25. for alilacia
DISCLAIMER: All of the fics at this community are works of fiction. The authors claim no knowledge of Orlando or Viggo's lives. They make no profit from their works.
OVERALL RATING: NC-17 overall, not every single fic is, but just in case.
Notes: I've removed anything that could point to the author, like beta, etc. Writers, don't reveal your indentities yet! Readers, guess the author, list of participants is right here. Leave feedback, but play nice. No flaming.
25. for alilacia, who requested: I'm leaving you free reign here. I'm only asking that if it can be set over Christmas, that would be lovely, and also for it to have some kind of a happy ending even if there are some bumps to get there.
Title: 'Tis the Season
Warning: none
Office Christmas parties were notoriously boring, stuffy affairs, at least in Orlando's experience. Not that he'd had all that much experience with Wickham, Hodges, and Cooper, Attorneys at Law. He'd only been hired a mere eight months ago, the most junior of the firm's twelve junior associates. He supposed, given the number of hours he was required to work and the belt-tightening going on thanks to the economy, he should be grateful that the firm even had a Christmas party, much less that he was employed and invited.
This party had started out slow enough, sedate drinks in a sedate bar sipped at a sedate rate whilst engaging in sedate conversation with other junior associates and their significant others. Orlando was the only gay member of the firm, and while he took no great pains to hide that fact, he hadn't felt comfortable enough to bring a date. If he'd been dating. Working sixty hours a week for the past eight months had taken a toll on his love life.
So Orlando had arrived at the party by himself and expected to leave after an hour or so with the excuse that he had work to do. That would put him at the party just long enough to chat up the senior partners who'd hired him and short enough to impress said senior partners with his work ethic, even during the holiday season.
Imagine Orlando's surprise when, an hour into the party and just about the time he was looking for the best way to make his exit, his plans changed with the arrival of the entertainment for the party. A lone guitar player. A lone male guitar player. A lone gay male guitar player.
The man was more than easy on the eyes. He was in his late forties, although he was one of those men whose exact age would be difficult to guess. He had smooth, young-looking skin that crinkled deeply around his eyes and mouth when he smiled, which he did when he retrieved a bottle of water from the bartender. The guitar player had faded blue eyes and longish ash blonde hair that fell across his face and hid the fact that his hairline was receding a bit on both sides. The man was clean-shaven and had an adorable cleft in his chin. His fingers were long, the knuckles rather prominent, but Orlando got the impression of gentleness from those hands.
Orlando's gaydar had been perfected over years of meeting gay men in unexpected places, and the guitar player definitely pinged. Orlando couldn't have said why, whether it was the way the man arranged himself on the stool he brought with him, the way he smoothed the hair off his face as he bent over his guitar, or the way his fingers moved on the strings. But for whatever reason, Orlando suddenly had an intense desire to stay at the party just for a chance to talk to the guitar player during a break.
One thing was certain -- the man was definitely an accomplished musician. His choice of music was somewhat expected. Christmas carols, of course, but the way he played them was definitely unexpected. The musical style wasn't jazz, not exactly, nor traditional folk. The guitar was acoustic without benefit of amplifier, as befitted the small, semi-intimate venue of the firm's private party. The man's occasional vocals were sung in a pleasingly clear voice with just a hint of nasal quality.
To keep himself from simply staring at the man, Orlando made his way to the bar for another gin and tonic. “Nice music,” he said to the same bartender who'd handed the guitar player his water. She was a young woman in her late twenties dressed in a sedate bar's obligatory dress code for bartenders: white dress shirt and black bow tie. “Does he play here often?”
“Who, Viggo?” She worked on Orlando's drink with the kind of efficiency that came from longs years of repetition. “He's played here before, but we don't usually have music except for private parties.”
Viggo, hmm? “So he's not American?” Orlando asked.
The bartender smiled at him. “Are you?”
“Touche,” Orlando said. He'd been living in the States long enough that his British accent had faded a bit, at least to his own ears, and American accents no longer sounded strange to him. But to most Americans, Orlando's accent was a dead giveaway of his non-American roots.
