Chapter Text
Timmy doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the day Luca had called to tell him that Armie Hammer had just accepted his offer to star alongside Timmy in Call Me By Your Name. He’d been aware of Luca being in talks with him, but he never expected him to actually say yes, for a couple of reasons. The first one being that Timmy figured Armie was at a point in his career where a small production such as theirs didn’t seem very attractive, and the other thing being – well – Armie was just very, straight, is the thing.
It’s not like Timmy thought he was homophobic or anything, not at all, he’d kept track of him well enough through the years since his breakthrough with The Social Network to know he was anything but.
No, it was mainly because he was Armie Hammer, the same guy who seemed to be dating a new actress, model or singer every three or four months. It felt like every single time Timmy was out doing his grocery shopping, he saw him on the front pages of the gossip magazines with a new long legged beauty all over him.
He was called everything from a heartthrob to a homewrecker, and he’d apparently influenced at least three Taylor Swift songs. The media absolutely loved to speculate about his love life, every time he was spotted with a new person, it was time to play “Who is the mystery [insert hair color here] spotted out with Hollywood hunk Armie Hammer?” Honestly, the only way he could’ve been straighter than he already was, would be if he was married with two kids.
Armie’s latest girlfriend seemed to be some kind of Instagram model, influencer person. Timmy had been curious and followed her from his secret account, but had to unfollow her three days later because she kept flooding his feed. There were more than a few pictures with Armie in them, she posted a lot of those when they were together, a couple of pictures to the feed and the rest to the stories. But what ultimately got Timmy to unfollow her, were all the sponsored posts. If he had to see her holding a gummy bear and pouting up at it in an attempt to make it look sexy one more time… How the fuck gummy bears were supposed to help make your hair sexy, Timmy had no fucking clue, and he didn’t really want to stick around to find out either.
Armie’s account had just as many pictures of the two of them together as hers did, but at least there were no gummy bears to be found, thank god.
He didn’t really mind people making money off of their social media profiles, but he didn’t like when companies catered the promotion of their products to young teenagers by essentially telling them “You’re not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not good enough. But HERE, look at this well known person whose name you definitely recognize, they used to be just like you, but now they’re pretty, because they use our product! Please spend all your money to try to look like this photoshopped image, and maybe you’ll be loved one day.” It pissed him off, more than a little bit, and he made himself a promise, that if he ever got enough followers on any of his social media where companies started reaching out to him, he’d only do the ones he felt he could actually endorse. There’d be no flat tummy tea or hair ‘vitamins’ shaped like gummy bears anywhere on his profiles, that’s for goddamn sure.
It’s not like he really needed that second, secret, Instagram profile at this point in his career. He only had a couple of thousand followers, and they were mainly people he knew in real life, either through school or auditions. But there were also a few fans, who’d likely seen him in either Homeland or Interstellar and decided he was worth their follow, which was flattering.
No, he mainly used that second account to snoop on people, and to follow accounts he didn’t really want the public to know about. The public being his parents and his friends. Not that they didn’t already know he was gay, still didn’t mean he wanted them all to know when he liked photos of hot, half naked men. Or when he followed accounts full of artistic nude photos, or all the male celebrities he thought were hot. Funnily enough Armie had actually been in his follow list for quite some time already.
Either way, as surprised as he was at Luca’s news, he was really happy about it too, because he definitely agreed with Luca when he said that Armie would make the perfect Oliver to his Elio. The physical differences between them would look absolutely stunning on camera, Luca had said when he facetimed Timmy earlier, a wild grin spreading across his face, clearly ecstatic.
Timmy on his side, just hoped Armie took Oliver, Elio and their love story as seriously as he himself did. It would absolutely break Timmy’s heart if Armie wasn’t able to help him give the love between the two characters the justice it deserved.
The day Armie arrives in Crema, he barges right in on Timmy’s piano lesson, pissing his teacher off, but Timmy couldn’t help but find the whole thing hopelessly endearing.
“Hey! You’re Timmy, right? I’m Armie. Sorry to interrupt, I was just really excited to meet you. I’ll see myself out now. Sorry again.” He grins sheepishly over at the teacher, who stares back at him with her eyebrow raised and arms crossed, seemingly unfazed at his apology.
“Wait! I should be done in like, 30 minutes. If you want I could show you around? Maybe we could take the bikes?” Timmy bites his bottom lip, looking over at Armie, who’s grinning back at him.
