Fic. Subtext
Title: Subtext
Author: alicebluegown16
Rating: R
Summary: Will and Finn hanging out and watching movies. And then deciding it'd be more fun not to watch a movie.
Pairing/Characters: Will/Finn, various Finn/male celebrity crushes
AN: Sequel to Tell the Truth Now. Part of my series that includes Closer , Hollywood Ending, All in My Head and My Mind is Set on You. Movies mentioned/referenced to: Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Some Like it Hot, Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris, Y Tu Mama Tambien, A Hard Day's Night, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Big Sleep (and yes, the book is better), Casablanca, and The Maltese Falcon. Songs quoted, I Saw Her Standing There, I Wanna Hold You Hand. Info on The Travelling Wilburys. The Concert for Bangladesh. All Things Must Pass album. The director, Pedro Alodovar. Watch the amazingly sexy Broadway Melody dance sequence. And Gene Kelly, John Lennon, and Paul Newman are all totally worthy dead celeb crushes.
Warning: Profuse movie spoilers within. Second person p.o.v.
It becomes a weekly thing for the two of you.
Ordering takeout, Will making up a huge bowl of popcorn (that the two of you share, your heart beating in triple time when your hands brush together), and one of you picking out something from his huge DVD collection.
Which, it turns out, is as varied as his music tastes.
Sometimes you pick stuff you’ve already seen and that’s fun in its own way. The moment of connection when you find out that Will loves Indiana Jones movies too, or cheering on John McClain as he blows shit up and goes all yippee-ki-yay motherfucker on some diabolical criminal mastermind, or the two of you laughing at the same stuff during Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
A lot of the time it’s movies you’ve never seen before, movies you never even considered watching, movies you never even thought you might like.
Foreign films.
Independent films.
Films that talk about big important issues, films that don’t always end happily, films that are in black and white, films that are just out and out weird (you’re not sure what to do with your Johnny Depp crush after seeing him all gross and drugged out of his mind in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.)
But you like almost all of them.
You love some of them.
And even if you don’t like them, Will listens to you when you try to explain why, nodding and making points of his own and sometimes he makes you see it from a different point of view (and sometimes you do the same for him which is so awesome), but he listens as if what you say actually matters and that’s what counts, you love that most of all.
**
Some Like it Hot
It’s the first one you watch together and Will suggests it because Tony Curtis just died.
Marilyn Monroe is an insane level of make men walk into walls, curves in all the right places gorgeous, but so sweet and kind of ditzy you want to hug her more than stare at her boobs. She sort of reminds you of Brittany actually.
The whole thing is awesome and hilarious and it’s kind of like a Mel Brooks movie with the whole crazy unbelievable plot of the dudes hiding out from gangsters by dressing up in drag and joining an all girl band. And it just gets crazier and crazier when one of the dudes pretending to be a girl has another dude chasing after him and the other dude who’s pretending to be a girl is also pretending to be a rich guy to chase after Marilyn. But it’s way smarter than any Mel Brooks movie (you’re more than a little proud of yourself when you figure out that Tony Curtis’ fake rich millionaire voice is making fun of Cary Grant. Thank you Mom for making you sit through Bringing up Baby a thousand times) and without all the dirty jokes. Or it has sort of dirty jokes but they’re like, more classy and subtle and stuff.
“But you’re not a girl! You’re a guy! Why would a guy want to marry another guy?”
“Security.”
And then there’s the ending, Joe E. Brown’s character finding out that the dame he’s fallen for isn’t really a dame at all and not caring while poor Jack Lemmon just throws up his hands in defeat, finally ceding to the inevitable and agreeing to marry him anyway.
You wish it could be that easy, but this is real life and not a screwball comedy and Billy Wilder can’t fix the fact that despite Will letting you put your arm around him during the movie, he sometimes still looks at you like he worries that all of this might be something you’re both going to regret someday.
But it’s okay. You can be patient.
After all, it’s like Joe E. Brown said.
Nobody’s perfect.
