Thirty-Love
Title: Thirty Love
Pairing: Elijah/Orlando
Rating: R
Disclaimer: No I don’t own them, yes this is made up.
Feedback: As always, any is appreciated.
Notes: A Wimbledon ball-boy/tennis player AU. Slightly angsty - it turned out a lot less ‘sweetness and light’ than I initially wanted it to.
Elijah is already crouched in position beside the umpire’s chair by the time the players stride out onto the court. The crowd, cool beneath wide-brimmed sun hats, claps politely. Elijah can’t resist raising his eyes slightly as Orlando Bloom, the world’s number one seed, strolls past his line of vision.
The muscles in Orlando’s calves stand taut. Elijah swallows and pulls his eyes away, hands sweating with nerves. The ground beneath his hands and knees is dry and brown from where countless other ball-boys have crouched throughout the tournament. Elijah presses his left palm slightly into the dust and draws it back to see the imprint of his fingers. Particles of dirt have stuck to the sweat on his skin and he brushes his hand hastily against the grass rather than on the fabric of his shorts.
The game starts, and it’s all Elijah can do to keep up, leaping to his feet more than once a minute to snatch a stray tennis ball, before rushing back soundlessly to his place to the left of the umpire’s chair, legs shaking with the sudden strain. In the back of his mind - the bit that isn’t preoccupied with the repetitive dull ‘thwack’ of a tennis ball against a racquet - he’s aware that Orlando is winning.
A break is called. Orlando heads over to the bench to gulp from his water bottle. Elijah’s eyes follow the bob of his Adam’s apple. It’s unbearably hot. Orlando isn’t wearing a cap, Elijah thinks anxiously, only a headband which holds his curls back from his face, leaving an even greater surface area of skin to be burnt.
It seems to take an endless amount of time before the game is over. The crowd are on their feet for Orlando, all ideas of Wimbledon restraint abandoned in the face of an English champion.
***
“Hello, darling.”
It’s after midnight before Orlando can sneak a private word with Elijah. The after-party is still blaring inside the hotel bar. Elijah is outside with the smokers, standing a bit away on his own.
“Oh, Orlando,” he says, quickly stubbing the cigarette out and throwing his arms around him. “Congratulations.” It is said quietly, and it means more to Orlando than all the shouting and cheering from the court earlier.
“Thank you,” he says, and leans down to give Elijah a kiss, relishing for once the taste of smoke.
“You looked great out there,” Elijah adds, once they draw away from each other. “Really great. I think you’ve got a good chance in the final.”
“Are you going to be there?”
“I think so.”
“Good. You bring me luck.”
Elijah rolls his eyes, hiding a smile. “You don’t need luck, you’re the best player in the world.”
Orlando’s face sobers. “I don’t know, Elijah.”
Elijah knows better than anyone how anxious Orlando is about his game. He has experienced first hand, after all, the nerves that stop Orlando from sleeping the night before a match, the pushy parents who seem disappointed when he loses, the self-hatred that brews as a result. Elijah takes it upon himself to try and rid Orlando from as many of his fears as he can, and thanks his stars that he himself was never quite good enough to be a world-class player.
“You’ll be great,” he says with a tone of finality. “And even if you lose, at least I’ll have the chance to look at your legs for a while.”
Orlando smiles, and kisses Elijah again.
“I’m going to turn in,” he says. “I’m exhausted. Are you staying up for a bit?”
“No, I’ll come up with you,” Elijah answers, and links his hand with Orlando’s, running his fingers over the hard calluses on the pads of Orlando’s palms as they head upstairs to their room.
***
Final fever is gripping the crowd. There has been a turn in the weather, from the blazing sunshine to a dull humidity. The air is warm and too heavy to draw a proper breath.
Orlando loses points almost instantly.
At “Thirty-Love” in the first game, as Elijah runs to retrieve a tennis ball that Orlando missed by more than a foot, he catches Orlando’s eye, and Orlando gives a barely -there shake of his head, and Elijah knows in that instant that Orlando is going to lose.
