FIC: TLC (1/?)
Title: TLC
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Pairing: V/O and some others
Word Count: 2,609
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these people and this is a work of fiction.
Summary: AU. "Life is never long enough, so seize the happiness and hang on for the ride." Orlando never made LOTR and thus never became an in-demand actor. Instead he's languishing at the bottom rung and feeling like shit. But he's had a good past and has good friends. Maybe he'll land that role that'll make his career or maybe he won't. Still he knows that this life... is short and worth living.
- 2005 -
He felt like utter crap. God knows he didn’t want to crawl out of his bed, but he’d gotten a callback and damn it if he wasn’t going to go. Maybe a few years back, he might have thought twice. Now he knew how rare callbacks were for dreamy pretty boys like him, with more good lucks than talent. Orlando sniffed and rubbed his dripping nose.
Bloody fuck, he’d taken pill after pill-finally even forking over the money to see a doctor and get some antibiotics-but he still wasn’t getting over this sodding infection. Too bad he couldn’t afford to stay in bed and sleep it off. Orlando threw the covers off and pushed himself out.
He stumbled into the loo and took a morning piss before daring to look at himself in the mirror. The white pallor and bloodshot eyes weren’t going to get him any pluses if it weren’t for the fact he looked like the perfect druggie. And the movie was about a stoner who falls and falls and somehow doesn’t completely fall.
Orlando pinched his cheeks, thinking what old fashion crock, but it worked to put a bit of color into his face. Brightened up his complexion and made him look like he was awake and dead rather than asleep and lifeless.
He reached into his cabinet and automatically reached for some Tylenol. He frowned when he saw he only had a couple left. He took two out and swallowed them dry. It’d help him get rid of the headache already starting to throb full force beneath his temples. He took one more glance at himself, wondering when he’d gone from a dreamy young actor into this…
This tired, disillusioned man.
- 2005 -
“Are you clean?” the director asked bluntly.
Orlando hid a small smile and nodded before he rolled up his sleeves and showed his clean arms. There were no trace marks at all, not that it meant he hadn’t tried something once or twice. But he knew to stay away from hard drugs. They’d end his dreams and his life.
“Good job with makeup,” the director said grudgingly.
Orlando didn’t bother to correct him. He nodded instead and gestured at the script in his hand. “Start off the top?”
“A bit further down. A quarter of the way where Nar has just shot his veins, it’s where he’s saying-”
“‘Fuck, fuck man?’” Orlando remarked, his finger right at the text below the scene directions, actions, whatever.
“Exactly,” the director remarked. “Eric here will read Wes’ part.”
Orlando hadn’t even noticed there was someone else there. But the surname rang a familiar bell and when a tall, well-built man emerged from the shadows, Orlando recognized him as an up and coming actor. For a brief moment, he wondered why Eric Bana wasn’t going for the title role before he mentally shook his head. Playing the main role of a gay, drugged out of all sense character was hardly a safe career choice. The secondary role of Wes was. Good, but not the weary kind-instead it was almost diabolical and something a bit different.
“’Ello,” Eric said. “Are you ready?”
Orlando glanced at the script once more before he nodded and dropped it. He knew there was nothing worse than coming to a callback and having to read line by line a script. It might be okay if you were a big shot, but he definitely wasn’t and if he nailed the lines-nailed everything then maybe he’d finally get some cash flow.
“Ready,” Orlando said and shifted into character.
“Fuck, fuck man…” Nar moaned, dropping the syringe to the ground and crashing to his knees. “You ought to try this, Wes. You’d dig it.”
“What the fuck did you shoot up this time?” Wes snarled, his hands grabbing Nar by the shoulders and shaking him hard. “What the fuck did you take?”
“Heroin, mixed crap, dunno,” Nar muttered while his eyes rolled back into his head. “Feel great. Feel like a butterfly. Feel like… oh…”
“You are so incredibly stupid,” Wes snapped and shoved Nar onto the couch. “One of these days your fix is going to get you killed!”
