The Chronology of Us (A Stanathan multi-chapter fic) Ch. 5 - Keeping it on the DL
Title: The Chronology of us - Ch. 5: Keeping it on the DL
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Stana/Nathan
"So, here's what's going to happen", Stana told him firmly as she paced in her trailer.
Nathan sat on the couch in front of her, his eyes turned upward to look concentratedly at her face.
"We can have sex when the opportunity arises. If one of us doesn't feel like it at the time, we must respect that, however, if we chose to have sex with another person at any time, we must inform one another of that."
Nathan raised his eyebrows, she sounded like she was really a cop, reading out a play for the squat team.
"No romance, this is strictly about sex. We're friends, and we can act like friends on set, but we have to able to control ourselves. Nothing suggestive or secretive because it's far too easy to get snapped by those paparazzi dicks."
"What would you consider "romance" territory?" Nathan asked her slowly and carefully.
"Holding hands, kissing in public... a hug is fine in the right circumstance, just no lingering."
Nathan inhaled deeply. "I think I can handle that, but are you sure you can handle it... Not being romantic, not falling in love? You might find that it's just too hard."
Stana narrowed her eyes at him. "Some of the time I think you're an arrogant twit, so no... I promise you, from the very depths of my soul that I will not fall in love with you."
Nathan pursed his lips, humored, he leaned back on her couch. "Ouch", he chuckled.
"You're here for sexual release. I will be using you accordingly."
"And what if I'm uncomfortable with being used by you?" He said, narrowing his own eyes.
"Then you can go and get your jollies somewhere else", she shrugged.
Nathan might have imagined it, but he could swear her lips twitched with hesitance as she answered him.
He hummed, glancing around her trailer, with no particular interest. He looked into her eyes and said "You wanna fuck now?"
"Yeah", Stana said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, she stopped pacing instantly before pouncing on him.
She straddled him lowly, grazing with purpose against the protuberance already very apparent in his jeans.
He groaned and attacked her neck with vigor, biting down on her clavicle, bringing his hand up to grasp at the muscles behind it. He brought his other hand to release the top button of her shirt and proceeded to pop each button one by one.
She ran her fingers through his sinfully soft hair and bit her lip as his hand squeezed her boob.
There was a sudden knock on the door of the trailer and the two actors jumped.
"Stana, are you in there?" Andrew's voice sounded.
"Shit", Stana swore softly, pushing herself up off Nathan. "Yeah, just a second", she replied to her boss in a fluster.
She stood up and did up her buttons, swatting Nathan's hand away as he tried to help her. Looking at herself in the mirror and moving a piece of hair behind her ear, she opened the door, coming face to face with the producer.
"Hey Andrew, what's up?" She asked him casually.
"I just wanted to talk to you about the big press junket we're going to be doing over the next couple of weeks. Zap2it Is going to be doing a spread on the show and Extra will be doing a piece, and I imagine once they're on board, the rest of the mags and talk shows will want in on the action."
The producer noticed how antsy she seemed and so he peered his head around her door frame. "I'm sorry was I interrupting something?" He asked her slyly.
"We were just rehearsing is all", Nathan said, appearing in front of him.
"Oh, Nathan hi. Right, sorry to interrupt you guys then. I'm just giving you a heads up for what you can expect, but you've both done this kind of thing before, you know what it's all about", Andrew grinned at them.
"Publicity is one of my dearest friends", Nathan smirked.
"Well, they're going to eat you two up. You've got chemistry jumping between the two of you in bucket loads", Andrew laughed.
Nathan and Stana shared a quick and coy look.
"Well, we'll be sure to put it all on display, nothing like a good relationship rumor hook to get people watching a new show", Nathan joked with Andrew who laughed even louder.
"Oh yeah, people are going to have a field day with you two", Andrew told them. "And being romantically linked to this girl wouldn't be a bad thing, huh Nathan?"
"It certainly couldn't hurt my image", Nathan smiled falsely at Andrew.
"And Stana, how would you feel about being linked romantically to a Geek God?"
Stana chuckled nervously. "I think I would be living constantly in fear of being attacked by crazy comic-book, sci-fi chicks."
"You could take a light saber to bed with you for protection", Nathan joked.
The two men laughed. "Alright kids, I'll let you two get back to your rehearsal... You're doing well", Andrew bid them farewell and Stana closed the door to the trailer, leaning back against it with a huff.
"One more rule... No sex during work hours. If we do it on the lot, we wait until everybody else is gone", Stana said, looking deathly serious.