The bartender handed him his drink. The firm was picking up the bill for all the drinks, but Orlando dug a couple of dollar bills out of his wallet and left them in the tip jar on the bar.
“I don't know much about Viggo,” the bartender said, apparently a little more willing to talk now that Orlando had tipped her. “He always arrives by himself, leaves by himself, doesn't mingle much when he takes his breaks.”
“What does he drink?”
“Water.”
“That's it?”
She shrugged. “That's all he drinks when he plays here.”
So much for “buying” the guitar player a drink. “Thanks, love,” Orlando said, taking a sip of his own drink. “Merry Christmas to you.”
The bartender nodded at him and turned her attention to one of the junior partners and his wife who'd come up to get their own drinks refilled.
Orlando moved off to the side of the room, deliberately avoiding eye contact with any of the other party goers. He didn't want to become involved in conversation with people he saw everyday. What he wanted right now was to listen to the music and watch the musician without being interrupted.
Currently Viggo was playing a jazzed up version of Ave Maria. His fingers moved up and down the neck of the guitar with ease. Every now and then he slapped the body of the guitar with his hand to create a counterpoint to the melody.
Viggo didn't look at anyone at the party while he played. When he wasn't bent over the strings, he had his eyes closed, apparently lost in his own music. He looked like he'd created his own bubble where the only thing that registered was his guitar and the music he created. The party spun around him, full of chatter and laughter, both forced and genuine, and Viggo saw none of it.
Orlando admired Viggo's focus. Of everything he'd had to learn in order to earn his law degree and become a gainfully employed lawyer with a promising career, focus had been the hardest. His mum had always accused him of being flighty, and while it was a harsh assessment, it was an honest one. Orlando had always been distracted by the next bright, shiny thing to cross his path.
Was Viggo the next bright, shiny thing? A simple distraction in an otherwise boring, obligatory social event? Perhaps. Orlando wouldn't know until he met the man and had a chance to talk to him.
The chance presented itself when Viggo took his first break after finishing up a softly melodic instrumental version of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. He didn't excuse himself, just put his guitar on a stand, got up, and made his way toward the front of the bar and out the door.
Orlando followed.
He found Viggo on the little veranda that fronted the bar, lighting up a cigarette.
“I thought those weren't good for singers,” Orlando said.
Viggo looked at him, neither startled nor wary, but not inviting either. “Luckily I don't sing much,” he said. The end of his cigarette glowed brightly as he took a deep drag.
Orlando had smoked on and off during law school, but he'd promised himself he'd quit after he passed the bar. Back then he'd naively thought most of the stress of his profession would be behind him after the bar exam. Little did he know he'd only just begun a lifetime of deadline panic. Still, he'd kept his promise to himself. He'd thrown his last pack of cigarettes in the trash after he'd learned he passed the bar and managed to not take up smoking again. It had been long enough now that the smell of Viggo's cigarette didn't tempt him. At least not to smoke. The sight of Viggo's lips wrapped around the cigarette did tempt Orlando in other ways.
“I've been enjoying your music,” Orlando said. “Much nicer to listen to than the shop talk at the party.”
“Thank you.” A silence spun out between them, which Viggo eventually broke when he must have realized that Orlando wasn't simply going to compliment him on his music then go away. “What kind of shop talk?”
“Law,” Orlando said. “Lawyers tend to talk shop like everyone else, I suppose.”
Viggo's expression was still unreadable for the most part, but Orlando thought he saw the lines around Viggo's mouth tighten just a bit. “So you're a lawyer, too?”
“Yes. Newly minted,” Orlando said with a smile.
“I don't like lawyers much,” Viggo said.
That was a reaction Orlando was becoming familiar with. Lawyers as a profession weren't quite as despised as income tax auditors, but they certainly weren't well-loved either.
“We're not so bad once you get to know us,” Orlando said.
“Bad experience.” Viggo took another deep drag on the cigarette. “My ex-wife's lawyer raked me over the coals.”