“Sounds awesome, I’ll definitely wait for you.” Armie gives him a quick thumbs up before closing the door behind him carefully.
And sure enough, when Timmy finishes his lesson, he finds Armie waiting for him pretty much right outside the door. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, tapping away at his phone. He smiles up at Timmy when he spots him, getting up to greet him properly with a hug.
“There you are! You’re really good at that, by the way. The piano I mean, I’m impressed.”
“Oh, uhm, thank you? I made a lot of really stupid mistakes though, I should be better at this point.” Timmy frowns down at his hands as if they’re the only ones at fault. “Even my teacher thought so.”
“Seriously? She said that?” Armie asks incredulously. At Timmy’s nod he glares over at the door. “Well, fuck her then! What does she know, huh? I thought it sounded perfect.”
“That’s really nice of you. But she’s an award winning pianist, Armie. It’s literally her job to know.” Timmy says with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“Just because she’s got awards doesn’t mean her opinion is the be all end all, Timmy. You’re really good for someone with no formal training. The fact that you chose to actually learn to play just for this movie, it’s impressive as fuck. You could’ve easily chosen to just have them add the piano music in post-production. The fact that you didn’t? Well like I said, I respect the hell out of you for that. So fuck her, her opinion doesn’t matter.”
Timmy can’t help but blush at Armie complimenting him, and he feels more than a little bit ridiculous, they literally only just met, so why did Armie’s praise feel so damn good?
“Anyway! Biking. Are you ready?” Timmy clears his throat and claps his hands together in front of him, looking up at Armie where he towers above him.
Armie grins and nods in confirmation, following closely behind Timmy out of the building. He decided to wait outside on the street while Timmy quickly dropped his homework off at his apartment. Timmy had invited him inside of course, but since the elevator didn’t work, Armie had claimed he was getting too old to run up and down all the stairs. Lighting up a cigarette as Timmy shrugged and went inside. When he got back, not even five minutes later, Armie was leaning against the wall, once again doing something on his phone, cigarette barely hanging onto his lips.
He looked so effortlessly handsome where he stood, the sun making his hair look like spun gold, that it stopped Timmy in his tracks. Fuck, he looks hot. Oh this was bad, this was so bad, they only just fucking met and Timmy was already more than ready to drop to his knees right there. Get a fucking grip, Chalamet! Dude is straight as an arrow and he has a girlfriend. You need to get over yourself. Right now.
Timmy clears his throat to get Armie’s attention, and tries not to melt at the sight of the smile that spreads across Armie’s face when he spots him. He leads Armie over to the bike rack, and points out which of the bikes are theirs.
“You don’t lock them or anything?” Armie asks, clearly surprised when Timmy just pulls his own bike out of the rack, and straddles it, not fumbling for any keys to any locks.
“No? They were originally bought for us to use during filming. But then Luca said they didn’t look the way he’d imagined, and he bought new ones for that, making these redundant. So I just figured we could use them on our downtime instead. Besides since the movie is set in the 80’s, well, they’re not exactly top of the line are they? It’s fine. No one wants them anyway.” Timmy laughed.
They bike around the city, Timmy pointing out all the places he’d discovered, and telling Armie which ones were his favorite. They work up quite a sweat biking around in the sunshine, so they decide to stop and buy some gelato, eating it under the shade of a couple of trees in a nearby park.
After a while, Timmy’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he manages to eventually stutter out his question, asking Armie why he chose to accept Luca’s offer of doing this movie.
“Honestly? At first I was really scared at the thought of doing a role like this, and not for the reasons you might think, it had nothing to do with it being a ‘gay love story’ but everything to do with the intensity of the love between these two people. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it justice, I’m still not quite sure about that to be honest, but after talking to Luca, well, he promised he’d push me way past my usual comfort zones to create a movie worthy of the book. So that’s why I said yes.”
“That’s – Yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m really happy you said yes.” Timmy looks over at Armie in wonder. Turns out he never should have worried in the first place, because there he’d been, concerned that Armie wouldn’t take the role seriously enough, when he actually took it so seriously he almost turned it down.
“You are?”
“Definitely, just by looking at you, I can already tell you’ll be more than perfect as Oliver. And with what you just said, coupled with Luca’s help? You’ll be a force to be reckoned with. I just hope I’ll be able to match you, even a little bit.”
