"Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (LotR RPS VM/OB) (PG-13)
Title: Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Author: Leale
Rating: PG-13 (Language)
Fandom: LOTR RPS, VM/OB
Summary: "It's a bloody fine thing you're so pretty and can lie through your teeth."
Feedback: If you find the time. :)
Archive: Sure, just let me know.
Author's Note: Another Stupid Bar Trick, aka, The Scavenger Hunt fic. The title is from the U2 song of the same name. valour has of course done a smashing job of getting to the heart of the matter and refusing to let me mischaracterize the boys. Thanks! *hugs* This comes after Oral Fixation, the aftermath of which didn't go quite as well as Orlando had hoped.
Disclaimer: I have never met the men mentioned in this story and I have no knowledge of their sexuality. Everything in this story has come completely from my imagination.
Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
"Viggo!"
"Scuse me?" Viggo stands blinking in his front doorway, surprised by the light of his porch.
"I need you, c'mon!"
"Orlando...." Viggo leans heavily against the doorframe. His arms ache from swinging Anduril around. Full-weight sword. He had to insist on a full-weight sword.
"Actually, wait." Orlando leans in and pushes his head into Viggo's apartment. "You don't have any steel wool in here, do you?"
"Yeah." Viggo rolls back from the doorframe, giving Orlando a wide berth. "In the studio."
"Viggo! You're a real mate, thanks." And Orlando is off and running.
Viggo rubs his eyes and decides he really did need a good bit of adventure tonight.
He follows Orlando's path and meets his target already on his way back, steel wool held triumphantly aloft.
"Orlando." Arms spread, braced on the two nearest objects, and he's blocked Orlando's path, at least temporarily.
"Vig, c'mon," Orlando says, ducking to the side and digging his fingers into Viggo's defenseless rib cage. Viggo squirms away, gritting his teeth, and regrets ever admitting to Orlando that he's ticklish. "C'mon," Orlando urges, capturing his hand and dragging him through the house toward the front door. "I need you, too."
"Hold on a second here." Viggo grabs Orlando's elbow and hauls Orlando against his body. He holds both Orlando's arms down with a half hug and firmly scrubs his free hand through the brushy mohawk until Orlando's squirming. It's...probably not the best idea he's had all week so he lets up as soon as he realizes how difficult it's going to be to keep Orlando at arm's length later tonight. "What is going on?" he demands, keeping Orlando as immobilized as possible.
"It's a game," Orlando laughs. "You have to come with me! We're due back in, aw, fuck, what time is it?"
Due back? Viggo shakes his head and glances at the nearest clock. "It's quarter after two," he reports.
"Great! We've got hours left to go! What time is sun-up?"
It's a fair question because Viggo always knows what time sunrise is.
"Six-forty or so."
"Let's go!"
"Go where?" Viggo's one step away from using the Aragorn voice. As it is, he sounds enough like his own father to cringe inwardly.
"To find everything!" Orlando whips out a folded page from his back pocket. He shakes it open and waves it at Viggo.
"Give me that." Viggo releases Orlando and grabs the paper. "Lothlorian arrow," he reads aloud from the first line. "Bag of chips--full!
"Receipt from an all-night diner.
"Page 43 of TTT. There is no page 43," Viggo says, remember how page 44 of the script followed 42, to everyone's consternation.
"Sure there is," Orlando says. "We just have to find it."
And that's perfectly Orlando. Resistance is, of course, futile.
"Let me get dressed."
"No!" Orlando snatches the paper back and turns it over. "Half-dressed Man. See?"
"You wrote that in yourself."
"Did I?" Orlando pulls the list back and studies it with apparent confusion. "It appears I did. Still, it's on there."
"I'm putting a shirt on."
"You'll ruin the game!"
"I'll take it off again at dawn," Viggo promises over his shoulder as he retreats to his bedroom for the shirt. "I'm not going to an all-night diner in just my pajama pants!"
"You'd be a bloody hit!" Orlando calls from the front hall.
