at putting an end to the meetings once they’d reached their productivity peak. Hence the alcohol.

“Chris?” Trevor asked after a small silence. They’d migrated to the living room (which was really the same room as the kitchen but the distinction mattered to Chris) and were sat on the couch, the remnants of their takeaway stacked on the small coffee table in front of them.

“Hm?”

“Do you still have that tattoo?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Has anyone found out?”

Chris snorted out a laugh. “They’re actors, Trevor. They notice nothing that doesn’t involve them directly. I don’t mean that badly,” he quickly added when Trevor started laughing.

“No, no, but I get what you mean. Continue.”

Chris gave him a sheepish grin before continuing. “No, none of them have noticed. Or at least, none of them have said anything about noticing it.”

"I find that hard to believe."

"Yes exactly, so I assume no one has seen it."

The two lapsed back into comfortable silence.

“Do you want another drink?” Chris asked, offering to get up.

“No, no, it’s alright, I should probably head home,” Trevor said, standing up and grabbing his glass to put back in the kitchen.

“You’re not driving home, are you?”

Trevor turned to see Chris looking at him from the couch with an odd look on his face. “I was planning to, why?”

Chris gestured to the empty glasses in Trevor’s hand with a frown on his face.

“It’s fine, honestly, I haven’t had that much to drink.”

“But it’s dark outside. And wet.”

“That’s usually what England is like after midnight mate,” Trevor joked.

Chris didn’t laugh. “I’m serious.”

“So am I! I’ll be fine Chris, honestly.” With that, Trevor went to the kitchen to put away his glass. When he came back, Chris had stood up and was looking at him.

“What?”

“You can’t seriously drive home now,” Chris said as he pointedly folded his arms.

Trevor sighed and started moving towards the door to the hallway. “Honestly Chris, it’s fine, it’s not a long journey, I’ll be really careful, and I’ll text you as soon as I get home.” He walked through the door to the hallway and could hear Chris following him.

“Trevor,” Chris said, his voice suddenly cold and stern. He was using his director voice; Trevor had heard it often enough in the rehearsal rooms when Chris thought the actors had done enough goofing off. It had rarely been directed at him, though; he’d somehow always managed to avoid the director’s wrath. He turned to look at Chris and found two eyes boring into his. Chris’ gaze was pinning Trevor in place, he felt almost suffocated by the intensity.

“Please.” As he spoke, Chris’ gaze softened and Trevor could breathe again. There was something vulnerable in the way he said it, like he’d bared open his soul in his hallway with that one word for Trevor to do with what he liked. Vulnerability didn't come naturally to Chris. It sort of came with the job; he’d consistently be putting his ideas out there for the group to comment on but even when doing that he’d fight any criticism with “I’m the director so we’re doing it my way, i.e. the best way”. Trevor wasn’t stupid though. He could tell some of the criticism Chris received bothered him, though he’d never admit it. Chris’ emotions were usually well-hidden, to see them so openly on display made something in Trevor’s chest feel tight.

Or maybe it was the sudden tension that filled the narrow hallway. Chris was standing less than an arm’s length away from Trevor, just past the door to the living room, unease written all over his stance, the way he was ever so slightly hunched in on himself, fists clenching and unclenching rhythmically, swaying anxiously on his socked feet. His brown hair styled back in the way it usually was, but a single strand had come to rest on his forehead, eyebrows furrowed in anticipation for a response, jaw tense as he worried his lower lip between his teeth. Everything about the man standing opposite him screamed discomfort but Trevor could only focus on his eyes, as if he’d only just seen them for the first time in the long time he’d known Chris. Green. Very, very green eyes.

He started feeling a bit wobbly on his feet but a hesitant “Trevor?” brought him back to the hallway and grounded him. He must’ve drunk more than he originally thought, maybe driving home wasn’t the best idea. Despite this, when Trevor finally found his voice again, he quietly said “I have to get home somehow.”

“You can stay here.” Chris was looking at him, hope and something else unreadable glistening in his eyes.

If Trevor could form any coherent thought, he’d have berated himself for folding so quickly. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

Chris breathed an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. “Course. It’s the least I can do for keeping you this late. Get your stuff and I’ll tidy up here.” The carefully crafted walls were back up almost immediately.

“Okay,” and with that Chris smiled at him appreciatively and dashed off back to the living room, leaving Trevor alone in the hallway. He walked to his car in a slight daze and grabbed the overnight bag he kept there, and before he knew it he was back inside, kicking his shoes towards Chris’.

The weird tension had dissipated by the time he was brushing his teeth in Chris’ tiny bathroom. The little fresh air he got must’ve sobered him up a little as he finally realised the implications of staying with Chris overnight.

“Don’t be daft, my bed can fit the two of us easily,” Chris said when Trevor went to make himself comfortable on the couch.

Trevor felt a grin spread across his face as he grabbed the blanket and started folding it back up. “Oh, you’ve changed your tune a bit since the Fringe, haven’t you?”

