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Oliver knows he doesn’t need to be here.
He knows that he could be nestled in his trailer right now, reading over his script for the upcoming episode, but instead he’s sat on the floor with his back leaned against a wall. Ryan is at the sink, set walls built around him to mimic a bathroom.
Chad is there, script in hand, chatting with Ryan about camera angles and blocking directions. While watching the two men converse, Oliver fiddles with the ISO wheel on his camera, spinning it again and again. Thumb going red and numb, he ignores the sensation in favour of staring at Ryan in the reflection of the mirror.
“We’ve only got one chance at this,” Chad says seriously.
Ryan nods, hand gripped tightly around the electric shaver. “Right.”
No pressure, Oliver thinks. He’s been here; needing to perfect a scene in one shot if only because it’s the most authentic they can be. Sure, the makeup department could simply glue a fake mustache to Ryan’s face. He could shave that off instead of the dark swatch of hair that’s been nestled above his top lip for over a month now. But Oliver knows better; so does Ryan.
Film is always better when it’s real.
Oliver tracks Chad with a tilt of his head as he makes his way over to the director’s chair behind the playback screens. Several images are projected from the various cameras settled around the small set. All of them are focused on various parts of Ryan. His upper lip, his hands, his bare chest.
It’s intimate. They’ve shut down the set to solely contain an essential crew, the only actors being Ryan and Oliver.
Ryan lets out a deep sigh and leans his hands against the sink, torso tilting until he’s almost nose-to-nose with his own reflection. For a brief moment, Oliver feels as though he’s watching Eddie and not Ryan. He feels like his eyes have locked on a heartbroken single father slipping from a facade to fully embrace himself and the joy that comes with simply living.
That is who you’re looking at, a voice in the back of Oliver’s mind speaks up. Are they not the same thing?
Oliver grinds the back of his head on the wall behind him.
“Ready, Ryan?”
Ryan nods his head at Chad’s question.
“Alright.”
One of the producers stands in front of Camera One with the clapperboard, reciting details about the scene for editors, and the sound of the plastic slapping together makes the hairs on the back of Oliver’s neck stand at attention.
“Action!”
Ryan slips easily into the soft expression he wears whenever he’s playing Eddie. His eyes become rounder, shinier, inviting to whoever is watching. The tight pull of his lips slips until not a single line wrinkles his skin. It’s like seeing someone wrap themselves in a blanket. Like Ryan is curling up by a fireplace and tucking into a well worn novel that he has read twenty times prior.
Something about how easy it is for Ryan to become Eddie is soothing for Oliver. It makes him feel a little less crazy at how Buck seems like a part of him now instead of a completely separate entity. Perhaps these characters have had an equally life changing impact on each of them.
Oliver pulls himself from his thoughts the second he hears the buzz of the electric shaver come to life. It’s small in Ryan’s hand as he slowly brings it up to his top lip.
There’s a moment of hesitation, Ryan dragging the moment out, before he makes contact with the mustache. A swath of hair tumbles into the porcelain sink and Oliver’s breath hitches in his chest as it does so. There’s no going back, now. The mask has been removed.
Ryan shaves the hair in slow, calculated movements. He seems so focused. It’s like he’s working the ropes through a winch instead of the blades of a razor.
It happens briefly, but there’s a second where Ryan pulls the shaver from his face and locks eyes with Oliver through the mirror. He blinks, once, twice, a third time, then once again brings the buzzing blade to his skin.
Oliver can’t watch. He can’t watch but for some reason his eyes refuse to stray from the mirror. Ryan’s eyes are so soft and his skin is so inviting and Oliver wants to reach out and touch and–
Instead of observing with his naked eye, Oliver brings his camera up to his face. He looks through the viewfinder and snaps a couple of photos until there’s not a single strand of hair left on Ryan’s upper lip.
There’s a mix of shaving cream the crew put together in a small bowl that sits on the edge of the sink. Ryan picks it up and mixes up the liquid before brushing it over the bottom half of his face. The razor glints against the hundreds of lights in the studio as Ryan brings it up to his skin and slides it easily from cheekbone to jaw.
Oliver swallows. Sweat starts to pool at the base of his spine and he tries his best to subtly adjust his shirt so it doesn’t get wet. Quinn from costuming might kill him if he ruins his outfit before he’s even shot their final scene.
