Work Text:
~Driver, roll up the partition, please
I don't need you seeing Yoncé on her knees~
He can’t believe that song is playing in the background right now as flashes of colour zoom past his peripheral vision, one faint object bleeding into the next as his hoodie and shirt disappear along with them. Normally, he wouldn’t be doing this.
Hell, he /shouldn’t/ be doing this. At least, not with a married man.
However, as Matthew’s hands continue to grip his ass while his still-clothed hips push him back towards his trailer’s bedroom, Josh finds that the voice of reason, as so many times before, is becoming less and less obvious as he and his co-star continue to blur the lines between them. This wasn’t the first time and Josh doubted it would be the last, or, maybe he hoped it wouldn’t be.
It had all started weeks ago, the down south heat of New Orleans as well as the constant party atmosphere and casual laidbackness of the place mingling together to create a storm that neither of them saw coming. Josh was only just in his second large franchise after a string of indie and mainstreams that went barely anywhere and Matthew, having been doing TV acting on the side till he could pick up another film, was all too eager to take the younger actor back under his wing as he’d done a long time ago when he was around 8 or 9.
At first, it was just friendly. After all, what business do a 54 year old dad and a 31 year old man have outside of just being friends? However, it seemed after a while of working on the FNAF set that something changed. It was 2 weeks into filming when the nights felt shorter, the hugs were longer and the casual conversations between them turned into deep debates that left Josh either extremely irate at Matthew’s ability to pick him apart (something the man shattered in common with his character) or laughing his ass off at the one man improv shows the guy could make up on the spot.
He also had a great body for his age. Or so he imagined, given the circumstances. Josh would never admit to it, but he couldn’t help but run his eyes over Matthew’s arms every so often. No matter if he was in costume or just sitting around between takes, Matthew’s arms really took centre stage. As did his hands, obviously. It was more than once when Josh had found himself back in his trailer imagining what they would be like on his skin did he realize he had a problem.
Matthew was a married man.
While Josh never gave himself a label to anything sexual, married was a no go in his books when it came to any hookups. He loved being an actor, don’t get him wrong, but he didn’t like every part of being one. Plus, he didn’t like mixing his work life with his personal one - he’d done a few too many times for it to be anything close to comfortable. The easiest thing he could do was to push it down and hope it didn’t suddenly go bad for him. It was only a couple of weeks more, a month and a bit and then he would move on to the next audition, the next job and forget about how Matthew’s eyes looked at him when they talked. He could do it.
If only the universe had understood.
Instead of letting him be and making sure he got through the movie in one piece, Matthew is /everywhere/. Literally, Josh can’t escape him. Of course, they’re working on a movie together, they’re bound to run into eachother outside of hair and makeup and what have you - but Josh cannot for his life (and impending sexual crisis) seem to shake the older man off.
It all comes to a head when Matthew is in character and cameras are rolling as he lunges at Josh with a knife, only to be slightly off his mark and bring their heads together, his lips pressing into his and making the world white out for a few seconds before there is a ‘cut!’ from the director, Emma and the world comes back into itself, Matthew’s hand on his shoulder and asking if he’s okay.
He doesn’t know how he manages to look the man in the eyes and say he’s fine, but he somehow does before they’re told to take 5 and he’s out the door like he’s on fire, hightailing it to his trailer and hiding away from the world for what seems like hours before he comes back to set, fresh makeup applied and effects touched up. He finds he can’t look at Matthew directly for the next couple of takes, but it seems everyone on call doesn’t notice. He’s thankful at least, for that.
However, all is not what it seems, for as he’s unlocking his trailer to grab his hotel keys and jacket to go sleep off the day he’s had, a body suddenly presses up against him, a hand digging firmly into his fingers. There’s breathing against his ear and he can feel it travel down the back of his head and to his ear from a height, suppressing a shiver as a rather familiar voice whispers in his ear. “Going somewhere, Mike?”
He hates that the voice Matthew puts on for William is etched into his brain like the man personally carved it in there himself. Despite the height difference between them, Josh could easily push him away, pretend it’s all just a joke and laugh it off. The only problem is that he’s kind of frozen, brain short circuiting almost like when he was filming Future Man as the tension he’d only just noticed between them hung stagnant in the air.
He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be doing this. Fuck. Think of Heather, hell, think of Addison, Liam, Macey-
Josh slowly turns around, his back against the trailer door and eyes firmly fixed on Matthew, his manic grin and dark eyes so close to Afton’s as their chests almost meet in the middle of the space they currently share. There’s several beats between them, in which Josh can see Matthew falter and start to backtrack into a joke like usual, before he lets out a quiet noise that gets the older man’s attention. “My name is Josh. Sir.”
That action had led to now, where Josh’s back is against the rough steel and cheaply wallpapered walls of the trailer he knows inside out, much like its renter, who is currently holding his jaw in one hand so it stays against his mouth (and gives him major bread burn again) while the other is trying to guide one of his hands into unbuttoning his shirt. While this was one of the first times they’d done this in Matthew’s trailer, the very first was in Josh’s - the hotel and sleeping forgotten about in the chaos of Josh’s hips ending up connecting to the shape of Matthew’s on barely comfortable sheets and cheap pillows with enough give for him to almost suffocate as he’s forced into the mattress, animalistic and wild like.
After that, it becomes a game between them, looks and touches becoming longer and hang out sessions with other cast members that would dwindle down to just themselves lasting for as long as their eyes could stay open for. There were also early mornings, where they would wake up wrapped around eachother - Josh more often and not being the one that was all limbs - but emerge from separate rooms with practised ease to get to set.
Of course, Josh did ask “What about Heather?” once, in that month. Matthew responded of course, as melodically as he normally did. “She knows I have a thing for my costars. She has her own thing going on too.” The multiple questions that follow after the admission burn away as Matthew’s lips leave kisses on his skin and his teeth scrape his neck.
Josh dreaded the day that it was over, but April came around sooner than he’d expected and all too suddenly he found himself giving Matthew the biggest hug he could muster in the moment. While Josh would be staying to film some more footage, Matthew was off home to California - back to the kids and wife that Josh still felt weighing on his conscious even as they went their separate ways. Piper, the girl playing Abby, could see something was wrong with him when they were filming, but he just covered it up again when she or someone else asked him about it, the usual excuse of end-of-production exhaustion getting him thankfully to the finish line.
They somehow don’t see each other till the premiere, when Josh’s suit is just that little bit too tight and Matthew looks as good as ever. He’s of course, brought Heather and the kids, so it’s not surprising to see them gather on the carpet as cameras flash in their faces, the picture perfect looking acting family. If he tilts his head, he can still almost see the Matthew he saw on set, but only quite briefly before it’s gone again.
It seems that across the way, Matt knows this, for he suddenly looks up for a moment, a brief moment and meets Josh’s eyes. Both men, the younger and the older, stare at each other, before Josh smirks and Matt grins and the world, somehow, is okay again.
He’s okay again.
Just as it should be.
~Driver, roll up the partition fast
Over there I swear, I saw them cameras flash~