FIC: "Temporary Monogamy" (Part Seven) (Orlando Bloom/Sean Bean, Karl Urban/Sean Bean)
Title: "Temporary Monogamy" (7/27)
Author: Brenda (azewewish)
Pairing: Orlando Bloom/Sean Bean (Karl Urban/Sean Bean)
Click here for full disclaimers & notes.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen | Part Sixteen | Part Seventeen | Part Eighteen | Part Nineteen | Part Twenty | Part Twenty-One | Part Twenty-Two | Part Twenty-Three | Part Twenty-Four | Part Twenty-Five | Part Twenty-Six | Part Twenty-Seven (and Epilogue) |
One of the oddest things Orlando had discovered in working on such a large project, with a cast numbering in the thousands or whatnot, was that he had a fuckton of down time on the set. Oh sure, Peter and Andrew and all worked like mad, fueled by all of the caffeine New Line could buy and a single-minded purpose, but the actors themselves had ridiculous amounts of time where they just stood or sat around, doing nothing. Waiting. Some of them read, some listened to music, some played chess, and a few had even taken up knitting. As for Orlando, he did a fair amount of all of them, but mostly, he did a lot of thinking, which was never a good thing.
His gran always said that thinking would lead to no good in the end.
He sighed in envy when he saw Peter and Fran, sitting huddled close together, working on some script change or another. He and Harry were huddled together on the other end of the set, taking full advantage of the shade provided by the nearby trees. Today's shoot was like working in Hades, only warmer. "I mean, I think Viggo's got the right way of it and all, as far as finding someone during filming, but you know what I really want? I want that right there."
"What they have, you mean?" Harry guessed. He'd finished his part in the film ages ago, but still dropped by from time to time to grab a camera as needed or to keep Orlando company. As Karl was fond of saying, loudly and in Orlando's hearing, Harry was the sort to take his parenting responsibilities seriously. Honestly, with friends like his, it was a wonder he wasn't a crack addict. He was grateful he had a proper friend like Harry.
"Yeah," Orlando nodded. "A true partnership. Someone who gets this whole crazy mess and who'll bring me back to earth when I need it and who I can keep grounded when they need it. Y'know?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do."
The slightly wistful tone in Harry's voice stopped Orlando short. "You had that once, didn't you?" he guessed, murmuring the words.
"I thought I did. With Karl," Harry clarified, unnecessarily. Orlando knew perfectly well who Harry meant.
"Whatever happened there, anyway?" Orlando wasn't stupid or completely thick, no matter what Dom said about his powers of observation. There was a lot of history there that neither Karl nor Harry had ever bothered to explain. Not that either of them were too good at explaining anything else, for that matter. Karl was one of Orlando's best friends, but he deflected even the hint of serious conversation with either a joke or innuendo. Reading him was like trying to read Japanese. And Harry, for all of his earthy wit, wasn't much better.
"No idea. One day we were together, and the next we...well, we weren't." Harry sounded baffled, but not particularly put out by it, if the shrug was anything to go by.
"And you never asked him about it? I mean, why you stopped sleeping with each other?"
"I'm not so good with words," Harry replied, with a sheepish grin. "It's not like he wasn't still around as much as ever, so it was never important. We're good as we are."
"Huh." Christ, Kiwis were odd ducks. No wonder Viggo got on so well with them. "Maybe you should've asked."
"Yeah. Maybe. Either way, it's ancient history and all. He's with Sean now, they're happy, all that matters. Besides, I don't think Karl and I were cut out for long-term."
Orlando wondered who Harry was trying to convince. "Uh huh," was all he replied.
"You want to know what I think?" Harry continued. His gaze was still on Peter and Fran.
"I dunno, do I?" Orlando tried to make a joke of it, but he was pretty sure it fell flat. This entire conversation had turned more times than a model on a catwalk.
"I think you're desperate."
"What?"
Harry gently squeezed Orlando's knee, stilled the nervous bouncing. "Relax. Stop trying to force things. Things'll happen or they won't, but they never will if you don't take a deep breath and let it all go."
It was good advice, and Orlando knew it. But nothing was ever that simple. "Not as easy as all that. Relaxing, I mean. If it was easy, plenty more people would do it, wouldn't they, instead of being stressed out all the time."