Armie smiles softly over at Timmy, putting the palm of his right hand over his heart. “Thank you, I hope you’re right.” Armie takes the hand off his chest and uses it to ruffle Timmy’s hair, laughing at the disgruntled look on his face as he tries to tame his curls back into submission.
“And you have nothing to worry about. Luca wouldn’t have given you the lead in his movie if he didn’t think you would absolutely kill it, Timothée. And you will, I know it. If anything, from what I’ve heard about you through Luca, I’m the one that should be worried about matching you.”
Timmy can’t help but blink in surprise at his full name coming out of Armie’s mouth, perfectly pronounced and everything, and then the rest of his words sink in, making him blush and smile down at his feet.
“I hope you’re right.” He whispers. “Not about you worrying to match me!” He hurries to clarify. “Just, you know, the other stuff.” Timmy smiles sheepishly over at Armie.
“I do have another question though, how did you know how to pronounce my name? No one ever knows how to pronounce my name.”
“Well that’s easy.” Armie smiles conspiratorially, leaning towards him as to whisper something in his ear, but Timmy is too busy looking into Armie’s eyes to remember to turn his head to the side. And instead it brings their faces so close together that Timmy could feel the puffs of Armie’s breath on his lips, and he can’t help but let his eyes drop down to focus on Armie’s mouth.
“I googled you.” Armie says, pulling back with a laugh. “There was this really cute interview, where you teach the interviewer how to pronounce your name, I think I watched it like six or seven times to make sure I got it right.”
“Oh no.” Timmy hides his face in his hands, instantly knowing which interview Armie was referring to, and it was anything but cute.
“I also watched your rap videos.” Armie lets out a loud laugh at Timmy’s answering groan of humiliation. “Aw, what is it Lil Timmy Tim, gotta poop?”
“No one was ever supposed to see those.” Timmy whines into his hands, before pulling them away, revealing his face, more than a little red with embarrassment.
“That’s one thing you should learn right now, Timmy. The internet? Never forgets.”
Armie’s phone beeps with a message, and he pulls it out of his pocket to read it. Frowning down at the screen for a long time.
“Is everything alright?”
“Hm? Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine. It was just my – uh – well, my ex, now, apparently.”
“Wait, what? Did you just get dumped? Through a text message?” Timmy stares at Armie, in shock.
“Sort of.” Armie nods, then shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s – as cliché as it sounds – it’s complicated.”
“She sent you a text to end your relationship, doesn’t sound very complicated to me.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot more to the story than just that, Timmy. It really is complicated. Thanks for being so ready to defend my honor, though. It’s sweet of you.” Armie smiles over at Timmy, eyes quickly zeroing in on his mouth. Timmy can’t help but feel his heart start to speed up, and his breathing get slightly more labored, as he focuses his own stare back on Armie’s mouth in return.
Armie, eyes still locked on Timmy’s mouth, reaches his hand out and uses his thumb to gently wipe away something from the corner of his mouth, Timmy’s tongue meeting him there, resting against the side of his finger. “Ice cream.” Armie whispers, moving his thumb to rub across Timmy’s bottom lip a couple of times. “I mean – you had – there was, uhm.” Armie quickly shakes his head, as if to clear it, and quickly removes his hand. “Sorry about that, you just -”
“Had ice cream in the corner of my mouth?” Timmy breathes out with a smile, looking up into Armie’s eyes from under his eyelashes.
“Yeah.” Armie whispers, his eyes slip down to Timmy’s mouth again for about half a second before he catches himself and quickly catches Timmy’s gaze again. As much as Timmy would love to lean forward and close the distance between them, he gets to his feet instead, drying his now sweaty palms on his shorts.
“We should probably bike back, it’s almost dinner time, and trust me, you do not want to miss your first proper Italian dinner.” Timmy smiles, reaching his hand out for Armie to take, and helps pull him to his feet.
As promised, dinner is a lavish affair, and Timmy eats so much he’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to move again. Luca is in the middle of telling some story, that Timmy is pretty sure he’s heard about five times already, when his phone beeps in his pocket, and then Armie’s beeps just a couple of seconds later. They catch each others eyes with a smile as they both pull their phones out at the same time.