Nar’s eyes fluttered open before closing, his mouth hanging out as he gasped for air. His chest was heaving and it would have been alarming if his right hand wasn’t pushing into his trousers. Wes turned away, not having the least bit of desire to see his best friend masturbate in the grips of delusion.
It was done and it was the best he could possibly do. If it wasn’t enough, then it just wasn’t. Orlando shuffled up to his feet and ran a nervous hand through his hair. Cautiously he glanced at the director, Sam Mendes, not really knowing how to read the slight frown on his face as really bad or only somewhat bad. Dammit, he probably hadn’t gotten the role. Fuck.
“Bloom?”
Orlando jerked his head. “Yes?”
“We’ll call and let you know if you’ve got the role after all the callbacks.”
Orlando nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I guess I’ll be going then.”
Eric echoed a good-bye, but that was it.
- 1990 -
“Orlando, what are you doing with your face pressed against the window like that?” his mum, Sonia asked. He turned around sheepishly and saw she was in her typical pose. Her hand was in a fist and planted against her hip.
“Nothing mum,” Orlando mumbled, though his eyes flickered back to the window where a tall, dark-headed man was moving lots of paint buckets into the house next to them. “Just watching our new neighbor.”
“But no one’s lived in the old Brushwood house in years!” Sonia exclaimed as she shuffled to the window and pressed her own face against the glass. “Looks like he’s an artist. Fairly serious one too with all those easels and paints and such.”
“Yup,” Orlando remarked, leaning his forehead against the glass again. “D’you think it’s his hobby or he might be a real painter?”
“Hmmm… if it’s a hobby, he’s fairly serious,” she remarked thoughtfully. “Oh look there! It looks like he has a kiln.”
Orlando’s eyes widened when he saw the man remove a huge cloth that had hidden the kiln from view. His mouth started salivating when the sun hit the shiny surface and made it glisten. “Painter and maybe sculptor?”
“Maybe so and maybe you might be able to borrow his kiln from time to time,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“D’you think I could?”
Sonia smiled. “Won’t know unless we ask.”
- 2005 -
“How’d it go?”
It was Sean. Orlando grinned and tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder. “I thought it went well.”
”But…?”
“Mendes said nothing good. Said he’d call me after callbacks,” Orlando responded with a trace of disappointment he couldn’t hide. “You know what that means. I just don’t have it.”
“You do, you just have shit luck,” Sean remarked. “You’re a good actor, Orli. Don’t doubt that. One day you’ll get a break. You’re a bloody sight more talented than those half-arse singers turn actors.”
“Too bad they’re getting the roles,” Orlando mumbled, slumping onto his bed. “I thought it went well, I even read lines with Bana. Eric Bana.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the bloke,” Sean said with amusement. “Don’t you remember? Troy. Big budget Hollywood film. All those big stars and whatnot. Total butchering of the Illiad. Too bad my role was fairly minor…”
“Fuck you. That’s a crap shot better than anything I’ve ever done. It’s walk-on roles for me or some small cameo if I’m lucky.”
“It’ll happen,” Sean insisted fiercely. “You just have to be patient.”
“You’ve been saying that for the last five years.”
“And it’s been true for the last five years.”
Orlando sighed and plopped his head back against his only pillow. “Sometimes I think I just ought to give up and head back home. It’s just my rotten luck that my first passion panned out.”
“You aren’t a bad sculptor. Viggo says you’re quite something.”
“Viggo knew me right before I started masturbating,” Orlando muttered. “He’s not about to say something bad about my art.”
“Your art happens to be a million times better than mine.”
“Beanie you can’t even draw a smiley face.”
“Don’t insult me dots and lines!”
Orlando giggled. God, Sean always knew just how to cheer him up. “Thanks.”
“For what, you daft boy?”
“For being there.”
“Some times I really think your mum dropped you on your head as a babe,” Sean remarked. “If not your fall back in the day certainly did your head more damage than your back. You don’t need to thank me for being there. It’s what any good mate would do.”
Orlando had to grin at that. “You’re a big softie.”