Nathan cleared his throat. "Got it", he put his hands in his pockets and bounced awkwardly on the balls of his feet. "Sooo, you want to run lines then?" He asked her finally.
"Oh... Yeah sure", she replied dumbly, looking around for her script. She hadn't really thought that last demand through very well. No sex for him also meant no sex for her either.
"Here", he said to her softly, holding her script out to her.
"Shall we do the uh, the bad coffee scene... or as I like to call it, the monkey peed in battery acid scene?" Nathan asked her, quirking an eyebrow up.
Stana chuckled a little. "Yeah, sure."
They started to run through the scene and when Nathan got to the line about downing a fifth of scotch, Stana replied with "You know, you're actually being very grown up about this."
Nathan frowned, squinting from Stana to his copy of the script. "That's not in the script."
"No, I was talking to you Nathan", Stana told him gently.
"Oh", he said, lowering his script. "Grown up? Grown up about what?"
"About my... rules, my demands, regarding our relationship."
He looked surprised, slightly taken aback even, which prompted her to keep talking.
"When you left me alone in that hotel room, I just thought it meant you didn't care about me at all, maybe you weren't even really attracted to me..."
"Whoa, what?!" Nathan blurted out, with a gasp of laughter. "Have you ever looked in a mirror?"
Stana bowed her head, smiling shyly. "I mean, you have hundreds... thousands of beautiful women out there that would gladly be with you and yet, even though you're scared about ruining the integrity of the show, you still want to do this... despite the fact that I'm placing all these dictations around it."
"I like you", He told her simply.
Oh man, he couldn't do that to her, he didn't have the authority to make her heart race like this.
"I like... your body... it feels good with mine", he said slowly, thinking over each word.
"Yeah, I feel the same", Stana told him coyly, her eyes shining in the late afternoon sun that was now seeping through her trailer window.
"And I am truly sorry for how I handled things... Thanks to my fear and stupidity, I nearly created the very thing I really didn't want... a rift between us."
Stana sat with her chin resting in her palm, her elbow against the small table. She smiled slowly at him. "No more rift", she promised him.
He smiled in return. "You are a very forgiving person... very kind, gentle, generous..."
"Forget it Nathan, I'm not having sex with you here", she told him sternly, but she was grinning.
Nathan shrugged. "Worth a try."
Stana shook her head at him, her stomach fluttering at the mere idea that he did still want to do that -
Try.
"Well, you know, I am a forgiving person, but I guess I should be sorry too, for what I said before. You're not an arrogant twit, and what you said before about how if you let the show down because you just can't be professional anymore, then everybody loses their jobs, you were right and that is a very unselfish way of looking at it that I guess I hadn't considered."
"Sometimes other things cloud our logic, sometimes the heart takes the brain down of its pedestal and bitch slaps it."
Stana laughed at his analogy.
"But sometimes the heart just wants what it wants... and I should have known better than to toy with the emotions of a woman", he finished.
Stana scoffed at him, whacking him playfully on the shoulder with her script.
"You are watching me do paperwork, it's creepy", Stana said, returning her eyes to the script. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
Nathan looked at Stana directly in the eyes when he delivered his responding line. "I like it here."
The two actors shared a very real smile. They'd reached a level footing, a higher ground, a good place.
They both liked it here.
...
Over the next couple of weeks, Stana and Nathan spent more time together as co-workers than they did as lovers, although neither one had strayed to indulge in another sexual partner.
They actually discovered that it wasn't just sex that kept them connected, they bonded over their Canadian-isms and their mutual respect for the work they did, both employed and charitable.
What they soon began to learn, through their characters was that the physical act of sex wasn't something that had to be delved into constantly for the two of them to be stimulated by each other. A look, or a particularly seductive line between one another would get their juices flowing. Running the script truly became a type of foreplay for the both of them.
A week out from the premiere, the pair did a lot of interviews. They had really learned to enjoy one another's company, but also they loved to take any opportunity to turn on one another's faucets... as all good friends do.
"We're cutting from the set of The Castle... is it "The" or just "Castle"?" The slightly ditzy "Extra" reporter asked them.
"Castle", Stana replied.
The reporter began admiring Stana's necklace and Stana smirked saying "It's how Nathan keeps me under control."
Nathan grinned at that and incredibly in sync with one another, just as he raised his hand to pretend to yank on it, she moved into him, as if he really was tugging her.
Stana gave him a smile, noticing just how connected the two of them were, and when the reporter began talking to his female costar again, he placed his arm on the back of her chair, stroking soft circles on her spine, to let her know that he'd felt it too - their connection.