When Timmy sees who sent the message, he frowns, what could his manager possibly want to discuss with him right now? He opens it, and frowns even deeper when he sees what it says. He looks up at Armie, and sees him frowning down at his phone as well.
“Timothée, I will be flying to Italy tonight with Armie Hammer’s manager to discuss some important business with you. Please be available to meet when I text you tomorrow morning.”
Timmy watches as a flash of realization makes its way onto Armie’s face, he then lets out a loud groan and rests his forehead on the table in front of him. Making Timmy even more confused about what’s going on.
When Armie lifts his head again, his eyes immediately seek out Timmy’s, sending him a sheepish smile. Tilting his head to the side to indicate he wants to talk, Timmy nods and gets up to follow Armie somewhere a little more private.
They end up in Luca’s back garden, next to the pond where he keeps his fish. Armie sits down at the edge of the pond, staring down at the fish swimming around in there. Timmy keeps his feet firmly planted on the grass, the last thing he’d need right now would be to slip and fall face first into the pond somehow.
“What’s going on Armie? Do you know why they’re flying out?” Timmy asks, and watches as Armie scrubs his hands over his face.
“I think so.” He whispers. “And, god, Timmy. If it is what I think it is, I’m so sorry.” Armie looks up at the sky and heaves a great big sigh.
“Well, what do you think it is then?”
Armie looks back down at him, a pained smile on his face. “I can’t tell you.”
“What do you mean you can’t tell me? Just say it! It’s not that fucking hard?” Timmy frowns.
“It’s not that simple, Timmy. I want to tell you, I do, but I can’t. I am drowning in NDA’s here, and until I’m released from those, I literally cannot tell you shit, no matter how much I really want to. And fuck do I want to, because this is so not fair.” Frustration more than evident on his face, Armie runs his hands through his hair a couple of times, before grabbing a hold of two fistfuls of hair at the top of his head. He pulls at it so hard that it looks genuinely painful, and Timmy walks over and carefully starts pulling Armie’s fingers free to get him to stop hurting himself.
“It’s okay, Armie. I understand.” Timmy says softly, smiling down at him when Armie finally lets go. Timmy gently cards his fingers through Armie’s hair, trying to smooth it back down. Stumbling backwards slightly when Armie suddenly stands up, grabbing Timmy’s shoulders to steady them both.
“Promise me something.” Armie says urgently.
“Anything.”
“If it is what I think it is, promise me you’re not just gonna say yes because you think you have no other choice. You always have a choice, Timmy. You’re allowed to say no. Do you understand?”
“I think so, yeah.” In truth Timmy has no idea what the fuck Armie is talking about, but in that particular moment it seemed more important to calm him down than anything else.
“Good.” Armie breathes out in relief. “Good.” He says again, with a wide smile.
Sleep doesn’t come easy for Timmy that night, he tosses and turns for a couple of hours before giving up, reaching for his phone where it’s charging on the nightstand.
He’s really curious about what’s going to happen at the meeting tomorrow, unsure of why their managers would fly all the way to Italy to speak to them when Skype is a thing that exists. And if Armie’s reaction was anything to go by, it probably wasn’t good news they were bringing with them.
Timmy pulls up google on his phone, and types in Armie’s name, just to see if maybe the latest news stories could give him any insights as to what the fuck is going on. But what he sees there just confuses him further. Every headline is a variation of “Instagram model whatshername and Armie Hammer splits up” and all the articles seem to indicate that Armie was the one that dumped her, a ‘source close to the couple’ claiming he said he wanted to be free for the summer. Most of the articles then went on to insinuate that Armie probably just wanted to be single in case some Italian beauties caught his eye while he was over here filming.
All of them pretty much boiling down to the same thing. Womanizer Armie Hammer strikes again.
The frown on Timmy’s face just grows the more he reads, because from what Armie said earlier in the park, he could have sworn Armie was the one that got dumped, not the other way around. Sure he said it was complicated, but this doesn’t seem complicated, it’s just a flat out lie.
And sure, he knows PR is a thing, and the media isn’t exactly a beacon of honesty. But he just can’t work out why Armie’s people would let his name get dragged through the mud like this when he was the innocent party. Every article has a statement from his reps, but instead of telling them they had it wrong, they only seem to confirm the story, saying “We can confirm they’re no longer a couple, but apart from that we have no further comment.”