Ex-wife. That was certainly an interesting piece of information. Had Orlando's gaydar been wrong? It had never happened before. And just because a man had an ex-wife didn't mean he wasn't gay. Orlando had met more than one deeply closeted gay man.
“I don't do divorce law,” Orlando said.
“So you wouldn't have raked me over the coals.”
“No.” Point of fact, most of what Orlando did was transactional - corporate paperwork for the firm's numerous business clients. It wasn't terribly exciting, but there was certainly a lot of it that all needed to be done immediately. “I'm a very nice lawyer.”
Viggo finally cracked the smallest of smiles. “That's not an oxymoron?”
“Not a moron of any flavor,” Orlando replied. "At least, I hope not."
Their breath puffed out around them as they both chuckled a bit. Orlando had on a business suit, but he was beginning to shiver in only his suit jacket. Viggo had on black jeans and a cable-knit sweater that looked warmer than what Orlando wore, but he must be getting cold too. Orlando didn't miss this part of smoking - banishment to the cold outdoors, no matter if it was snowing or raining or a hundred degrees outside. At least here they were in a covered porch.
It was starting to snow again, large, lazy flakes settling to the ground outside the veranda. Viggo took the last drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in an ashtray filled with sand. "Time to get back to work," Viggo said.
Already? "Short break," Orlando said, a little disappointed that just when he felt they were over that first awkward bit, the conversation was over.
Viggo shrugged. "They pay me to play, not to smoke."
"Or drink."
Viggo raised one eyebrow.
"I tried to buy you a drink," Orlando said. "Bartender told me you only drink water."
Viggo gave Orlando a long, appraising look. "I don't drink when I play," he said after a moment.
Was that an opening? "Do you drink afterwards?" Orlando asked.
"Sometimes."
This man was annoyingly vague, but Orlando got the feeling if he kept working at opening Viggo up, so to speak, the reward would definitely be worth it. "Would tonight be one of those times?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
Now Viggo did smile. Not as broadly as he had at the bartender earlier, but a genuine smile nonetheless. The expression made Viggo look a good ten years younger. How did he do that? Orlando was certain that the practice of law would give him grey hair and frown lines the size of crevasses before he turned thirty.
"Let me get back to work," Viggo said, "then we'll see."
Orlando got it. Viggo wasn't testing him, not exactly. What Viggo was doing was seeing how serious Orlando was. The bartender said Viggo played a lot of private parties. He probably got hit on often. A guy out for only a quick fuck might not be inclined to waste his evening waiting around if easier -- and quicker -- pickings were to be had.
"I'll see you on your next break," Orlando said.
Viggo nodded, then went back inside.
Orlando resisted the urge to follow. Instead he stood on the veranda, hands in the pockets of his suit trousers, and watched the falling snow. If it kept up at this rate, they'd have a white Christmas, something the secretary Orlando shared with another associate had been chattering on about for the last week.
Orlando had no emotional attachment to snow at Christmas, but something about it did seem magical. The thick flakes muffled the harsh sound of traffic moving slowly by on the street in front of the bar. Holiday lights took on a softly radiant glow when diffused by the snow. The trees, even the bare-branched variety that had long since lost their leaves for the season, looked more festive when covered with a blanket of white.
A shiver worked its way up and down Orlando's spine. His nose felt cold, and he'd need more than gin and tonic to warm him up after he went back inside, but for the first time in a long time, Orlando was focused on something other than work. Something much more pleasurable.
Was Viggo the next bright, shiny thing in Orlando's life? Only time would tell, but Orlando didn't think so. Even as difficult as Viggo had been to talk to, there was something there. Something worth taking the time to get to know better. Orlando had felt the pull when he'd first seen Viggo. Viggo must have felt it too, or he would have just told Orlando to bugger off, in so many words.
Orlando looked at the stub of the cigarette Viggo had left in the ashtray, remembering the way Viggo's lips had closed around it. Imagined those lips closing around him. Thought about how gentle Viggo's hands might actually be. Yes, Viggo was definitely worth waiting around for. They'd start with a drink after Viggo finished working the party. After that, who knew? It was Christmas time, after all. Orlando's mum would have said it was the season of miracles.
