FIC: Orlando/Elijah
Title: Lucky Dog
Author/Artist: Montmorency
Requestor: Talesinbloom
Pairing: Orlando/Elijah
Rating: PG-13 for language
Warnings: Fanfic clichés!
Summary, as provided by Talesinbloom: Crushing on each other first time fic, taking shelter somewhere after being trapped between the mudslides that happened while filming. Drenched clothing clichés and shy hot kisses a bonus.
A/N: There is a story of how Sean B., who is notoriously afraid of helicopters, had convinced Orlando to drive with him to a remote shooting location. On the way they got trapped between two mudslides and had to spend three days with a little old lady who lived all alone up there. Of course I needed to get Elijah in there, hence…. :)
A/N the second: RL rough. Story not finished on time. Aieeeee! So I’ll post what I have - which has been underway for weeks anyway - and then Part 2 will show up soon, just like magic. Because I must do justice to those shy hot kisses.
A/N the third: Story named "Lucky Dog" in honor of the doggie in the icon.
There went that insane giggle again.
Orlando kind of liked that giggle.
Orlando really liked Elijah.
“What a wuss!” Elijah hooted. “Can you believe Bean?”
Orlando shook his head. “If only the world knew….”
“How does he get away with it!” Elijah continued excitably, practically bouncing up and down in the passenger seat. “Sharpe’s Rifles, my ass.”
“He’s short, too.”
“Hey!” Elijah glared at Orlando, who glared back. “I’m short,” Elijah announced rather needlessly.
Orlando smiled and ruffled Elijah’s hair. “On you, it’s cute.”
Elijah blushed. “Keep your eyes on the road, you prize wanker, I don’t wanna go over a cliff.”
Orlando swerved hard once or twice, just to show Elijah who was in charge, but only succeeded in setting off more giggles. Bean may have been afraid of planes and helicopters, but Elijah Wood seemed fearless - even heedless - of danger. Or perhaps he was too absorbed in angling his digital camera out the open passenger window, taking random drive-by shots of the outrageously green hillsides and the lowering storm clouds and the trees clustered now sparsely, now thickly along the perilously winding road that hugged the mountainside.
Orlando stole another look at Elijah. The bloke was wearing his femmy glasses, a cigarette dangling from his lips while he was trying to line up a steady shot. Muttering fuck under his breath every time the car bounced on a bump in the road. Orlando found him almost unbearably cute.
I’m a lucky dog, Orlando thought happily.
At first Bean had wanted Orlando to drive up to the shooting location, so he didn’t need to ride in a helicopter. What a thought - four hours in a car with Bean. Then Viggo had expressed an interest in joining them. Then Elijah wanted to go, but Bean’s roadster wasn’t big enough for four, let alone three. Pure hell, that would have been. So Orlando had casually come up with a compromise - two cars. The four of them would still be able to get out at viewpoints and stop for meals or take breaks to answer nature’s call. But four hours in a car alone with Elijah… yes, Orlando was a very lucky dog.
“I think it might rain,” Orlando observed.
A fat raindrop splatted on the bug-encrusted windscreen.
“On what do you base that observation?” Elijah said distractedly, snapping another picture.
Two more raindrops struck and Elijah drew his arm inside the car, shifted the camera to his right hand, then rolled up the window with his left, then put out his cigarette in the ashtray.
Within seconds the rain was pummeling the roof of the car.
“Oh, crap,” Orlando swore as the car slid and the steering wheel nearly got away from him. He slowed the car but kept driving, hoping to find a turnout because otherwise it didn’t seem wise to stop in the dead middle of a two-lane road with zero visibility around the winding turns. On the other hand, the rain was coming down so hard and fast that the slope above the road was morphing into mud and running across the road’s surface.
He touched the brake pedal lightly and the tires immediately lost their grip on the tarmac. The car fishtailed.
“YOU’RE GOING OVER THE EDGE!” Elijah shrieked in a pitch so high that even he would have admitted, if he hadn’t been preoccupied with thoughts of imminent death, that it was extraordinarily girly. Apparently Elijah Wood knew fear after all. “Pump the brakes! Pump the brakes!” he yelled as though that would help.
“They’re supposed to be anti-lock!” Orlando yelled back, but the car was no longer his to control.
It happened in a slow motion that took only seconds. The distance to the road’s edge was too small to give the brakes a chance, and the car slid off and down the slope at a stomach-churning angle. The passenger door quickly encountered a stout tree trunk and, with only a bit more slewing, the car lurched and banged to a full stop.
For another slow-motion moment, Elijah and Orlando sat perfectly still, staring out the windscreen. The rain beat down like kettle drums.
