A/N: I started and this one just kept growing so... here we are. Yeah, I'm not sure what this is.
Prompt: B-movie actors that get a little too into rehearsing their sex scene
Enjoy!
The most annoying aspect of getting work when you're still waiting tables, looking for the first big chance, is that the work is always trash. April hates being in commercials, but it pays and before long she's the Ambiox girl and everyone asks if she still has problems sleeping because the damn things air nationwide and constantly. So, she jumps at the first opportunity to do anything other than those ads.
The filming location is at a motel with a nearby beach. April doesn't need to stop and wonder if they have any permits to be here because she already knows they don't. It just isn't one of those types of movies. This is the type of movie where the agent - that she managed to blackmail into working for her after discovering he's cheating on his wife - barely pays any attention to what she asks him to do and before she knows it, April is in a cab with money her mom wired her on the way to the set.
Even if her mother doesn't quite get why someone like April would want to be an actress, which is fine. But at least she supports her enough to not let slip this opportunity to siphon money out of the infamously overspending Entertainment 720.
That opportunity also happens to be for her third favorite film franchise as a co-lead with some weirdo she's never heard of before.
The guy seems okay, and the director - Tom - is as sleazy as his producer. Part of her knew this was going to happen, but the other part is still grossed out by all of it and wishes that they would just go and die. Preferably in the most painful way possible. The lame, spiky-haired producer even tried to hit on her the first day of shooting.
"Hey baby, how 'bout you and I go explore the meaning of fine-" the goon, Jean-Ralphio, looks her over and April grimaces. "Art."
"I already have the part," she reminds him.
"You don't have the next part in Cephalopod Massacre 9," he tells her and suddenly that feels all too real.
"Stop," she warns him and walks away. When he tries to follow, April spins around and glares at him.
And then keeps doing it for a long, long while. He stays silent but tries to sputter out annoying words, getting caught up as she stands her ground. The day is already getting tedious and she needs a break from creeps. When he runs away, finally April can go find the little cooler and get a stupid drink in this dumb heat.
There, right by it, is her costar.
"Hey, Andy," she says with as casual a tone she can muster when the day is beating down hot and she's about ready to die.
They've only shot a handful of scenes but already she can tell that it's going to be a short one - one night in the nearby motel and then wrap-up the very next day. The hardest part, other than dealing with gross people, is being around him. Not that he's the best actor or intimidating, or at all mean. He's just got that one thing, that one little thing about him that makes it really difficult.
"Oh, hey! Did you see all the makeup that guy had on?" he asks, excited and tossing her a bottle of water from the cooler. He's jumpy, excitable, everything she's not and yet, it's refreshing. "I didn't realize there were gonna be real aliens on set!"
"They're not-"
"No, I mean like... not computer ones. Like, costumes," he finally says and nods. Andy isn't the brightest, but the earnest cheer and the way he livens up a scene helps ease all of this down.
"Sure, they're all gross. So much blood," April takes a sip and it's the best water of her entire life. She realizes that they only have half the script then, and the prospects are so exciting. "It's so cool. I wish I had more scenes with them. Maybe I could get to kill one."
Andy stares at her for a while and she realizes he's not sure if she means the actors or the aliens.
In the middle of the day, April finally gets the rest of the stupid script and she hates her agent so much because he doesn't pay attention to anything and now she's about to howl in anger.
She could probably get herself out of this but it's the only role that she has and, right now, the idea of going back to waiting on people and getting lectured by her boss outweighs it all. So, April sucks it up and continues with the scenes they have left for the first day.
When the stunt actors go to get their costumes finished, April follows just to see what they look like as all the horrible bloodiness gets applied. It's not the same with this weighing her down. Somehow, fake gore is just not the same. The woman that does their makeup, Donna, notices her sudden change of heart right away.
"Look, I don't know you. I don't know if you're about to spill the beans or what," Donna sounds just as tired as April feels. The breakneck pace everything has to go at is starting to drain all of them, it seems.
"I'm not-"
"All I do know," she looks over Andy's way and gives a sly wink to him. "Is that I don't care."
April sighs, the nonchalance and apathy a relief after everything. "Thanks, Donna," she mutters and gets out of the tent, somehow tired of watching her apply all the sores and slimy wounds.
