Monday morning started off bright and early, with sunbeams coming through the window trying to do their usual routine of killing Ned.

He’d been up since before dawn, when he’d gathered up all of his notes, hopped in the shower, gotten dressed, and promptly made himself a coffee with nine shots of espresso.

He was going to die of a caffeine overdose by the time he was thirty, but eh, at this point he couldn’t find the wherewithal to care. At least, not when he needed the jolt to get himself through the day and something as simple as a triple espresso wasn’t going to do it for him. He’d tried ordering a nine-shot espresso at a coffee shop once. The absolutely horrified look on the face of the barista convinced him to just get a proper coffee machine and make it at home so that he wouldn’t have strangers looking at him like he was some kind of eldritch being from another dimension.

By the time he’d gotten himself ready, the sun had risen and was unleashing its cheerful beams of murder to assault Ned’s face, and had enough caffeine to fell a small pony. He was ready to deal with the laborious job of getting Jack to Wake the Fuck Up.

It wasn’t an easy task, to say the least.

First of all, Jack’s brain had the unfortunate habit of quickly getting used to, and subsequently ignoring, whatever alarm tone he’d set to wake himself up in the morning. To try and circumvent this, Jack had set himself three different alarms, each with a different ring tone, to get his brain to wake up. Unfortunately, Jack also had a habit of turning his alarm to snooze and sleeping for “just five more minutes” over and over again until an hour passed.

Finally, Ned had just come to accept the fact that he’d have to literally shake Jack awake in the mornings. He could well remember their freshmen semester, how irritated he’d been as Jack’s alarms went off again and again and Jack slept through them while Ned, a perpetually light sleeper, was unable to get back to sleep. Now, Ned made sure to set his alarm to go off before Jack’s. Jack’s alarms would then do their part to slowly lure Jack to wakefulness, one after the other, while Ned showered, got dressed, and prepared himself for the day.

Then, once that was done, Ned would head into Jack’s room and shake him awake. Once Jack started grumbling and cursing at him, Ned would haul him, bodily out of bed, thrust coffee into his hand, and shove him towards the shower. Once the coffee got into his system—and the cold water hit him—Jack would splutter awake, yelping and hurling obscenities at Ned as he beat a hasty retreat and waited by the front door for Jack to emerge.

“I hate you,” Jack grumbled, grabbing his bag as Ned double-checked his email in case someone was running late or had forgotten their filming address or something.

“You’d hate me even more if I let you sleep through our first day of filming,” Ned reminded him.

“Ugh,” Jack replied, very eloquently, and they hustled out the door.

By the time they reached the set, Jack was not only awake but perky, and he exited the car to greet the crew like he’d woken up all sunshine and rainbows rather than had it forced upon him. Ned could never understand that, but as long as Jack was awake and happy and treating the crew well, Ned didn’t see any reason to complain.

Tanya, their AD, was there, and soon she and Jack were busy coordinating and setting things up for the shoot. They were filming the exterior shots first, at the old zoo at Griffith Park. Now that they were actually on set, Ned didn’t have too much to do. He was ready to supply Jack with information should he need it, but the business of coordinating crew, setting up camera shots, and wrangling actors fell to Tanya and her team, while Jack discussed the more artistic side of things with the camera crew and actors. This included things like, “I think we should go for half-lighting on this one,” and “Remember, we have that conflict between your fear and your curiosity, okay?”

Ned settled back into a handy lawn chair and took care of some business. A low hum started beneath his skin, anticipation starting to coil in his gut. James would be there any minute. Jack, and therefore Ned, had to be on set long before the actors, getting everything set up, so James wasn’t going to get there until about nine a.m.

Surely nobody would notice if he just closed his eyes for a moment, Ned thought. Jack would yell if he needed something. If he just relaxed…caught a few minutes of rest…

Which led him to the sunbeams-trying-to-kill-him moment.

“Ow.” He had a crick in his neck from letting it fall sideways while he was sleeping in the lawn chair. He squinted, arm up, trying to shield himself from the sun beating down on him. He checked the time. Nine fifteen!? How the hell—why had he been left asleep so long?

“Looks like somebody needs some coffee.”

Ned’s stomach tightened and oh, he both loved and hated that he could immediately tell who was speaking by those low, rich tones.

He looked up just in time to see James helpfully step sideways so that he was blocking the sun and preventing it from burning a hole in Ned’s forehead. “Thanks,” Ned said uselessly. Real smooth, great flirting there.

The corner of James’s mouth quirked up, and dammit, now the sun was framing his body and making it look like he was glowing or something. The universe was definitely out to get him today. James was wearing a similar jeans-and-t-shirt combo like the one at the table read, and Ned couldn’t help but think, well, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.

“Nobody’s called for me or anything, have they?” Ned asked.

“Not that I know of, but I just got here.” James held out his hand. “Do you want some help up?”

Ned knew he was playing with fire, but he had made a mental pact with himself to actually start said fire, so it wasn’t like he could back down now. He took James’ hand and let the other man haul him up to standing. James’ hand was just a little larger than his, and now Ned could feel the thick, blunt fingers that he’d looked at the other day, and wow, James’s eyes were a lot brighter in color up close. His mouth looked softer too, and maybe it was just the sunlight, but Ned could feel the heat radiating off of his body. There was also a whiff of cologne, something that was actually nice and subtle rather than cloying or gag-inducing. Ned wanted to bury his nose into the crook of James’ neck to try to get more of that smell, and then to figure out the smell underneath it, the smell of James himself that he knew would be lurking somewhere.

He realized he was staring, and he quickly released James’ hand. “Are you all set for the shoot?” He asked, then winced internally. He was doing horribly at this flirting thing, which wasn’t exactly a surprise, but still.

“I was just on my way to makeup and wardrobe when I saw you,” James said. His smile widened. “I couldn’t resist saying hello.”

Ned allowed himself to smile as well. “I’m glad that you did. I quite enjoyed waking up to your face.”

He got the distinct pleasure of seeing a light pink color rise to James’ cheeks, and James’ smile widen just a fraction. “Oh? You didn’t mind me waking you up?”

“I think maybe your method could be improved,” Ned replied, getting a swooping feeling in his stomach at how brazen he was being. “I could show you, next time.”

James’ gaze flickered down to Ned’s mouth, and Ned certainly wasn’t about to start kissing the guy in the middle of the film set, but the idea was still there in his mind. He let that buoy him up, make his skin feel hot and too tight. As close as they were standing, he could see the way that James’s eyes darkened—

Then, so quickly that Ned felt off-balance despite nobody touching him, James was stepping back. His eyes were wide and his face had gone tight in an unhappy, confused sort of way. “I should go,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the makeup and wardrobe area. “I should—yeah.”

Ned watched, confused, as James hurried away. What had he done wrong? Had he been too forward? Had he made James uncomfortable?

His stomach sank as he watched James all but run to the tarp tent they’d set up for makeup and wardrobe—seeing as it was far too much trouble to get a trailer up the winding road that led to the area. Obviously, the guy wasn’t interested. Or he had been and Ned had ruined it somehow?

The fact was only made more obvious as the day went on and James avoided even looking at Ned. Luckily Ned was, as Jack had pointed out previously, usually far away from James on the set. It did nothing to dispel the hurt feeling in his chest, like someone had raked very sharp nails down the inner side of his ribs. It wasn’t worth the risk, he thought sourly, as James put on his mask and let Jack guide him through his blocking for the scene. It wasn’t worth this sick feeling at all.