Orlando turned and looked at Elijah. “Are you okay?” he whispered, barely loud enough to be heard.
Elijah whimpered.
“Elijah!” Orlando cried. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
He fumbled his seat belt open and awkwardly shuffled until he was almost crouching over the smaller boy, looking to see what part might be damaged.
“I think I’m okay,” Elijah whispered. “I can’t reach- I’m just kind of stuck-“
The side of the car had crunched in slightly where it had impacted the tree, making the passenger door intrude inward, trapping Elijah’s leg. It didn’t look bad. Orlando wormed his hand down between the door and Elijah’s hip and found the door latch and released it. Still nearly up against the tree trunk, the door couldn’t move much, but even a little movement eased some of the pressure on the leg. With his other hand Orlando released Elijah’s seat-belt and scrambled back to the driver’s seat, pulling Elijah over away from the door. There were limits, of course, because it wasn’t a bench seat and there were controls and shifters and things in the way.
Water was leaking in around the passenger door. The tree branches and leaves above them were doing nothing to stop the onslaught of water. The whole hillside seemed to be moving.
Elijah turned miserable blue eyes up to Orlando, and Orlando felt his heart lurch. He should be the strong one - after all he was four years older and went bungee-jumping off bridges for fun. Elijah wasn’t even old enough to drink in many parts of the world. Orlando found that he was clutching Elijah’s hand hard. He looked out the rapidly fogging window at the wet dark world.
“That’s a shitload of mud,” he said.
Elijah shifted but couldn’t get any closer to Orlando. “Do you think Viggo and Sean are okay?” he asked.
Orlando shrugged. “I hope so.”
“Maybe they’ll come and help us?”
“Maybe they’re waiting for us to help them.”
The car shifted, jockeying for a new position against the tree trunk. The engine was still running but there was no way the tires would get any traction. Especially if the axle or the gearbox had been damaged.
Orlando found Elijah’s panicked eyes on him once again. Magnified by the glasses, they looked extra pleading.
“I think we should get out of the car,” said Orlando, feeling a lot less certain than he sounded.
Elijah looked a lot less certain than Orlando felt.
“Come on, Lij,” Orlando urged, “it’s a fucking river of mud pouring down, the car’s going to keep moving. Down. Farther from the road.”
Elijah nodded. “Okay.”
Shit. Now he was turning those trusting blue eyes on Orlando again. His small square hand felt clammy.
What would Legolas do? Orlando thought to himself, turning the engine off and checking the glove box for anything useful. Fuck that. What would Aragorn do?
The car lurched again and started to move unhurriedly around the trunk.
“Oh fuck, come on!” Orlando yanked open the car door, which due to the cant of the car had to be pushed upward. He climbed out and fell into a mud bath. It took a full three seconds until he was soaked through to the skin.
By that time Elijah had clambered over the map console and the shifter and had his arm grabbed by Orlando who hauled him from the car.
The dark sky lit up suddenly, followed by a ferocious clap of thunder. Orlando aimed for higher ground and began to push his way through the mud. “We have to get to the road!”
“Leg hurts,” Elijah said, shoving wet hair out of his eyes and pushing his glasses back up his nose.
“Ah, fuck, I don’t think I can carry you up the hill, mate.”
“I can walk,” Elijah groused, starting to move.
“Put your arm around my back and let me take the weight on that side,” Orlando instructed, anchoring his own arm around Elijah’s shoulders and holding on fiercely as he guided them forward.
The going was slow and filthy. The hard rain kept washing them off, and then more sloshing through mud created new layers of filth. The hillside was covered with brambles which they used to gain purchase and haul themselves upward. Once on the road’s surface, it was obvious that no one was going to be out driving, visibility was that bad. They crossed the road to the far side where rocky outcroppings hugged the edge of the tarmac.
Orlando looked back down the winding road. “Fuck,” he said. The way was entirely blocked by what appeared to be half the mountainside falling down onto the road and continuing past it into the ravine. He looked the other way and it seemed clear, as least as far as he could see before the road wound out of sight.
His arm was still around Elijah and suddenly it occurred to him that Elijah was shivering. They had left their jackets behind, and their clothing was soaked through. The rain kept pouring down on their heads.
“Come on,” he said, starting forward and sliding his hand down Elijah’s arm in order to take his hand. There had to be some shelter somehow, maybe around the next bend. Maybe they could even find Bean and Viggo, although with the way Bean drove it was likely they were far ahead.