"Tom, you seriously can't do anything about this?" she can't believe what she's hearing.
"Listen boo, I'd love to change it, but Jean-Ralphio insisted," Tom, the director and co-writer is trying to sound like he cares but she knows better.
"Ew," April grimaces. "You know he's just mad I turned him down."
"Look, we don't have to show anything in the shot, you can just... turn your back to the camera," he insists and April is suddenly uncomfortable with her role.
"Can't we get a body double?"
Tom bursts into laughter and it takes a while for him to calm down. Inside his trailer, air-conditioned and with a massive television screen playing what he's shot on loop, it's all so surreal. She squirms in place on the far too soft couch, sitting across from him. When he does finally stop laughing, Tom fixes her with a look somewhere between disappointed and angry.
"I'm not paying for a body double," he tells her.
"Strapless skin-tone shirt?" she offers.
"Don't have any," Tom counters.
"Fade to black?" she tries, but knows better already.
"Listen, April. I'll make sure Jean-Ralphio isn't in the room when it happens," he reassures her and, frankly, that is actually almost good enough before April realizes what she's being asked to do. "It'll just be me, Andy, you, the key grip, our PA, several interns from the local community college-"
"Ugh."
She storms out of his trailer without another word, bristling at the mere thought of a bunch of creepy guys in the same room as all of this. He doesn't follow or so much as move, so April hopes that means her point is made. Even so, she never threatened to quit or leverage herself and it pisses her off enough to almost turn back around.
Outside, getting a hot dog from a food truck owned by Tom that was considered catering, Andy spots her.
"You, uh, you okay?" he asks her when she stomps past him.
Turning, she almost spits fury his way. But he is just squinting into the sun, genuine concern there, and with a ketchup bottle squirting far too much onto his hot dog as he stares. And stares, and stares at her costume necessary for the scene earlier that day. Softening, April releases all that tension in her shoulders and joins him under the umbrella shading him from the sun. Andy finally stops drenching the food in condiment but he's still staring and for some reason, when he does it the feeling isn't discomfort.
"No, Tom... ugh, I got the rest of the script," she says without looking at him.
"Oh, yeah! I was gonna go get that but then I saw they've got free hot dogs," he lifts it up and bits into his. The ketchup pile he packed on blows up in his face, literally. The red stuff is all over his cheeks. "Free hot dogs! Wow, what a cool job."
"It looks like blood," she says, trying to reason her way out of this because a lot of that anxious pressure melts away. "It looks gross on you."
"Nice!" he says with a smile and takes another bite. More ketchup gets everywhere and some splashes on her. "Oh, crap, sorry!"
"No, I like it," she says and takes a bit of the ketchup on her fingertip.
Walking backwards without looking, April tastes the red on hand and gives the maybe dumbstruck Andy a grin.
The problem with the script is the apparently non-negotiable love scene between her character and his. That's how she ends up knocking on the door to his room at the shitty twenty-bucks-a-night motel they're forced to stay in while shooting. They're set to film the remaining half of the movie that morning, including the sex scene.
"Room service!" her costar yells before opening the door.
"I wish," she grumbles and pushes past him. Flopping down on his likely flea ridden bed, April stares up at the script in her hands.
Cephalopod Massacre: Arent'ctopus Happy to See Us?
The words stare back, the title looking just as bad as the first time she saw it. But it was the eighth movie in the franchise and they were desperate for women to play the Final Girl in this one, so April managed to snag it in what she thinks was a killer audition. Maybe they were just that desperate?
"Oh... uh, come right on in," Andy says. He shuts the door and stands there as she reads over that break and the meaningless paragraph there. "You okay? You seem pretty... uh, wound up."
"Well, we have that scene today," she reminds him. When Andy returned with his copy of the script, April was incapable of dealing with that confrontation and hoped they would talk about it now, just before filming. "And I am really not ready."
"Oh come on! It'll be fun," he tries to ease her anxiety over it but somehow that doesn't work. Even if he does have a fine, chiseled jaw and pretty eyes. "Seriously, it's not like we'll actually be... y'know."