And perhaps tonight, Orlando's mum might actually be right.
OVERALL RATING: NC-17 overall, not every single fic is, but just in case.
Notes: I've removed anything that could point to the author, like beta, etc. Writers, don't reveal your indentities yet! Readers, guess the author, list of participants is right here. Leave feedback, but play nice. No flaming.
25. for alilacia, who requested: I'm leaving you free reign here. I'm only asking that if it can be set over Christmas, that would be lovely, and also for it to have some kind of a happy ending even if there are some bumps to get there.
Title: 'Tis the Season
Warning: none
Office Christmas parties were notoriously boring, stuffy affairs, at least in Orlando's experience. Not that he'd had all that much experience with Wickham, Hodges, and Cooper, Attorneys at Law. He'd only been hired a mere eight months ago, the most junior of the firm's twelve junior associates. He supposed, given the number of hours he was required to work and the belt-tightening going on thanks to the economy, he should be grateful that the firm even had a Christmas party, much less that he was employed and invited.
This party had started out slow enough, sedate drinks in a sedate bar sipped at a sedate rate whilst engaging in sedate conversation with other junior associates and their significant others. Orlando was the only gay member of the firm, and while he took no great pains to hide that fact, he hadn't felt comfortable enough to bring a date. If he'd been dating. Working sixty hours a week for the past eight months had taken a toll on his love life.
So Orlando had arrived at the party by himself and expected to leave after an hour or so with the excuse that he had work to do. That would put him at the party just long enough to chat up the senior partners who'd hired him and short enough to impress said senior partners with his work ethic, even during the holiday season.
Imagine Orlando's surprise when, an hour into the party and just about the time he was looking for the best way to make his exit, his plans changed with the arrival of the entertainment for the party. A lone guitar player. A lone male guitar player. A lone gay male guitar player.
The man was more than easy on the eyes. He was in his late forties, although he was one of those men whose exact age would be difficult to guess. He had smooth, young-looking skin that crinkled deeply around his eyes and mouth when he smiled, which he did when he retrieved a bottle of water from the bartender. The guitar player had faded blue eyes and longish ash blonde hair that fell across his face and hid the fact that his hairline was receding a bit on both sides. The man was clean-shaven and had an adorable cleft in his chin. His fingers were long, the knuckles rather prominent, but Orlando got the impression of gentleness from those hands.
Orlando's gaydar had been perfected over years of meeting gay men in unexpected places, and the guitar player definitely pinged. Orlando couldn't have said why, whether it was the way the man arranged himself on the stool he brought with him, the way he smoothed the hair off his face as he bent over his guitar, or the way his fingers moved on the strings. But for whatever reason, Orlando suddenly had an intense desire to stay at the party just for a chance to talk to the guitar player during a break.
One thing was certain -- the man was definitely an accomplished musician. His choice of music was somewhat expected. Christmas carols, of course, but the way he played them was definitely unexpected. The musical style wasn't jazz, not exactly, nor traditional folk. The guitar was acoustic without benefit of amplifier, as befitted the small, semi-intimate venue of the firm's private party. The man's occasional vocals were sung in a pleasingly clear voice with just a hint of nasal quality.
To keep himself from simply staring at the man, Orlando made his way to the bar for another gin and tonic. “Nice music,” he said to the same bartender who'd handed the guitar player his water. She was a young woman in her late twenties dressed in a sedate bar's obligatory dress code for bartenders: white dress shirt and black bow tie. “Does he play here often?”
“Who, Viggo?” She worked on Orlando's drink with the kind of efficiency that came from longs years of repetition. “He's played here before, but we don't usually have music except for private parties.”
Viggo, hmm? “So he's not American?” Orlando asked.
The bartender smiled at him. “Are you?”
“Touche,” Orlando said. He'd been living in the States long enough that his British accent had faded a bit, at least to his own ears, and American accents no longer sounded strange to him. But to most Americans, Orlando's accent was a dead giveaway of his non-American roots.