Around the corner was another deep curve. The rock wall didn’t abut the tarmac so closely at the apex of the curve, though, and Orlando thought perhaps they could find a tiny amount of shelter. It looked, as best he could tell while trying to blink rain out of his eyes, that there was a steep green slope, craggy with overgrown boulders, that reclined away from the vertical rock wall.
He steered them over there and found a stony overhang. Perfect. He wasn’t liking the way that Elijah seemed to have a limp, however slight. The overhang went back in quite a ways, not enough to be totally dry, but definitely out of the driving rain. He was grateful to the rain for washing both of them almost entirely free of the mud, but even so it was fucking freezing.
He dropped Elijah’s hand so he could squat down in the shelter. He looked up. He couldn’t even see Elijah’s eyes because his glasses were fogged over. “Are you cold?”
“I’m fucking f-freezing,” Elijah said.
“Then sit down and lean against me, I’ll warm you up. Come on.”
He reached up and took Elijah’s hand again and tugged gently, and Elijah crumpled into his lap.
“Much better,” Orlando said soothingly, wrapping both arms around Elijah, trying in fact to get as much of himself around Elijah as possible. “Your teeth are chattering.”
“I k-know,” said Elijah.
Lightning blazed. Rain was still bouncing into their paltry shelter. Orlando shoved backwards against the brambles, trying to get farther beneath the overhang. Just as thunder cracked and rolled, the wall of greenery behind him gave way and with a shout he fell backwards into…
… into what?
“Ouch!” Elijah cried out in the darkness.
“Where the fuck - “ All Orlando knew was it was suddenly extra dark, and dank-smelling, and Elijah had landed on top of him. On top of his recently mended previously broken ohbabesithurts rib. “Off, Elijah, get off!”
He felt rather than saw Elijah roll off.
Lightning lit up the scene with fitful brevity.
A cave. It was a cave of some sort. The brambles had been hiding the entrance.
And then it was dark again.
And quiet. Orlando couldn’t hear anything other than the rain. Where was Elijah? He patted his pockets but of course he had grabbed nothing so useful as a torch from the car before abandoning it. He began to crawl carefully on his hands and knees, feeling his way. “Elijah? Elijah!”
“Over here, s-stop yelling,” came Elijah’s voice.
Orlando reached out and encountered a miserable heap of boy wrapped in sopping wet clothing. “Is your leg all right then?”
“S’ok- okay.”
“You’re still shaking.”
“Y-yeah.”
“Hold on.” Orlando wasn’t much for ideas, he knew he wasn’t particularly bright, but the ground of the cave felt dry and he thought he had seen twigs or branches when lightning had flashed. For all he knew, this was a bear’s cave (although were there bears in New Zealand?), but he couldn’t worry about that now. Instead he thought about how lucky he was, because hadn’t he been amazingly lucky to get cast as Legolas? There was a time when he’d been unlucky, weeping over a friend’s dinner table about auditions gone awry. But things were different now. He was lucky. Well, maybe not lucky to get caught in this torrential storm with a crashed car and a hurt Elijah.
But then again, he was with Elijah. And that counted for a lot in his book. Yep - lucky dog, that Orlando.
He scuttled back towards the entrance and yanked and pulled on the brambles until some of them fell away. A dim grey light illuminated just a bit more of the cave. Outside the rain was still pouring down and thunder was rolling. More lightning flashed.
“Look!” he said, crawling back. “This is dry brush or something. I think I can light a fire.”
Elijah looked over and rolled his eyes. His teeth were actually chattering. “H-h-h-how?”
Orlando grinned and pulled as much of the brush and twigs as he could into a small tower. “When I was a wee lad I loved American westerns. I used to pretend that I was John Wayne.”
“S-superman.”
“Huh?”
“Wanted t-to be S-superman.”
“Good choice.” Now that Orlando had a MissionTM, he got busy. He selected two sticks and prepared to saw one against the other until there was fire. He wasn’t entirely certain how this worked, but he’d seen Indians do it in movies.
He had been sawing away quite awhile, with no appearance of any spark or smoke or any fucking thing at all, when he realized that Elijah was making a funny noise. His hands stopped. He raised his eyes and looked over in the dimness.
Elijah’s shoulders were shaking. Not with cold - with laughter. And he was giggling at the same time his teeth continued to chatter, which was a really weird sound, kind of like hiccoughing or something.
“I’m trying to help,” Orlando grumped. “And you’re laughing at me.”
Elijah’s laughter wound down. He unfolded his arms, reached into a pocket and brought out something that he tossed to Orlando. Immediately he hugged his arms around himself again.