Viggo wonders how Orlando has so much energy in the middle of the night and glances at his rumpled bed as he pulls a t-shirt over his head. It's a blasted thing to have an overblown sense of personal responsibility, he thinks ruefully, running one hand through his hair and only managing to make it stand up more. There's the off chance Orlando could be tempted back here and they could spend 'til sunrise in his bed, executing their own scavenger hunt. Not likely to get him any more sleep, but a great deal less difficult on his willpower. But no. He had to go spouting Life Lessons for Young Actors to Orlando and now he's stuck with a pile of promises and future expectations and no instant gratification. He yanks the t-shirt down to his waist and jams his feet into moccasins. And now he's going to go tramping around New Zealand with a sugar-soaked Orlando. Because, yes, Viggo obviously didn't pay a suitable tithe to someone and now the gods were torturing him. He rolls his shoulders and shuffles out into the front room where Orlando's sitting on the arm of a chair, reading through the list to himself and absently rubbing the top of his thigh with the palm of his hand. Viggo briefly considers going back to the bedroom and getting back in bed in hopes of this all being a very complex dream, but manages to resist.
"All right," he asks around a mighty yawn. "What's our first stop?"
"Props," Orlando says, hopping to his feet.
"We're breaking into the props shack?"
It sounds ill-advised but Orlando doesn't seem to mind.
"Just for an arrow."
"Just for an arrow," Viggo repeats. "Right."
"I thought you knew the combination," Viggo mutters, keeping a sharp eye out for the security guard.
"I did," Orlando whispers back. "I do. They must have changed it."
"Oh--move over." Viggo nudges Orlando aside with his shoulder and crouches down to put the lock at eyelevel. He leans his temple against the wood of the shed and listens as he turns the dial.
"What are you doing?" Orlando asks in a whisper.
"Shh." It's not that he can't hear the tumblers--it's that they don't need Orlando drawing attention to them. A click and a snap and the lock is off.
"That was a bloody brilliant piece of safecracking," Orlando tells him admiringly. "Where'd you learn that?"
"Don't ask if you don't want to know," Viggo replies, pulling the door open. The creak is vastly louder at night than it is during the day. Viggo winces as he ducks inside the shed, Orlando right behind him. "Here."
"No, I thought it said Lothlorian arrows?" The moonlight behind Orlando's head puts his face in shadow and Viggo can't read his expression.
"Right?"
"The fletching on those is white," Orlando explains. "The fletching on the Mirkwood arrows is green."
"Fine." Viggo returns Orlando's arrow to its slot and glanced down the row. "Um...here."
"Ok, let's--"
Viggo turns to see why Orlando's stopped talking and finds himself blinded by a flashlight.
"What do we have here?"
"It's a bloody fine thing you're so manly and stud-like," Orlando says casually around his milkshake.
"It's a bloody fine thing you're so pretty and can lie through your teeth," Viggo returns grumpily. He runs his fries through ketchup and jams them in his mouth.
"It's really a bloody fine thing that security guard was female," Orlando chuckles, reaching for the check. "Oh, miss? Can we have a receipt?"
"It's an all-night grocery. With an ATM. It's the answer to all our dreams," Orlando proclaims, spreading his arms wide.
Maybe not all their dreams, Viggo thinks darkly, but it does provide the chips, the ATM receipt, and assorted other products they were going to have a difficult time accumulating. He makes a point of buying more steel wool from the cleaning aisle.
"No black nail polish." Orlando frowns at the display.
"What good are they, then?" Viggo asks behind a yawn. He throws a chocolate bar in their basket for energy's sake.
"We'll have to find an all-night drug store or someplace for that," Orlando decides. He frowns at the list. "I think Dom just added that because he's out."
Viggo pretends he didn't hear that.
There are no all-night drug stores to be found.
Viggo is faintly surprised Orlando doesn't have his own supply of black nail lacquer.
"Liv?" he suggests, rubbing the back of his neck, which has started to itch every time Orlando get his "idea face" on.
"Er. Last resort," Orlando says hurriedly, mumbling something about pink feathers.
Viggo raises an eyebrow and suddenly very much wants to wake up Liv, but he defers to Orlando's judgment.
"Right, down here," Orlando directs him, turning down the sort of dark alley one wouldn't go down in London or New York or even Los Angeles, questionable as it may be.
Viggo follows him anyway, glancing at the graffiti on the brick walls.
Orlando bangs on a steel door set into the wall. There's a faint screech of metal and pounding, pulsing music spills forth into the cool night air. Orlando says something that's lost in the music and the door opens. Orlando winks at Viggo and waves one hand.
Viggo nods and stays where he is. The graffiti is interesting--the artist shows more talent than the standard 'Killroy Was Here'. Even so, he's not sure he likes being left out in an alley while Orlando loses himself in a rave of some sort. He should have followed. He knows he would have hated it, but he should have followed.
As it turns out, he only has to wait and worry for a few minutes. Orlando reappears quickly, brandishing a small bottle of black polish and a shit-eating grin. Viggo congratulates him on the acquisition and doesn't ask about the grin.