"You do it in your acting well enough," Harry pointed out.
"Yeah, but that's different. It's a part."
"It's your life," Harry gently reminded him. His smile was almost paternal. "If you don't live it, who will?"
Which should have sounded like absolute, Viggo-like crazy rubbish, but, well, it made sense. Because it was Harry, and even crazy things around Harry made sense.
"And you say you're not good with words," he smiled, and nudged Harry's shoulder.
"I do have the rare bout of clarity."
They both went back to watching Peter and Fran. "I don't think it's as rare as you think," Orlando softly replied.
***
The music in the club was loud, the beat heavy, the dance floor was suitably crowded with young, pretty things getting their groove going, and the drinks strong enough to fell a Mûmak. In other words, it was a typical 'Elf Night Out', Orlando thought. It wasn't the full contingent of Elves tonight - Liv and Cate were having a girls' night at one of the posher restaurants, and Hugo had opted for a quiet night in - but Orlando and Marton and Craig were still making a night of it. Say what you want about Craig - and there were plenty of people on set who did just that - but the man knew how to enjoy himself. And he was always on much better behavior when Marton was around to rein him in. They were like a weird, mostly hetero married couple. Only, like, functional or something.
Craig passed Orlando's drink to him when he sat down at their small table at the far edge of the dance floor. It was bright scarlet and mostly vodka. Orlando had no clue what else was in it - Craig always picked the drinks on Elf Night - and he was afraid to ask.
"So, what's this I hear about you and Viggo and Priscilla in a threesome?"
Orlando immediately spit his drink in a shower of red. "I'm -" he coughed, sputtered again, "do what??"
Craig leaned in, elbows resting on the table. "Scuttlebutt on set is that Viggo propositioned you to tag-team with him and Prissy and you said yes."
"I..." Orlando opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried to formulate something to say that wasn't 'EWWWWWWWW' in a loud shriek. Just the idea that he'd...and with Viggo...who was like...just…
"No," he finally got out, when he thought he could breathe again. "That's not true."
But trust Craig to have heard the most twisted and salacious of the rumors.
"So what is true, then?" Marton asked. Unlike Craig and Orlando, and their screaming red paint thinner, Marton always drank bourbon, neat, when they went out. Orlando had no idea how anyone managed to swallow anything that tasted like dirt, but if there was a possibility of getting drunk, people managed to drink a lot of questionable things.
"What's true is that Priscilla's been setting me up with some dates with some of her friends. At Viggo's suggestion. There is no nakedness going on between myself and either of them, nor will there be." Orlando shuddered again. Not that either of them were hideous or anything, but it really would be like doing the deed with a relative and just...a thousand times, no.
"You're letting Priscilla set you up and not me?" Craig sounded eighteen shades of indignant. "I know loads more hot babes than she does, trust me."
Great, and now he'd gone off and insulted Craig. Fuck, he should have listened to Dom. "It's not that, I went to Harry first..."
Marton chuckled. "Harry hasn't been near a woman in three years, mate. He's hardly the first person I'd go to for introductions."
"I know, that's why I...holy fuck, three years???"
"Since he hooked up with Karl, yeah," Marton replied. "There hasn't been anyone else."
"Yeah, but he and Karl...I mean, that's been over for, um, well, a long time." Seriously, whoever said that the Brits were bizarre had nothing on Kiwis. "And just what exactly is their story, anyway?" he asked, partly because he was dying of curiosity, especially after his earlier conversation with Harry, and partly to get Craig thinking about something that wasn't his love life. If he could throw Craig off the scent, it would be a miracle.
Craig and Marton looked at each other, then shrugged. "I think it was Danielle that introduced them, after she worked with Harry on his first film. She also worked with Karl on 'Xena'."
"Yeah, she played an Amazon, right?" Orlando had a dim memory of a really hot blonde wielding a sword, but he thought he could be thinking of the stacked babe who played Calisto. The show may have been rubbish, but it had eye candy for days.
"That's her. Shame she's married now. Danielle would have eaten you with a spoon," Craig added, with a waggle of his eyebrows.
"Sounds appetizing."