Stana tried to pay attention to what the interviewer was asking her, but with Nathan's fingers creating delight on her back, it was sorta hard to concentrate.
She tried to throw Nathan off by telling him he should wear a jacket like the one a member of the crew was wearing, and he swallowed deeply. She knew when she spoke to him in such a way that a girlfriend or wife would, it rattled him a bit... which made her feel on top (despite the fact that soon after, she would invariably end up "beneath" him.)
She placed her hand on his thigh, pressing herself into him, driving him all the madder.
She watched him hawk-eyed as he answered all of the woman's questions and then when his smoldering eyes locked with hers, she poked her tongue out slightly between her teeth and turned away, blushing.
Stana began spoiling about what was to come on season one of Castle, since they were already filming the season closer episode. When she turned to Nathan and asked him quietly "How far do you think we should go?" In regards to the spoilers, he gave her a dark look and said "I think we've gone far enough."
He jumped up from his chair before the reporter had even finished closing the interview, and, connected to him as she was, Stana knew to follow him quickly.
And she knew that their night would be spent in extremely close proximity to one another.
...
Nathan dragged Stana to his trailer, not physically, but his spiritual hold over her made her compelled to follow in his wake with haste.
"Well that was fun", she smiled lightly at him as she walked into his double wide, behind him.
He gave her a sideways look. "Jeez Stana, you're a little minx, you know that? You know what you were doing to me just then, rubbing on me, giving me those looks and acting all doe-eyed. You want people knowing something is going on between us?"
Stana shrugged. "It's like you said to that reporter from Zap2it this morning. Gotta mix in a little truth with the lie if you want it to be convincing."
Nathan shook his head at her. "Meanwhile, you really can't keep doing this to me", he told her forcefully, motioning toward his engorged crotch. "You know how much those things you do just drive me absolutely insa-"
And then her lips were on his, smooching the words right out of his head. Her hand cupped him in the area he had just been grousing over.
He gasped against her lips and pulled away quickly, his chest heaving with a violent lusting. "I thought you said that we couldn't-"
"I lied", she told him, grabbing for his belt buckle and gnashing at his lips once more.
On that same day, in her trailer, those many weeks ago that she'd told him they wouldn't be able to have sex on the lot anymore, she had also promised him she would never fall in love with him.
She lied about that too.
...
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Stana/Nathan
"So, here's what's going to happen", Stana told him firmly as she paced in her trailer.
Nathan sat on the couch in front of her, his eyes turned upward to look concentratedly at her face.
"We can have sex when the opportunity arises. If one of us doesn't feel like it at the time, we must respect that, however, if we chose to have sex with another person at any time, we must inform one another of that."
Nathan raised his eyebrows, she sounded like she was really a cop, reading out a play for the squat team.
"No romance, this is strictly about sex. We're friends, and we can act like friends on set, but we have to able to control ourselves. Nothing suggestive or secretive because it's far too easy to get snapped by those paparazzi dicks."
"What would you consider "romance" territory?" Nathan asked her slowly and carefully.
"Holding hands, kissing in public... a hug is fine in the right circumstance, just no lingering."
Nathan inhaled deeply. "I think I can handle that, but are you sure you can handle it... Not being romantic, not falling in love? You might find that it's just too hard."
Stana narrowed her eyes at him. "Some of the time I think you're an arrogant twit, so no... I promise you, from the very depths of my soul that I will not fall in love with you."
Nathan pursed his lips, humored, he leaned back on her couch. "Ouch", he chuckled.
"You're here for sexual release. I will be using you accordingly."
"And what if I'm uncomfortable with being used by you?" He said, narrowing his own eyes.
"Then you can go and get your jollies somewhere else", she shrugged.
Nathan might have imagined it, but he could swear her lips twitched with hesitance as she answered him.
He hummed, glancing around her trailer, with no particular interest. He looked into her eyes and said "You wanna fuck now?"
"Yeah", Stana said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, she stopped pacing instantly before pouncing on him.
She straddled him lowly, grazing with purpose against the protuberance already very apparent in his jeans.
He groaned and attacked her neck with vigor, biting down on her clavicle, bringing his hand up to grasp at the muscles behind it. He brought his other hand to release the top button of her shirt and proceeded to pop each button one by one.
She ran her fingers through his sinfully soft hair and bit her lip as his hand squeezed her boob.
There was a sudden knock on the door of the trailer and the two actors jumped.
"Stana, are you in there?" Andrew's voice sounded.