**
Singin’ in the Rain
You can tell Will’s is surprised when you pick it, but you once watched An American in Paris with Rachel and you had been shocked at how much you didn’t hate it (you hadn’t loved it, but the French girl was really pretty and the fifteen minute ballet scene was the perfect intermission to get up and make yourself a sandwich. And also Gene Kelly had been…Gene Kelly had been an unexpected bonus.)
You liked American in Paris.
You end up loving Singin’ in the Rain.
Again, most of that is Gene Kelly.
You’ve had crushes on male celebrities before (and that’s what they are, you can admit that now without freaking out), but now it’s crushing on a dead male celebrity and that’s kind of disturbing. But dude, it can’t be helped because he is fucking hot and you’re pretty sure someone could bounce a quarter off of his ass (and daaaaaaamn, the scene in the big Broadway Melodies fantasy sequence where the chick in the green dress with legs that just go on for days and days and days does that slinky shimmy dance and he grabs her arm, spins her around, and lifts her up. It’s like Exhibit A through Z that Puck has no fucking clue what he’s talking about when he says all musicals are fruity and lame.)
The whole thing is like a huge Technicolor mega dose of movie Prozac, you can’t help smiling and laughing at the absolute joy in Gene Kelly’s face when he’s splashing around in the puddles performing the title song. Especially when Will confesses that this movie was what first got him interested in singing and dancing (you crack up when he describes his own sad attempt at copying the running up the side of the wall bit in the Make ‘Em Laugh number.)
So, yeah. If Gene Kelly eventually led to Will being in charge of Glee and the two of you meeting, then hell yes you’re going to appreciate that ass.
And a week later when in the middle of a rant about Sue, Will’s so pissed off he can’t find the words to even attempt to describe whatever crazy shit she did and you say “And I keeeen’t stand her” with the screechy Lena Lamont voice and he kisses you without even stopping to think about it?
Definitely puts the movie in your top ten.
**
Y Tu Mama Tambien
“And…your mother also? That’s right, isn’t it? I’m translating that right? Is that like the Spanish version of ‘Yo Mama?’”
You hold up the DVD case and Will snatches it away.
“You don’t want to watch that.” He insists.
“Why?”
“It’s not in English.”
Which is a bullshit excuse if you’ve ever heard one since two weeks ago you’d loved Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and that was in Japanese.
“It sounds cool. And it won a bunch of awards, so it must be good.”
(Besides, Will has yet to show you a bad movie. Except for those Mystery Science Theater ones, but them being bad was the whole point.)
Really, you could totally pick something else if Will’s not interested, but some small part of you worries maybe he thinks it’s too deep for you or something? Maybe he’s just too nice to say that he thinks you won’t understand it? Maybe ‘Not this movie’ is code for, ‘You know what, maybe we just shouldn’t even do this at all anymore.’
But in the end you win and he puts the movie in.
You almost die of mortification when the absolute very first scene is a boy and a girl having loud fumbling extremely enthusiastic sex.
You kind of hate whoever wrote the blurb on the back of the DVD case, because he or she clearly never actually saw the movie, making it sound like it was just this goofy comedy about two teenage boys who are best friends taking a road trip with some hot girl.
And it is that, but there’s way, way more to it.
Like sex. Lots and lots of sex.
Having it, thinking about it, talking about it, lying about it.
But there’s also like, all this political and social commentary about Mexican history and class warfare and stuff and Will explains all the hidden meanings and symbolism in this totally awesome way that doesn’t make you feel stupid, and also somehow makes this not at all embarrassing or weird or awkward.
The boys end up (separately) having sex with the hot girl and they both find out that at some point and time they each slept with the other’s girlfriends and then the hot girl totally calls them out on the fact that they clearly want to have sex with each other and then they’re getting shitfaced drunk and having sex with the hot girl (as in having a threesome) and then the hot girl sort of disappears from the camera frame and it’s just the two guys.
Kissing.
And possibly doing more since they wake up naked together.
Then flash-forward a year later and the hot girl is dead and the two best friends accidentally meet up in a coffee shop and have the most painfully uncomfortable small talk imaginable and never ever see each other again.