"Well, she is a dish, so it fits," Marton grinned, over Craig and Orlando's pained groans at his joke. "Anyway, Harry and Karl lived together for, what, two years or so..."
Fuck, it was just his night to be shocked. "They lived together? It was that serious?" He didn't know why that was so surprising, except that, in his world, when people lived together, they tended to get married, not split up and still hang around each other all the time and get on with the new boyfriend or whatever.
"Please, Karl moved into Harry's place after the third date," Craig scoffed. "The first time they met, it was like watching a lightning storm. They were that attracted."
"So what happened?"
"No one knows. Karl just moved out one day, gave Harry a key to his new place, and they pretty much continued as they'd been, only without the sex and the whole living together thing," Marton added, twirling his straw in his fingers in an odd baton-motion.
"And no one thought this was odd? Seriously." Orlando was getting a headache just thinking about it.
Craig took a noisy sip of his drink. "Sure we did, but it's not like much changed. They treat each other about the same."
"Only without the constant touching and such that they did when they were a couple."
Orlando was definitely not drunk enough for this. "And how long's this been going on?" he asked.
Craig hmmmd a little before speaking. "Close to a year now, more or less."
"Huh."
"Harry even got Karl the part of Éomer," Marton said.
"Wait, what?" Try as Orlando might, he could not wrap his brain around that concept. Once again, the difference between Harry and Karl's situation with that of his with any of his ex-girlfriends was about as vast as a crater on the moon. "Are you telling me that Harry got his ex a plum role in the biggest film series ever made? Why?"
"Like I said, they're still just as they were," Craig said.
"And Harry and Pete are friends from way back," Marton continued. "Pete wouldn't have hired Karl if he didn't think Karl could do the job."
"I'm not disparaging Karl's acting, just what the fucking hell is going on with those two," Orlando said, still trying to make it all make sense in his head.
Marton clapped Orlando on the arm. "When you figure it out, let the rest of us know."
"But first, you need to let me introduce you around to a few of my girl friends," Craig smiled, looking for all the world like the proverbial cat with the canary.
Orlando just inwardly groaned, and ordered another drink. If he was going to have to put up with Craig scheming on his behalf, he may as well be blitzed.
(To Be Continued)
Author: Brenda (azewewish)
Pairing: Orlando Bloom/Sean Bean (Karl Urban/Sean Bean)
Click here for full disclaimers & notes.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen | Part Sixteen | Part Seventeen | Part Eighteen | Part Nineteen | Part Twenty | Part Twenty-One | Part Twenty-Two | Part Twenty-Three | Part Twenty-Four | Part Twenty-Five | Part Twenty-Six | Part Twenty-Seven (and Epilogue) |
One of the oddest things Orlando had discovered in working on such a large project, with a cast numbering in the thousands or whatnot, was that he had a fuckton of down time on the set. Oh sure, Peter and Andrew and all worked like mad, fueled by all of the caffeine New Line could buy and a single-minded purpose, but the actors themselves had ridiculous amounts of time where they just stood or sat around, doing nothing. Waiting. Some of them read, some listened to music, some played chess, and a few had even taken up knitting. As for Orlando, he did a fair amount of all of them, but mostly, he did a lot of thinking, which was never a good thing.
His gran always said that thinking would lead to no good in the end.
He sighed in envy when he saw Peter and Fran, sitting huddled close together, working on some script change or another. He and Harry were huddled together on the other end of the set, taking full advantage of the shade provided by the nearby trees. Today's shoot was like working in Hades, only warmer. "I mean, I think Viggo's got the right way of it and all, as far as finding someone during filming, but you know what I really want? I want that right there."
"What they have, you mean?" Harry guessed. He'd finished his part in the film ages ago, but still dropped by from time to time to grab a camera as needed or to keep Orlando company. As Karl was fond of saying, loudly and in Orlando's hearing, Harry was the sort to take his parenting responsibilities seriously. Honestly, with friends like his, it was a wonder he wasn't a crack addict. He was grateful he had a proper friend like Harry.
"Yeah," Orlando nodded. "A true partnership. Someone who gets this whole crazy mess and who'll bring me back to earth when I need it and who I can keep grounded when they need it. Y'know?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do."