"Dude, how can you be so chill? And, duh, we're not gonna fuck," she rolls her eyes and tries to ignore how this guy could just be a gym rat they found down from where she works, all muscled arms and stupid, thick thighs. "This is just... my first movie. And I have to take my top off and it's really degrading-"
"Like feminism?" Andy asks, stroking that dumb patch of a beard.
She hasn't spent yesterday looking at the way his hands move when he's asked to help carry things around, the way his calloused fingers dig so pleasantly into her skin when he grabbed her wrist for a scene, or any of that. Definitely not. And it's certainly not helped by his swimming instructor's get-up amounting to a tight wetsuit conforming to all of him. They're well past the shot of April as the "bikini babe" according to the script, but for reasons she spends a lot of the movie in that thin top and now all that self-conscious tingling comes back along with something else. At least she convinced the director to let her wear shorts but the moron gave her extremely small jean shorts.
"Yeah, sure," she shakes her head and lets the script fall onto her face, groaning. "Andy, is it weird?"
"Is what weird?" he's beside her on the bed and the stiff mattress doesn't dip at all where he sits.
"The scene... I mean, we haven't even done the kissing scene yet, either," April hesitates to say it because the words are dumb and she certainly has no ulterior motives.
"Oh yeah, I guess we do that one today too? Huh," he sits back and April's mouth practically waters.
"Could we, ugh... this is dumb," she sits up and doesn't look anywhere at him or near him because wow a wetsuit does not hide anything. "Could we, like, rehearse?"
"The kiss?"
"Yeah," she says, quick enough to just get it out there.
"I mean, sure. If it makes you more comfortable, that's fine," he shrugs and leans forward, but then sits back again. "No, you start. That's how it goes in the movie."
April bites her lip and then stands up, just like she should be in the movie. Taking a deep breath she imagines the secluded part of the beach they definitely don't have a permit to shoot at and Andy - no, his character - just saved her from an attack by yet another octopus-alien-zombie. He finishes wrestling the thing away, on the ground, when she is overwhelmed by the desire to kiss him.
Her character, not April. Of course.
"Oh, Chaz!" she shouts and Andy is taken aback at the volume. She holds one of his hands in both of hers and trembles as best she can.
"All in a day's work, Cindy, I-"
Right on cue, complete with Andy giving her far too much time to react to him speaking, April leans down and just kisses him. It's not right to replace her motivations as a character with her feelings as a person, but right now it's getting her through this. Getting her through the way his beard scratches just a bit of skin when she moves her lips and before long, they break away. It's almost like torture.
Andy is all smiles when she opens her eyes, the fluttering in her stomach hellish and obnoxious.
"See, it wasn't so bad!" he stands up and looks down at her and she can't take it. "April, you're amazing and-"
He doesn't get another word out because she's on the tips of her toes and doesn't care that he could be staring down her chest because she's kissing him. She just does it and the way he falls into it, his hands dropping to her sides and hovering around her waist? The heat from his body is so nice and his mouth opens for her tongue and this is not even remotely scripted.
He touches her hips with a tentative hand and April says nothing, only reaching underneath his arms to claw at his well-earned, muscular back. Andy makes a sound that she can taste, sending everything back into the present where his hand is reaching up to her chest and April yelps, pulling away.
"Oh, shit," Andy looks like he ran her over with a car and runs his hands through his hair. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, uh, go that far."
"No, it's okay," April covers her face with her hands and hears him sit down on the bed again. She shakes her head and doesn't remove those hands, shielding the fact that her skin is burning red-hot for him. "I started it. I said we should rehearse... ugh, I'm sorry."
"Well... okay, I guess. But we still have to finish rehearsing, if you're okay," he says with a new sheepish quiet.
"Like the sex scene? After we just made out? Dude!" she looks up finally and his eyebrows are furrowed in deep thought and he's rubbing his forearm with one hand. His features are so apologetic but it's all etched onto this fit guy with cute, curly hair and very little acting talent. "Isn't that weird?"
"I don't mean it like... that," Andy assures her but April isn't sure if she would mind it. He sighs. "Look, we can try and get Tom to axe the topless scene. My buddy Ben works his books and knows that he's, like, super in debt. We already shot half the movie and he can't lose us now."