And you’re doing all you can to keep from fucking bawling your eyes out.
You want to hate it because it ended so horribly, painfully (realistically) bad for all parties involved and you want to hate Will for not warning you and also kind of want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and promise that isn’t going to be the two of you, you swear it won’t be, so could he just stop worrying already?
But you can’t hate it because there really was something beautiful about it in a car wreck kind of way.
And you definitely don’t hate Will.
In fact, one of the main reasons you decide you like this movie, shitty knee to the solar plexus depressing ending be damned, is because while you’re watching it you realize, no maybe or pretty sure about it, you are absolutely, completely, totally in love with him.
**
Hard Day’s Night
You love the Beatles, but you’ve never seen it before since nine times out of ten any time a band does some sort of movie together, it ends up sucking and you didn’t want anything to ruin them for you.
You’ve clearly been missing out.
Will’s face lights up the second the opening guitar chord plays and he’s singing along by the first verse and then you join in and that’s it. The next hour and a half is the two of you unabashedly dorking out, Will quoting lines of dialogue with a pitch perfect Liverpudlian accent that has no right being as sexy as it is, both of you stomping your feet and cheering like you’re actually in the audience at one of their concerts and then finally giving in and just getting up and dancing around the living room.
Will kind of stumbles a little at the line “Well she was just seventeen, you know what I mean”, but you don’t call him on it, instead singing the words “I’ll never dance with another” like some sort of promise.
The movie ends and you both collapse on the couch in a sprawling heap.
“I love early Beatles.”
Will says this with a goofy grin on his face and if he’s noticed you’re practically sitting in his lap, he makes no effort to shift away.
“I mean, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band and all the later stuff was much more lyrically and instrumentally complex, but they’re just so-so happy here. Before they went all psychedelic and started hating each other.”
Will laughs when you admit that Ringo’s your favorite since he always looked like he was having such a good time. And also because no one ever picks him.
“Don’t hate on Ringo. He really did get the most fan mail, you know. It’s like, drummer solidarity for me. And who’s yours? Paul? He was the cute one.”
Will hits you upside the head with a throw pillow when you bat your eyelashes and go into a mock swoon.
You think he’s going to say John (and you’d suspect that would partly be ‘I deeply respect him as an artist’ and partly ‘that scene where he’s in the bathtub totally does something for me’ since you have eyes and you’d totally picked up on that, not that you’d ever hold it against him since it kind of did something for you too.)
But no, instead he answers “George.” with a very definitive nod.
“Has to be George. The Travelling Wilburys. The Concert for Bangladesh. And then there’s All Things Must Pass. Almost a decade of being considered 'the quiet Beatle’ and a year after they split up he comes out with this triple album full of all these incredible songs they’d never let him record. Plus, he helped fund Monty Python which I’m fairly certain qualifies you for sainthood.”
“Wait, how can he be your favorite for stuff he did outside of the Beatles?”
You have some trouble understanding the logic of this.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. He did some great stuff with them too. How many people can you name who made sitars cool? But George was a survivor. He didn’t get angry, he didn’t become an alcoholic or start shooting up; he didn’t fight with the rest of them or write some bitter tell-all. He moved on with his life. You have to respect that. It’s something-it’s something to aspire to.”
Almost without even realizing you’re doing it, you glance down at Will’s left hand where his wedding band used to be and something squeezes in your chest.
“Then there is the most important thing. George Harrison…never let Yoko Ono sing on one of his albums.”
Will makes a noise that you think roughly compares to the sound of a cat being strangled and you have to laugh. Not only because it’s funny, but because it’s a reminder that Will’s a survivor too.
You grab his hand and lace your fingers together.
And when I touch you I feel happy, inside
It's such a feeling
That my love
I can't hide
I can't hide
I can't hide
Yeah, you’re a big fan of early Beatles too.
**
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
So, first of all: Paul Newman.
You think you should probably be concerned about all these crushes on dead guys and you’d get right on that, except for the fact that his eyes are like goddamned icy blue tractor beams pulling you in.