In the early days of the Cornley Drama Society they’d taken one of their plays to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Accommodation had been a bit tricky. During the Fringe, some Edinburgh residents rented out their spare rooms or sometimes even their entire apartments to artists coming to perform from all over the globe. Seeing as they were with a group of nine, getting accommodation together was highly unlikely, and with some luck (and hard work from Annie and Jonathan who had led the accommodation search) they ended up in three separate places. The girls were in a three-bedroom apartment, closest to the venue. Jonathan, Max, Dennis and Robert found a flat with two bedrooms with bunkbeds each and Trevor and Chris were staying with Trevor’s cousin, who had a small double pull out couch in his living room. Trevor had (wrongly) assumed they’d both be fine with sleeping in the double, but Chris was so vehemently against the idea Trevor thought it was a joke at first. After exhaustive arguing they’d agreed to take turns sleeping on the floor, which they only managed to keep up for a week before the chronic Fringe tiredness overtook them. They shared the pull-out couch for the rest of the run. It was one of those things that happened during the Fringe and stayed at the Fringe. They never brought it up, never spoke about it. It was just a thing that happened. They’d never mentioned it to anyone at the society, although Trevor knew that didn’t mean no one had figured it out. It had happened one other occasion since then, at another festival. When they were booking accommodation for the three nights they’d be staying in a different town, the two bunked together again in what turned out to be a room with one double bed. No words were spoken between them as they got ready for bed alongside each other.

“Shut up,” Chris responded from the hallway, but Trevor could hear the smile on his face. “Just hurry up, I’m tired.”

Moments later he found himself staring up at Chris’ bedroom ceiling past 1 in the morning, trying to get comfortable.

“Quit stealing all the blankets.”

“Trevor, it’s my bed, I get more blankets.”

“I’m a guest!”

“You know where I keep the pans in this place, that means you’re not a guest anymore.”

Trevor shot to an upright position, pulling the blanket with him. “What kind of logic is that? Just because I had to make you soup that one time when you were ill, I now don’t get any blankets?”

“Exactly. Now stop complaining and lie back down, I’m cold.”

“You’re always cold,” Trevor huffed and laid back down. “For all I know you tell everyone where your pans are so you don’t have to treat anyone nicely.”

“No one else knows where my pans are.” Chris’ voice was suddenly quiet.

“What?”

“The pans, only you know where I keep them. You’re one of the few people I’ve had over often enough. One of the only people I’ve had over, really. In this flat, but also in the old flat.”

“Oh.”

A short silence fell over the two as Trevor stared at the ceiling in the dark, unsure of what to say. The admission and the emotion behind the words shocked him slightly. It was probably the alcohol that loosened Chris up a bit, Trevor thought to himself. That didn’t stop the warmth from spreading in his chest as he realised he was the one Chris was opening up to. The realisation of just how much the director must trust him hit Trevor like a freight train. He was aware how difficult this was for Chris and he chose his next words carefully, not wanting to pry but encouraging him to keep talking.

“Not even the people from the drama society?”

“I’m their director, Trevor. People don’t want to spend time with the person who’s yelling at them all the time, do they?”

Trevor turned to face Chris. In the darkness he could just about make out the outline of his face, staring up at the ceiling. His blanket was pulled all the way up to his chin. “You don’t yell at them all the time, Chris.”

Chris said nothing for a while. The only sound in the room was the sound of Chris’ analogue alarm clock ticking away.

“I don’t mind, I barely have the time to host anyway. So busy these days.” A mirthless chuckle accompanied the words and, sensing the walls were back up, Trevor snickered and turned to face the ceiling again. “Tell me about it.”

Another silence fell between them as Trevor mulled over Chris’ words. Even though the moment had passed, he couldn’t bear to leave the man next to him thinking he was right, that his cast didn’t want to spend time with him. As much as they liked to complain about their director (Trevor included), everyone in the drama society secretly adored Chris. They’d broken into a BBC studio for him for fuck’s sake, how could he not think he was loved?

Trevor took a deep breath in. It was time for him to do the scary thing now and be sincere. Chris had done it often enough this evening, surely he could do it too.

“Chris, you know you’re not just a director to them, right? You’re their friend, they- um, we, care about you.”

He let the words hang in the air for what felt like forever. He was almost worried Chris had fallen asleep already before he heard a quiet “thank you, Trevor,” from his left.

“Anytime mate.”

Chris yawned. “We should get some sleep, early start tomorrow after all.”

Trevor shot up. “What?”

“I’m joking Trevor, lie back down for god’s sake.”

“You, Chris Bean, are a little shit.” Chris chuckled quietly at Trevor’s indignation as he fell back onto the mattress, bringing the blanket down with him. Trevor got himself comfortable again and turned to look at Chris. His eyes had gotten used to the darkness, and paired with the dim glow of a streetlight outside he could see Chris’ eyes were closed.

“Thanks for letting me stay.”

Chris’ eyes opened and he turned to face Trevor. “Of course,” he said, lips curved upwards in a small smile. Trevor smiled back and yawned.

“Goodnight Chris.”