"Yeah, but-"
"And!" Andy interrupts her with a laugh. "You know, we're already paid. It's the perfect crime!"
Wow, hello horniness my old friend.
"You... really think so?" she asks him and walks a bit closer. Again, the sex scene started with him sitting and her standing. Did Tom have a fetish for tall women or something?
"Oh, for sure," Andy nods.
"Chaz, this might be our last day alive. The octopus-alien-zombies are right outside our door," she almost whispers it, pretending there are actual monsters trying to bash down the door to this room. They might be dead any second now, and her body needs his. Whose body? Cindy's? Sure. "We might not make it."
"Wait, oh..." Andy coughs and looks up at her with the same, squinty-eyed look he decided Chaz had. "Cindy, if we don't make it the last thing I wanna be doing before I die is you."
April pushes on his shoulders, letting him fall on his back. Spread backward like this for her, she can see he tried to tuck himself in, up along his stomach, but all that does is let her see the full length of him. Maybe he's actually turned on, or maybe he's hiding a banana like he actually did on his first day. She's not sure. The curvature fits, but the way he looks down and tries to cover himself up is clear.
Touching his knee, she nods. "It's fine," she says and it's all breathy and she doesn't know where it's coming from. "Cindy is hot, anyways."
"Okay," he still lowers one hand over the thick bulge to her disappointment. Maybe it was just an accidental physical reaction. Unsure, April starts to unzip the jean shorts. "Wait, we don't have to-"
"Let me get into the scene," she growls and kicks off the shorts in frustration. She has underwear on, so it's not like she's going to go that far today.
It's a great excuse for what's happening right now in her body and in the room, her coworker hard for her and pretending like this will all be aboveboard. April isn't sure if they should do this with this much clothing between them, and her eyes keep finding that bulge without her permission so she just lets go for the first time on set. When she reaches back to the tight knot keeping her bikini top on, Andy gulps.
After a moment of working nails in, April is finally free.
Andy struggles and after his valiant attempt he looks at her for a moment before flickering his gaze back to the ceiling. She looks down at herself, stomach rolling a bit at the thought that her dumb body - all sharp, not in shape; all lazy and couch potato; all not sexy, not nearly big enough boobs for the role - mixing with his? It almost hurts but the way that Andy keeps stealing glances at her, hoping she won't notice, is killing all of it.
Running hands up those thighs she chuckles. He tightens under her grip, his chaste hand mysteriously circling around something when she does it. April slinks down to her knees of her own accord because the scene is just described as: Cindy and Chaz have amazing, near-death sex.
The plan had started in her head as just spilling her insecurity and hopefully getting to kiss him to let off some steam. But now, with his cock in his hand and the way he tries to hide how he's touching himself just a little, all from her body? Okay, plans change.
"Chaz," she says to him, eye-level with his hand. She removes it, letting him sit stiff against the material of his wetsuit. "Look at me."
"Yes, okay," he stares down his body at the hot, young working actress only inches from him. "Cindy, you are-"
April cuts him off, sitting up on her knees to capture the heat of his head in her mouth. All she tastes is sweat and the suit when she runs along the fabric. Frustrated, and realizing the purpose of his attire, April forces him to sit up and unzip.
"April, I'm not supposed to be nude in this scene," he says but it's such a weak defense after she's tried to suck his dick through a wetsuit.
"Chaz, I need this," she doesn't break character, kissing his head. Andy hisses out a breath and flops back onto the bed, looking up into the ceiling. "Cindy needs it."
He groans, loud, when she takes his full shaft into her throat. Again, all she tastes is sweat and that's fine because it's better than being gross - especially when he makes those noises as the back of her tongue swirls just a bit. It's only a few moments between her lips, feeling him buck a bit, before he has to pull her away from him.
Almost ready to voice her concern that she was terrible at that, April never got the chance. Andy took her into his lap, flush against him with hardness in muscles and along her stomach. He kisses her again, then, with a passion lost from the scene before.
He chuckles when they break apart, but she never asks him what's so funny.