In other news, Will’s absolutely right. It totally is the anti-John Wayne western because it’s funny and Butch and Sundance are both kind of cowardly and totally willing to cheat and fight dirty if need be and they make mistakes and their plans never go the way they’re supposed to.
They act like a sarcastic bickering old married couple and even when the love interest shows up, she ends up being really cool and kind of BAMF in her own right which just does not happen in westerns.
When they’re all forced to flee the country because the law’s after them, you make Will snort soda after you comment that the movie is way educational since you’re learning all the Spanish you’d possibly need if you ever decided to become a bank robber in Bolivia. Just in case that whole college thing doesn’t work out for you.
And yeah, it’s not exactly a happy ending but the two of them go out in a hail of bullets together, bitching at each other to the last and something about the way Butch ties the bandage around Sundance’s arm with this soft indulgent ‘what would you do without me’ smile makes you step back and wonder if there’s another reason why Etta insisted on leaving them even though she loved Sundance.
You share this theory with Will and think it’s just you being delusional or sexually frustrated and seeing subtext everywhere, but he shrugs.
“Robert Redford always claimed that at its heart it was a love story. They stayed friends for the rest of their lives until Paul Newman died. The story goes that the only reason they only made one other movie together is because Paul’s wife worried if they made a third, they’d end up running off together.”
You fully intend to say, “I love that you know stuff like that.”
But what ends up coming out is “I love you.” It falls from your lips easily, it’s been on the tip of your tongue and the front of your mind for so long, you wonder how you’ve held it in all this time.
The way Will just stares at you probably has something to do with it.
But you don’t take it back or brush it off as anything less than what it was.
“You don’t have to say it back.” You assure him and almost flinch at the look of relief that flashes across his face. “I just thought you should know…I just-it’s not wrong, loving you. I know it’s not. It’s not wrong for you to let yourself be loved or to love back if you decide you want to. And-and Sundance jumped with Butch off that cliff, even though he didn’t know how to swim and he thought the fall was going to kill him. But it didn’t. Maybe it could be like that.”
He doesn’t say it back.
Not in so many words.
But before you leave, he asks if the two of you are still on for next week and when you say of course, he kisses you. It’s something akin to a supernova and totally makes you forget all about Gene Kelly, John Lennon, Paul Newman, and also possibly your own name.
**
You’ve got The Sting in one hand (Newman and Redford, together again) and The Big Sleep in the other (one of Will’s beloved noir films) and you can’t make up your mind which one to watch.
When you hold them up to Will, he completely sidesteps the issue by suddenly blurting out, “I love you.”
And you’d known it before this moment, but knowing it isn’t the same as hearing it and hearing it is like ten thousand different kinds of awesome so you think you’re a little justified in standing there and grinning like an idiot and maybe also possibly hearing ‘He loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah’ looping around in your brain.
“Wow. Good to know.”
You hold up the movies again.
“So…which one?”
Will actually takes a second to consider his answer which is just on of the many, many, many things on the list of reasons you love him.
“The only real redeeming thing about The Big Sleep is the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall. There was this whole subplot about a blackmail ring that got cut by the censors, just absolutely butchered. To be completely honest, the film actually makes almost no sense. The book is so much better. I’ll let you borrow it sometime if you want to.”
You want to.
You want to because people don’t usually do that with you, casually recommend books simply because they think you might like them. You want to because you get the feeling Will’s one of those sorts of people who’s probably really protective of his books and him offering to let you borrow one like it’s no big deal almost feels as amazing as him saying he loves you.
When you try to hand him The Sting, he stares at it for a few beats and then looks up at you.
And then you’re not sure how it happened, but Will was standing away from you and then he’s very much not, he’s standing right up close and his hand is on your shoulder. Not pushing (never pushing, it’s not Will’s way) but just sort of kneading at it like a cat, making you feel relaxed and wound up all at the same time and then he’s leaning in and whispering in your ear, “We could watch this. Or you know, we could just make out instead.”