"What's left?"
"Bloody page 43 and...Orange Crush?"
"It's a soda," Viggo explains. "It's popular in America."
"Bloody hell, how are we supposed to find that?" Orlando asks. "I thought they were talking about the song."
"There's a song?"
"The group with ah, Michael Stipe. REM."
"Hm." Viggo considers this and reaches for the list. He studies the black scrawl on the white paper and shrugs. "Doesn't say it has to be the soda. Do you have the song?"
"Uh. I don't think so. Not here, anyway."
"Not here as in, not at the ass-end of Tory Street or as in, not here in New Zealand?"
"I mean not in New Zealand but it's worth a look. Unless you want to go back to the all-night grocery?"
"I haven't seen it," Viggo admits, though he hasn't been looking.
"All right. My place, then."
They drive back to Orlando's house in his Jeep. Orlando's comfortable on the left side of the road. Viggo is too, by now, but he still marvels at the sensation of driving on the 'wrong' side. Orlando leaves the Jeep at the curb and leads the way up the path to his house. Viggo can't help but cast a glance as Liv's door and wonder what the deal was with the pink feathers.
"Place is a bit of a mess," Orlando says apologetically as he unlocks his door.
"S'ok." Viggo has the utmost respect for creative mess and more tolerance than most for random mess.
There's more mess than he anticipated, but when Orlando turns the light on, it's fairly easy to see where it's safe to step. Viggo moves a pile of clothes to the other end of the couch and perches in the cleared space while Orlando drops to one knee in front of his music collection. He pulls out a disk and studies the playlist, shaking his head slowly as he replaces it.
"No Orange Crush."
"To the all-night grocery?"
Orlando's frowning and there's that "idea face" again. As long as it doesn't get them arrested or maimed, Viggo's almost ready to go along with whatever he's thinking. It must say something that he's so invested in a scavenger hunt. What it says, exactly, he's not quite sure, but he's already decided it can't be anything good.
"Wait," Orlando says, climbing to his feet. He goes to the eating table and pushes a few things around.
"What's that?" Viggo asks, seeing Orlando come up with a book. He stands and walks across the room to peer over Orlando's shoulder.
"Oi," Orlando chuckles, handing the book to Viggo. "An Orange Crush? Is also a shot."
The book's a worn, dog-eared volume of drink recipes and suddenly Viggo understands where Orlando gets his creative cocktails. The pages are age-soft under his fingers and he thinks that he's holding some piece of Orlando in his hands. This book has known Orlando longer than Viggo has.
"You have the stuff?" he asks, skimming the ingredients.
"Orange juice is in the fridge," Orlando answers, holding up the vodka and triple sec.
They mix equal parts of all three in a thermos and Orlando finds two clean shot glasses to test the concoction.
"Not bad," Viggo admits, setting the glass down on the table. "What do we have left?"
Orlando pulls the list from his back pocket and groans.
"Where are we going to get a bloody page 43?"
"And Legolas says, 'Fuck this. Why didn't Elrond just give ME the fucking ring? I've been spending this whole trip saving your collective asses and spouting wisdom because I'm bored and it's fun to fuck with you all.'"
"Yeah, and then Aragorn said, 'Oh please, like they wouldn't see all that shiny blond hair coming a mile from Cirith Ungol. You're just here to draw in the teenage girls.'"
"Fourth wall!"
"Right, right, here, pour me another shot." Viggo leans over and holds the glass mostly steady as Orlando sloshes more of the Orange Crush into it. "How about 'You're just here so I have something to look at besides the dwarf.'"
"One word there--" Orlalndo says, pouring his own drink and throwing it back. "--yak hair."
"That's two words."
"Fuck off, it takes up more space."
"Right, fine, and then Gimli says, 'Y're shagging the wrong elf, y'know.' Because the coronation scene? You're really fucking pretty in that."
Orlando's grin eases into a curious look. "I am?"
Viggo looks up and realizes he's crossed a line. "You've seen the dailies," he says. "What do you think it looks like?"
"Just...." Orlando shrugs and shakes his head. "Y'know." He puffs up, cocky expression back on his face. "I'm the fucking Prince of Mirkwood," he boasts. "I can't help it if I outshine the dirty humans."
For some reason the cockiness makes Viggo feel bad. It might not be a mask but the odds aren't good.