The comments under the articles were pretty brutal, more than a few of them making Timmy cringe. You had Armie’s fans coming to his defense claiming the girl was an obvious gold digger, and good fucking riddance. While the girls fans shot back that she was an independent woman, and didn’t need Armie, or his money.
Twitter was even worse. Armie’s name was trending, and it was only because people were either celebrating the end of his relationship, calling him a cheater, or crying because their otp had broken up.
When Timmy goes onto Instagram, he sees that all the pictures of Armie with his ex has been deleted from his profile. He wonders when Armie found the time to do that, seeing as he’d been with Timmy from the moment he got dumped until he went to bed. Of course, he could’ve done it before he fell asleep, so that was probably it.
Timmy sincerely hoped Armie wasn’t too hurt by everything, he’d never had to support anyone through heartbreak before, let alone someone he just met that same day. But if Armie needed him, he’d be there for him. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but Armie was definitely special, Timmy felt instantly comfortable with him. And he just really hoped Armie felt the same way about him.
Timmy must have dozed off at some point, because he wakes up to his phone blaring out the godawful sound of his alarm, right into his ear, where it’s lying next to him on the pillow. He fumbles for it bleary eyed, hits the snooze button, and faceplants back onto his pillow, falling back asleep instantly.
He repeats this process, three more times, until he manages to eventually tear himself away from the bed and into the shower. The water helps wake him up more than his alarm ever did, and when he sits down to eat his bowl of corn flakes, he’s finally awake enough to remember why it took him so long to fall asleep last night in the first place.
He hurries back into the bedroom to retrieve his phone, luckily there are no texts from his manager yet, but Armie sent him one just five minutes ago, wondering if he was awake yet. He texts back an affirmative, and since Armie’s apartment is just across the hall, it only takes a few seconds before there’s a knock on his door.
He hits his shin on the corner of the coffee table in the living room when he hurries to open the door, it hurts like a motherfucker, and he lets out a loud curse as he’s forced to hop one legged the rest of the way. Lifting his leg and rubbing over the point of impact as he opens the door, to find Armie on the other side, staring down at him in bemusement.
“For a second there I thought you’d died. What the fuck happened?” Armie laughs at his disgruntled face.
“Fucking coffee table is what happened! Always in the fucking way.” Timmy spits out, rubbing his shin one last time before putting his foot back down on the ground. Wincing slightly when he puts his weight back on it.
Armie looks down at his leg in concern and gets down on his knees, lifting Timmy’s leg and placing it carefully on his thigh, cupping his calf as he gets a closer look. Timmy grabs the doorway for support, resolutely not thinking about how close Armie’s face suddenly is to his dick, the fucking very last thing he’d need right now would be to get hard and have to explain that to Armie.
‘No, I don’t think I have a pain kink. But what I definitely have, is a you on your knees kink.’ Yeah, no thanks. He’d literally rather die.
“It’s definitely gonna bruise, there’s no doubt about that.” Armie says, carefully rubbing his thumb across the red imprint the coffee table left on Timmy’s leg, and Timmy has to literally bite his tongue to not let out a moan at the sensation, maybe he genuinely does have a pain kink, who knew?
“But you didn’t break the skin, and I don’t think you’ve broken anything. We’ll keep an eye on it though, just in case it swells up or something.” Armie looks up at him, smiling softly as he places Timmy’s foot back down on the ground, and stands up.
“I actually came over because I wanted to know if you wanted to grab something to eat before the meeting?” Armie says with a hopeful smile. Timmy looks back to the kitchen, and his now soggy bowl of corn flakes.
“Definitely. Let me just grab a couple of things and I’ll be right out.” He leaves the door open as he hurries back into the kitchen to empty his bowl of cereal into the sink, turning the water on and washing away the last of the corn flakes. Grabbing his wallet, phone and keys before heading back to the living room where Armie is waiting for him.
“I’m ready. Let’s head out.”
“Excellent. I don’t know how, considering how much I ate at yesterdays dinner, but man, I’m starving.” Armie chuckles.
Timmy takes him to his favorite café, just down the road from their apartments. They both get a cup of coffee and a plate full of pastries to share. He’s in the middle of telling Armie this funny story about something that happened a couple of days before Armie arrived when their phones beep. Their conversation dies out instantly, both of them quickly taking their phones out of their pockets, and sure enough. There it is, the message he’d been waiting for all morning.
