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"Fuck, it's fucking absolutely everywhere." Hugh rubbed a sticky hand through tacky, hopeless hair, his curls matted to his head with the viscous red brown liquid that Bryan had whipped up in five gallon buckets for the final farewell to Hannibal's kitchen (and likely the set, since there was no way they were ever going to get that clean.) Mads walked beside him, scratching at the bloody collar of his shirt. He raised his large hand to rub against the back of Hugh's neck, wincing with sympathy.
"You'll never get it off in one shower."
Hugh glared at him, his eyes a pale and haunting grey in a crimson-smeared face. Even his stubble was coated with fake blood, and cringingly, the inside of his nose. "Yes, thank you, Mads," he returned in his poshest accent. Then lightly, "Were you offering to help?" He grinned, and Mads grinned back at him, both slowly feeling their way out of the heartbreak and the terror of the last few hours.
It was always like this, but today had been particularly intense, leaving them both reeling. Hugh's mind hung on the moment of being suspended in Mads' arms, their bodies pressed together and all the hot stinging ozone from the machines and lights, sweat and heat and makeup and sweet cloying fake blood scent that went with that. He could still feel Mads' ribcage expanding against his, and that large hand in his hair clutching him tight. Hugh shook his head to get rid of the image, but it wouldn’t jostle free. He sighed. "I am going to have nightmares about you tonight." Mads turned towards him, eyebrow raised. Then he nodded, pursing his lips.
"I fear the same. It is too brutal in my head tonight." He walked along silently next to Hugh for a moment, until they were at the point where they usually separated for the night, their trailers not side by side in the lot. They paused for a moment, both staring at the ground, before Hugh offered in a soft voice, "Come to mine. I want a beer with you but not in public." Hugh ran a hand through his matted hair and then rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Is that alright?" Mads nodded again and trailed after him, content with the decision not to part ways for the night, at least not yet.
The walk to Hugh's trailer was not a lonely one-- all sorts of people were still about, setting up or striking sets or just generally looking busy. He and Mads were often enough together like this after a difficult shoot, and Hugh imagined that they were not the only ones headed for a beer to try and forget and unwind, to put all the hurt parts back inside in the box where they belonged. But this night-- this felt like more, like more damage than normal had been done, and the ache of it wasn't going to be banished easily.
When they reached the trailer, Hugh unlocked it and went straight for the little half-size refrigerator. He pulled two cold beers from the top shelf and handed one back to Mads without looking. Mads popped the cap on the little bottle opener under the counter and slugged half of it back in one swallow. He sighed with contentment. "Much better already." Hugh turned to find him smiling, eyes already softer in the low light, in Hugh's private space. Hugh opened his beer and lifted it to chink them together.
"To living."
"Skål," Mads said appreciatively, and drank the rest of the bottle where he stood. Hugh followed his lead, letting the cold beer wash down his throat and spin its chilly way through his body into his belly.
"What's the other one?"
"Bunden i vejret eller resten i håret," Mads recited at him, grinning. "Bottoms up or the rest in your hair." Hugh laughed ruefully.
"It would just sluice right off the rest of this muck." He sighed, heavier now, and set the empty bottle in the sink. Mads took his and Hugh's and washed them out under the tap, clinking them into the recycle bin next to the cabinets. Hugh paused for a moment, his cheeks flushed, and then murmured, "I need a shower."
"Ja, os begge," Mads agreed. "I should go…" But he didn't move, staring instead contemplatively at the floor.
Hugh hesitated, and then cleared his throat. "I don't know if I can get clean all by myself."
Mads' eyes raised to him then, deep amber and gentle. "I was just thinking the same."
Hugh took a deep breath. They had never. It was obvious, their connection. Their ease with each other. The humming in Hugh's belly when Mads was close. And they wouldn't. It was a shower, that was all. And he wanted, so much, to feel Mads' hands on him in a non-violent way. To be soothed rather than frightened. He nodded. "Come on, then."
By the time Hugh was halfway to the bathroom in the back of the trailer, he had peeled out of his shirt and carefully hung it on a hanger to give back to Wardrobe in the morning. His pants were next, shoes already left at the door, until he was in nothing but sweat-clung boxer briefs and the spatter and smear of crimson all over his body. He turned back to Mads, who was watching him quietly, still in his bloody pinstripe. "Come on, then," he repeated. "Don’t leave me hanging?" Hugh's voice was a soft question, but it was the bleakness in his eyes that shivered Mads into moving. He took off his shirt and pants and draped them over the back of a kitchen chair, peeling off his socks and shorts and then straightening, his naked body stained and bruised from the blood and the fighting with Lawrence.
Hugh paused at the door to the bathroom, overtaken by a blush. He'd seen Mads naked before, of course. Sometimes they changed at the same time, rushing to make the scene times. But they had never been alone, not like this. Mads spread his arms and flashed a cheeky grin. "Don't leave me hanging, wee man," he quipped. Hugh snorted through a smile, knowing his chest and back were stained red by more than sugar syrup and bruises and red food coloring. He tugged his boxer briefs down and flung them at the rumpled pile of clothes now mixed on the floor. He saw Mads' throat bob in a swallow, and blushed harder.
"Right, then," he murmured and then turned into the bathroom to turn on the shower. He felt rather than heard Mads step up behind him, the heat from their bodies filling the small room, and the heady and familiar smell of sweat and sugar and exhaustion. He stepped into the small shower and held the glass door open. Mads eyed the small space dubiously, but stepped in behind him and closed the door.