He reaches out and turns Orlando's face in his hand. He's so young, all fresh and shiny even in the middle of the night and Viggo thinks that it's at least partly an optical illusion from the mohawk. He presses his forehead to Orlando's, a gesture that's become second nature and not particularly significant.
Maybe the Orange Crush is stronger than he thought. Maybe six in the morning on three hours of sleep is too much for his old brain. Maybe he just wants to.
The kiss isn't exactly chaste, but it's not leading either. Friendly. Companionable. Sweet. And...dangerous.
"I had a good time tonight," Viggo says softly.
"Vig." Orlando's face is serious, shadowed now in the dim light, and his eyes are dark. He twists his head, pulling away from Viggo's hand and then turns to meet his eyes again. "You can't do that."
"I know." Viggo feels chastised and sighs in frustration. He thinks if Orlando kisses him back, just now, he'll go with it. Reservations aside, he wants Orlando and it's pretty difficult not to give in to that. But they had an agreement and Viggo feels bound by that--to give Orlando a chance to become his own man, a star in his own right. He lifts his head because Orlando deserves that much--a face-to-face apology. "I'm sorry."
Orlando looks blank and Viggo finds the memory of his openness bittersweet.
"It's just--I need time too."
Viggo wants to ask Orlando what he means but he's not sure he has the right. Instead he watches Orlando's profile as he turns away and follows the pensive gaze to the clock on the wall.
"Fuck! We've got half an hour. C'mon, let's get this thing done! We need to get going!" Orlando leaps to his feet and grabs the thermos of Orange Crush. He screws on the lid and throws it in the knapsack they've been using to transport the rest of their bounty.
"Going? Where are we going?"
Orlando drags him to the dining tent, lit by battery-powered lamps clustered on the middle three tables.
To his surprise, not only are the hobbits clustered around, drinking orange juice that the early catering personnel set out, but so are Ian, Sean, Liv, Hugo and Peter.
"There he is!" Elijah calls.
Attention turns to them and Viggo notices the odd attire of the rest of the cast.
"Elf in pink feathers!" Dom calls, waving his scrawled page over Liv's head. She yawns into her coffee and gives him the finger. The pink marabou lining her wrap has managed to get all over Dom.
"Wizard in a smoking jacket," Billy replies, pointing at Ian.
"We thought you'd get Christopher," Elijah says with glee.
Billy snorts. "Right. I like my life, thanks."
"Man in a kilt? Who had Man in a kilt?" Elijah asks, glancing at Sean Astin.
"I'm not bloody Scottish and I'm too old for this shite," Bean snarls, sitting awkwardly in a kilt that nowhere near fits him. United Sheffield shorts peek out from underneath. "And so are you," he tells Viggo.
Viggo shrugs and glances at Hugo calmly crossing his legs in one of Galadriel's dresses.
"Yo," Elijah says, hopping up. "Your Man's supposed to be only half-dressed."
"Right, right, I'm there," Viggo promises, kicking off his mocs and pulling his shirt over his head. His audience claps and whistles for him as he winks and flexes a few muscles.
"Page 43!" Billy calls, waving a small piece of paper.
"Not of the book," Elijah protests.
"Yeah, we were looking for the mysteriously absent page 43 of the script," Dom reminds him.
"Oh, and I guess you found it?" Billy asks skeptically.
"Sure." Dom proudly holds out a script page with the number 43 scrawled on the bottom. The rest is blank.
"I did better!" Elijah crows, hopping up on a chair.
Peter holds up one hand. "I can't believe Elijah pulled me out of bed for this." He looks around. "There is no page 43. There never was. It was a numbering snafu."
"Sneaky bastard," Sean--Astin, this time--accuses.
"Hey, I went right to the source," Elijah protests. "How about you guys?" he asks, attention on Orlando and Viggo. "What'd you get for page 43?"
Orlando's holding the fake page 43 they wrote so Viggo looks to him and watches as Orlando gives the best innocent shrug he's seen in a long time. "Never got to it," Orlando says blithely. "Barely made it here as it was. 'Sides. There is no page 43."
Elijah looks disappointed but goes on to jump on Dom's back and pester the rest of the group about page 43.
Viggo reaches out and squeezes Orlando's shoulder. He starts to ask why Orlando didn't tell the others about their gag page. But then he doesn't. He knows why. It's like some of his photographs. The ones which aren't released for public consumption. The ones which stay close to his hand because they're close to his heart.
He wraps an arm across Orlando's chest and leans his head down to rest his mouth against Orlando's shoulder as their friends run around in chaos fueled by hobbit energy. And he doesn't say a word.