“Goodnight Trevor.”

~~~

The first time Trevor woke up was because of an alarm clock blaring in his ear. Scrunching his eyes closed, he turned around and tried to block the noise by pressing his head into the pillow. He felt the bed move beside him as the noise finally ceased. He sighed contently, almost missing the quiet “sorry” before sleepily turning over and wrapping the blankets around him once more.

The second time Trevor woke up was a lot nicer. He slowly blinked his eyes open, letting them get used to the light that was pouring into the room. He must’ve forgotten to close the blinds last night before he went to sleep, he thought to himself as he rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again and he could take in the tidy, minimally decorated bedroom around him he remembered where he was. Last night slowly came back to him, the meeting that turned into drinks, the honesty passed between them, a pair of pale green eyes imploring him to stay. Trevor looked around but couldn’t see Chris. He checked the time on the alarm clock that had rudely awoken him earlier. Just past half nine.

“On my day off? Fuck’s sake,” Trevor grumbled as he made motions to get out of the still warm bed. He could’ve easily fallen back asleep, but since the space next to him was empty he felt he should probably go and make sure the workaholic madman who’d set an alarm on his day off had at least eaten something. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he stretched and groaned. Chris had a very comfortable bed, and despite the rude awakening he’d had a good night sleep. Grabbing his phone off the nightstand he made his way to the kitchen.

“Mornin’ Chris,” he greeted as he padded towards the kitchen, boiling the kettle for a cup of tea.

“Good morning Trevor,” Chris responded from his usual seat at the dining table. He was already sat at his laptop, reviewing more documents.

“I’m guessing you haven’t eaten anything yet?”

Chris stayed silent which told Trevor enough.

“Surely that can wait until after breakfast,” Trevor joked, leaning against the countertop.

Chris made a non-committal noise and waved his hand to shush Trevor.

“Do you want a cup of tea at least?” Trevor asked as he turned around to rummage through the cupboards, looking for teabags.

“Yes please,” Chris said. Trevor found some clean mugs and the box of teabags and poured the boiling water in silence. He loved a nice slow morning like this, one where he didn’t have to rush out the door with a granola bar for breakfast shoved in his pocket that he could eat while waiting at a red light.

Carefully, he walked over to the dining table and put Chris’ tea down on a coaster crocheted by Vanessa before grabbing the seat opposite and settling in.

“Thank you Trevor,” Chris spoke before taking a sip.

“No worries,” Trevor responded as he pulled out his phone, sitting sideways in the chair, his back against the wall. The pair sat in silence for a few minutes, Chris looking over documents, Trevor playing a shooting game on his phone. When he died for the third time in a row, he closed the app and started reading his messages instead. He was looking for a relevant GIF to send into the drama group chat when Chris let out a contented sigh. Trevor grinned as he saw the cup being placed down onto the coaster in the corner of his eye.

“Just what you needed?” he asked, finger hovering over a GIF of Kermit flailing his arms about in a panic. (They were talking about an incident with one of the studio managers and this GIF was perfect to describe the panic she ran around the studio with that day.)

“You’re the only one who gets my tea order exactly right.”

Trevor chuckled and pretended he didn’t feel pride well up in his chest at the comment. “Yeah, well, I’ve made you tea often enough now, I was bound to learn some time.”

“Seems there is a reason to keep you around after all,” Chris mused.

“Oi! Cheeky.”

Trevor took a sip of his own tea as he opened his emails. His favourite part of the job, paperwork. An email from one of the studio managers right at the top caught his eye. He looked up to ask Chris about it, assuming that Chris will have already read the email and had maybe even already drafted up a response for him to stick both their names under.

Chris was still sat opposite him, intently reading whichever document was in front of him. His shoulders were slightly tense and he was holding the mug of steaming tea to his lips, as if he’d gotten distracted just as he was about to take a sip. He must’ve woken up a fair bit before Trevor as his hair was slightly damp still from a shower, and underneath the sleeve of his white T-shirt he could see the tail and one of the paws of the tiger on Chris’ left arm.

Trevor didn’t want to disrupt the image before him. This Chris was such a far cry from the stern director, all sharp, jagged edges. This Chris was softer. He exuded calm, sitting opposite him, dirnking cups of tea as he read through paperwork. This was a Chris he rarely got to see. This Chris looked cold, Trevor noted. His shoulders were hunched, and his hands were clasped around the steaming mug in an attempt to warm them. He wanted to offer the man a blanket, wrap him up in it, wrap his arms around his slender frame to warm him up.

Suddenly Chris looked up and Trevor felt his cheeks heat up, as if he’d been caught red handed. He threw Chris a sheepish grin and Chris gave a soft smile back and- oh.

Oh.

Oh no.

Chapter Text

Trevor might have a little bit of a crush on Chris. That was fine, he could manage. He was an adult; he’d simply deal with his feelings in a rational manner. It was just a crush, nothing more. It’d pass in a few days, he was sure, and in the meantime he decided to steer as clear of Chris as he possibly could. This was made harder by the fact that they worked together and, due to the natures of their jobs, saw a lot of each other. They were always the first in and the last out of the rehearsal space, they’d have production meetings whenever they could and Chris would often get a lift from Trevor, but he was sure he could make it work.

On his drive back from Chris’ flat after staying the night he blasted loud rock through his shitty van speakers and took the long way home. He’d made up some excuse about needing to look after his neighbour’s dog and left as soon as he downed his tea. He gave himself a pep talk in the mirror (it’s fine, you’ve had more embarrassing crushes before) and went about his business. He had some mundane tasks he had to do around the house so he got on with that.

A few days later, he caught himself smiling when he saw Chris standing on the street corner where he picked him up to go to the studio.