It was a very tight fit. The shower was not designed for two grown men, and Mads hips nudged against Hugh's ass, sending a startle through Hugh's filthy body. Thankfully Mads didn't comment, but reached for the soap and rubbed it under the hot wash of water from the rainfall showerhead, releasing a bloom of lavender and lemon. With incredible gentleness, he fit one large hand against Hugh's belly to stabilize them both, and began rubbing the bar of soap over Hugh's skin. Once Hugh was soapy enough, he set the bar back on the ledge, and then it was just his hands, callused and strong and wide.
He stroked downward over Hugh's chest and flanks to his hips, and then back up again, over and over, firm and soothing. Hugh tilted his head back against Mads' shoulder, closing his eyes with a profound exhale and letting the water pour down over his face. Trickles of bloody brown muck and the grey of sweat and spent makeup and hair product swirled down his skin and washed down the drain by their feet. Mads' hands rubbed a dollop of bay rum-scented shampoo into his hair, his long fingers wiping the soap away from Hugh's upturned eyes. When he began scrubbing the shampoo through his hair, Hugh groaned aloud in pleasure and relief. Mads pressed a smile into his cheek, chuckling gently. His chest vibrated soft against Hugh's back as he cleaned Hugh's face with delicate fingers, working out all of the grime of the day from his stubble and behind his ears. Hugh groaned out his pleasure as Mads stroked his skin clean with hot water and firm fingers, and Mads could not hold back his soft breath of sympathetic relief.
Once Hugh's torso was clean, Mads took the soap back into his hand and rubbed it over Hugh's thighs, and between. Hugh held very still, tensing as a slick thumb rubbed between his ass cheeks and under his perineum, Mads' fingers curling in behind his balls and scratching soap into the thick curly hair, and then coming around front to thumb smoothly over his cock. Hugh twitched and sighed, too tired to feel anything but blissed out at the gentle intimacy. Mads didn't linger, but rubbed over the V of his Adonis belt and hipbones, and then slowly knelt behind him, until Hugh's ass was pressed into his shoulder. The Dane gently soaped down each of Hugh's thighs and calves, and picked up each of his feet, careful not to knock him off balance, to wash in-between his toes.
It was harder for Mads to stand than it was to kneel, and Hugh leaned against the shower wall to give him space. With a groan and the crack of knees and hip joints, Mads straightened, and then took advantage of the space to rub the bar over Hugh's shoulders and back, very slowly. Setting the soap back on the ledge again, he pressed his hands into Hugh's sore back muscles, squeezing and massaging shoulders and shoulder blades and the tops of Hugh's arms, scratching soap through the dense hair under his arms, and pressing his thumbs in a long slow drag all the way back down to Hugh's ass. Hugh sighed out a breathy surrender.
"Move in here with me," he murmured. Mads snorted at him, and picked up the bar again to soap his own body. Hugh turned in the tight space, and they were facing each other, thighs nearly touching, Hugh's cock hanging heavy between his thighs. He took the soap from Mads and began rubbing it through the bloody thatch of hair on his chest. He didn't speak as he washed his friend carefully and thoroughly, dragging slow gentle hands down his broad back and narrow hips, taking exceptional care to gently push back his foreskin to clean his cockhead. Mads planted a hand against the far wall and leaned his body over with a huff.
"I'm a little more affected by that than you," he managed, watching his cock fill with narrowed eyes as Hugh scratched softly over his balls. Hugh grinned at him, and his eyes lit up at the blush spreading over Mads' cheeks, darker than the heat flush of the shower.
"Oh, I'm affected. I'm just too fucking tired to get it up properly."
Mads was silent for a moment, contemplating as Hugh stood to rub shampoo through his hair. He bowed down so that the shorter man didn’t have to stretch, and closed his eyes. "I wonder if you will want to have this conversation again, when we are not so tired?" His tone was light but Hugh could feel the tension in his neck and shoulders under his hands. He stroked softly, tracking across heavy trapezius muscles and down over the ladders of his ribs, and then lifted Mads' chin with a finger.
"It seems strange to ask this since now we've both had our hands on each other's dicks, but I would like very much…" He paused and took a shivery breath. "If you would let me kiss you."
Mads eyes dropped immediately to his mouth. It wasn't much of a stretch, the distance between them. Mads curled a hand in the thick wet curls of his hair, a parallel that both of them immediately recognised from earlier in the day. Rather than being forced to drop him under the hot set lights, in their privacy he pulled him in, and their mouths met soft under the spray of the water. Mads sucked lightly at his top lip, licking over it. They mouthed at each other gently, so gently, sighing against each other as hands stroked over wet skin, now exploring languidly rather than with any other purpose. They kissed and caressed each other until the water ran too cold to tolerate, and Hugh was forced to break from their embrace to turn off the shower. He turned back into Mads' arms and kissed him once again. "Sleep here with me."
"Just sleep?" But the undercurrent of fatigue was stronger than that of hope, and they both smiled wryly at each other. Hugh kissed his cheek and then his nose.
"Just sleep. And we'll have this conversation again, when we are not so tired."
They toweled each other off, shivering in the cold air of the trailer, since Hugh had neglected to turn on the heater. He did so as he left the bathroom, but not so high that he would have no excuse to curl up against Mads in the bed. As they snuggled into each other to sleep, Mads laughed soft against his back, and kissed Hugh's shoulder. "I think I could do a hundred scenes like today, if only I could do this every night after." Hugh rumbled what sounded suspiciously like a purr.
"Don’t encourage me, Mads," he whispered. "I might get used to you like this."
"I need very little encouragement to be here in your bed, kære."
Hugh swallowed, and pushed back against him, snuggling into the naked warmth and comfort of Mads' body. They would be having this conversation again.