Orlando bobbled the object and dropped it. A lighter. “Brilliant,” said Orlando, opening it and flicking it a few times until it lit. Feeling lucky yet again that the flint had stayed dray, he blew gently at the tiny flame until the brush was burning, the flame growing as it jumped from twig to branch.
The cave brightened in the ruddy glow. Orlando crawled to Elijah’s side. “Better, yeah?” He pulled Elijah’s hands away and chafed them between his own, being careful not to block the fire’s small warmth from reaching Elijah.
As the light grew in the enclosed area and Elijah stopped shivering so badly, Orlando finally felt he had a moment to think.
Here he had been taking charge, and saving both of them - admittedly after having driven them over the side of the road first - and finding shelter and keeping Elijah warm. He felt that he’d been quite a hero, and the feeling added to the warmth that was growing inside him.
Yes indeed. Adorable Elijah was looking up at him - Orlando Bloom - adoringly, or at any rate Orlando assumed that was how he looked, for the glasses were still completely fogged up.
“How can you see?” he mumbled, and before he knew it, his hand was moving and slipped the glasses from Elijah’s face.
“John Wayne, I presume?” Elijah asked innocently.
“Bollocks,” Orlando said.
The fire felt good and it had grown a bit bigger; the flames cast a rosy radiance on Elijah’s face.
“The firelight’s dancing in your eyes,” said Orlando, wanting to smack himself the moment the insipid observation slipped out.
But Elijah smiled at him. He shuddered again. “I’m still cold,” he whispered.
Right. Cold. Orlando the Hero had more work to do. He cast about the cave and found more brambles and built up the pyre. The cave appeared to be quite roomy and the entrance was open for air, so it seemed safe enough. The firelight reached only so far and it appeared that the cave went well back into the rocky hillside. Back to where, Orlando didn’t care to think.
“Do you suppose there are wolves or bears or anything like that in New Zealand?” he asked.
“John Wayne wouldn’t be afraid,” Elijah replied.
“Who said I’m afraid?”
“Dude, I’m Superman and I’m afraid.”
“Think there’s some Kryptonite back there?”
“Could be.”
Orlando was pleased to note that the horrid sound of chattering teeth had stopped. “Warmer?” he asked.
Elijah nodded. “Feels good.” He squirmed a little to get closer to the fire.
Orlando couldn’t help noticing the thin knit shirt that was plastered to Elijah’s scrawny torso, or the tiny points that were clearly demarcated. Ohmigod, nipples was all he could think. He leapt up to circle the cave and find more fuel for the blaze.
“Um, Orli?” Elijah said, cocking his head sideways with an almost unbearably kittenish grace.
His heart pounding in his chest, Orlando crouched nearby, feeding more branches into the fire. “Yeah?”
“It was better when you - you know…” Elijah trailed off.
“Huh?”
“You know,” Elijah insisted, not wanting to say.
Orlando squinted. “I’m not sure - “
“HOLD ME IN YOUR BIG STRONG ARMS, COWBOY!!!” Elijah yelled.
Oh right. Feeling extremely stupid, Orlando scooted behind Elijah and put his legs on the outside of Elijah’s legs and wrapped his wiry arms around Elijah. It was a nasty, clammy feeling - touching the wet clothes - but he tried to put that out of his mind and concentrate instead on the fact that he was holding Elijah - tightly. Or that Elijah had turned his head so that he was resting it on Orlando’s shoulder and his cold nose was pressed into Orlando’s throat.
Truth to tell, Orlando felt unlucky when it came to matters of love. He wasn’t particularly shy when he wanted something - until the day he met the Blue-eyed Boy Wonder of Hollywood and developed the worst crush of his entire puberty-slash-young-manhood. It didn’t help at all that Sir fucking Ian fucking McKellen thought it was funny to swat him down like a gnat when he asked for something on set. He was the least experienced actor on that set and it was embarrassing in front of everyone, not to mention Elijah. Then when he broke that rib and whinged about it like any normal human being would, and the hobbits all thought it was very funny.
Still, Orlando was nothing if not an optimist. He was good at acting the fool and then leaving it behind him. He had jumped at the chance to spend all this quality time with Elijah and while the quality was in question, and even their continued existence might be in question, the solid fact of two armfuls of sopping wet Elijah bloody well demanding to be held… well, did it get any better than this?
“You smell like a wet dog,” Elijah mumbled sleepily.
Ah, love. How sweet it was. Orlando was pretty sure that John Wayne had never had to put up with a frontier woman as sassy as Elijah Wood. Even though some of those women were pretty fucking sassy.
Nope, definitely not as sassy as Elijah Wood. Elijah defined sassy. The cheeky little monkey.