“Timothée, please make sure to be at the Ponte Di Rialto in an hour. We have much to discuss, so make sure your schedule is as cleared as possible. Thank you.”
He looks over at Armie, who’s still looking down at his phone, gaze unfocused, like he’s staring right through it. Timmy clears his throat to get his attention, and when Armie looks up at him, Timmy sends him a soft smile, watching as the tension in Armie’s shoulders releases almost immediately.
“We should probably tell Luca that it looks like we’ll be quite busy this morning, huh?” Timmy says, taking a bite of his pastry.
“Yeah, I can call him right now if you want?”
“That’d be good, yeah.” Timmy agrees, taking another bite of pastry as Armie puts his phone to his ear.
“Hey, Luca. Listen, something came up, and Timmy and I need the morning off. I don’t know for how long.” Whatever Luca is saying on the other end, it’s making Armie blush. “What?! No! Nothing like that. No. I promise. It’s business stuff, that’s all.” Armie nods a couple of times. “Yes, of course, I will. Yeah. Thank you. See you later.”
“What did he say?” Timmy asks around his last bite of pastry, spitting crumbs halfway across the table. “Sorry.” He says sheepishly after swallowing, brushing the crumbs down to the floor. Armie just smiles and shakes his head at him.
“He wasn’t very happy to lose half a day of preparations, but he said he understood, just made us promise to work even harder when we got back.”
Timmy nods, draining the rest of his coffee from his cup, pushing the last pastry over to Armie, who shakes his head and pushes it back towards Timmy, who just shrugs and eats it in two bites. What? It was a good pastry.
Timmy gets up and buys them each another coffee, and they sip at it slowly while talking about everything and nothing, conversation and laughter flowing between them effortlessly. After a while Armie looks up at the clock above the door and winces. “It’s time to go.”
They bike over to the hotel, and Timmy can’t help but grin at the look the doorman gives their bikes, to say he’s not impressed would be an understatement. They wait in the lobby while Armie calls his manager to let him know they’ve both arrived. A couple of minutes later a man Timmy has never seen before steps out of the elevator, eyes roaming the room until he spots them, and hurries over.
He’s wearing a suit so perfectly tailored Timmy is sure it costs more than his entire apartment, his hair is slicked back with so much gel it’s making the dark blond color appear almost black in certain lighting.
“Armie, so good to see you again.” He says, greeting Armie with a stiff hug, essentially just lightly patting him on the back, before turning towards Timmy. “Timothy, so nice to meet you.” He smiles, extending his hand for Timmy to shake.
“Actually, Peter, his name is Timothée.” Armie corrects him, before Timmy has the chance to say anything at all.
“Oh, sorry. Timothée.” Peter looks like he couldn’t give less of a fuck about the correct way to pronounce his name, and Timmy hurries to shake his hand to get it over with.
“Yeah, nice to meet you too.”
They walk over to the elevator, and when it arrives Peter hits the button for the top floor, the doors close but the elevator doesn’t move. Peter scans his room key and enters a 4 digit code onto the little touch pad, which sat next to the screen with the number that indicates which floor you’re currently on, and the elevator started moving immediately.
The elevator doors open directly into the penthouse apartment, and Timmy spots Marcus wearing an, obviously new, tailored suit of his own. His hair was free of product as always, but he must’ve recently gotten it cut into a more professional, short cut, because he’d still been rocking a ponytail when Timmy last saw him. He’s sitting on the couch lazily sipping a glass of red wine.
“Timmy! You made it, wonderful.” Marcus grins as he spots him, placing his wine glass carefully back down on the table. Walking over to the elevator to give Timmy a hug, similar to the one Peter gave Armie down in the lobby.
“You must be Armie.” He smiles over at Armie, who nods stiffly back at him. Armie then puts his arm around Timmy’s waist and guides him over to the couch where Marcus was sitting when they arrived, pushing his wine glass over to the other side of the table. Keeping his arm around Timmy as they sit down, but moving it from his wait to his shoulders.
Marcus just grins down at them and sits down in one of the available chairs, Peter shakes his head before taking his own seat in the chair next to Marcus’ directly across from them. Peter then pulls up a briefcase from the floor, cracking it open on the table, pulling out a couple of manila folders and spreading them out in front of himself.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why we’re here.” Marcus starts, but gets interrupted by Armie snorting loudly, startling Timmy slightly.