"Shit", Stana swore softly, pushing herself up off Nathan. "Yeah, just a second", she replied to her boss in a fluster.
She stood up and did up her buttons, swatting Nathan's hand away as he tried to help her. Looking at herself in the mirror and moving a piece of hair behind her ear, she opened the door, coming face to face with the producer.
"Hey Andrew, what's up?" She asked him casually.
"I just wanted to talk to you about the big press junket we're going to be doing over the next couple of weeks. Zap2it Is going to be doing a spread on the show and Extra will be doing a piece, and I imagine once they're on board, the rest of the mags and talk shows will want in on the action."
The producer noticed how antsy she seemed and so he peered his head around her door frame. "I'm sorry was I interrupting something?" He asked her slyly.
"We were just rehearsing is all", Nathan said, appearing in front of him.
"Oh, Nathan hi. Right, sorry to interrupt you guys then. I'm just giving you a heads up for what you can expect, but you've both done this kind of thing before, you know what it's all about", Andrew grinned at them.
"Publicity is one of my dearest friends", Nathan smirked.
"Well, they're going to eat you two up. You've got chemistry jumping between the two of you in bucket loads", Andrew laughed.
Nathan and Stana shared a quick and coy look.
"Well, we'll be sure to put it all on display, nothing like a good relationship rumor hook to get people watching a new show", Nathan joked with Andrew who laughed even louder.
"Oh yeah, people are going to have a field day with you two", Andrew told them. "And being romantically linked to this girl wouldn't be a bad thing, huh Nathan?"
"It certainly couldn't hurt my image", Nathan smiled falsely at Andrew.
"And Stana, how would you feel about being linked romantically to a Geek God?"
Stana chuckled nervously. "I think I would be living constantly in fear of being attacked by crazy comic-book, sci-fi chicks."
"You could take a light saber to bed with you for protection", Nathan joked.
The two men laughed. "Alright kids, I'll let you two get back to your rehearsal... You're doing well", Andrew bid them farewell and Stana closed the door to the trailer, leaning back against it with a huff.
"One more rule... No sex during work hours. If we do it on the lot, we wait until everybody else is gone", Stana said, looking deathly serious.
Nathan cleared his throat. "Got it", he put his hands in his pockets and bounced awkwardly on the balls of his feet. "Sooo, you want to run lines then?" He asked her finally.
"Oh... Yeah sure", she replied dumbly, looking around for her script. She hadn't really thought that last demand through very well. No sex for him also meant no sex for her either.
"Here", he said to her softly, holding her script out to her.
"Shall we do the uh, the bad coffee scene... or as I like to call it, the monkey peed in battery acid scene?" Nathan asked her, quirking an eyebrow up.
Stana chuckled a little. "Yeah, sure."
They started to run through the scene and when Nathan got to the line about downing a fifth of scotch, Stana replied with "You know, you're actually being very grown up about this."
Nathan frowned, squinting from Stana to his copy of the script. "That's not in the script."
"No, I was talking to you Nathan", Stana told him gently.
"Oh", he said, lowering his script. "Grown up? Grown up about what?"
"About my... rules, my demands, regarding our relationship."
He looked surprised, slightly taken aback even, which prompted her to keep talking.
"When you left me alone in that hotel room, I just thought it meant you didn't care about me at all, maybe you weren't even really attracted to me..."
"Whoa, what?!" Nathan blurted out, with a gasp of laughter. "Have you ever looked in a mirror?"
Stana bowed her head, smiling shyly. "I mean, you have hundreds... thousands of beautiful women out there that would gladly be with you and yet, even though you're scared about ruining the integrity of the show, you still want to do this... despite the fact that I'm placing all these dictations around it."
"I like you", He told her simply.
Oh man, he couldn't do that to her, he didn't have the authority to make her heart race like this.
"I like... your body... it feels good with mine", he said slowly, thinking over each word.
"Yeah, I feel the same", Stana told him coyly, her eyes shining in the late afternoon sun that was now seeping through her trailer window.
"And I am truly sorry for how I handled things... Thanks to my fear and stupidity, I nearly created the very thing I really didn't want... a rift between us."
Stana sat with her chin resting in her palm, her elbow against the small table. She smiled slowly at him. "No more rift", she promised him.
He smiled in return. "You are a very forgiving person... very kind, gentle, generous..."
"Forget it Nathan, I'm not having sex with you here", she told him sternly, but she was grinning.
Nathan shrugged. "Worth a try."
Stana shook her head at him, her stomach fluttering at the mere idea that he did still want to do that -
Try.