The End
Author: Leale
Rating: PG-13 (Language)
Fandom: LOTR RPS, VM/OB
Summary: "It's a bloody fine thing you're so pretty and can lie through your teeth."
Feedback: If you find the time. :)
Archive: Sure, just let me know.
Author's Note: Another Stupid Bar Trick, aka, The Scavenger Hunt fic. The title is from the U2 song of the same name. valour has of course done a smashing job of getting to the heart of the matter and refusing to let me mischaracterize the boys. Thanks! *hugs* This comes after Oral Fixation, the aftermath of which didn't go quite as well as Orlando had hoped.
Disclaimer: I have never met the men mentioned in this story and I have no knowledge of their sexuality. Everything in this story has come completely from my imagination.
Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
"Viggo!"
"Scuse me?" Viggo stands blinking in his front doorway, surprised by the light of his porch.
"I need you, c'mon!"
"Orlando...." Viggo leans heavily against the doorframe. His arms ache from swinging Anduril around. Full-weight sword. He had to insist on a full-weight sword.
"Actually, wait." Orlando leans in and pushes his head into Viggo's apartment. "You don't have any steel wool in here, do you?"
"Yeah." Viggo rolls back from the doorframe, giving Orlando a wide berth. "In the studio."
"Viggo! You're a real mate, thanks." And Orlando is off and running.
Viggo rubs his eyes and decides he really did need a good bit of adventure tonight.
He follows Orlando's path and meets his target already on his way back, steel wool held triumphantly aloft.
"Orlando." Arms spread, braced on the two nearest objects, and he's blocked Orlando's path, at least temporarily.
"Vig, c'mon," Orlando says, ducking to the side and digging his fingers into Viggo's defenseless rib cage. Viggo squirms away, gritting his teeth, and regrets ever admitting to Orlando that he's ticklish. "C'mon," Orlando urges, capturing his hand and dragging him through the house toward the front door. "I need you, too."
"Hold on a second here." Viggo grabs Orlando's elbow and hauls Orlando against his body. He holds both Orlando's arms down with a half hug and firmly scrubs his free hand through the brushy mohawk until Orlando's squirming. It's...probably not the best idea he's had all week so he lets up as soon as he realizes how difficult it's going to be to keep Orlando at arm's length later tonight. "What is going on?" he demands, keeping Orlando as immobilized as possible.
"It's a game," Orlando laughs. "You have to come with me! We're due back in, aw, fuck, what time is it?"
Due back? Viggo shakes his head and glances at the nearest clock. "It's quarter after two," he reports.
"Great! We've got hours left to go! What time is sun-up?"
It's a fair question because Viggo always knows what time sunrise is.
"Six-forty or so."
"Let's go!"
"Go where?" Viggo's one step away from using the Aragorn voice. As it is, he sounds enough like his own father to cringe inwardly.
"To find everything!" Orlando whips out a folded page from his back pocket. He shakes it open and waves it at Viggo.
"Give me that." Viggo releases Orlando and grabs the paper. "Lothlorian arrow," he reads aloud from the first line. "Bag of chips--full!
"Receipt from an all-night diner.
"Page 43 of TTT. There is no page 43," Viggo says, remember how page 44 of the script followed 42, to everyone's consternation.
"Sure there is," Orlando says. "We just have to find it."
And that's perfectly Orlando. Resistance is, of course, futile.
"Let me get dressed."
"No!" Orlando snatches the paper back and turns it over. "Half-dressed Man. See?"
"You wrote that in yourself."
"Did I?" Orlando pulls the list back and studies it with apparent confusion. "It appears I did. Still, it's on there."
"I'm putting a shirt on."
"You'll ruin the game!"
"I'll take it off again at dawn," Viggo promises over his shoulder as he retreats to his bedroom for the shirt. "I'm not going to an all-night diner in just my pajama pants!"
"You'd be a bloody hit!" Orlando calls from the front hall.