Once the hair has been rid from Ryan’s face, Chad shouts a loud but clear cut!
The crew erupts in cheers and clapping. Oliver shakes himself from the weird haze that has settled over him and stands up with a hesitant smile.
“Nice job,” Oliver says as he walks up to Ryan and claps a hand over his bare shoulder blade.
Ryan grins and it hits Oliver all of a sudden how different he looks without the facial hair. He briefly thought, once he read this scene in their script, that Ryan might be a stranger to him after he got rid of the mustache. Turns out he’s still just really fucking handsome.
“Thanks, man.” Ryan’s smile brightens his eyes better than any of these thousand dollar set lights ever could. “Feels weird.”
He runs a hand along his bare cheek and Oliver notices a patch of shaving cream left behind on the hinge of his jaw. Unconsciously, he reaches out with his thumb and swipes it away. Ryan puffs out a sharp breath and Oliver drops his hand like he’s been burned.
Fuck.
“You just–”
Oliver stops, takes a step back. Ryan’s body sways forward as though he’s a sunflower bending towards the sun.
“Who’s ready for some Risky Business?” Chad jokes, sidling up beside Ryan and placing his hands on his shoulders. He gives him an excited shake and Ryan laughs in a burst.
“Always.”
It doesn’t take long for them to shuffle over to the set of Eddie’s house where they’ve got everything ready for the dancing scene. Oliver’s been looking forward to seeing it ever since Kenny excitedly announced that they would be, quote un-quote, whoring Ryan out. Whatever the fuck that meant.
Oliver thinks Kenny wasn’t wrong as Quinn comes onto set with the pink satin shirt that Ryan will be wearing for the scene. He slides the sweatpants he’s been wearing off his bottom half, revealing the impossibly tiny and impossibly white pair of briefs he has on. Quinn slips the shirt easily over Ryan’s bare arms and Oliver watches closely as his fingers fiddle with the buttons. He gets stuck on one of the ones at the top and hisses in frustration.
Quinn and Oliver move at the same time; the latter being faster. He reaches for Ryan and grabs the shirt between his thumbs and forefingers. It's silky where it touches his skin and a shiver tingles down his spine at the thought of what it would feel like pressed up against his own bare torso.
(In his thoughts, he wouldn’t be the one wearing it, though. That’s the root of his entire problem.)
“There you go,” Oliver whispers, tone gone soft and tripping over his words. Sometimes, after acting for long periods of time, he struggles with slipping between accents. “Ready?”
Ryan lets out a long sigh and stares into Oliver’s eyes. “As I’ll ever be.”
Oliver offers him a tilt of his mouth, a quirk of his eyebrow. “You’ll do great. It’s like I’m getting my very own Step Up Live. I could only ever dream of this–”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ryan rolls his eyes but the smile that takes over his mouth gives him away. He loves Oliver’s teasing; always has. “Shut up, you twat.”
“Twat?!”
Ryan pinches Oliver’s elbow where it’s still hovering between them, fingers gripped to Ryan’s glossy pink shirt. He realizes the material is wrinkling in his grasp. Hands unclenching, Oliver takes a careful step back.
“I’m spending too much time around you,” Ryan teases.
“Don’t pretend you don’t love it.”
“Yeah. I do love it.”
Oliver freezes, eyes drifting from where he’s been watching one of their crew members fiddle with a light to instead lock on Ryan’s face. He looks serious, unphased. Nothing like how Oliver is sure he looks. If he were to guess, Oliver is positive he would resemble someone who’s just been hit by a bus.
They’re saved by Chad wrangling everyone into their positions, Oliver stepping to the side once again to become an observer instead of a participant.
Down the hallway, Ryan is shaking out his limbs, jumping up and down. Socked feet meet hardwood floors and a vision of Ryan slipping and crumbling to the ground flashes in Oliver’s mind. The thought would have once made him laugh but now it just makes him sick.
“Action!”
Music fills the room, familiar piano notes echoing off the high ceilings and bare walls. Ryan easily slides across the floor into frame. His back is to the cameras and the rest of the crew watching. Oliver’s eyes catch on the mole settled in the center of Ryan’s right thigh. When he turns around, Oliver has a perfect view of the muscles that ripple under Ryan’s skin.