Orlando was so in love. And so fucked.
Author/Artist: Montmorency
Requestor: Talesinbloom
Pairing: Orlando/Elijah
Rating: PG-13 for language
Warnings: Fanfic clichés!
Summary, as provided by Talesinbloom: Crushing on each other first time fic, taking shelter somewhere after being trapped between the mudslides that happened while filming. Drenched clothing clichés and shy hot kisses a bonus.
A/N: There is a story of how Sean B., who is notoriously afraid of helicopters, had convinced Orlando to drive with him to a remote shooting location. On the way they got trapped between two mudslides and had to spend three days with a little old lady who lived all alone up there. Of course I needed to get Elijah in there, hence…. :)
A/N the second: RL rough. Story not finished on time. Aieeeee! So I’ll post what I have - which has been underway for weeks anyway - and then Part 2 will show up soon, just like magic. Because I must do justice to those shy hot kisses.
A/N the third: Story named "Lucky Dog" in honor of the doggie in the icon.
There went that insane giggle again.
Orlando kind of liked that giggle.
Orlando really liked Elijah.
“What a wuss!” Elijah hooted. “Can you believe Bean?”
Orlando shook his head. “If only the world knew….”
“How does he get away with it!” Elijah continued excitably, practically bouncing up and down in the passenger seat. “Sharpe’s Rifles, my ass.”
“He’s short, too.”
“Hey!” Elijah glared at Orlando, who glared back. “I’m short,” Elijah announced rather needlessly.
Orlando smiled and ruffled Elijah’s hair. “On you, it’s cute.”
Elijah blushed. “Keep your eyes on the road, you prize wanker, I don’t wanna go over a cliff.”
Orlando swerved hard once or twice, just to show Elijah who was in charge, but only succeeded in setting off more giggles. Bean may have been afraid of planes and helicopters, but Elijah Wood seemed fearless - even heedless - of danger. Or perhaps he was too absorbed in angling his digital camera out the open passenger window, taking random drive-by shots of the outrageously green hillsides and the lowering storm clouds and the trees clustered now sparsely, now thickly along the perilously winding road that hugged the mountainside.
Orlando stole another look at Elijah. The bloke was wearing his femmy glasses, a cigarette dangling from his lips while he was trying to line up a steady shot. Muttering fuck under his breath every time the car bounced on a bump in the road. Orlando found him almost unbearably cute.
I’m a lucky dog, Orlando thought happily.
At first Bean had wanted Orlando to drive up to the shooting location, so he didn’t need to ride in a helicopter. What a thought - four hours in a car with Bean. Then Viggo had expressed an interest in joining them. Then Elijah wanted to go, but Bean’s roadster wasn’t big enough for four, let alone three. Pure hell, that would have been. So Orlando had casually come up with a compromise - two cars. The four of them would still be able to get out at viewpoints and stop for meals or take breaks to answer nature’s call. But four hours in a car alone with Elijah… yes, Orlando was a very lucky dog.
“I think it might rain,” Orlando observed.
A fat raindrop splatted on the bug-encrusted windscreen.
“On what do you base that observation?” Elijah said distractedly, snapping another picture.
Two more raindrops struck and Elijah drew his arm inside the car, shifted the camera to his right hand, then rolled up the window with his left, then put out his cigarette in the ashtray.
Within seconds the rain was pummeling the roof of the car.
“Oh, crap,” Orlando swore as the car slid and the steering wheel nearly got away from him. He slowed the car but kept driving, hoping to find a turnout because otherwise it didn’t seem wise to stop in the dead middle of a two-lane road with zero visibility around the winding turns. On the other hand, the rain was coming down so hard and fast that the slope above the road was morphing into mud and running across the road’s surface.
He touched the brake pedal lightly and the tires immediately lost their grip on the tarmac. The car fishtailed.
“YOU’RE GOING OVER THE EDGE!” Elijah shrieked in a pitch so high that even he would have admitted, if he hadn’t been preoccupied with thoughts of imminent death, that it was extraordinarily girly. Apparently Elijah Wood knew fear after all. “Pump the brakes! Pump the brakes!” he yelled as though that would help.
“They’re supposed to be anti-lock!” Orlando yelled back, but the car was no longer his to control.
It happened in a slow motion that took only seconds. The distance to the road’s edge was too small to give the brakes a chance, and the car slid off and down the slope at a stomach-churning angle. The passenger door quickly encountered a stout tree trunk and, with only a bit more slewing, the car lurched and banged to a full stop.
For another slow-motion moment, Elijah and Orlando sat perfectly still, staring out the windscreen. The rain beat down like kettle drums.