Viggo wonders how Orlando has so much energy in the middle of the night and glances at his rumpled bed as he pulls a t-shirt over his head. It's a blasted thing to have an overblown sense of personal responsibility, he thinks ruefully, running one hand through his hair and only managing to make it stand up more. There's the off chance Orlando could be tempted back here and they could spend 'til sunrise in his bed, executing their own scavenger hunt. Not likely to get him any more sleep, but a great deal less difficult on his willpower. But no. He had to go spouting Life Lessons for Young Actors to Orlando and now he's stuck with a pile of promises and future expectations and no instant gratification. He yanks the t-shirt down to his waist and jams his feet into moccasins. And now he's going to go tramping around New Zealand with a sugar-soaked Orlando. Because, yes, Viggo obviously didn't pay a suitable tithe to someone and now the gods were torturing him. He rolls his shoulders and shuffles out into the front room where Orlando's sitting on the arm of a chair, reading through the list to himself and absently rubbing the top of his thigh with the palm of his hand. Viggo briefly considers going back to the bedroom and getting back in bed in hopes of this all being a very complex dream, but manages to resist.
"All right," he asks around a mighty yawn. "What's our first stop?"
"Props," Orlando says, hopping to his feet.
"We're breaking into the props shack?"
It sounds ill-advised but Orlando doesn't seem to mind.
"Just for an arrow."
"Just for an arrow," Viggo repeats. "Right."
"I thought you knew the combination," Viggo mutters, keeping a sharp eye out for the security guard.
"I did," Orlando whispers back. "I do. They must have changed it."
"Oh--move over." Viggo nudges Orlando aside with his shoulder and crouches down to put the lock at eyelevel. He leans his temple against the wood of the shed and listens as he turns the dial.
"What are you doing?" Orlando asks in a whisper.
"Shh." It's not that he can't hear the tumblers--it's that they don't need Orlando drawing attention to them. A click and a snap and the lock is off.
"That was a bloody brilliant piece of safecracking," Orlando tells him admiringly. "Where'd you learn that?"
"Don't ask if you don't want to know," Viggo replies, pulling the door open. The creak is vastly louder at night than it is during the day. Viggo winces as he ducks inside the shed, Orlando right behind him. "Here."
"No, I thought it said Lothlorian arrows?" The moonlight behind Orlando's head puts his face in shadow and Viggo can't read his expression.
"Right?"
"The fletching on those is white," Orlando explains. "The fletching on the Mirkwood arrows is green."
"Fine." Viggo returns Orlando's arrow to its slot and glanced down the row. "Um...here."
"Ok, let's--"
Viggo turns to see why Orlando's stopped talking and finds himself blinded by a flashlight.
"What do we have here?"
"It's a bloody fine thing you're so manly and stud-like," Orlando says casually around his milkshake.
"It's a bloody fine thing you're so pretty and can lie through your teeth," Viggo returns grumpily. He runs his fries through ketchup and jams them in his mouth.
"It's really a bloody fine thing that security guard was female," Orlando chuckles, reaching for the check. "Oh, miss? Can we have a receipt?"
"It's an all-night grocery. With an ATM. It's the answer to all our dreams," Orlando proclaims, spreading his arms wide.
Maybe not all their dreams, Viggo thinks darkly, but it does provide the chips, the ATM receipt, and assorted other products they were going to have a difficult time accumulating. He makes a point of buying more steel wool from the cleaning aisle.
"No black nail polish." Orlando frowns at the display.
"What good are they, then?" Viggo asks behind a yawn. He throws a chocolate bar in their basket for energy's sake.
"We'll have to find an all-night drug store or someplace for that," Orlando decides. He frowns at the list. "I think Dom just added that because he's out."
Viggo pretends he didn't hear that.
There are no all-night drug stores to be found.
Viggo is faintly surprised Orlando doesn't have his own supply of black nail lacquer.
"Liv?" he suggests, rubbing the back of his neck, which has started to itch every time Orlando get his "idea face" on.
"Er. Last resort," Orlando says hurriedly, mumbling something about pink feathers.
Viggo raises an eyebrow and suddenly very much wants to wake up Liv, but he defers to Orlando's judgment.
"Right, down here," Orlando directs him, turning down the sort of dark alley one wouldn't go down in London or New York or even Los Angeles, questionable as it may be.
Viggo follows him anyway, glancing at the graffiti on the brick walls.
Orlando bangs on a steel door set into the wall. There's a faint screech of metal and pounding, pulsing music spills forth into the cool night air. Orlando says something that's lost in the music and the door opens. Orlando winks at Viggo and waves one hand.
Viggo nods and stays where he is. The graffiti is interesting--the artist shows more talent than the standard 'Killroy Was Here'. Even so, he's not sure he likes being left out in an alley while Orlando loses himself in a rave of some sort. He should have followed. He knows he would have hated it, but he should have followed.
As it turns out, he only has to wait and worry for a few minutes. Orlando reappears quickly, brandishing a small bottle of black polish and a shit-eating grin. Viggo congratulates him on the acquisition and doesn't ask about the grin.