“Oh belt up!”
Orlando laughed instead.
- 1990 -
“Uh…” Orlando began, shoving his hands further into his pockets. “I’m Orlando. I live next door. Erm, just wanted to say hi and all. And, oh bloody hell,” he cursed as he felt his cheeks getting red. “I left the cookies my mum made for you back in the house.”
The older man, rather good-looking, smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Cookies, eh? You’d better go fetch them then. I certainly can’t say no to them.”
“Oh right, I’ll be right back.”
Orlando whirled around and broke into a run. He didn’t know why he was nervous. He wasn’t the shrinking violet type. Not that he was a wild, funny man either. But he didn’t mind getting on stage and performing for people. The only thing he liked better was sculpting.
At the door his mum met with a plate of cookies. “You forgot,” she said with a smile.
Orlando nodded, grimacing a bit. “Got too excited, I suppose.”
“Take a deep breath and once you give the cookies, you might slip in that you like sculpting or something. Talk about interests, but I wouldn’t flat out ask. That’d be rude.”
He grinned at that. His mum was always telling him to be polite, to be a gentleman. “I know, mum.”
“Now shoo!”
Orlando rolled his eyes and clutched the plate tightly as he hurried back over to where the artist man was waiting. He bit on his lip when he stopped in front of the man and thrust the plate of cookies at him. “Here they are.”
“Did your mum make them?” the man asked, taking the plate and lifting it up to sniff at them. “They smell good.” He balanced the plate on one hand and held out the free one. “I’m Viggo, by the way.”
“Oh, nice name… Viggo,” Orlando muttered, his eyes darting to the ground. What the fuck was he saying? Nice name? God, the guy probably thought he was some kind of weirdo. Luckily the age gap was far too much for any weird flirting implications. Now that would be embarrassing.
“Well, Orlando’s not bad either.” Viggo pulled off the plastic wrap and snagged a cookie. “Hmm… these are really good.”
Orlando felt his cheeks heat up. He didn’t know why he was getting so awkward all of a sudden. This was something a little kid went through. He was thirteen for bloody sake. He should be over this. It wasn’t like Viggo was a girl or anything, not that he really liked girls yet. Some of his mates were goggle-eyed over breasts, but he didn’t get what was so wonderful about them.
“So… are you in high school?”
Orlando blinked. “What?”
“Oh, dammit, what do you call upper level schools here?”
“Secondary schools?”
“So you’re in that?” Viggo asked after he’d chewed another bite of the cookie.
“Yeah.” Orlando shifted around nervously. “I’m in grade 3.”
Viggo brushed his fingers together, letting the crumbs tumble to the ground. “Not really sure I get the British system. I’m American.”
“I can tell.”
“So you do have a mouth to you.”
Orlando flushed even more. “I didn’t mean to be…”
“No, no,” Viggo said, waving his hand. “It’s fine. Thanks for the cookies.”
“You’re welcome,” Orlando remarked, while watching Viggo turn around and not really knowing how to stop him from walking away. “Um…”
Viggo glanced back over his shoulder. “Um… what?”
“You have a kiln,” Orlando blurted.
“That I do.”
“I sculpt.”
Viggo grinned. “And you’d like to borrow the kiln?”
Orlando nodded sheepishly.
“Just ask and if I’m not using it, I don’t see any reason that you can’t.”
Orlando jerked his head up and his eyes caught Viggo’s green. “Thank you so much. You don’t know how much this means to me. Oh! D’you think I might be able to use it sometime this weekend?”
“I don’t think that’d be a problem.”
- 2005 -
The phone was ringing. Orlando rolled onto his stomach and glared at it. He squinted as he looked at the clock. It was only seven o’clock. Who the fuck was up this early in the morning? Especially on a bloody weekend.
But he grabbed the phone anyway and said, “Hello?”
“Bloom?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Sam Mendes.”
Orlando’s eyes popped open and he swallowed his stale saliva. “Hi… Mr. Mendes,” he began, cursing mentally. This had to be a good call, even if it was more than a week later. “What can I do for you?”