***
It takes hours afterwards to comfort Orlando. After the seemingly-interminable, painful press conference in which Orlando congratulates the world’s new number one seed, and the polite conversation he has to make with journalists and other players, Elijah finally manages to get him away from all the tennis talk. They sit in their hotel room, Orlando’s head in Elijah’s lap as he cries. It’s the first time Elijah has ever seen Orlando shed a tear. He doesn’t know what to do except for combing his fingers slowly through Orlando’s sweaty curls and keeping quiet.
Orlando eventually sits up and looks at Elijah through swollen red eyes.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, voice thick from crying.
“What for? Don’t say sorry, Orlando. You played brilliantly.” Elijah squeezes his hand gently, and gives Orlando a reassuring smile.
“I’m going to run a bath,” Orlando says, and gets up, tugging on Elijah’s wrist as he heads for the bathroom. Elijah obediently follows. They sit in silence as the water runs.
Orlando undresses, a private strip show, revealing his long browned muscles in a way that almost breaks Elijah’s heart, because Orlando seems more vulnerable than Elijah has ever seen him, and this isn’t what should be happening - they ought to both be downstairs, celebrating a win that would have cemented Orlando’s position as one of the all-time tennis greats.
Orlando slides into the bath, and then he fixes Elijah with a long look, and says, loudly, “Fuck me.”
They’ve both breathed those words too many times to count, but it’s the harshness of his voice that shocks Elijah this time. He starts pulling his clothes off.
Orlando kneels up, leaning his chest on the end of the bath that doesn’t have the taps on it. He flicks a look over his shoulder at Elijah. “Come on, Lij,” he says, urgently.
Elijah lowers himself slowly into the water. It’s hot enough to make him wince. He presses himself against Orlando’s back, knees slipping slightly on the bottom of the bath. He kisses the back of Orlando’s strong shoulders, and Orlando’s hand snakes around and grasps Elijah’s cock firmly.
“I need you in me now,” he says.
The words and the heat and the roughness of Orlando’s hand on his cock all work together to leave Elijah throbbing and hard within moments. He soothes his hands down Orlando’s spine, but Orlando passes him a complimentary bottle of body lotion from the shelf above the bath and pushes his arse above the surface of the water. “Hurry up,” he orders.
“OK, OK,” Elijah murmurs. He opens the bottle and lets some ooze onto his fingers before slowly running them between Orlando’s firm buttocks until he locates the place he’s looking for. He scissors for a minute or two, feeling Orlando relax around him.
“Ready?” he whispers eventually, kneeling up so he’s level with Orlando.
Orlando glances over his shoulder. “Yeah, just fucking do it,” he says, unromantically.
Elijah slides in, in one long, fluid motion. Once he’s buried in Orlando, it takes a superhuman effort not to come at once. Orlando’s muscles contract and relax and the velvety heat is so perfect that Elijah can’t even move.
Orlando takes care of it, bucking back and forth, and Elijah takes the hint and starts flicking his hips gently.
“Harder. Harder...Fuck. Harder,” demands Orlando.
Elijah obeys. He loses himself in the sensations, barely aware of the huge puddles of bath water they’re creating on the floor as the water sloshes around them. He comes with a low sigh. Orlando comes a moment after him.
They eventually straighten up and peel away from each other. Orlando turns around, into a sitting position. His semen has slid down the side of the bath and it mixes with the water. Elijah sinks down as well, and leans forward to kiss Orlando, brushing damp curls back from his forehead. He guesses the sex was in some way cathartic - he himself feels better for it, and from the calm expression on Orlando’s face, he does too.
They don’t speak until they are back in the bedroom. Orlando glances at his sweat-stained tennis uniform tossed carelessly across the floor, and sort of shrugs, catching Elijah’s eye.
“There’s always next year,” he says, with a small smile, and Elijah, well-practiced at reading Orlando’s emotions, knows Orlando will be OK, and his own empathetic anxiety quietens enough for him to take Orlando’s hands in his and lead him to bed.