Work Text:
Alexis does not like David.
He doesn't. Not one little bit. Doesn't like his style, his personality, or his way of dealing with the day to day happenings of life.
He doesn't like David's voice, the large, exuberant cascade of sound that falls out of the younger man as though everything around him were one enormous party that he's happy to celebrate.
He doesn't like David's hobbies - the dogs, the games of hockey and basketball. He doesn't like the attention David gets for them. He doesn't like seeing the articles in the celebrity rags, or the blurbs of gossip that make their way to the internet. David Boreanaz: out jogging with the dog that made him famous, complete with picture of David himself, wearing an oversized T-shirt and faded track pants and too-white sneakers that contrast the dark line of sweat that has slid down David's shirt and made it stick against his skin.
Alexis doesn't like David's skin.
He doesn't like David's body. Not his hands, his muscles, his smile. The way his deep-feeling eyes look directly at you and make you feel that he's opened up his heart and soul if you feel a need to draw strength from it.
Alexis doesn't like that at all.
***
He doesn't like spending time with David. At work, away from it, he wants no part of it. He wants to spend no more time than absolutely necessary with the man his career has been shackled to. Sometimes he thinks that he could quit, solve the problem in one fell swoop. But he doesn't, and there David is, day after day.
Alexis doesn't like being on the set with David. He doesn't like the games and practical jokes. He doesn't like sharing soundstages, and an environment which makes professionalism hard to maintain.
He doesn't like spending time with David away from the cameras. Nearby, grazing their way through the craft table, David chattering away with questions about Alexis's life, and family.
Or, for that matter, David chattering away about himself. Jobs. Wife. Family. Kids.
Alexis especially does not like that.
***
Alexis doesn't spend time with David.
They don't go out together, grab friendly beers after work that mysteriously no one else is invited to - or if they are, they somehow fail to come along. They don't sit alone together in restaurants that serve fried food which is really bad for David's digestion, but David doesn't care because he's addicted to mozzarella sticks and cold beer and can pack both away into his solid, muscle-bound body without seeming to blink an eye.
They don't have these after-work meals together, and they don't spend hours upon hours at the table. They don't talk about the minutiae of the day, they don't tell jokes that make each other laugh, they don't forget that the sun is about to rise and it's becoming closer to the time to go back to work than it is to go back home.
They don't walk down the street together after the fact, not hand in hand but close. Tired and beer-buzzed, and watching the pink-grey of the world as the sun starts to reach up over the horizon. Eyes tired, both of them wearing glasses, and laughing still at jokes that wouldn't be funny if they'd slept, or been sober. But they hadn't and they aren't, and it takes little more than David holding his hands out as though framing something and saying "No, no - *purple*." for attacks of giggles to hit them all over again.
That is to say - they don't giggle, they don't laugh, and they don't share moments like that.
***
They don't find excuses to be alone together.
When at parties organized by co-workers and friends, they don't make a point of finding a way to mingle themselves towards one another. Alexis doesn't abandon his friends with mumbled excuses about questions about an upcoming scene. David doesn't turn his back on invitations to go a few rounds with the ol' pigskin just so he can sit at the edge of a lounge chair, Alexis having claimed the top of it, and the two of them do not get lost in conversations that they don't even notice other people aren't a part of.
When their friends prevail, David does not care what happens as he tears up the backyard playing football. When he hits the dirt he doesn't glance to the side of the informal field to see if Alexis noticed it, and when he gets tackled in the first place it's not because he was checking to see if Alexis was watching.
And Alexis doesn't watch, of course. Alexis hates football, which all of his friends know. He doesn't stand on the side of the field, he doesn't keep his eyes on David with such fixation that his own friends wander off without him being aware of it, and he doesn't wince with protective and sympathetic pain, wondering what damage is being done to David's weak knee.
Neither one of them do any of that.
***
Alexis doesn't worry about David's health. He doesn't feel tension in his shoulders when David gets hit doing stunts. He doesn't feel sick to his stomach when David limps his way through take after take.
He doesn't sit at home, awake, by himself, and worry whenever David has to go into the hospital. He doesn't let out sharp breaths of relief once he is told that David is fine. He doesn't say prayers of thanks. He doesn't feel as though his own heart can beat again.
He doesn't resent that on the list of people to inform about David's health and well being, that he ranks far below the likes of cousins, college buddies, and agents.
He doesn't meet David's eyes when they find one another at work again, and he absolutely does not smile to show he was concerned.
***
Alexis and David do not spend time alone together in David's trailer.
David does not invite him there. Alexis does not accept. They don't go through elaborate pantomimes to help them pretend that no one can tell what is going on. Alexis has never been to David's trailer before. David has never wanted him in it.
They don't go there every day, and steal moments together between takes.
When there, they don't touch one another. David's fingers do not brush Alexis's hands. Alexis's thumb does not caress the belt wrapped around David's waist. Their lips do not seek each other out with light, tentative moments, as though both of them are afraid to do more.
Their tongues do not dart out, tasting one another. Their chests do not bump together as though both of them have forgotten to stand. They do not grasp each other's arms, they do not lose themselves in the dizzying warmth of each other's breath, they do not forget themselves, sometimes, and kiss so hard that they smear each other's makeup.
They don't get desperate for one another. Alexis doesn't moan. David's hands don't shake. They don't force themselves to stop, sometimes shoving each other away, before quietly nodding and agreeing that it would be better if they tried to avoid being alone together for the rest of the day.