"What's left?"
"Bloody page 43 and...Orange Crush?"
"It's a soda," Viggo explains. "It's popular in America."
"Bloody hell, how are we supposed to find that?" Orlando asks. "I thought they were talking about the song."
"There's a song?"
"The group with ah, Michael Stipe. REM."
"Hm." Viggo considers this and reaches for the list. He studies the black scrawl on the white paper and shrugs. "Doesn't say it has to be the soda. Do you have the song?"
"Uh. I don't think so. Not here, anyway."
"Not here as in, not at the ass-end of Tory Street or as in, not here in New Zealand?"
"I mean not in New Zealand but it's worth a look. Unless you want to go back to the all-night grocery?"
"I haven't seen it," Viggo admits, though he hasn't been looking.
"All right. My place, then."
They drive back to Orlando's house in his Jeep. Orlando's comfortable on the left side of the road. Viggo is too, by now, but he still marvels at the sensation of driving on the 'wrong' side. Orlando leaves the Jeep at the curb and leads the way up the path to his house. Viggo can't help but cast a glance as Liv's door and wonder what the deal was with the pink feathers.
"Place is a bit of a mess," Orlando says apologetically as he unlocks his door.
"S'ok." Viggo has the utmost respect for creative mess and more tolerance than most for random mess.
There's more mess than he anticipated, but when Orlando turns the light on, it's fairly easy to see where it's safe to step. Viggo moves a pile of clothes to the other end of the couch and perches in the cleared space while Orlando drops to one knee in front of his music collection. He pulls out a disk and studies the playlist, shaking his head slowly as he replaces it.
"No Orange Crush."
"To the all-night grocery?"
Orlando's frowning and there's that "idea face" again. As long as it doesn't get them arrested or maimed, Viggo's almost ready to go along with whatever he's thinking. It must say something that he's so invested in a scavenger hunt. What it says, exactly, he's not quite sure, but he's already decided it can't be anything good.
"Wait," Orlando says, climbing to his feet. He goes to the eating table and pushes a few things around.
"What's that?" Viggo asks, seeing Orlando come up with a book. He stands and walks across the room to peer over Orlando's shoulder.
"Oi," Orlando chuckles, handing the book to Viggo. "An Orange Crush? Is also a shot."
The book's a worn, dog-eared volume of drink recipes and suddenly Viggo understands where Orlando gets his creative cocktails. The pages are age-soft under his fingers and he thinks that he's holding some piece of Orlando in his hands. This book has known Orlando longer than Viggo has.
"You have the stuff?" he asks, skimming the ingredients.
"Orange juice is in the fridge," Orlando answers, holding up the vodka and triple sec.
They mix equal parts of all three in a thermos and Orlando finds two clean shot glasses to test the concoction.
"Not bad," Viggo admits, setting the glass down on the table. "What do we have left?"
Orlando pulls the list from his back pocket and groans.
"Where are we going to get a bloody page 43?"
"And Legolas says, 'Fuck this. Why didn't Elrond just give ME the fucking ring? I've been spending this whole trip saving your collective asses and spouting wisdom because I'm bored and it's fun to fuck with you all.'"
"Yeah, and then Aragorn said, 'Oh please, like they wouldn't see all that shiny blond hair coming a mile from Cirith Ungol. You're just here to draw in the teenage girls.'"
"Fourth wall!"
"Right, right, here, pour me another shot." Viggo leans over and holds the glass mostly steady as Orlando sloshes more of the Orange Crush into it. "How about 'You're just here so I have something to look at besides the dwarf.'"
"One word there--" Orlalndo says, pouring his own drink and throwing it back. "--yak hair."
"That's two words."
"Fuck off, it takes up more space."
"Right, fine, and then Gimli says, 'Y're shagging the wrong elf, y'know.' Because the coronation scene? You're really fucking pretty in that."
Orlando's grin eases into a curious look. "I am?"
Viggo looks up and realizes he's crossed a line. "You've seen the dailies," he says. "What do you think it looks like?"
"Just...." Orlando shrugs and shakes his head. "Y'know." He puffs up, cocky expression back on his face. "I'm the fucking Prince of Mirkwood," he boasts. "I can't help it if I outshine the dirty humans."
For some reason the cockiness makes Viggo feel bad. It might not be a mask but the odds aren't good.
He reaches out and turns Orlando's face in his hand. He's so young, all fresh and shiny even in the middle of the night and Viggo thinks that it's at least partly an optical illusion from the mohawk. He presses his forehead to Orlando's, a gesture that's become second nature and not particularly significant.