“Please, spare me the niceties, just get to the fucking point.” Armie spits out, and rolls his eyes.
“Very well.” Peter says, looking over at Timmy. “There’s just one thing, Timothy here will need to sign an NDA forbidding him from speaking to outsiders about the information we’re about to disclose and discuss.”
“Seriously, Peter? Is that really necessary?” Armie shakes his head over at his manager, who just nods.
“Absolutely, it’s necessary. We’re about to share information that’s protected by several NDA’s of its own, of course he has to sign one.”
Armie closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs in frustration. “Fine, whatever.”
Peter slides an NDA form over to Timmy, along with a ballpoint pen. “You sign at the bottom, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
Timmy had signed a fair few NDA’s in his career already, but those had usually just been about forbidding him from talking too freely on social media about what happened in the projects he was involved with, and usually ended as soon as the movies came out or the TV show aired. Reading through this one though, it didn’t seem to have a set end date as far as Timmy could see with his rather limited legal knowledge.
“Uhm, just a quick question. When does this – I mean – How long is this valid for?” Timmy looks up at Marcus, who gives him a tight lipped smile in return.
“It’s valid until we release you from it, Timothy.” Is Peter’s curt reply. “Now sign it, please. So we could get started already.”
“Don’t.” Armie says sharply. “Don’t push him, Peter.” Armie gives Timmy a supporting squeeze with the arm he still has wrapped around his shoulders. “Remember what I said yesterday. You don’t have to sign anything if you don’t want to, Timmy.” Armie whispers into his ear.
Timmy nods. “I know. I want to though.” And jots his name down on the line at the bottom of the document, sliding it and the pen back to Peter, who grins wolfishly back at him.
“Excellent. Now, lets get down to business.” Peter puts Timmy’s signed NDA into its own manila folder, and places it back into the briefcase, closing it and putting it back down on the floor.
“As I told Marcus on the phone the other day, when I called to first offer you this opportunity, we have decided to allow Armie to come out of the closet, and this movie provides us with a unique opportunity to do so.”
Timmy feels his eyes widen in surprise. Armie is gay?! Timmy can’t help but stare at him, face no doubt broadcasting just how shocked he actually is.
“You – What?” He blinks over at Armie, unable to form thoughts, let alone full sentences. Armie retracts his arm from Timmy’s shoulder, using both hands to scrub across his face.
“Yeah.” Armie croaks out as he nods into the palms of his hands, before letting out a loud sigh. Timmy doesn’t like seeing him this defeated, and places a comforting hand on his back, stroking it up and down a couple of times until he feels Armie relax and lean into him slightly. Timmy smiles softly over at him as Armie finally removes the hands from his face, catching his eyes for the first time since Peter outed him, and Armie sends him a grateful smile in return.
Peter and Marcus sit, watching their interaction in silence, with matching grins.
“Anyway.” Peter interrupts shortly after. “As I was saying. We’ve decided we’re gonna let him come out, but because of the image we created for him as part of his closet, we need to rebrand him a little first. The promiscuous gay man trope is just way too cliché at this point, so we don’t want his current image to stick around, only with men instead of women.” Timmy nods back at him, what he’s saying definitely makes sense, he just doesn’t really understand what any of that has got to do with him.
“We’ve decided that the best way to do this, would be to give him a serious, long-term relationship. We can use the filming of this movie as the key point in him starting to question his sexuality, that way nobody feels directly lied to. We’ll tell them he really only just realized he was gay when he fell in love with a guy, and that’s why none of his previous relationships seemed to work out. But he’s in love now, and he doesn’t want to hide that. And that’s where you come in, Timothy.”
“I don’t understand.” Timmy frowns over at Marcus and Peter, before turning his gaze to Armie, who only gives him a pained smile in return.
“It’s actually very simple, Timothy.” Peter rolls his eyes at him. “We want you to be Armie’s long-term boyfriend. We want to sell the story of you falling in love during the filming of this movie. People love that shit, co-stars falling for each other, they eat it up like bread and butter. We’ll hint about it for a while at first, making sure you’re papped together a few times, Armie coming to visit you in New York, you going to LA to visit him. That type of thing. Post some pictures of the two of you together on social media, just enough to get the rumors going, but nothing more than that.” Peter nods over at Marcus, indicating it’s his turn to take over the sales pitch.