Orlando turned and looked at Elijah. “Are you okay?” he whispered, barely loud enough to be heard.
Elijah whimpered.
“Elijah!” Orlando cried. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
He fumbled his seat belt open and awkwardly shuffled until he was almost crouching over the smaller boy, looking to see what part might be damaged.
“I think I’m okay,” Elijah whispered. “I can’t reach- I’m just kind of stuck-“
The side of the car had crunched in slightly where it had impacted the tree, making the passenger door intrude inward, trapping Elijah’s leg. It didn’t look bad. Orlando wormed his hand down between the door and Elijah’s hip and found the door latch and released it. Still nearly up against the tree trunk, the door couldn’t move much, but even a little movement eased some of the pressure on the leg. With his other hand Orlando released Elijah’s seat-belt and scrambled back to the driver’s seat, pulling Elijah over away from the door. There were limits, of course, because it wasn’t a bench seat and there were controls and shifters and things in the way.
Water was leaking in around the passenger door. The tree branches and leaves above them were doing nothing to stop the onslaught of water. The whole hillside seemed to be moving.
Elijah turned miserable blue eyes up to Orlando, and Orlando felt his heart lurch. He should be the strong one - after all he was four years older and went bungee-jumping off bridges for fun. Elijah wasn’t even old enough to drink in many parts of the world. Orlando found that he was clutching Elijah’s hand hard. He looked out the rapidly fogging window at the wet dark world.
“That’s a shitload of mud,” he said.
Elijah shifted but couldn’t get any closer to Orlando. “Do you think Viggo and Sean are okay?” he asked.
Orlando shrugged. “I hope so.”
“Maybe they’ll come and help us?”
“Maybe they’re waiting for us to help them.”
The car shifted, jockeying for a new position against the tree trunk. The engine was still running but there was no way the tires would get any traction. Especially if the axle or the gearbox had been damaged.
Orlando found Elijah’s panicked eyes on him once again. Magnified by the glasses, they looked extra pleading.
“I think we should get out of the car,” said Orlando, feeling a lot less certain than he sounded.
Elijah looked a lot less certain than Orlando felt.
“Come on, Lij,” Orlando urged, “it’s a fucking river of mud pouring down, the car’s going to keep moving. Down. Farther from the road.”
Elijah nodded. “Okay.”
Shit. Now he was turning those trusting blue eyes on Orlando again. His small square hand felt clammy.
What would Legolas do? Orlando thought to himself, turning the engine off and checking the glove box for anything useful. Fuck that. What would Aragorn do?
The car lurched again and started to move unhurriedly around the trunk.
“Oh fuck, come on!” Orlando yanked open the car door, which due to the cant of the car had to be pushed upward. He climbed out and fell into a mud bath. It took a full three seconds until he was soaked through to the skin.
By that time Elijah had clambered over the map console and the shifter and had his arm grabbed by Orlando who hauled him from the car.
The dark sky lit up suddenly, followed by a ferocious clap of thunder. Orlando aimed for higher ground and began to push his way through the mud. “We have to get to the road!”
“Leg hurts,” Elijah said, shoving wet hair out of his eyes and pushing his glasses back up his nose.
“Ah, fuck, I don’t think I can carry you up the hill, mate.”
“I can walk,” Elijah groused, starting to move.
“Put your arm around my back and let me take the weight on that side,” Orlando instructed, anchoring his own arm around Elijah’s shoulders and holding on fiercely as he guided them forward.
The going was slow and filthy. The hard rain kept washing them off, and then more sloshing through mud created new layers of filth. The hillside was covered with brambles which they used to gain purchase and haul themselves upward. Once on the road’s surface, it was obvious that no one was going to be out driving, visibility was that bad. They crossed the road to the far side where rocky outcroppings hugged the edge of the tarmac.
Orlando looked back down the winding road. “Fuck,” he said. The way was entirely blocked by what appeared to be half the mountainside falling down onto the road and continuing past it into the ravine. He looked the other way and it seemed clear, as least as far as he could see before the road wound out of sight.
His arm was still around Elijah and suddenly it occurred to him that Elijah was shivering. They had left their jackets behind, and their clothing was soaked through. The rain kept pouring down on their heads.
“Come on,” he said, starting forward and sliding his hand down Elijah’s arm in order to take his hand. There had to be some shelter somehow, maybe around the next bend. Maybe they could even find Bean and Viggo, although with the way Bean drove it was likely they were far ahead.