The bartender handed him his drink. The firm was picking up the bill for all the drinks, but Orlando dug a couple of dollar bills out of his wallet and left them in the tip jar on the bar.
“I don't know much about Viggo,” the bartender said, apparently a little more willing to talk now that Orlando had tipped her. “He always arrives by himself, leaves by himself, doesn't mingle much when he takes his breaks.”
“What does he drink?”
“Water.”
“That's it?”
She shrugged. “That's all he drinks when he plays here.”
So much for “buying” the guitar player a drink. “Thanks, love,” Orlando said, taking a sip of his own drink. “Merry Christmas to you.”
The bartender nodded at him and turned her attention to one of the junior partners and his wife who'd come up to get their own drinks refilled.
Orlando moved off to the side of the room, deliberately avoiding eye contact with any of the other party goers. He didn't want to become involved in conversation with people he saw everyday. What he wanted right now was to listen to the music and watch the musician without being interrupted.
Currently Viggo was playing a jazzed up version of Ave Maria. His fingers moved up and down the neck of the guitar with ease. Every now and then he slapped the body of the guitar with his hand to create a counterpoint to the melody.
Viggo didn't look at anyone at the party while he played. When he wasn't bent over the strings, he had his eyes closed, apparently lost in his own music. He looked like he'd created his own bubble where the only thing that registered was his guitar and the music he created. The party spun around him, full of chatter and laughter, both forced and genuine, and Viggo saw none of it.
Orlando admired Viggo's focus. Of everything he'd had to learn in order to earn his law degree and become a gainfully employed lawyer with a promising career, focus had been the hardest. His mum had always accused him of being flighty, and while it was a harsh assessment, it was an honest one. Orlando had always been distracted by the next bright, shiny thing to cross his path.
Was Viggo the next bright, shiny thing? A simple distraction in an otherwise boring, obligatory social event? Perhaps. Orlando wouldn't know until he met the man and had a chance to talk to him.
The chance presented itself when Viggo took his first break after finishing up a softly melodic instrumental version of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. He didn't excuse himself, just put his guitar on a stand, got up, and made his way toward the front of the bar and out the door.
Orlando followed.
He found Viggo on the little veranda that fronted the bar, lighting up a cigarette.
“I thought those weren't good for singers,” Orlando said.
Viggo looked at him, neither startled nor wary, but not inviting either. “Luckily I don't sing much,” he said. The end of his cigarette glowed brightly as he took a deep drag.
Orlando had smoked on and off during law school, but he'd promised himself he'd quit after he passed the bar. Back then he'd naively thought most of the stress of his profession would be behind him after the bar exam. Little did he know he'd only just begun a lifetime of deadline panic. Still, he'd kept his promise to himself. He'd thrown his last pack of cigarettes in the trash after he'd learned he passed the bar and managed to not take up smoking again. It had been long enough now that the smell of Viggo's cigarette didn't tempt him. At least not to smoke. The sight of Viggo's lips wrapped around the cigarette did tempt Orlando in other ways.
“I've been enjoying your music,” Orlando said. “Much nicer to listen to than the shop talk at the party.”
“Thank you.” A silence spun out between them, which Viggo eventually broke when he must have realized that Orlando wasn't simply going to compliment him on his music then go away. “What kind of shop talk?”
“Law,” Orlando said. “Lawyers tend to talk shop like everyone else, I suppose.”
Viggo's expression was still unreadable for the most part, but Orlando thought he saw the lines around Viggo's mouth tighten just a bit. “So you're a lawyer, too?”
“Yes. Newly minted,” Orlando said with a smile.
“I don't like lawyers much,” Viggo said.
That was a reaction Orlando was becoming familiar with. Lawyers as a profession weren't quite as despised as income tax auditors, but they certainly weren't well-loved either.
“We're not so bad once you get to know us,” Orlando said.
“Bad experience.” Viggo took another deep drag on the cigarette. “My ex-wife's lawyer raked me over the coals.”
Ex-wife. That was certainly an interesting piece of information. Had Orlando's gaydar been wrong? It had never happened before. And just because a man had an ex-wife didn't mean he wasn't gay. Orlando had met more than one deeply closeted gay man.