The director chuckled a bit. “You can certainly do something for me.”
A pleasant feeling started swirling in Orlando’s stomach, something different from the implication of dismissal. But how to approach it without sounding like an overconfident jackass? “Did I… did I-”
“You’ve got the role,” Mendes said. “Turns out the actor we had in mind for it decided he didn’t want the risk of being a druggie sleeze arse. But I take it, you’re willing?”
The mention of another actor made his insides churn. It didn’t take much effort not to answer with frightful enthusiasm. “I am.”
“You were my first choice,” Mendes remarked off-handedly. “But the producer wanted someone a bit more commercial. As long as you equal and step up your callback, you’ll erase any of Zanuck’s doubts.”
Something mixed of vindication and sinking doubts swirled in Orlando’s stomach. “I’ll try.”
“You’ll do,” Mendes retorted. “Now my assistant will forward you the filming schedule and contract to your agent. You’ll fly out at the end of the week. I trust that won’t be a problem?”
“No.”
Orlando was sure Mendes was smiling when he said, “Good.”
- 2000 -
He had stepped off the plane and been engulfed in the familiar musk of paint. If there could have been a better greeting in L.A., Orlando didn’t want it. This was enough for him, being hugged by his longtime friend and mentor and well… other things he thought best not to think about when he thought of Viggo.
“Thought you’d never get here,” Viggo remarked, thumping Orlando on the back playfully. “Your flight was delayed twice!”
“Yeah,” Orlando said, grinning as he pressed a chaste kiss on Viggo’s scruffy cheek. “Bad weather.”
“Bad sign, that,” Viggo responded with an even wider grin. “So how’s your mom? Not terribly excited about you moving across the pond, I bet.”
Orlando shook his head. “Not in the least. Kept trying to convince me that I ought to stay in London and do some British productions, but I wanted to try my luck here. You know, this land of opportunity and dreams and shit.”
“Oh it’s all shit, but good shit.”
TBC...
A/N: Let me know what you think? Good feedback tends to push my muse to work.
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Pairing: V/O and some others
Word Count: 2,609
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these people and this is a work of fiction.
Summary: AU. "Life is never long enough, so seize the happiness and hang on for the ride." Orlando never made LOTR and thus never became an in-demand actor. Instead he's languishing at the bottom rung and feeling like shit. But he's had a good past and has good friends. Maybe he'll land that role that'll make his career or maybe he won't. Still he knows that this life... is short and worth living.
- 2005 -
He felt like utter crap. God knows he didn’t want to crawl out of his bed, but he’d gotten a callback and damn it if he wasn’t going to go. Maybe a few years back, he might have thought twice. Now he knew how rare callbacks were for dreamy pretty boys like him, with more good lucks than talent. Orlando sniffed and rubbed his dripping nose.
Bloody fuck, he’d taken pill after pill-finally even forking over the money to see a doctor and get some antibiotics-but he still wasn’t getting over this sodding infection. Too bad he couldn’t afford to stay in bed and sleep it off. Orlando threw the covers off and pushed himself out.
He stumbled into the loo and took a morning piss before daring to look at himself in the mirror. The white pallor and bloodshot eyes weren’t going to get him any pluses if it weren’t for the fact he looked like the perfect druggie. And the movie was about a stoner who falls and falls and somehow doesn’t completely fall.
Orlando pinched his cheeks, thinking what old fashion crock, but it worked to put a bit of color into his face. Brightened up his complexion and made him look like he was awake and dead rather than asleep and lifeless.
He reached into his cabinet and automatically reached for some Tylenol. He frowned when he saw he only had a couple left. He took two out and swallowed them dry. It’d help him get rid of the headache already starting to throb full force beneath his temples. He took one more glance at himself, wondering when he’d gone from a dreamy young actor into this…
This tired, disillusioned man.
- 2005 -
“Are you clean?” the director asked bluntly.
Orlando hid a small smile and nodded before he rolled up his sleeves and showed his clean arms. There were no trace marks at all, not that it meant he hadn’t tried something once or twice. But he knew to stay away from hard drugs. They’d end his dreams and his life.