They do not do that. Nor, sometimes, do they spend time on David's bed. Not kissing, but touching. Lying side by side, alternating whose back is to whose front, David's thick fingers and Alexis's long ones knitted together, and both of them thinking the exact same silent and heavy thoughts.
At no time does that ever happen.
***
Alexis doesn't have problems looking women in the eye. Specifically his wife, and David's. He doesn't feel sick with guilt. He doesn't overcompensate with complicated presents that involve mazes of ribbons all around the house which then lead to champagne that's more appropriate to Aly's bank accounts than his, and tickets to shows that are more her taste than his, and weekends spent at bed and breakfasts that are filled with lace, and gauzy curtains, and enough pink to chase any thoughts of people with testosterone out of Alexis's mind.
Or it would, if Alexis didn't know a man who actually enjoyed wearing pink from time to time.
Alexis similarly does not overcompensate with Jamie. He doesn't laugh too hard at her jokes. He doesn't stumble over himself in attempts to appear gracious whenever he and Alyson are invited over. He doesn't focus on her with too-bright attention, and silently beg her to forgive him for not being a stronger person.
And, from the look on David's face that is always there when they have these four-person get-togethers, David in no way does the exact same thing to his wife, and to Alyson in return.
***
They don't ever have sex.
They don't meet up at hotels, or the empty apartments of friends who are out of town. They don't stand at attention in elevators, watching the numbers go up with a keen anticipation that tastes like metal on their tongues.
They don't perform slow walks of forced casualness down hallways, hoping that no one notices them.
Once they are safely behind locked doors, Alexis doesn't press himself into David's body. His cock isn't hard, his body isn't feverish.
David doesn't groan. He doesn't kiss Alexis's mouth with a biting, desperate intensity. He doesn't drop the keys to the floor. He doesn't rip Alexis's shirt up and run his hands over Alexis's abdomen, and ribs.
Alexis doesn't shiver. He doesn't fall back against the sharp corner of the standard-issue hotel bureau. He doesn't sit up on it so that he can wrap his legs around David's, and feel David's hard cock pressing into his own.
David doesn't thrust into him. He does not resemble a bull, or a rhino, or any other tank of an animal that could flatten Alexis's body completely with one well-placed blow. Nor does he destroy Alexis's mind with tenderness. He doesn't visibly restrain himself to whisper-light kisses. He doesn't unbutton Alexis's shirt as though it were a reverent act. He doesn't speak in hushed tones about how much he desires him.
Alexis doesn't silence him. He doesn't dance fingertips over David's mouth, then crush their lips together so that he can claim David with his tongue. He doesn't stand up, pushing them away from the bureau. He doesn't trip David - carefully, so carefully so as to not hurt the knee - onto the bed, then straddle David's hips with a well-placed rocking of his own that makes David arch his back, and sketches the hard points of David's nipples into the tight shirt that David is wearing.
Alexis doesn't bite David's nipples through the cloth. He doesn't suck and lick at them, using the friction of the fabric to increase sensation. He doesn't sit back, knowing how David loves to look at him, and slowly remove his own clothing. He doesn't keep his eyes directly locked on David's as he does this, and he doesn't find himself trembling and wanting from the response that he finds there.
David does not take him by the hand and draw him closer. They do not forget themselves in a dance of kissing. Alexis does not try to pleasure David with a rhythmic motion of his thigh, and David's hand does not snake its way between them to stroke at the heat of Alexis's cock.
Alexis does not slide down. He doesn't undo David's pants with practiced hands. He doesn't undress David as though he's done this often enough to perform the act without assistance, and when he sees David lying there completely naked and erect, he doesn't feel as though he's once again located what he has been missing.
David does not encourage him to lie down with his back on the mattress. His generous mouth does not travel down Alexis's torso to wrap around the cock below. David does not suck him, or lick him with swirls of rough-gentle tongue, or tease his legs open with a well-placed finger that makes Alexis's body lift, and his hands clench, and his balls twitch with the yearning for release.
Alexis does not fumble lubricant out of his pants which are lying on the floor. He doesn't stroke it up and down David's wonderfully hard cock while again the two of them kiss, this time murmuring silly things to one another that make each other laugh, and smile.
Alexis doesn't gasp as David works the lube into him. He doesn't get harder as David's fingers slide in and out in a pale imitation of what is to come. He doesn't become quieter, and pleading, and beg David to fuck him and take him so hard that he forgets everything else in the world.
David doesn't remove his hand. He doesn't nudge his cock into its place. He doesn't give a low, rumbling cry when he thrusts forward, and he doesn't silence himself into shaky, razors-edge breaths once Alexis is wrapped around him.
They don't move together, each of them getting off on pleasuring each other as much they are from being pleasured themselves. They don't drink in the sound of each other's whimpers, and moans. They don't get harder as the other's cock becomes firmer, and more insistent. Alexis doesn't want to thrust his hips into a blur as David takes his cock in hand, and David doesn't want to twist himself into Alexis so hard and fast that his body aches.
They do none of that. They don't beg, and plead, and tell each other it feels good, so good, and fuck like dogs in heat, the mattress creaking and the headboard slapping an increasing staccato against the wall as desire and need mix into a heady cocktail that neither one of them can resist or refuse until finally there is a loud and decisive bang of wood on cheap, painted-over sheetrock, and they're crying out, and shaking, and coming as they've wanted to for so damned long.
***
They don't do any of that. And when they are done, they do not rest in one another's arms, and admit that they're in love with one another.
Absolutely none of that ever happens.
The end.