“I don't do divorce law,” Orlando said.
“So you wouldn't have raked me over the coals.”
“No.” Point of fact, most of what Orlando did was transactional - corporate paperwork for the firm's numerous business clients. It wasn't terribly exciting, but there was certainly a lot of it that all needed to be done immediately. “I'm a very nice lawyer.”
Viggo finally cracked the smallest of smiles. “That's not an oxymoron?”
“Not a moron of any flavor,” Orlando replied. "At least, I hope not."
Their breath puffed out around them as they both chuckled a bit. Orlando had on a business suit, but he was beginning to shiver in only his suit jacket. Viggo had on black jeans and a cable-knit sweater that looked warmer than what Orlando wore, but he must be getting cold too. Orlando didn't miss this part of smoking - banishment to the cold outdoors, no matter if it was snowing or raining or a hundred degrees outside. At least here they were in a covered porch.
It was starting to snow again, large, lazy flakes settling to the ground outside the veranda. Viggo took the last drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in an ashtray filled with sand. "Time to get back to work," Viggo said.
Already? "Short break," Orlando said, a little disappointed that just when he felt they were over that first awkward bit, the conversation was over.
Viggo shrugged. "They pay me to play, not to smoke."
"Or drink."
Viggo raised one eyebrow.
"I tried to buy you a drink," Orlando said. "Bartender told me you only drink water."
Viggo gave Orlando a long, appraising look. "I don't drink when I play," he said after a moment.
Was that an opening? "Do you drink afterwards?" Orlando asked.
"Sometimes."
This man was annoyingly vague, but Orlando got the feeling if he kept working at opening Viggo up, so to speak, the reward would definitely be worth it. "Would tonight be one of those times?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
Now Viggo did smile. Not as broadly as he had at the bartender earlier, but a genuine smile nonetheless. The expression made Viggo look a good ten years younger. How did he do that? Orlando was certain that the practice of law would give him grey hair and frown lines the size of crevasses before he turned thirty.
"Let me get back to work," Viggo said, "then we'll see."
Orlando got it. Viggo wasn't testing him, not exactly. What Viggo was doing was seeing how serious Orlando was. The bartender said Viggo played a lot of private parties. He probably got hit on often. A guy out for only a quick fuck might not be inclined to waste his evening waiting around if easier -- and quicker -- pickings were to be had.
"I'll see you on your next break," Orlando said.
Viggo nodded, then went back inside.
Orlando resisted the urge to follow. Instead he stood on the veranda, hands in the pockets of his suit trousers, and watched the falling snow. If it kept up at this rate, they'd have a white Christmas, something the secretary Orlando shared with another associate had been chattering on about for the last week.
Orlando had no emotional attachment to snow at Christmas, but something about it did seem magical. The thick flakes muffled the harsh sound of traffic moving slowly by on the street in front of the bar. Holiday lights took on a softly radiant glow when diffused by the snow. The trees, even the bare-branched variety that had long since lost their leaves for the season, looked more festive when covered with a blanket of white.
A shiver worked its way up and down Orlando's spine. His nose felt cold, and he'd need more than gin and tonic to warm him up after he went back inside, but for the first time in a long time, Orlando was focused on something other than work. Something much more pleasurable.
Was Viggo the next bright, shiny thing in Orlando's life? Only time would tell, but Orlando didn't think so. Even as difficult as Viggo had been to talk to, there was something there. Something worth taking the time to get to know better. Orlando had felt the pull when he'd first seen Viggo. Viggo must have felt it too, or he would have just told Orlando to bugger off, in so many words.
Orlando looked at the stub of the cigarette Viggo had left in the ashtray, remembering the way Viggo's lips had closed around it. Imagined those lips closing around him. Thought about how gentle Viggo's hands might actually be. Yes, Viggo was definitely worth waiting around for. They'd start with a drink after Viggo finished working the party. After that, who knew? It was Christmas time, after all. Orlando's mum would have said it was the season of miracles.
And perhaps tonight, Orlando's mum might actually be right.