“Good job with makeup,” the director said grudgingly.
Orlando didn’t bother to correct him. He nodded instead and gestured at the script in his hand. “Start off the top?”
“A bit further down. A quarter of the way where Nar has just shot his veins, it’s where he’s saying-”
“‘Fuck, fuck man?’” Orlando remarked, his finger right at the text below the scene directions, actions, whatever.
“Exactly,” the director remarked. “Eric here will read Wes’ part.”
Orlando hadn’t even noticed there was someone else there. But the surname rang a familiar bell and when a tall, well-built man emerged from the shadows, Orlando recognized him as an up and coming actor. For a brief moment, he wondered why Eric Bana wasn’t going for the title role before he mentally shook his head. Playing the main role of a gay, drugged out of all sense character was hardly a safe career choice. The secondary role of Wes was. Good, but not the weary kind-instead it was almost diabolical and something a bit different.
“’Ello,” Eric said. “Are you ready?”
Orlando glanced at the script once more before he nodded and dropped it. He knew there was nothing worse than coming to a callback and having to read line by line a script. It might be okay if you were a big shot, but he definitely wasn’t and if he nailed the lines-nailed everything then maybe he’d finally get some cash flow.
“Ready,” Orlando said and shifted into character.
“Fuck, fuck man…” Nar moaned, dropping the syringe to the ground and crashing to his knees. “You ought to try this, Wes. You’d dig it.”
“What the fuck did you shoot up this time?” Wes snarled, his hands grabbing Nar by the shoulders and shaking him hard. “What the fuck did you take?”
“Heroin, mixed crap, dunno,” Nar muttered while his eyes rolled back into his head. “Feel great. Feel like a butterfly. Feel like… oh…”
“You are so incredibly stupid,” Wes snapped and shoved Nar onto the couch. “One of these days your fix is going to get you killed!”
Nar’s eyes fluttered open before closing, his mouth hanging out as he gasped for air. His chest was heaving and it would have been alarming if his right hand wasn’t pushing into his trousers. Wes turned away, not having the least bit of desire to see his best friend masturbate in the grips of delusion.
It was done and it was the best he could possibly do. If it wasn’t enough, then it just wasn’t. Orlando shuffled up to his feet and ran a nervous hand through his hair. Cautiously he glanced at the director, Sam Mendes, not really knowing how to read the slight frown on his face as really bad or only somewhat bad. Dammit, he probably hadn’t gotten the role. Fuck.
“Bloom?”
Orlando jerked his head. “Yes?”
“We’ll call and let you know if you’ve got the role after all the callbacks.”
Orlando nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I guess I’ll be going then.”
Eric echoed a good-bye, but that was it.
- 1990 -
“Orlando, what are you doing with your face pressed against the window like that?” his mum, Sonia asked. He turned around sheepishly and saw she was in her typical pose. Her hand was in a fist and planted against her hip.
“Nothing mum,” Orlando mumbled, though his eyes flickered back to the window where a tall, dark-headed man was moving lots of paint buckets into the house next to them. “Just watching our new neighbor.”
“But no one’s lived in the old Brushwood house in years!” Sonia exclaimed as she shuffled to the window and pressed her own face against the glass. “Looks like he’s an artist. Fairly serious one too with all those easels and paints and such.”
“Yup,” Orlando remarked, leaning his forehead against the glass again. “D’you think it’s his hobby or he might be a real painter?”
“Hmmm… if it’s a hobby, he’s fairly serious,” she remarked thoughtfully. “Oh look there! It looks like he has a kiln.”
Orlando’s eyes widened when he saw the man remove a huge cloth that had hidden the kiln from view. His mouth started salivating when the sun hit the shiny surface and made it glisten. “Painter and maybe sculptor?”
“Maybe so and maybe you might be able to borrow his kiln from time to time,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“D’you think I could?”
Sonia smiled. “Won’t know unless we ask.”