For fuck’s sake.

This was a disaster. A fucking disaster.

Trevor hadn’t worked on any theatre shows as a stage manager before Peter Pan. He had no idea how they were usually run. He helped Annie with Murder at Haversham Manor but she took on most of the responsibilities, he just helped out where she'd need him to which ended up mainly being lights and sound. Either way, Play of the Week ran differently to theatre shows, so the production process was slightly unhinged. There was absolutely no way in hell they were going to be able to rehearse, design and build a set, source props and costumes, design and program lights and sound in a week, no matter how hard Chris fought for it.

“But it’s called Play of the Week Trevor!”

“I’m aware, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start pre-production earlier! We absolutely cannot do everything the week before.”

“That’s rich coming from you, you finished the lighting designs for Haversham two days before the tech.”

"Are you ever going to let that go?"

So when Chris and Trevor sat down together to make the pre-production schedule for season 2, they decided they would do the production elements of all the plays at the same time and leave rehearsals for further into the process. Chris, ever working, had already picked out plays for them to perform and adapted them to fit the half-hour timeslot before season 1 had even ended, but Trevor refused to read them before season 2 was confirmed.

“I’m not getting myself all worked up over needing to build, I don’t know, an entire prison set before I know I absolutely have to.”

“How did you know about the prison set?”

“Fuck’s sake Chris.”

Usually, Trevor would read the new scripts in the office while Chris worked on some paperwork. There was a leather armchair he loved; it was originally dark brown but the colours had faded and the leather was starting to peel. Trevor had found it when looking through the BBC's props and set storage for furniture for his flat during the first season. It had been marked for the bins but Trevor salvaged it and put it in Chris' office to pick up later. It was one of those things he kept meaning to do, and by the third meeting they'd had in the office, the chair had become a permanent fixture, much to Chris' dismay. He hated the texture apparently but let Trevor keep it.

About a month after their production meeting at Chris' flat, Trevor found himself folded up in the leather chair, tapping his pen absentmindedly against his temple, not at all reading the script printed out in dyslexia-friendly font resting on his knee in front of him. Instead, his gaze was raised to what was behind his script, to the man sitting in a wooden office chair about five feet away from him, peering at his laptop. Trevor watched as Chris scrolled and took a sip of tea every now and then. He'd been watching him intermittently for a while now, and Chris thankfully hadn't noticed. Trevor rarely got the time to properly look at Chris, and he picked up on a few quirks the director had. He noticed how perfectly still and upright Chris sat, barely moving, until suddenly he scrunched his nose, ever so slightly. Trevor found it adorable.

Trevor forced his attention back to the task at hand; reading scripts. That's what he was here to do. Not look at Chris, not think about Chris, not imagine making Chris laugh over dinner with some stupid joke, or taking him to the theatre and watching him instead of the play, just to see his reactions when the lights go up and the first words are spoken.

He'd been staring at his script intensely, forcing his brain to read the words in front of him and failing miserably, when a voice broke him out of his concentration.

"Trevor?"

"Hm?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah! I'm fine, why— why do you ask?" Trevor looked up to see Chris hadn't turned to face him, his gaze still fixed on the screen in front of him.

"You sound frustrated."

"Huh?"

"Your tapping. It sounds more frustrated than usual."

"Oh, sorry. I'll try to keep it down."

After a moment of silence, Chris turned to face Trevor. He simply watched him for a moment, scanning his face. Chris sometimes did this when he had trouble reading someone's expression, and Trevor had gotten used to it but now he felt as if Chris could see right through him, and it made him squirm. "You don't have to read the scripts just now, you've got time."

"No no, I want to, the sooner I read it the more time I've got to work on the designs and stuff."

"Alright." Chris went back to continue working on his laptop, but turned back to face Trevor. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Stop being so distractingly handsome. "Nah, nothing. Thanks though."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, probably just one of those days y'know."

"Oh." Chris looked at the clock. "Shall we get lunch?"

"Huh?"

"Lunch. Shall we get lunch? It's almost 3, we haven't eaten since we got in this morning. That could be why you're having trouble focusing."

Trevor didn't want to explain to him it had nothing to do with lack of food, so he simply nodded. "Oh, uh, yeah, good point."

"Come on, let's go." Chris closed his laptop and stood up, Trevor following suit. They had reached the door when Chris casually said, "You're paying by the way."

Trevor stared at him for a moment. "Am I fuck!"

"You're the one keeping me from doing work, remember?" Chris said with a smile and Trevor felt he would've done anything for him in that moment.

"Yeah, sure, fine," he laughed as he followed Chris outside.

The two went out to a cafe near the studio and sat at a window seat. Chris, truly unable to stop working, animatedly started explaining the plots of some of the plays to Trevor. He found it slightly easier to pay attention this time. Until the sun hit Chris' face just right and his eyes lit up and Trevor got a knot in his stomach. He became very interested in his coffee when that happened, and thankfully Chris didn’t seem to notice.

About half an hour later, the pair walked back to the studio happily chatting about the designs, leftovers of their late lunch clutched in paper bags.

"I can't believe I guessed right about the prison set," Trevor said in disbelief as he opened the door to the theatre, letting Chris walk through first.

"That's what happens when you work together for long enough I suppose."

Trevor laughed. "Yeah, you can't surprise me anymore mate."

"Challenge accepted," Chris said before disappearing around the corner with a smirk on his face that made Trevor embarrassingly weak in the knees.