That same leg gives a kick, Ryan’s hip popping and arm raising in a fluid motion. He brings one of the trophies the prop department had on top of Eddie’s fireplace — a representation of some type of award Christopher won in the past — up to his mouth. Oliver is pleased to hear Ryan’s voice actually singing the lyrics. He has to bite his bottom lip so he doesn’t giggle.
It’s entrancing watching Ryan dance. He told Oliver, when they first got the script, that he had to make sure Eddie didn’t look like he had starred in a beloved movie franchise about dancers. Oliver supposes that, of course, it would be impossible for Ryan to not look like he knows what he’s doing.
Risky Business is not one of Oliver’s favourite movies, nor is it one he’s seen more than once, but he somehow knows that Ryan is nailing it. Intuition takes over and his hips easily swing to the beat of the song, body flowing like water down a stream. He can’t take his eyes off of him.
Oliver knows he is completely and utterly fucked when Ryan jumps off the coffee table and falls to his knees. The motions he makes as he sings into the fire poker and rolls his hips up and down is– it’s–
If Oliver was sweating before, watching Ryan shave his facial hair, now he is absolutely drenched. It’s one thing to witness the casual intimacy of blade against skin, and a completely separate one to watch as Ryan looks like he– well–
Quite frankly, Ryan looks like he’s riding a cock.
And it’s doing a lot to Oliver’s sanity.
It gets even worse when Ryan lurches from the ground and flies onto the couch. He wiggles around on his back, hips writhing in the air, then flips to his front. Oliver wants to grab him. He wants to tug Ryan’s hips until he leaves bruises and he wants to bite the bare skin of his thighs until he’s pink and red. He wants Ryan squirming not because of the music but because of Oliver’s touch. He wants and he wants and he wants and he thinks the wanting might bowl him over this time.
The thing is, Oliver has been wanting for years.
He wanted when Ryan first walked onto set with his warm laugh and teasing smile. He wanted when Ryan didn’t squirm away from fans who noticed their chemistry and wanted more from it. He wanted when Ryan married a woman who knew not the first thing about him. He wanted when Ryan fucked up, when Ryan wasn’t the same person Oliver knew him to be, when Ryan defended unacceptable behaviours. He wanted when Ryan came crawling back with apologies and promises that Oliver knew not to take but did so anyway. He wanted when Ryan put in the work and picked up the shattered pieces.
He has wanted and wanted and it’s been so damn long that Oliver is sick of wanting.
At this point, he has to have.
Ryan should look utterly ridiculous to Oliver, popping his collar and his hip at the same time. All that Oliver feels, though, is this fire crawling across every nerve throughout his body. All he feels is this tug in the pit of his stomach that’s pulling him to Ryan. It’s like they’re magnets or a solar system or tidal waves roaring up a shore.
They finish the first cut of the scene with Ryan on his back on the couch, all smiles and red cheeks. A strand of hair falls across his forehead and Oliver wants to do something insane like gently tuck it back in place.
He excuses himself right as Chad yells cut.
There’s a bathroom in the studio, a small distance from the set of Eddie’s living room. Oliver walks briskly until he is met with the blue door and yanks it open. He leans his back against the door and sucks in a deep breath. It does nothing to quell his dizzy mind.
With his back against the door, Oliver feels the knock before he hears it. He takes another quick breath before grabbing the handle and twists. It’s disorienting, being pushed into the bathroom as Ryan sneaks through the door. The lock snicks behind him and it sounds like a gunshot.
They don’t move for a few beats. Oliver stands there and does his damn best to keep his eyes on Ryan’s face instead of venturing down to his bare thighs or, god forbid, the bulge currently straining against his white briefs. Ryan sneaks a few steps closer without Oliver even realizing it. He only clocks the decreasing distance when Ryan’s socked toe touches Oliver’s ankle, sending a warmth blooming across his cheeks.
“You left,” Ryan says, no louder than a whisper.
Oliver swallows. “Sorry, had to use the loo.”
The loo, Ryan mouths, eyes looking down at the centimeters of floor between them and a smile creeps across his face. When he glances back up, Oliver gasps. When did his pupils get so big?
“What did you think?” Ryan asks.
And what the fuck kind of question is that?