The slightly wistful tone in Harry's voice stopped Orlando short. "You had that once, didn't you?" he guessed, murmuring the words.
"I thought I did. With Karl," Harry clarified, unnecessarily. Orlando knew perfectly well who Harry meant.
"Whatever happened there, anyway?" Orlando wasn't stupid or completely thick, no matter what Dom said about his powers of observation. There was a lot of history there that neither Karl nor Harry had ever bothered to explain. Not that either of them were too good at explaining anything else, for that matter. Karl was one of Orlando's best friends, but he deflected even the hint of serious conversation with either a joke or innuendo. Reading him was like trying to read Japanese. And Harry, for all of his earthy wit, wasn't much better.
"No idea. One day we were together, and the next we...well, we weren't." Harry sounded baffled, but not particularly put out by it, if the shrug was anything to go by.
"And you never asked him about it? I mean, why you stopped sleeping with each other?"
"I'm not so good with words," Harry replied, with a sheepish grin. "It's not like he wasn't still around as much as ever, so it was never important. We're good as we are."
"Huh." Christ, Kiwis were odd ducks. No wonder Viggo got on so well with them. "Maybe you should've asked."
"Yeah. Maybe. Either way, it's ancient history and all. He's with Sean now, they're happy, all that matters. Besides, I don't think Karl and I were cut out for long-term."
Orlando wondered who Harry was trying to convince. "Uh huh," was all he replied.
"You want to know what I think?" Harry continued. His gaze was still on Peter and Fran.
"I dunno, do I?" Orlando tried to make a joke of it, but he was pretty sure it fell flat. This entire conversation had turned more times than a model on a catwalk.
"I think you're desperate."
"What?"
Harry gently squeezed Orlando's knee, stilled the nervous bouncing. "Relax. Stop trying to force things. Things'll happen or they won't, but they never will if you don't take a deep breath and let it all go."
It was good advice, and Orlando knew it. But nothing was ever that simple. "Not as easy as all that. Relaxing, I mean. If it was easy, plenty more people would do it, wouldn't they, instead of being stressed out all the time."
"You do it in your acting well enough," Harry pointed out.
"Yeah, but that's different. It's a part."
"It's your life," Harry gently reminded him. His smile was almost paternal. "If you don't live it, who will?"
Which should have sounded like absolute, Viggo-like crazy rubbish, but, well, it made sense. Because it was Harry, and even crazy things around Harry made sense.
"And you say you're not good with words," he smiled, and nudged Harry's shoulder.
"I do have the rare bout of clarity."
They both went back to watching Peter and Fran. "I don't think it's as rare as you think," Orlando softly replied.
***
The music in the club was loud, the beat heavy, the dance floor was suitably crowded with young, pretty things getting their groove going, and the drinks strong enough to fell a Mûmak. In other words, it was a typical 'Elf Night Out', Orlando thought. It wasn't the full contingent of Elves tonight - Liv and Cate were having a girls' night at one of the posher restaurants, and Hugo had opted for a quiet night in - but Orlando and Marton and Craig were still making a night of it. Say what you want about Craig - and there were plenty of people on set who did just that - but the man knew how to enjoy himself. And he was always on much better behavior when Marton was around to rein him in. They were like a weird, mostly hetero married couple. Only, like, functional or something.
Craig passed Orlando's drink to him when he sat down at their small table at the far edge of the dance floor. It was bright scarlet and mostly vodka. Orlando had no clue what else was in it - Craig always picked the drinks on Elf Night - and he was afraid to ask.
"So, what's this I hear about you and Viggo and Priscilla in a threesome?"
Orlando immediately spit his drink in a shower of red. "I'm -" he coughed, sputtered again, "do what??"
Craig leaned in, elbows resting on the table. "Scuttlebutt on set is that Viggo propositioned you to tag-team with him and Prissy and you said yes."
"I..." Orlando opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried to formulate something to say that wasn't 'EWWWWWWWW' in a loud shriek. Just the idea that he'd...and with Viggo...who was like...just…
"No," he finally got out, when he thought he could breathe again. "That's not true."
But trust Craig to have heard the most twisted and salacious of the rumors.