Once back in the office, they settled in together once more. Trevor went back to reading and Chris went back to his laptop. A few hours later, when darkness had long settled over the streets of Cornley, they discussed the designs further in the car on their way to Chris' flat. Trevor waited until Chris stepped inside his building and heaved a sigh of relief. Suddenly he could breathe again. Then, as he unlocked his front door and entered his darkened flat twenty minutes later, he realised he missed him and screamed into his pillow.

Trevor was carrying too many things. He'd only been at the studio for a few minutes and was already up to his eyeballs in work.

"Oh, it's fine Trevor, we'll just do pre-prod for every show at the same time, we'll have enough time to do that for sure, my arse," Trevor muttered snarkily to himself as he manouvered through the hallway, holding a fake turkey, a pair of oven mitts, a spear (not sharpened, thank God) and carrying two tote bags filled to the brim with costumes and four brown equally ugly wigs. He was on his way to the office to show Chris when he heard his name called from behind him.

"Hi Trevor, do you need a hand?"

Without turning around, he could tell it was Vanessa. She and Annie had come in before the rest of the cast to help with costumes. Vanessa was incredible at turning old BBC costumes they could borrow into pieces that fit and were relatively period accurate.

"Nope, I'm alright, thanks Ness!" he said as he gently nudged against the door of the office. When the door didn't budge, he nudged slightly harder, eventually kicking the door open with a bang.

"Hi Chris, I've got some things here, careful with that spear, I haven't sharpened it yet, that's an accident waiting to happen, but even unsharpened it can still be painful, trust me." He carefully leant the spear against the wall and continued. "I've got four wigs here, not entirely sure who they're for, but you asked for them so here they are. The oven mitts I'd like back please, they're my nan's, and the tote bags aren't my nan's but mine so I'd like them back as well please," he said, dumping the rest of the stuff onto the desk. Upon hearing nothing from Chris, he looked up and saw him standing in the corner of the room, a white dress shirt pulled halfway over his head. His arms were raised and he was flailing around, trying to pull it over his head. It almost made Trevor laugh until he looked at Chris' bare torso and the laugh died in his throat. He coughed awkwardly, wanting to look away out of respect but finding himself unable to.

"Do you, eh, need a hand there Chris?"

A few seconds of silent and increasingly frustrated flailing later, a defeated "Yes please," could be heard from the shirt. Trevor walked over and started unbuttoning the top shirt buttons, ignoring how close he was to Chris' bare skin. Chris rarely let the society see him wearing anything less than a t-shirt and full length trousers (Spirit of Christmas not included). He'd get changed in the office while the rest of the cast used the small dressing rooms and no one dared to disturb him. He could see his tattoo clearly. It had definitely healed, really nicely in fact, and it had certainly been long enough to get removed. For some reason, Chris hadn't yet.

Trevor gently pulled the opening of the shirt over Chris' head, who sighed in relief.

"There ya go," Trevor said as he started fixing Chris' collar without thinking.

"Thanks Trevor. Might need to go up a size."

Trevor put his hands on his shoulders and pinched the fabric there and looked over Chris' frame. He wasn't an expert in costumes by any means, but even he could see that the shirt fit nicely, even with the top few buttons still undone. Trevor's hands went to do them up automatically as he responded.

"Nah, it fits fine. Just need to make sure the buttons are undone next time mate." His hands went back to the collar to smooth it out, keeping his eyes on what he was doing. When he was finished, he looked up to find Chris looking at him. Trevor looked back at him, his hands staying at the nape of his neck, collar abandoned. Chris' eyes were boring into his and the air around them suddenly felt thick. He felt his cheeks heat up as he realised how close they were standing. Too close. Close enough he could smell the wax Chris put in his hair. Trevor's eyes flicked down to Chris' lips briefly and he genuinely considered his options for a moment. He felt his stomach flip as he realised he could very easily just—

"Trevor?"

"Hm?"

"What was it you came in for?"

Trevor blinked and pulled his hands back. "Right! Yeah, uh, so I brought some, some props and costume bits through for you to, eh, have a look at. If you want." He took a step back and walked into the corner of the desk.

"Ow! Fuck. Um, yeah, they're just on the, eh, table, over here, if you wanna have a look at them. Just- Just let me know what you think, I'll be in the, eh the workshop, all day, so pop round whenever you're free. Or text me. Or email, is eh, is also fine. Just… whatever. Gotta go, bye!" And with that, he leapt through the door, leaving a slightly confused Chris in his wake. He closed the door behind him and took a second to catch his breath, leaning against the closed door.

"Trevor? Are you alright?"

Trevor jumped almost a foot into the air, causing poor Vanessa to jump back. They both stood, catching their breath for a moment, before Trevor cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, I'm fine, sorry Ness."

"It's alright! I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that," Vanessa said sheepishly. "You do look a bit red though, are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah I'm good!" Trevor said as he quickly straightened himself up. "Gotta go, lots of work to do, bye!" And with that, he quickly walked into the workshop and closed the door behind him.

Jesus fucking Christ.

One day, Trevor had had enough. He was sitting in a booth at a gay bar with Annie and every single guy he saw reminded him of the posh director. He took a large swig of his drink and said, "I think I fancy Chris."

Annie spat out the rum and coke she'd just taken a sip of and started howling with laughter.

"I fucking knew it!"

"Annie."

"I told you! I fucking knew it Trev!"

"Annie please." Annie ignored him and stood up in the booth and started doing a little dance.

"Not the victory dance, Annie please."

Annie ignored him as she continued dancing. "Well, thanks for not judging me I guess."

She fell back into her seat. "Who said I'm not judging you? I'm judging you. I'm judging you hard."

Trevor dropped his head in his hands and groaned. "Ugh, what do I do?" He felt a comforting pat on the back.