Oliver laughs but there’s no humour in the sound. “You know what I think.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
The confidence is what punches Oliver in the chest. Over the years, he’s come to know Ryan as someone who takes careful, measured moves. He thinks and thinks before he acts. It leads to Ryan being unsure at times, especially when being forced to make a decision on a time crunch.
This isn’t something to take his time with.
“I think I could watch you dance for the rest of my life.”
Ryan audibly inhales and dissipates the space between them, getting so impossibly close that Oliver is sure that they’ve started sharing oxygen. He thinks they could crawl into each other's skin and burrow homes in ribs and hearts.
“What else?” Ryan breathes.
Oliver licks his bottom lip and watches as Ryan’s eyes flick down, only for a second, before meeting his gaze once again. “I think I could watch you do a lot more than dance.”
“For the rest of your life?”
“I usually like to try something out first before making a lifelong commitment to it.”
Ryan reaches up and wraps a hesitant hand around the back of Oliver’s neck. “I think that can be arranged.”
A while ago, Oliver said in an interview that kissing a man felt the same as kissing a woman. He really only had one and a half people to make the comparison with — the half being his best friend from uni that he kissed in a heated game of Truth or Dare — but he still fully believed the statement.
Everything changes the second Ryan’s lips touch his.
This is nothing like he’s ever experienced before.
The skin of Ryan’s face is soft, being freshly shaven, but there’s still a slight prickle from hairs that weren’t nicked close enough by the razor. His lips are warm and gentle as he presses them against Oliver’s, molding them together like a ceramist with clay in their hands. Their mouths make a sculpture of art and Oliver expresses his interest in the piece with a deep moan that slips from his throat.
Ryan’s hand still grips the back of Oliver’s neck, pushing and pulling where his fingers migrate to the longer bits of hair towards the top of his head. He tugs and Oliver’s head is thrown back, mouth open like he’s about to pray to God. He thinks he might, actually. Thinks he may just fall to his knees and mutter words of praise and worship at Ryan’s feet.
Or perhaps he’ll just mouth at the white fabric around Ryan’s dick. Either way, he thinks he’ll feel closer to God regardless.
“You’re just so—” Ryan mouths against the skin of Oliver’s throat and tugs his hair until sparks of pain light up his skull. Teeth scrape against Oliver’s pulse point. “You’re so—”
Oliver uses his size to shove Ryan against the door, trying to gain vantage on the situation. No dice, though. For as big as Oliver is, Ryan is strong, too. Oliver pushes but Ryan pulls and it’s so goddamn delicious that Oliver is sure he’s going to pass out.
“I’m so what?” Oliver gasps to the ceiling where his head is still tilted back and Ryan continues working at the skin of his neck.
Ryan bites down, sharp, but soothes the mark immediately with his tongue. “Big.”
“Yeah?” Oliver asks, breathless. Ryan finally loosens his grip on the back of Oliver’s head, letting his chin drop so their eyes lock once again. “Do you know what to do with all of this?”
“No,” Ryan admits, more vulnerable than Oliver thought the joke would allow him to be. “But I’m a really good learner.”
And isn’t that fucking hot. Oliver didn’t think he had a teacher kink, but, well. Call him Mr. Stark, he supposes. Well, maybe not actually, but–
“You’re thinking too much,” Ryan mutters against Oliver’s cheek.
“That means you’re not doing a very good job.”
An honest to God growl escapes from Ryan’s throat and a smirk takes over his face.
Oh no.
In a flash, Oliver is flipped so that it’s his back against the door. His head slams against the metal and he knows he’s going to have a bit of a headache from it but right now Oliver can’t seem to bring himself to care. Not really. Not when Ryan is shoving at the jacket Oliver is wearing for their next scene until it falls to the ground.
“Quinn is going to kill you,” Oliver says with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t care.”
“Yes you do.” Oliver gasps when Ryan gropes at the front of his jeans. “You love Quinn.”
Ryan groans and dips down to pick up the jacket, hanging it on a hook that’s nailed to the wall beside the door. “Happy?”
Oliver grins. “I’d be happier if you took all my clothes off.”
A chuckle slips past Ryan’s mouth before he steals another kiss from Oliver. “No time for that.”