His mouth finds her nipple waiting, April turned on to the point where the way he sucks against the flesh mesmerizing. Cindy is gone now, for the moment, because April is about to get fucked by her hot costar and it couldn't be better, all worry about their scene basically disintegrated by the feathery scrape of teeth against her skin when he bites down. It's soft, but just enough pressure to get her rolling her hips against him, showing him what this is doing to her.
"You want me to-?"
"Fuck me, Andy," she says in no unclear words.
Her meticulous plan of getting over the fear of a nude scene be damned, because his hand teases her clit and she shivers to the rhythm. When he stops, she's on her back when she didn't remember ever moving - oh right, his hand was doing magical things - and leaning over her.
She takes him easily, and the way Andy leans down to kiss her during the first thrust is only better. He lifts her just so that their foreheads touch, cradling her the back of her head in his palm with another pump. Even if she could look away, April wouldn't. His eyes bore into her, as relentless as the rhythm between their bodies. He fills her completely, stopping the movement to give her a fragile kiss. They hang there, lips parted and so close, when he moves again.
April doesn't breathe for what feels like an hour because all she can do is say his name - both Chaz and Andy, the two getting lost until it's just Andy. The bed creaks horribly underneath and does a spectacular job of masking her noise and his pleasured growling.
"Andy," she moans and reaches one hand between her legs where they meet in that steady pulse. She climbs, easing herself towards the edge with fingertips. "Fuck."
"Trying," he says with a chuckle and gives her one full, ardent thrust before stilling in her. "Oh, holy... fuck, April."
"Trying," she repeats, pushing her hips downward as best she can to get more of him that isn't there. Not that there isn't enough since she can barely tell up from down right now, but she needs every inch of his body. Now. "Trying... fuck. Trying, trying-"
He cuts her off when his head drops a bit, changing the angle of their gaze. Andy keeps pace in such a steady beat her mind wanders, wondering if he's a musician or a dancer or something, before he buries deep and hits an angle that elicits the worst, most embarrassing noise. He just chuckles and does it again, rediscovering his rhythm in that position where she could feel herself flying already.
Am I really doing this right now?
The thought flashes for a second before his mouth drops open and that rolling, mind-numbing moan deep from his chest comes out. Nothing else matters, April's hand moving just a bit quicker as he tries to maintain his motion.
It's enough, sending her into a shuddering ball that tightens around him. It's messy and hard when she comes, but he keeps fucking her through it, slower but enough. She can feel him empty, still fucking her, but it's okay. April is so lost in his body, kissing him as they both come around each other, that it doesn't matter now. He is just as lost in her body. When he does separate, he sits back on the bed next to her, sweat dripping along his toned body.
"Well," she says, trying to figure out how this isn't going to be awkward.
"Yeah," he answers her. "Cool?"
"I mean..." she looks over at Andy, who has already turned his head to meet her. "If it's cool with you."
"No I meant the sex," he corrects himself.
April chuckles and nods. "Yeah, that was pretty cool," she finally says.
"So, was that enough of a rehearsal?" he asks, out of breath.
April thinks for a moment. After a bit of clean-up, or maybe not. The idea is doubly hot, but April can't really think straight and isn't sure what part of any of this is still active in her head. Is it the amazing sex? the emotional release? Maybe it's just the way that Andy made everything a little easier and now she's crossed a line she can't step back from, hopefully for the better.
But, still, she is inspired.
"I think we need to run the scene from the top," she suggests. "Only this time... you start. On me."
Andy manages to convince Tom that maybe it'd be just as hot if she wore her top and, after a little motivation and mention that they might just decide not to finish the remaining scenes, he seems somehow swayed.
With all of the lights on them, and the hours before, now everything is so plastic and weird but not for the whole being awkward around each other reason. Now it's pretending and saying terrible lines, complete with grinding covered body parts together and April letting out a scream in her best Barbara Crampton impersonation when the aliens eventually invade the room they're in. Someone snaps a photo of April doing that scream just then, almost blinding her with the terrible, giant flash.
One of the stunt actors was apparently in the shot too, because runs into the small wall separating the motel they aren't allowed to film in from the street outside.
Tom yells at them, but Andy just points and laughs. When he grins back at her, waiting for her to join in, and April knows that whatever might be in store for the rest of the day might be okay with Andy on her side.