“Then we’re gonna have you confirm your relationship at the first screening of the movie, we’re hearing Luca is intending to send it over to the 2017 Sundance festival, which would be absolutely perfect. Not only will it promote your movie, but Timmy, this will definitely help with getting your name out there. And in this business, name recognition is everything.” Marcus says, obviously trying to sound sincere, but only managing to come across as desperate.
“You will be compensated of course, think of it as a side job, because it essentially is. You will receive a monthly fee, but we’ll also get you some clothing sponsorship's and we will pay for all of your travel. Meaning first class tickets for all the vacations we need you to take together, as well as all of your accommodations. Then we’ll rent you a new apartment when we eventually have you move to Los Angeles. Your move will be temporary of course, but if we want to create the illusion of the relationship between you two being serious, we can’t have you live on opposite sides of the country for long. Besides living in LA will be excellent for your career options, Timothy.”
“The most important thing here, of course, lest we forget. Is Armie finally being allowed to be himself.” Marcus says, smiling sweetly over at Armie, who just stares back, stone faced.
“Exactly.” Peter nods. “You would be doing him a huge favor. This would be the absolute best way of doing this, and not to put any pressure on you, but if you don’t say yes, we’re going to have to push the coming out back until the promotion of the movie is done. Simply because people wouldn’t ever believe Armie could have a serious boyfriend who would be fine with him realizing he’s gay because of a movie he made with you, and then promoting it with you afterwards. Just imagine, everyone watching you two talk about how in love your characters were? I can already see the cheating rumors, and it would definitely not help with the cleaning up of Armie’s playboy image.”
“And whose fucking fault is it that I have that image in the first place, huh?” Armie snaps at Peter. Lips curling in distaste, eyes full of fire.
“Now, Armie, settle down. We all know we did you a favor by not letting you come out when you first asked for it. It would have killed your career before it even began. Gay just didn’t sell. Things are a little different now, diversity is all the rage, so it’ll be easier to market you as a gay man. But, I admit, we might have gone a bit overboard with certain things, and it’s definitely coming back to bite us now. At the time it really did seem necessary though. But I do apologize.” Peter says all of this so sincerely it takes Timmy about three seconds longer than it should to realize he’s just talking out of his ass, and he doesn’t regret a single thing.
Marcus clears his throat, taking another sip of his wine, before smiling over at Timmy.
“Seeing as they want this to be a long-term thing, they’re first offering a two year contract, with the option to extend if the situation calls for it, of course.”
“Two years?” Armie exclaims. “You can’t be serious. Peter! You can’t expect him to sign away his entire life for two whole years just to do me a favor! That’s not fair.”
“It’s not really your decision though, is it Armie? Besides, as previously mentioned, it’s not like Timothy here doesn’t get anything in return. He’s going to be more than handsomely compensated for this, both in name recognition and cold hard cash.”
“You know, when you first told me I was gonna be allowed to come out, I thought things would be different. That it would somehow mean we left all the lies behind.” Armie sighs with disappointment and shakes his head.
“Don’t be naive, Armie. You know that’s not how this works.” Peter scoffs.
“Yeah, how fucking naive of me, to assume there was anything human left in you at all.”
“It has nothing to do with humanity, and you know it. You could cut me loose, go to another manager, they’d still think this would be the best way to handle your coming out. Just look at Marcus, he has no skin in this game yet, and he agrees with me. Don’t you, Marcus?” Peter doesn’t even bother looking over to check if Marcus is nodding, which of course he is. “See, what did I tell you? If you want to come out, this is how we’re going to do it.”
“By forcing Timmy to pretend to be in love with me, for two fucking years, and maybe even longer?” Armie stands up in frustration, walking over to the window, staring out at the view.
Timmy stays on the couch, looking over at Armie for a while before he gets up and stands next to him. Timmy wraps his arm around Armie’s waist for comfort, much like Armie did for him earlier, and gives him a sideways hug. Only pulling back when he can feel Armie relax, and he takes a step back, looking up at Armie’s face.
“Don’t worry so much about me. From the sound of things, you’re allowed to be selfish for once.” Timmy smiles softly, getting up on his tiptoes and gives Armie’s cheek a quick kiss before turning back around, facing Peter and Marcus.
“I only have one question.”
“Ask away, Timothy.” Peter sends him a wide, and obviously fake, smile.
“Where do I sign?”