Maybe the Orange Crush is stronger than he thought. Maybe six in the morning on three hours of sleep is too much for his old brain. Maybe he just wants to.
The kiss isn't exactly chaste, but it's not leading either. Friendly. Companionable. Sweet. And...dangerous.
"I had a good time tonight," Viggo says softly.
"Vig." Orlando's face is serious, shadowed now in the dim light, and his eyes are dark. He twists his head, pulling away from Viggo's hand and then turns to meet his eyes again. "You can't do that."
"I know." Viggo feels chastised and sighs in frustration. He thinks if Orlando kisses him back, just now, he'll go with it. Reservations aside, he wants Orlando and it's pretty difficult not to give in to that. But they had an agreement and Viggo feels bound by that--to give Orlando a chance to become his own man, a star in his own right. He lifts his head because Orlando deserves that much--a face-to-face apology. "I'm sorry."
Orlando looks blank and Viggo finds the memory of his openness bittersweet.
"It's just--I need time too."
Viggo wants to ask Orlando what he means but he's not sure he has the right. Instead he watches Orlando's profile as he turns away and follows the pensive gaze to the clock on the wall.
"Fuck! We've got half an hour. C'mon, let's get this thing done! We need to get going!" Orlando leaps to his feet and grabs the thermos of Orange Crush. He screws on the lid and throws it in the knapsack they've been using to transport the rest of their bounty.
"Going? Where are we going?"
Orlando drags him to the dining tent, lit by battery-powered lamps clustered on the middle three tables.
To his surprise, not only are the hobbits clustered around, drinking orange juice that the early catering personnel set out, but so are Ian, Sean, Liv, Hugo and Peter.
"There he is!" Elijah calls.
Attention turns to them and Viggo notices the odd attire of the rest of the cast.
"Elf in pink feathers!" Dom calls, waving his scrawled page over Liv's head. She yawns into her coffee and gives him the finger. The pink marabou lining her wrap has managed to get all over Dom.
"Wizard in a smoking jacket," Billy replies, pointing at Ian.
"We thought you'd get Christopher," Elijah says with glee.
Billy snorts. "Right. I like my life, thanks."
"Man in a kilt? Who had Man in a kilt?" Elijah asks, glancing at Sean Astin.
"I'm not bloody Scottish and I'm too old for this shite," Bean snarls, sitting awkwardly in a kilt that nowhere near fits him. United Sheffield shorts peek out from underneath. "And so are you," he tells Viggo.
Viggo shrugs and glances at Hugo calmly crossing his legs in one of Galadriel's dresses.
"Yo," Elijah says, hopping up. "Your Man's supposed to be only half-dressed."
"Right, right, I'm there," Viggo promises, kicking off his mocs and pulling his shirt over his head. His audience claps and whistles for him as he winks and flexes a few muscles.
"Page 43!" Billy calls, waving a small piece of paper.
"Not of the book," Elijah protests.
"Yeah, we were looking for the mysteriously absent page 43 of the script," Dom reminds him.
"Oh, and I guess you found it?" Billy asks skeptically.
"Sure." Dom proudly holds out a script page with the number 43 scrawled on the bottom. The rest is blank.
"I did better!" Elijah crows, hopping up on a chair.
Peter holds up one hand. "I can't believe Elijah pulled me out of bed for this." He looks around. "There is no page 43. There never was. It was a numbering snafu."
"Sneaky bastard," Sean--Astin, this time--accuses.
"Hey, I went right to the source," Elijah protests. "How about you guys?" he asks, attention on Orlando and Viggo. "What'd you get for page 43?"
Orlando's holding the fake page 43 they wrote so Viggo looks to him and watches as Orlando gives the best innocent shrug he's seen in a long time. "Never got to it," Orlando says blithely. "Barely made it here as it was. 'Sides. There is no page 43."
Elijah looks disappointed but goes on to jump on Dom's back and pester the rest of the group about page 43.
Viggo reaches out and squeezes Orlando's shoulder. He starts to ask why Orlando didn't tell the others about their gag page. But then he doesn't. He knows why. It's like some of his photographs. The ones which aren't released for public consumption. The ones which stay close to his hand because they're close to his heart.
He wraps an arm across Orlando's chest and leans his head down to rest his mouth against Orlando's shoulder as their friends run around in chaos fueled by hobbit energy. And he doesn't say a word.
The End