"So what is true, then?" Marton asked. Unlike Craig and Orlando, and their screaming red paint thinner, Marton always drank bourbon, neat, when they went out. Orlando had no idea how anyone managed to swallow anything that tasted like dirt, but if there was a possibility of getting drunk, people managed to drink a lot of questionable things.
"What's true is that Priscilla's been setting me up with some dates with some of her friends. At Viggo's suggestion. There is no nakedness going on between myself and either of them, nor will there be." Orlando shuddered again. Not that either of them were hideous or anything, but it really would be like doing the deed with a relative and just...a thousand times, no.
"You're letting Priscilla set you up and not me?" Craig sounded eighteen shades of indignant. "I know loads more hot babes than she does, trust me."
Great, and now he'd gone off and insulted Craig. Fuck, he should have listened to Dom. "It's not that, I went to Harry first..."
Marton chuckled. "Harry hasn't been near a woman in three years, mate. He's hardly the first person I'd go to for introductions."
"I know, that's why I...holy fuck, three years???"
"Since he hooked up with Karl, yeah," Marton replied. "There hasn't been anyone else."
"Yeah, but he and Karl...I mean, that's been over for, um, well, a long time." Seriously, whoever said that the Brits were bizarre had nothing on Kiwis. "And just what exactly is their story, anyway?" he asked, partly because he was dying of curiosity, especially after his earlier conversation with Harry, and partly to get Craig thinking about something that wasn't his love life. If he could throw Craig off the scent, it would be a miracle.
Craig and Marton looked at each other, then shrugged. "I think it was Danielle that introduced them, after she worked with Harry on his first film. She also worked with Karl on 'Xena'."
"Yeah, she played an Amazon, right?" Orlando had a dim memory of a really hot blonde wielding a sword, but he thought he could be thinking of the stacked babe who played Calisto. The show may have been rubbish, but it had eye candy for days.
"That's her. Shame she's married now. Danielle would have eaten you with a spoon," Craig added, with a waggle of his eyebrows.
"Sounds appetizing."
"Well, she is a dish, so it fits," Marton grinned, over Craig and Orlando's pained groans at his joke. "Anyway, Harry and Karl lived together for, what, two years or so..."
Fuck, it was just his night to be shocked. "They lived together? It was that serious?" He didn't know why that was so surprising, except that, in his world, when people lived together, they tended to get married, not split up and still hang around each other all the time and get on with the new boyfriend or whatever.
"Please, Karl moved into Harry's place after the third date," Craig scoffed. "The first time they met, it was like watching a lightning storm. They were that attracted."
"So what happened?"
"No one knows. Karl just moved out one day, gave Harry a key to his new place, and they pretty much continued as they'd been, only without the sex and the whole living together thing," Marton added, twirling his straw in his fingers in an odd baton-motion.
"And no one thought this was odd? Seriously." Orlando was getting a headache just thinking about it.
Craig took a noisy sip of his drink. "Sure we did, but it's not like much changed. They treat each other about the same."
"Only without the constant touching and such that they did when they were a couple."
Orlando was definitely not drunk enough for this. "And how long's this been going on?" he asked.
Craig hmmmd a little before speaking. "Close to a year now, more or less."
"Huh."
"Harry even got Karl the part of Éomer," Marton said.
"Wait, what?" Try as Orlando might, he could not wrap his brain around that concept. Once again, the difference between Harry and Karl's situation with that of his with any of his ex-girlfriends was about as vast as a crater on the moon. "Are you telling me that Harry got his ex a plum role in the biggest film series ever made? Why?"
"Like I said, they're still just as they were," Craig said.
"And Harry and Pete are friends from way back," Marton continued. "Pete wouldn't have hired Karl if he didn't think Karl could do the job."
"I'm not disparaging Karl's acting, just what the fucking hell is going on with those two," Orlando said, still trying to make it all make sense in his head.
Marton clapped Orlando on the arm. "When you figure it out, let the rest of us know."
"But first, you need to let me introduce you around to a few of my girl friends," Craig smiled, looking for all the world like the proverbial cat with the canary.
Orlando just inwardly groaned, and ordered another drink. If he was going to have to put up with Craig scheming on his behalf, he may as well be blitzed.
(To Be Continued)