Around the corner was another deep curve. The rock wall didn’t abut the tarmac so closely at the apex of the curve, though, and Orlando thought perhaps they could find a tiny amount of shelter. It looked, as best he could tell while trying to blink rain out of his eyes, that there was a steep green slope, craggy with overgrown boulders, that reclined away from the vertical rock wall.
He steered them over there and found a stony overhang. Perfect. He wasn’t liking the way that Elijah seemed to have a limp, however slight. The overhang went back in quite a ways, not enough to be totally dry, but definitely out of the driving rain. He was grateful to the rain for washing both of them almost entirely free of the mud, but even so it was fucking freezing.
He dropped Elijah’s hand so he could squat down in the shelter. He looked up. He couldn’t even see Elijah’s eyes because his glasses were fogged over. “Are you cold?”
“I’m fucking f-freezing,” Elijah said.
“Then sit down and lean against me, I’ll warm you up. Come on.”
He reached up and took Elijah’s hand again and tugged gently, and Elijah crumpled into his lap.
“Much better,” Orlando said soothingly, wrapping both arms around Elijah, trying in fact to get as much of himself around Elijah as possible. “Your teeth are chattering.”
“I k-know,” said Elijah.
Lightning blazed. Rain was still bouncing into their paltry shelter. Orlando shoved backwards against the brambles, trying to get farther beneath the overhang. Just as thunder cracked and rolled, the wall of greenery behind him gave way and with a shout he fell backwards into…
… into what?
“Ouch!” Elijah cried out in the darkness.
“Where the fuck - “ All Orlando knew was it was suddenly extra dark, and dank-smelling, and Elijah had landed on top of him. On top of his recently mended previously broken ohbabesithurts rib. “Off, Elijah, get off!”
He felt rather than saw Elijah roll off.
Lightning lit up the scene with fitful brevity.
A cave. It was a cave of some sort. The brambles had been hiding the entrance.
And then it was dark again.
And quiet. Orlando couldn’t hear anything other than the rain. Where was Elijah? He patted his pockets but of course he had grabbed nothing so useful as a torch from the car before abandoning it. He began to crawl carefully on his hands and knees, feeling his way. “Elijah? Elijah!”
“Over here, s-stop yelling,” came Elijah’s voice.
Orlando reached out and encountered a miserable heap of boy wrapped in sopping wet clothing. “Is your leg all right then?”
“S’ok- okay.”
“You’re still shaking.”
“Y-yeah.”
“Hold on.” Orlando wasn’t much for ideas, he knew he wasn’t particularly bright, but the ground of the cave felt dry and he thought he had seen twigs or branches when lightning had flashed. For all he knew, this was a bear’s cave (although were there bears in New Zealand?), but he couldn’t worry about that now. Instead he thought about how lucky he was, because hadn’t he been amazingly lucky to get cast as Legolas? There was a time when he’d been unlucky, weeping over a friend’s dinner table about auditions gone awry. But things were different now. He was lucky. Well, maybe not lucky to get caught in this torrential storm with a crashed car and a hurt Elijah.
But then again, he was with Elijah. And that counted for a lot in his book. Yep - lucky dog, that Orlando.
He scuttled back towards the entrance and yanked and pulled on the brambles until some of them fell away. A dim grey light illuminated just a bit more of the cave. Outside the rain was still pouring down and thunder was rolling. More lightning flashed.
“Look!” he said, crawling back. “This is dry brush or something. I think I can light a fire.”
Elijah looked over and rolled his eyes. His teeth were actually chattering. “H-h-h-how?”
Orlando grinned and pulled as much of the brush and twigs as he could into a small tower. “When I was a wee lad I loved American westerns. I used to pretend that I was John Wayne.”
“S-superman.”
“Huh?”
“Wanted t-to be S-superman.”
“Good choice.” Now that Orlando had a MissionTM, he got busy. He selected two sticks and prepared to saw one against the other until there was fire. He wasn’t entirely certain how this worked, but he’d seen Indians do it in movies.
He had been sawing away quite awhile, with no appearance of any spark or smoke or any fucking thing at all, when he realized that Elijah was making a funny noise. His hands stopped. He raised his eyes and looked over in the dimness.
Elijah’s shoulders were shaking. Not with cold - with laughter. And he was giggling at the same time his teeth continued to chatter, which was a really weird sound, kind of like hiccoughing or something.
“I’m trying to help,” Orlando grumped. “And you’re laughing at me.”
Elijah’s laughter wound down. He unfolded his arms, reached into a pocket and brought out something that he tossed to Orlando. Immediately he hugged his arms around himself again.