When he chases the words down with a long slow lick at your earlobe, you groan and clutch at his arm to keep from falling over (and also end up hitting him with the DVD case that you completely forgot you’d been holding), pressing the words “Oh my God, yes.” against his mouth.
After that it’s you and Will on the couch, kissing on the couch, making out on the couch, Will settling one knee on either side of your hips and sliding into your lap on the couch, you hooking your fingers into Will’s belt loops and pulling him close and when that’s still not close enough, your hands slipping into the back pockets of his jeans.
Frantic, messy, desperate kisses that have Will making these little gaspy noises, these don’t stop, I want this, I want you, I love you noises, that make you feel like you’re going to die. Which is so not an acceptable option right now because now that you know for sure that yes, Will totally can do that rolly tongue thing when he kisses, there is no damn way you’re not doing this again and again and again.
Through some minor miracle you and Will manage to get your shirts off without anyone getting elbowed in the face and only having to break apart for the absolute barest minimum of time and he’s hot, he’s so freaking hot, in the ‘he’s so warm, it’s incredible, you feel like the palms of your hands are sizzling’ sense of the word and also in the ‘good fucking god there’s so much skin’ sense, a freaking buffet of perfect Will-skin over firm hard muscle and you don’t know where to start so you just kind of touch everywhere, gripping, grabbing and groping as he rocks against you.
You buck up against Will, grinding your groins together, and you’re kind of waiting for it, half expecting some sort of moment of panic because this is groins in the plural as in, this is another guy’s dick rubbing up against you, but it never happens. You’re far more interested in the fact that it feels amazing, that you did this, that you’re the reason Will’s hair is totally wrecked from having your fingers running through it, that his lips are swollen, his pupils blown black.
You take all of this in when he, oh holy shit, when he pulls away from you and reaches for the zipper on your jeans, asking if this okay, if this is alright.
You say yes.
You say “Hell yes, please, please, Will, touch me, please.”
You help (try to help more like since you lose all rational thought the second Will’s fingers brush up against your fly) as the two of you fumble with getting pants and boxers shoved down and finally, roughly a decade later, Will’s hand is around both your cocks, he’s watching you through his lashes as he jerks you both off.
You come first (big shocker there) with a choked off scream, sparks shooting up and down your spine as Will mouths across your jaw, kissing your throat, pressing his lips to the spot behind your ear and moaning. Will falters for a moment and you cover his hand with yours and that’s it, he’s gone, tumbling over the edge behind you less than a minute later.
You’re enjoying the little aftershocks of sensation zinging through your body, running your hand up and down Will’s (wonderful, bare, broad, sweat slick) back. Will, who seems to have made himself liquid, he’s draped all around you, face buried in the hollow of your neck.
“Casablanca, we’ll have to watch that sometime…Maltese Falcon, if you want a really good noir film…you need to see something by Pedro Almodovar, he’s this amazing Spanish director…Anything by the Coen Brothers…Stephen Soderbergh.”
You laugh because you’re relieved at how not embarrassing or awkward or weird this all is and you kiss him because you’re allowed to do that now and you say yes to his future movie suggestions because you’d probably watch paint dry if he asked you to at this moment and also because you’re fairly certain you’re probably going to like them.
You tell him, “I love that you love movies so much.”
And he kisses you and says, “I love you, too.” because he knows that’s what you meant.
Eventually, the two of you untangle and get back into some semblance of order and there’s (slightly cold) pizza and popcorn and you actually end up watching The Big Sleep instead, which just like Will predicted makes absolutely no fucking sense but that’s probably less a case of the censors and more to do with you missing out on a lot what with Will touching you and kissing you and looking at you and just, you know, breathing and being himself and all.
Whatever.
It’s not like you mind much.
After all, you’re pretty sure you’re going to end up reading the book anyway.
But next time, when you do watch The Sting (or one of the other movies Will suggested), there’s going to have to be some ground rules because you’re actually interested in those.
You’re not going to let him distract you.
Then again, that’s what the pause button is for.
Next story in series: This Side of Acceptance