He’s right, is the thing. They’re only supposed to be taking a quick break in between shots before the next scene. It’s the one where Buck lands on Eddie’s porch, once again. Although on the surface it isn’t a big scene, it is the seed for Buck and Eddie’s relationship shift. Buck is running to Eddie after a breakup, seeking comfort in the quiet. There’s meant to be a palpable shift between their characters.
With the way Ryan’s mouth is sucking a mark to Oliver’s collarbone, where his fingers have pulled his shirt to the side, and Oliver is groping Ryan’s ass, he thinks there’s definitely some kind of shift.
“What do you want?” Oliver pleads, squeezing the muscle of Ryan’s ass, shifting him forward until his bare thighs are bracketing Oliver’s clothed one.
“You,” Ryan mutters against Oliver’s skin where his tongue dips into his clavicle.
It’s enough.
Oliver leads Ryan’s crotch to grind against Oliver’s thigh, over and over until he’s concerned for the state of his underwear once this is all over. The same underwear that they need to shoot another scene with.
A lightbulb goes off and Oliver grabs the hair at the back of Ryan’s head and tugs, much like Ryan did to Oliver only minutes ago.
“We can’t ruin our clothes,” Oliver says, trying to capture Ryan’s stare so he actually hears him rather than letting the words go in one ear and out the other while he’s fixated on the marks he’s left on Oliver’s skin. “Ryan.”
“Fucking Quinn,” Ryan grumbles. He lets go of Oliver and tugs the white briefs down his bare legs until they pool at his ankles. His cock, hard and leaking and red red red, bobs between his thighs. “Happy?”
Oliver reaches out and grabs the dick swinging in front of him, giving a tug. “Very.”
“This doesn’t feel fair,” Ryan grunts after Oliver twists his wrist on an upstroke. “What about you?”
“This isn’t about me.”
Ryan furrows his brows, grabbing Oliver’s wrist to stop his motions. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Oliver shakes his head and tries to keep going, but Ryan’s grip is strong. He sighs. “It doesn’t mean anything, Ryan.”
“Olli.”
“Don’t Olli me right now, fuck, Ryan, I just–”
“If this means nothing to you, then I’ll leave.”
Oliver blinks because what the fuck has just happened? He feels like he’s been slapped across the face or shaken just a little too hard. Ryan stands only inches apart from him, but they’re not touching anymore. Oliver’s hands are hovering between them and Ryan’s mouth is parted and swollen but not on Oliver’s skin like it has been for the past ten minutes.
“That’s not what I said,” Oliver says, speaking slowly and cautiously, like he’s talking to a wild dog instead of his coworker and best friend.
Ryan licks his lips and looks incredibly distraught; far too much for someone whose dick is out. “But is it how you feel?”
It doesn’t even take a second before Oliver is insisting that, “No, it’s not how I feel.”
That seems to satisfy Ryan, if the way he grabs Oliver’s cheeks and pulls him into a burning kiss means anything. Oliver melts into the touch and lets himself be pulled from the door and pushed to his knees.
There’s a dick in front of his face, and if this were a decade ago, he’d be panicking. Hell, if it were a year ago, he’d be freaking the fuck out. But it’s not a decade ago, or five or three or two years ago. It’s not, and Ryan’s hovering above him, thumb stroking Oliver’s bottom lip and eyes so very dark. So Oliver parts his lips and licks the head of Ryan’s dick.
Salt and skin is really the only thing he can taste, which isn’t unpleasant at all. In fact, as Oliver grips the base of Ryan’s dick and swallows him down, it’s borderline euphoric.
He takes his time, bobbing his head slowly and feeling every inch of skin that slicks past his lips. Ryan is all low moans and soft fingers as he strokes Oliver’s cheekbone, eyebrow, jaw. The hand that traces his skin crawls to the back of his head and pushes him down. Oliver chokes as the tip of Ryan’s dick hits the back of his throat, but it feels good. More than good. It feels like he’s about to come just from this and this alone.
“God, you’re so fucking pretty,” Ryan grunts above him. “Always knew you would be, like this.” Oliver whimpers and knows he has to pull his dick from his pants or else Quinn is really going to be pissed if he comes in his costume.
Ryan has been thinking about this. Okay, that’s fine, that’s cool.
Oliver wonders if Ryan, too, was done with the wanting.