"Well, what do you usually do when you fancy someone?"

"Ask them out."

"Well why not ask Chris out?"

Trevor turned to look at her in disbelief. "Annie! I'm not gonna ask Chris out, for fuck's sake."

"Why not? You're fit Trev, he'd be lucky to have you."

"You've got shit taste in men babe," Trevor said, earning him a shove from Annie.

"Stop deflecting! Why don't you just date him? It'd do him a world of good."

"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" Trevor shrieked in horror.

"Trev! Answer the question!" Annie urged.

"Fine! He's Chris, he doesn't date anyone, let alone men, let alone people that work for him. It'll never work out. I've just gotta get over it."

"Well, first of all Trev, you don't work for him, you work alongside each other, stage managers and production crew aren't inherently below directors and-"

"Annie," Trevor groaned in expasperation. She could talk for hours about the inequality between production crew and Trevor wasn't in the mood to hear it tonight.

"Okay fine. How do you usually get over not asking someone out?

"Find a random target, make out with them."

"We're not making out again Trev, I'm too sober for that."

"Not you you weirdo, just anyone else here."

"Hang on, I never said no, get us another drink then," Annie said, sliding Trevor her empty glass across the table.

Trevor grinned. "Stop tryin' to get in my pants."

"I mean it Trev! You're fit and if you weren't a gay man and if I weren't a lesbian I'd have put a ring on your finger by now."

"You know lavender marriages exist right? We could very much just get married," Trevor pointed out, laughing.

"But then you can't marry Chris!" Trevor shoved Annie as she laughed hysterically. Annie was a jovial drunk; he fondly recalled the drinks they had after opening night of Haversham Manor, or more specifically, the karaoke. Her go to song was Dynamite, an obscure song that had since cemented itself in Trevor's head as Annie's song.

Once she calmed down a little, she asked, "No but seriously, what's the worst that could happen?"

Trevor sighed as he looked into his almost empty glass. "He could reject me and I'd have to work with him for the next six months at least and it'll be horrifically awkward."

"Okay, fair enough. But what if that doesn't happen?"

"What, what if he says he's fancied me for forever too and we live happily ever after and get married and have babies?" Trevor said sarcastically.

Annie inhaled sharply through her teeth. "Better get Chris into therapy before you two have kids."

"Annie!"

"What? You brought it up!"

"It's not gonna happen!"

"Fine, fine! Let's find you a target then eh?"

Trevor felt his phone buzz when he walked back into the workshop. He put the toolbox he was holding down to open a message from Annie.

Trevor rolled his eyes and put his phone away, promising himself he'd think of a snappy response later. Sure, he might've walked past the cast stretching and gotten slightly distracted when he saw Chris stretching his arms above his head, revealing a strip of skin above his stupid corduroy trousers held up with an equally stupid brown belt, and as a result dropped a very heavy tool box on his steel clad toes, but still. Gayboy was a bit far.

Okay, maybe it was accurate, he thought as he glanced back at the workshop door, hoping a certain someone would come in with another ridiculous request for a set piece or prop.

He knew Annie was joking, but something annoyed him about the entire interaction. He couldn't even look at Chris anymore without blushing like a school girl. Working with the man in question was going to be difficult. It had been weeks now, surely he'd have gotten over it if it was just a passing fancy. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was more than that.

Trevor physically shook the thought from his head. He couldn't afford to think like that. The only reason he wasn't over it yet was because he hadn't been afforded a break from working with Chris. They'd gone straight from him staying the night at Chris' flat into pre-production, where they spent almost every waking minute together, looking at budgets, risk assessments, designs, costumes and sourcing props and set pieces. Chris was the first person he'd see in the morning and the last he'd speak to before going home. He just needed more space, and he'd be fine. It was going to be hard, but it was the best thing he could do to make things go back to the way they were.

From then on, interactions between himself and Chris became as limited as possible. It was difficult to refuse the man a lift to the studio and back, so he'd make up excuses for not being able to come in during the day and came in in the evenings and nights instead. While he felt a little guilty, he knew the commute from Chris' flat to the studio wasn't too bad. The change in schedule wasn't really done often professionally, but Chris trusted him enough to know the work would get done.

One morning, before rehearsal started, the door to the workshop creaked open and Chris poked his head through.

"Hi Trevor. Didn't see you come in," he said, an edge of worry creeping into his voice.

"I've been here since last night," Trevor responded, not taking his eyes off his work.

"Jesus Christ." Trevor ignored the shock in Chris' tone and kept working. He almost forgot Chris was still standing there until he spoke up again.

"Is everything alright?"

"Mhm," Trevor lied, finally meeting Chris' eyes. "Just… finding nights easier to work, at the moment. Less distraction."

Chris nodded, still slightly frowning, but thankfully let it go. He checked the time.

"Rehearsal's about to start," Chris said, inching towards the door. "I should head through."

"Alright. I'll see you around," Trevor said before turning back to what he was doing. A few seconds later, he heard something. He turned around and saw Chris was hovering by the door awkwardly.

"If there's anything I can do… just. Tell me. Okay? Anything to lighten your load. We'll find a solution," he said.

Trevor smiled, genuinely quite touched by the offer. "Will do, thanks mate."

Chris smiled in return, a smile tinged with worry, before disappearing around the corner.

Trevor went home shortly thereafter and collapsed into bed. The lack of sleep was getting to him. He'd been pulling all-nighters, sleeping during the day. He knew couldn't keep this up forever, but it was starting to help, not seeing Chris all the time. He was able to focus on his work more, which was a bonus, but he wasn't enjoying it as much. He'd barely seen any of the cast in the past week, and it was affecting him more than he thought it would. But the work was getting done, and he was keeping his distance from Chris, which was all he needed to do.