- 2005 -
“How’d it go?”
It was Sean. Orlando grinned and tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder. “I thought it went well.”
”But…?”
“Mendes said nothing good. Said he’d call me after callbacks,” Orlando responded with a trace of disappointment he couldn’t hide. “You know what that means. I just don’t have it.”
“You do, you just have shit luck,” Sean remarked. “You’re a good actor, Orli. Don’t doubt that. One day you’ll get a break. You’re a bloody sight more talented than those half-arse singers turn actors.”
“Too bad they’re getting the roles,” Orlando mumbled, slumping onto his bed. “I thought it went well, I even read lines with Bana. Eric Bana.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the bloke,” Sean said with amusement. “Don’t you remember? Troy. Big budget Hollywood film. All those big stars and whatnot. Total butchering of the Illiad. Too bad my role was fairly minor…”
“Fuck you. That’s a crap shot better than anything I’ve ever done. It’s walk-on roles for me or some small cameo if I’m lucky.”
“It’ll happen,” Sean insisted fiercely. “You just have to be patient.”
“You’ve been saying that for the last five years.”
“And it’s been true for the last five years.”
Orlando sighed and plopped his head back against his only pillow. “Sometimes I think I just ought to give up and head back home. It’s just my rotten luck that my first passion panned out.”
“You aren’t a bad sculptor. Viggo says you’re quite something.”
“Viggo knew me right before I started masturbating,” Orlando muttered. “He’s not about to say something bad about my art.”
“Your art happens to be a million times better than mine.”
“Beanie you can’t even draw a smiley face.”
“Don’t insult me dots and lines!”
Orlando giggled. God, Sean always knew just how to cheer him up. “Thanks.”
“For what, you daft boy?”
“For being there.”
“Some times I really think your mum dropped you on your head as a babe,” Sean remarked. “If not your fall back in the day certainly did your head more damage than your back. You don’t need to thank me for being there. It’s what any good mate would do.”
Orlando had to grin at that. “You’re a big softie.”
“Oh belt up!”
Orlando laughed instead.
- 1990 -
“Uh…” Orlando began, shoving his hands further into his pockets. “I’m Orlando. I live next door. Erm, just wanted to say hi and all. And, oh bloody hell,” he cursed as he felt his cheeks getting red. “I left the cookies my mum made for you back in the house.”
The older man, rather good-looking, smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Cookies, eh? You’d better go fetch them then. I certainly can’t say no to them.”
“Oh right, I’ll be right back.”
Orlando whirled around and broke into a run. He didn’t know why he was nervous. He wasn’t the shrinking violet type. Not that he was a wild, funny man either. But he didn’t mind getting on stage and performing for people. The only thing he liked better was sculpting.
At the door his mum met with a plate of cookies. “You forgot,” she said with a smile.
Orlando nodded, grimacing a bit. “Got too excited, I suppose.”
“Take a deep breath and once you give the cookies, you might slip in that you like sculpting or something. Talk about interests, but I wouldn’t flat out ask. That’d be rude.”
He grinned at that. His mum was always telling him to be polite, to be a gentleman. “I know, mum.”
“Now shoo!”
Orlando rolled his eyes and clutched the plate tightly as he hurried back over to where the artist man was waiting. He bit on his lip when he stopped in front of the man and thrust the plate of cookies at him. “Here they are.”
“Did your mum make them?” the man asked, taking the plate and lifting it up to sniff at them. “They smell good.” He balanced the plate on one hand and held out the free one. “I’m Viggo, by the way.”
“Oh, nice name… Viggo,” Orlando muttered, his eyes darting to the ground. What the fuck was he saying? Nice name? God, the guy probably thought he was some kind of weirdo. Luckily the age gap was far too much for any weird flirting implications. Now that would be embarrassing.
“Well, Orlando’s not bad either.” Viggo pulled off the plastic wrap and snagged a cookie. “Hmm… these are really good.”