"Well, you know, I am a forgiving person, but I guess I should be sorry too, for what I said before. You're not an arrogant twit, and what you said before about how if you let the show down because you just can't be professional anymore, then everybody loses their jobs, you were right and that is a very unselfish way of looking at it that I guess I hadn't considered."
"Sometimes other things cloud our logic, sometimes the heart takes the brain down of its pedestal and bitch slaps it."
Stana laughed at his analogy.
"But sometimes the heart just wants what it wants... and I should have known better than to toy with the emotions of a woman", he finished.
Stana scoffed at him, whacking him playfully on the shoulder with her script.
"You are watching me do paperwork, it's creepy", Stana said, returning her eyes to the script. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
Nathan looked at Stana directly in the eyes when he delivered his responding line. "I like it here."
The two actors shared a very real smile. They'd reached a level footing, a higher ground, a good place.
They both liked it here.
...
Over the next couple of weeks, Stana and Nathan spent more time together as co-workers than they did as lovers, although neither one had strayed to indulge in another sexual partner.
They actually discovered that it wasn't just sex that kept them connected, they bonded over their Canadian-isms and their mutual respect for the work they did, both employed and charitable.
What they soon began to learn, through their characters was that the physical act of sex wasn't something that had to be delved into constantly for the two of them to be stimulated by each other. A look, or a particularly seductive line between one another would get their juices flowing. Running the script truly became a type of foreplay for the both of them.
A week out from the premiere, the pair did a lot of interviews. They had really learned to enjoy one another's company, but also they loved to take any opportunity to turn on one another's faucets... as all good friends do.
"We're cutting from the set of The Castle... is it "The" or just "Castle"?" The slightly ditzy "Extra" reporter asked them.
"Castle", Stana replied.
The reporter began admiring Stana's necklace and Stana smirked saying "It's how Nathan keeps me under control."
Nathan grinned at that and incredibly in sync with one another, just as he raised his hand to pretend to yank on it, she moved into him, as if he really was tugging her.
Stana gave him a smile, noticing just how connected the two of them were, and when the reporter began talking to his female costar again, he placed his arm on the back of her chair, stroking soft circles on her spine, to let her know that he'd felt it too - their connection.
Stana tried to pay attention to what the interviewer was asking her, but with Nathan's fingers creating delight on her back, it was sorta hard to concentrate.
She tried to throw Nathan off by telling him he should wear a jacket like the one a member of the crew was wearing, and he swallowed deeply. She knew when she spoke to him in such a way that a girlfriend or wife would, it rattled him a bit... which made her feel on top (despite the fact that soon after, she would invariably end up "beneath" him.)
She placed her hand on his thigh, pressing herself into him, driving him all the madder.
She watched him hawk-eyed as he answered all of the woman's questions and then when his smoldering eyes locked with hers, she poked her tongue out slightly between her teeth and turned away, blushing.
Stana began spoiling about what was to come on season one of Castle, since they were already filming the season closer episode. When she turned to Nathan and asked him quietly "How far do you think we should go?" In regards to the spoilers, he gave her a dark look and said "I think we've gone far enough."
He jumped up from his chair before the reporter had even finished closing the interview, and, connected to him as she was, Stana knew to follow him quickly.
And she knew that their night would be spent in extremely close proximity to one another.
...
Nathan dragged Stana to his trailer, not physically, but his spiritual hold over her made her compelled to follow in his wake with haste.
"Well that was fun", she smiled lightly at him as she walked into his double wide, behind him.
He gave her a sideways look. "Jeez Stana, you're a little minx, you know that? You know what you were doing to me just then, rubbing on me, giving me those looks and acting all doe-eyed. You want people knowing something is going on between us?"
Stana shrugged. "It's like you said to that reporter from Zap2it this morning. Gotta mix in a little truth with the lie if you want it to be convincing."
Nathan shook his head at her. "Meanwhile, you really can't keep doing this to me", he told her forcefully, motioning toward his engorged crotch. "You know how much those things you do just drive me absolutely insa-"
And then her lips were on his, smooching the words right out of his head. Her hand cupped him in the area he had just been grousing over.
He gasped against her lips and pulled away quickly, his chest heaving with a violent lusting. "I thought you said that we couldn't-"
"I lied", she told him, grabbing for his belt buckle and gnashing at his lips once more.
On that same day, in her trailer, those many weeks ago that she'd told him they wouldn't be able to have sex on the lot anymore, she had also promised him she would never fall in love with him.
She lied about that too.
...