He'd decided he was getting over this feeling for Chris, even if it killed him.

It had been another day of accidentally not interacting with another human being when a knock at the door broke him out of his concentration. Trevor looked up and saw Chris standing in the doorway of the workshop.

"Hi Chris, what's up?"

"Just wondering if you needed a hand with anything?"

Trevor puffed his cheeks as he looked around the workshop. He was painting the blinds for, something or other, he wasn't entirely sure. It got confusing, building several separate sets at the same time.

"Hm, nah, I'm alright. Thanks though," he said before turning back to continue painting.

"Are you sure? I can easily help, two paintbrushes are faster than one," he said as he walked up to the blinds.

"Yep, I'm fine," Trevor pointedly said. He was still avoiding Chris like the plague, hoping things would go back to normal with a bit of distance, but from the way his heartrate quickened upon realising Chris was almost shoulder to shoulder with him, it clearly hadn't been enough time yet.

Chris stayed silent, looking at the blinds. "Oh, you missed a spot, up there. I'll get it," he said as he reached to grab the spare paintbrush next to the tin. When Trevor looked across, Chris was standing on his tiptoes, reaching as far as he could reach, his sleeve having rolled up and displaying the tattoo. With Chris' arm movements, it appeared to be moving, like it was laughing at him, taunting him.

Something in Trevor suddenly snapped. "Chris, I said I've got it, alright?" He pointedly did not look at Chris' face; he didn't want to see the effect his words had. There was a moment of silence before Chris spoke again.

"Alright, understood." He heard a paintbrush being dropped onto the desk and retreating footsteps, punctuated with a door closing loudly.

Shit.

Chris didn't deserve that. He hadn't done anything wrong. Trevor was the one with the issue. He looked at the clock. Rehearsal had already finished, but Chris always stayed behind so he'd still be able to catch him. it was now or never. He sighed and stood up, brushing the sawdust from his trousers as he made his way to the office.

He was surprised to find Chris on his way out. He shoved his unease aside and walked up to him.

"Chris, hey, I just wanted to say-"

"It's alright Trevor, I'll make my own way home. I'll see you when I see you." Chris interrupted, without looking at Trevor, a clear edge to his tone. Before Trevor could respond, he brushed past him and left the studio.

As he stood there, dumbfounded, he felt anger begin to bubble up inside him. How dare Chris just leave like that?

"Fine!" Trevor shouted at the long closed door, knowing full well Chris couldn't hear him, but it made him feel just a tiny bit better.

"You know what? I bust my ass for you, day and fucking night, so I'm really sorry if your incessant nagging is sometimes just a tad too much for me to handle! I've got other shit going on, y’know? You're not my entire life, Chris Bean!" Trevor shouted at the empty space.

He angrily stomped back to the workshop where he went against his master carpenter's advice and worked with power tools when emotional. He hadn't felt this angry in a long time; even when he'd been tasked with building another ridiculous set piece two days before the performance. When he was younger, he'd get explosively angry at little things. It led to a lot of fights and bruised knuckles, and by the time he started working with the drama society he 'd mellowed out a little bit. But right here, right now, he felt like a teenager again, anger too big for his body.

A part of him knew he was overreacting and that it was the lack of sleep and human connection that was making him act like this, but he shoved it to the back of his mind. He needed to feel this anger; maybe this was the way to solve his Chris-shaped problem. He spent the night angrily painting the blinds and building Dennis' wheelchair.

The pair managed to completely avoid each other for an entire month, using only emails and passive aggressive notes left for each other in the office or workshop. It had been the longest month of Trevor's life. Not just him, the rest of the cast started to pick up on the animosity between them. Robert had tried cornering Trevor several times to "discuss something huge" that he apparently needed his help for. Trevor knew better than to be left alone with Robert and his big ideas and always ducked out just in time.

Everything was relatively okay. That is, until Chris had an announcement for the cast. Trevor didn't find out what it was until the end of rehearsal, when he came in and bumped into Sandra and Max excitedly chattering about it on their way out.

"What the fuck Chris?"

Chris looked up briefly before seeing who had burst into the office and looked back at his laptop, seemingly unbothered. "What?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about."

"I'm afraid I don't."

Trevor closed the door and stepped further into the office. "Chris. The Nativity? Alongside our other productions?"

"We got given an opportunity, I'm reluctant to waste it, what's the issue? " Chris said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world and not a massive change to their already tight schedule.

"What's the issue? What's the issue?! What made you think you can just say yes to an additional episode before our original run without asking me first? We're a team for God's sake."

"Are we?" The bite in Chris' tone took Trevor aback. "Because it doesn't bloody feel like it at the moment."

Trevor stayed silent for a moment. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It feels like there's no team, it's just me."

"Oh, so the set that shows up is done overnight by the fucking fairies is it?"

"It might as well be!" Chris yelled as he snapped his gaze up to meet Trevor's. His eyes were cold. "We barely speak anymore Trevor, everything is done through notes and emails, and I mi-" He stopped abruptly and took a steadying breath before continuing. "I don't know what's going on but you're being obtuse and, frankly, rather unprofessional."

Trevor's eyes widened. "Oh, I'm being unprofessional? Which professional director would just drop a massive load of extra work on his stage manager without asking him first? That's what's unprofessional here Chris!"

"I would've asked you if you didn't practically run away from me every time I entered your line of sight!"

"I don't run away from y— right, you know what? Fine. Just email me a list of things you need and the 'fairies' will get it done."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