Orlando felt his cheeks heat up. He didn’t know why he was getting so awkward all of a sudden. This was something a little kid went through. He was thirteen for bloody sake. He should be over this. It wasn’t like Viggo was a girl or anything, not that he really liked girls yet. Some of his mates were goggle-eyed over breasts, but he didn’t get what was so wonderful about them.
“So… are you in high school?”
Orlando blinked. “What?”
“Oh, dammit, what do you call upper level schools here?”
“Secondary schools?”
“So you’re in that?” Viggo asked after he’d chewed another bite of the cookie.
“Yeah.” Orlando shifted around nervously. “I’m in grade 3.”
Viggo brushed his fingers together, letting the crumbs tumble to the ground. “Not really sure I get the British system. I’m American.”
“I can tell.”
“So you do have a mouth to you.”
Orlando flushed even more. “I didn’t mean to be…”
“No, no,” Viggo said, waving his hand. “It’s fine. Thanks for the cookies.”
“You’re welcome,” Orlando remarked, while watching Viggo turn around and not really knowing how to stop him from walking away. “Um…”
Viggo glanced back over his shoulder. “Um… what?”
“You have a kiln,” Orlando blurted.
“That I do.”
“I sculpt.”
Viggo grinned. “And you’d like to borrow the kiln?”
Orlando nodded sheepishly.
“Just ask and if I’m not using it, I don’t see any reason that you can’t.”
Orlando jerked his head up and his eyes caught Viggo’s green. “Thank you so much. You don’t know how much this means to me. Oh! D’you think I might be able to use it sometime this weekend?”
“I don’t think that’d be a problem.”
- 2005 -
The phone was ringing. Orlando rolled onto his stomach and glared at it. He squinted as he looked at the clock. It was only seven o’clock. Who the fuck was up this early in the morning? Especially on a bloody weekend.
But he grabbed the phone anyway and said, “Hello?”
“Bloom?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Sam Mendes.”
Orlando’s eyes popped open and he swallowed his stale saliva. “Hi… Mr. Mendes,” he began, cursing mentally. This had to be a good call, even if it was more than a week later. “What can I do for you?”
The director chuckled a bit. “You can certainly do something for me.”
A pleasant feeling started swirling in Orlando’s stomach, something different from the implication of dismissal. But how to approach it without sounding like an overconfident jackass? “Did I… did I-”
“You’ve got the role,” Mendes said. “Turns out the actor we had in mind for it decided he didn’t want the risk of being a druggie sleeze arse. But I take it, you’re willing?”
The mention of another actor made his insides churn. It didn’t take much effort not to answer with frightful enthusiasm. “I am.”
“You were my first choice,” Mendes remarked off-handedly. “But the producer wanted someone a bit more commercial. As long as you equal and step up your callback, you’ll erase any of Zanuck’s doubts.”
Something mixed of vindication and sinking doubts swirled in Orlando’s stomach. “I’ll try.”
“You’ll do,” Mendes retorted. “Now my assistant will forward you the filming schedule and contract to your agent. You’ll fly out at the end of the week. I trust that won’t be a problem?”
“No.”
Orlando was sure Mendes was smiling when he said, “Good.”
- 2000 -
He had stepped off the plane and been engulfed in the familiar musk of paint. If there could have been a better greeting in L.A., Orlando didn’t want it. This was enough for him, being hugged by his longtime friend and mentor and well… other things he thought best not to think about when he thought of Viggo.
“Thought you’d never get here,” Viggo remarked, thumping Orlando on the back playfully. “Your flight was delayed twice!”
“Yeah,” Orlando said, grinning as he pressed a chaste kiss on Viggo’s scruffy cheek. “Bad weather.”
“Bad sign, that,” Viggo responded with an even wider grin. “So how’s your mom? Not terribly excited about you moving across the pond, I bet.”
Orlando shook his head. “Not in the least. Kept trying to convince me that I ought to stay in London and do some British productions, but I wanted to try my luck here. You know, this land of opportunity and dreams and shit.”
“Oh it’s all shit, but good shit.”
TBC...
A/N: Let me know what you think? Good feedback tends to push my muse to work.