Orlando bobbled the object and dropped it. A lighter. “Brilliant,” said Orlando, opening it and flicking it a few times until it lit. Feeling lucky yet again that the flint had stayed dray, he blew gently at the tiny flame until the brush was burning, the flame growing as it jumped from twig to branch.
The cave brightened in the ruddy glow. Orlando crawled to Elijah’s side. “Better, yeah?” He pulled Elijah’s hands away and chafed them between his own, being careful not to block the fire’s small warmth from reaching Elijah.
As the light grew in the enclosed area and Elijah stopped shivering so badly, Orlando finally felt he had a moment to think.
Here he had been taking charge, and saving both of them - admittedly after having driven them over the side of the road first - and finding shelter and keeping Elijah warm. He felt that he’d been quite a hero, and the feeling added to the warmth that was growing inside him.
Yes indeed. Adorable Elijah was looking up at him - Orlando Bloom - adoringly, or at any rate Orlando assumed that was how he looked, for the glasses were still completely fogged up.
“How can you see?” he mumbled, and before he knew it, his hand was moving and slipped the glasses from Elijah’s face.
“John Wayne, I presume?” Elijah asked innocently.
“Bollocks,” Orlando said.
The fire felt good and it had grown a bit bigger; the flames cast a rosy radiance on Elijah’s face.
“The firelight’s dancing in your eyes,” said Orlando, wanting to smack himself the moment the insipid observation slipped out.
But Elijah smiled at him. He shuddered again. “I’m still cold,” he whispered.
Right. Cold. Orlando the Hero had more work to do. He cast about the cave and found more brambles and built up the pyre. The cave appeared to be quite roomy and the entrance was open for air, so it seemed safe enough. The firelight reached only so far and it appeared that the cave went well back into the rocky hillside. Back to where, Orlando didn’t care to think.
“Do you suppose there are wolves or bears or anything like that in New Zealand?” he asked.
“John Wayne wouldn’t be afraid,” Elijah replied.
“Who said I’m afraid?”
“Dude, I’m Superman and I’m afraid.”
“Think there’s some Kryptonite back there?”
“Could be.”
Orlando was pleased to note that the horrid sound of chattering teeth had stopped. “Warmer?” he asked.
Elijah nodded. “Feels good.” He squirmed a little to get closer to the fire.
Orlando couldn’t help noticing the thin knit shirt that was plastered to Elijah’s scrawny torso, or the tiny points that were clearly demarcated. Ohmigod, nipples was all he could think. He leapt up to circle the cave and find more fuel for the blaze.
“Um, Orli?” Elijah said, cocking his head sideways with an almost unbearably kittenish grace.
His heart pounding in his chest, Orlando crouched nearby, feeding more branches into the fire. “Yeah?”
“It was better when you - you know…” Elijah trailed off.
“Huh?”
“You know,” Elijah insisted, not wanting to say.
Orlando squinted. “I’m not sure - “
“HOLD ME IN YOUR BIG STRONG ARMS, COWBOY!!!” Elijah yelled.
Oh right. Feeling extremely stupid, Orlando scooted behind Elijah and put his legs on the outside of Elijah’s legs and wrapped his wiry arms around Elijah. It was a nasty, clammy feeling - touching the wet clothes - but he tried to put that out of his mind and concentrate instead on the fact that he was holding Elijah - tightly. Or that Elijah had turned his head so that he was resting it on Orlando’s shoulder and his cold nose was pressed into Orlando’s throat.
Truth to tell, Orlando felt unlucky when it came to matters of love. He wasn’t particularly shy when he wanted something - until the day he met the Blue-eyed Boy Wonder of Hollywood and developed the worst crush of his entire puberty-slash-young-manhood. It didn’t help at all that Sir fucking Ian fucking McKellen thought it was funny to swat him down like a gnat when he asked for something on set. He was the least experienced actor on that set and it was embarrassing in front of everyone, not to mention Elijah. Then when he broke that rib and whinged about it like any normal human being would, and the hobbits all thought it was very funny.
Still, Orlando was nothing if not an optimist. He was good at acting the fool and then leaving it behind him. He had jumped at the chance to spend all this quality time with Elijah and while the quality was in question, and even their continued existence might be in question, the solid fact of two armfuls of sopping wet Elijah bloody well demanding to be held… well, did it get any better than this?
“You smell like a wet dog,” Elijah mumbled sleepily.
Ah, love. How sweet it was. Orlando was pretty sure that John Wayne had never had to put up with a frontier woman as sassy as Elijah Wood. Even though some of those women were pretty fucking sassy.
Nope, definitely not as sassy as Elijah Wood. Elijah defined sassy. The cheeky little monkey.
Orlando was so in love. And so fucked.