The pair stayed there for a moment, eyes locked in fury, before Trevor broke apart and stomped to the workshop.

"Ah, Trevor, had a frustrating meeting with Chris, did you? Let me propose an idea to you—"

"Not now Robert!" he yelled and slammed the workshop door in Robert's face.

He was distracted. Somehow, in trying to stop being distracted by Chris he was still distracted by him. Distracted enough to accidentally drop Herod's chair onto his foot one late night.

A few hours later, he found himself in the Cornley emergency room at one in the morning, a sight he was all too familiar with. He was able to stand in his foot again, which in his eyes was a good sign.

The nurse that was looking after him was an older-looking woman with purple glasses with a green beaded wire and a friendly smile. He'd met her before; he was quite familiar with most of the nurses in the hospital in the small town of Cornley. She told him what the doctors had found and prescribed him painkillers and plenty of rest.

"You look like you need it too, love," she added, presumably referring to the bags under his eyes. He sighed. He knew she was right; but with everything that had been happening, rest was hard to find. He'd find himself trying to sleep during the day but ended up tossing and turning, unable to switch his brain off. His head was racing with thoughts about the productions, the set pieces, the cast, and most importantly (and annoyingly) Chris. He felt so betrayed by Chris, but also incredibly guilty for treating him the way that he had these last few months. He was terrified Chris wouldn't forgive him so he didn't dare apologise to him, but he desperately wanted to talk to him again. He felt stuck.

"I'll try," he said as he started getting up.

"Mr Watson?" The nurse asked firmly. He looked up and met her piercing gaze.

"I mean it. I know what you lot are like at that drama society. Take a few days off, alright?"

Trevor let her words sink in and was surprised to feel tears begin to well up in his eyes.

"Okay," he said quietly. The nurse smiled warmly at him.

"Good lad. Now get out of here, go home, get some sleep. I like you fine but I don’t wanna see you again for a while, you hear me?" she joked. Trevor smiled and begrudgingly got up. He didn't want to go home to his dark and lonely flat, but the nurse had work to be getting on with and he didn't want to keep her from it any longer.

Trevor spent that night on his couch, foot up, watching shitty reality TV instead of at the workshop. He texted Annie in the morning before falling asleep.

When he woke up after dinner time, he blearily opened his eyes to check his phone and saw a message from Annie.

He ignored her question and gingerly got out of bed to start making some food.

Three days later he went back to the studio for the first time. He waited until he was sure there was no one there anymore before carefully limping into the workshop. The pain in his foot had lessened and he was able to walk again, but it still hurt a little to put weight on it for too long. He gritted his teeth and got back to work on the emails that had been pouring in from Chris.

The evening before the Nativity opening night, the cast went out for drinks. Seemed a bit counterintuitive, but they'd gotten into the habit as they rarely got the chance to celebrate after their performances due to the tidying up and hospitalisation, so they preferred to celebrate before. Trevor wasn't going. He wasn't in the mood; he'd finished his work but would rather spend the time going over everything to make sure it was all perfect.

"Trev? You coming?" Annie's head popped round the workshop door. Trevor shook his head.

"Nah, got stuff to do."

"Right," Annie said as she stepped into the workshop and closed the door behind her. "What's up with you?"

"What? Nothing, 'm fine."

"You've been coming in at odd hours, staying till we get in in the morning."

"Being the stage manager with his own key has its perks Ann," Trevor joked.

"Trevor, I mean it. You look like shit."

"Gee thanks."

Annie sighed. "You know what I mean."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"No I don't, what are you saying? Spit it out already, you're dancing around what you actually wanna say." Trevor snapped as he looked up at her. Her cryptic choice of words was off-putting to him, he didn't have the time to deal with people tiptoeing around him like he was made of glass.

Annie stared at him is disbelief. "What the fuck is the matter with you? I'm just worried about you."

Trevor scoffed. "Yeah, I'm sure you are."

"Yeah, I am. We all are."

"Well why hasn't anyone asked before then?"

"Because you bite their fucking head of when they do Trev! I'm the only one who can handle your shit and even I'm getting sick of it now. We get enough of it from Chris after the Nativity started, and we don't need it from you too. Now I don't know what happened between you two, but even I know it's gone on long enough. You're both being fucking childish, just talk to each other like the adults you are and stop letting the cast suffer, it's not fair on us. We've not done anything! Any issue you have is with Chris, so go sort it out with him. Don't fucking hide from it like a coward."

"Annie—"

"I'm not finished! We're just trying to look out for you, but if you insist on being such an arsewipe about it, fine, go be that on your own."

Trevor watched as she turned on her heel and began to walk away. "Now I'm finished!" she shouted over her shoulder before slamming the door shut behind her, leaving Trevor alone in the studio. She was right. He was being a coward. In truth, the feelings he had for Chris scared him. He hadn't felt like this about someone in a really long time, maybe ever. He'd hoped the feeling would go away, but it hadn't. When he thought about Chris, he was still angry for the stunt he pulled with the Nativity, but his anger had mellowed a bit. He just missed him. It was hard to admit, but he desperately wanted to talk to him again and apologise for his atrocious behaviour these last few months.

Suddenly, he heard noise coming from the main rehearsal space. It sounded like quiet piano music. From the way his heart jumped to his throat, he knew exactly who was playing. He stood, leaning against the wall, and listened to the music. He didn't recognise it — it wasn't from the show — but he knew Chris was a gifted piano player. Trevor fondly recalled the first time he'd heard Chris play, the memory now bittersweet. He swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat and turned away, heading towards the workshop, back to safety.