There’s sweat beading across Oliver’s forehead and he hopes it doesn’t ruin his makeup too much. And then he has to try not to giggle because instead of worrying about the dick stretching his mouth wide, spilling saliva and precum from his lips to his chin and cheeks, he’s focused on a little sweat on his hairline.
It’s messy and hot and so beautiful. It’s everything Oliver has been wanting but denying himself of for almost an entire decade. It’s possibly the highlight of his life, he thinks.
He kneels at Eddie’s feet, looks up, and he swears he sees God in the smile that Ryan gives him. He swears he’s touched by an angel when Ryan reaches down and traces the outline of Buck’s lips around his cock. Then he moans and it’s like a choir from heaven is serenading them.
In a bathroom in Southern California, Oliver has the holiest of experiences.
It doesn’t take long for Ryan to come down Oliver’s throat. Just a few more passes of Oliver’s mouth, a few more strokes of his hand, the caress of his tongue on the underside of Ryan’s dick and then Oliver is choking. He pulls off with a cough and leans over to spit in the open toilet to their left.
The porcelain is a relief as Oliver props his forehead on the back of the toilet. It’s a single use washroom on a studio lot in Hollywood; he trusts the cleanliness even though he maybe shouldn’t. Big gasps of air are sucked into his lungs and the satisfaction is similar to chugging water on a balmy day.
There’s a hand on his back, rubbing soothingly.
“You okay?”
Oliver lifts his head and smiles softly up at Ryan, giving far too much away. Unfortunately, he’s realized he doesn’t care if Ryan sees right to his soul. “I’m good.”
“You didn’t, uh–” Ryan gestures to Oliver’s crotch, where his dick is hanging out of his pants’ zipper, still hard as steel. “How can I help?”
Oliver blinks up at Ryan, who crouches beside him, and pathetically whimpers as he says, “Kiss me?”
“Always.”
Ryan captures Oliver’s mouth in a soft but heated kiss. One of his hands plays with the hair at the back of Oliver’s head and the other grips his dick. It’s dry and hot and so fucking good.
When Oliver gets close, he grabs Ryan’s wrist and pulls it away, bringing his palm to his mouth where he spits a glob of saliva right in the center. Ryan groans and jerks Oliver off with a newfound rhythm, quick and dirty.
Oliver swears he sees stars when he spills over into Ryan’s hand, toes curling in his shoes and head tilted back to send a prayer to the sky. He comes and comes until his whole body feels numb from it.
Ryan placing a kiss to Oliver’s nose is what brings him back to reality.
“Are you–”
Oliver nods. “Yeah. You?”
Ryan nods. “Yeah.”
They don’t say another word, but they do stare at each other for a long moment. Oliver thinks they don’t need to speak to know that something has shifted between them. This is new; they can’t come back from this.
With a deep sigh and one last kiss to Oliver’s temple, right where he knows his birthmark lies, Ryan stands and offers a hand to Oliver. He pulls him up easily and they stand nose-to-nose before Ryan reaches behind Oliver’s head for his jacket.
They help each other look as presentable as possible before dipping out of the bathroom — separately, because they may be idiots but they know enough to not get caught — and making their way back to set.
Chad is there amongst the producers, grinning at a playback screen which displays a clip of Ryan swinging his hips while he leans against the fireplace.
Before they reach the crowd of crew, Oliver lets himself reach over to stroke a finger from Ryan’s hip down to the meat of his thigh where he gives a little pinch. Ryan smirks and mouths behave.
“Hey, guys!” Chad greets them. “Are you ready for the next scene?”
In synchronization, like always, Oliver and Ryan nod.
Chad helps to set them up with their blocking and script directions, walking them through the scene and where they should step to be in the proper lighting and camera set up. They run through a quick rehearsal before they’re ready to go.
“And remember guys,” Chad grins, clapping his hands together once, “this is just the start for Buck and Eddie’s romantic journey. Channel that as much as you can!”
Oliver looks over at Ryan from the corner of his eye and spies the red flush that hasn’t left his cheeks since their lips first touched in the bathroom. If Oliver looks closely, he’s pretty sure there’s a sheen of sweat and saliva that’s taken over Ryan’s freshly shaven upper lip. It makes Oliver want to reach out and never let go.
Film truly is always better when it’s real.