[MOVIE STAR AU]

[homosexuals]

MODERN CINEMA AU

hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul...

Comments

[homosexuals]

[there's something decidedly tortured about the way embry digests the question - maybe it's just the angle of him sitting at hawk's feet, but something about the slant of his brow, the slight pull at plush lips makes him think that it isn't an easy question for him. he supposes it wasn't really meant to be, because even if hawk came here with an appreciation for the lurid world he now knows hollywood out to be - he's been lucky and smart enough to avoid the things that could crush a weaker man or woman's spirit out the gate. some of them don't even get the chance to be knocked out in a one-two punch, instead slowly suffering the agonizing squeeze of something dirty chipping away their soul one movie, an interview or a facade at a time. no wonder so many of them turn to drugs and sex and die young - a fate he maybe selfishly thinks he's helping embry to avoid by turning a new leaf. he'd caught a glimpse of it in the box office bomb, and it's the whole reason he's sitting here at all.

he should really stop embry when he feels fingers so close to his heart, fishing around for a cigarette before his palms fall warm against his thighs with a possessiveness he wonders if he might be imagining. hawk should stop it, create some distance and nudge him back with the wave of his lighter and open flame to dissuade him from tipping up with his lips curled around one of his smokes that tantalizingly and pressing them tip to tip. instead, he dips his head down, gaze heavy on embry as he sucks hard and watches the tip ignite in a bright orange that could compete with the raze of warmth bleeding through his windows. he puffs out through his nose, sucking it once more until it takes before hawk is pulling back.

it's not exactly a deterrent as one hand lifts to his own cigarette, back connecting with the chair and just about splaying him out more comfortably - an unspoken acceptance of this current arrangement, hedged with a warning in the exhale he blows directly at embry. you're welcome. you can stay, just don't try anything else.]

Thought this sort of thing offended delicate LA sensibilities and all that health mumbo jumbo. Tim would have these confiscated on the spot if he knew. Your trainer might actually put me in a chokehold.

[casual. easy. avoiding the fact that this is a highly inappropriate position for them to both be in right now - moreso hawk.

but he listens to embry, surprised at the first thing that comes out of his mouth. love wasn't on his mental bingo card - assuming it might instead be something along the lines of pleasing his mother or making money, which aren't invalid by any means. but it's impossible to think about anyone not being able to fall for embry after watching him on screen or from afar, wishing they might know someone quite so striking in both appearance and personality. even hawk found himself wanting to get to the center of what makes him tick after one performance and the look in his eyes splashed across tabloids even at his worse - and god, it makes him sound like some fucking desperate fixer when he'd like to pride himself it's anything but.

there's no response right away, hawk sucking in another breath of smoke and exhaling it straight upwards towards the ceiling in contemplation as he feels one of embry's fingers slide closer to the inseam of his trousers, so fucking tempting and yet just the thing to seal his own demise. instead he reaches down to grip at his wrist, lifting it up and away from his leg without judgment or derision. the same hand instead reaches for embry's jaw, featherlight as his own thumb runs across the strong line of it with a soft smile.]

I intend to, but the truth is - you really don't need me to make that happen.

[a pause, hand shifting again to brush through the swathe of unruly curls briefly before settling back in his own lap.]

They're already hungry for that - to know you.

This?

[his brows bounce suggestively.]

Is going to make them desperate to have you. And then I think my job will be about keeping you on a pedestal, away from prying hands and being picked apart by the ones who don't deserve you.

[hymen]

[ something more than just the cigarette ignites — something warm and languid uncurls in his belly, desire like a flame, as heady as the smoke that wafts from the bow of hawk's lips, as pointed as a kiss. it might as well be, for how tangibly he feels it brush his skin. ]

My trainer has me on a strict routine. [ besides, one cigarette's not any worse than what he snorted on the way here. ] She keeps my body right. And tight.

[ there's a private little smile there even as hawk stays diplomatically switzerland about this whole thing, assessing him with an almost neutral glint in his eye. it's like fucking cocaine to embry, like daring him to take it a step further, to push a little more, to see how far hawkins fuller will let him go before he's ordered out of his office for misbehaving. even when hawk takes his wrist away and embry thinks for a moment that the scene is over, his hopes fizzle back to life with the graze of hawk's thumb along his jaw, an electric spark traveling in its wake. ]

That's not true. I do need you. [ embry's lashes flutter at the drag of his hair, leaning into the fleeting touch like a hungry cat. it's over far too quickly, hawk's hand out of reach again, and embry wants to dip into his lap and slide his head beneath his empty fingers again. ] Everything's looking up because of you. Because you gave me a chance in your movie.

[ it's genuine when he says it. even vivienne moore's influence had stretched to its limits at embry's undesirable antics — the drugs, the duis, the trashy clubs and his permanent place in the tabloids. he'd skipped out on his therapist so many times that he doesn't even remember her name. it was a vicious cycle — he drank all day and fucked all night because he blew all his auditions and couldn't land a job. he blew all his auditions and couldn't land a job because he drank all day and fucked all night. go fucking figure.

then hawk found him. embry's expression opens in sudden surprise, something raw and real and decidedly not camera-ready bleeding onto his face. it sounds like hawk would — protect him, which is absurd in this industry, because exploitation is the only way to make the wheels keep turning and the money roll in, but there's some desperately lovestruck part of him that wants to believe that if anyone could do that, hawk could.

maybe he should tell him. for a moment, he wants to. he wants to confess that his phone's burning a hole in his pocket, that he's being backed into a corner, that he's already leaked three of hawk's scripts and he'll find out two days from now that those projects are dead in the water before they can even start. maybe hawk can find his tape and destroy it. but he'd have to tell hawk it exists first.

he smiles, turning around to settle back on the rug, nestling right between hawk's legs. the back of his head pillows against hawk's thigh as he blows smoke rings toward the ceiling, one knee lazily drawn up while he kicks the other out. ]

Are you married, Mr. Fuller? [ his eyes glimmer up at him, the curve of his throat on display as he pulls the cigarette from his lips, stretching to reach the ashtray. ] I think your wife would be a lucky woman.