FIC: "Temporary Monogamy" (Part Eight) (Orlando Bloom/Sean Bean, Karl Urban/Sean Bean)
Title: "Temporary Monogamy" (8/27)
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 best things about living in such close proximity to Sean was that he was better than an alarm clock for waking Orlando up and making sure that he left the house at a decent hour when they didn't have a fuck-off early wakeup call. Kept him from sitting around in his boxers all day, watching bad telly and eating cereal from the box.
Besides which, Sean always bought breakfast.
Sometimes Karl joined them (when he did, Orlando and Karl would gang up on Sean for being so British that he wouldn't drink coffee, only tea), but most times it was either just Orlando and Sean, or they walked up the road to Dom's to drag him into daylight and saw to it that Dom ate something that wasn't stale Twisties.
Besides which, rousing Dom for food when he had a hangover was the best amusement this side of free porn.
"So, how was she?" Orlando asked as he strolled in through Dom’s back door like he owned the place. Which was about right, as often as he was over. Then again, Dom used Orlando's place as a B&B and stole all of his beer, so it all evened out.
"Not telling." Dom didn't bother to get up from the kitchen table. His eyes looked cloudy as he peered at Orlando over his mug. His face was still creased with sleep. His t-shirt was screaming pink with yellow polka-dots, proudly proclaiming 'My Other T-Shirt Is An Apron', even though Dom couldn't cook to save his life. "Where's Sean?"
"On the porch finishing a call to the girls - said he'd be just a minute." Orlando flipped his chair around and straddled it. He'd already helped himself to a cup of coffee. Good coffee was Dom's one indulgence, bless him, and the only reason he was still speaking to the bastard. Refusing to give details, indeed. "’Sides, what do you mean, you're not telling? You disappeared from the club with that absolutely gorgeous bird and I’m not even getting what she was like in the sack?"
"No."
Which totally meant that it was either rubbish sex or Dom had either not been able to get it up or had blown his wad too soon. Orlando was willing to be a considerable sum on it being the latter.
"You’re telling Orlando no? World must be ending." Both Dom and Orlando looked up when Sean strolled in and started to pour himself water for tea from the kettle on the stove. Early morning sunlight burst in through the window, haloing Sean in a prism of gold. Downright blinding this early in the morning, Orlando thought.
"Think that's more your job, mate," Dom said.
Sean moved and snagged a tea bag, breaking the spell, and sat across from the two of them. "What, telling Orlando no?"
"Not telling Orlando no," Dom corrected. "You're like his sexy sugar daddy or something."
Orlando had a weird image of Sean as a gangster from 1920s Chicago and himself as a torch singer, complete with the fringed dress. Karl's bizarre dreams were totally rubbing off on him. "Sean tells me no," he said, just so it was clear (and to get the image out of his head - no way he had the legs for fishnets, anyway.)
"When?"
"When I feel like it," Sean added.
Dom shook his head, winced. Poncy bastard, served him right for drinking fruit-flavored shots. Whoever heard of mango and vodka, anyway, it just wasn't natural. "You two should really just shag and get it over with."
Orlando rolled his eyes. If he had a quid for every time Dom told him to shag someone on set (last week, he'd been on and on about how amazing Sala and Orlando would look together and before that, it was Cate), he'd be able to afford his own harem, and wouldn't have to worry about going after Sean's. "Besides the fact that he's a bloke, and I don't go for blokes, not everything is about sex, you know."
"Says who?" Dom and Sean replied in unison, with twin traumatized expressions. Orlando wished he had Viggo's camera on him.
"Alright, mostly not everything, then," he amended.
"Besides, bloke, bird, it's all plumbing, innit?" Dom said. "It's the person, not the package."
"That's beautiful, Dom." Orlando held a hand to his heart. "I had no idea you wrote greeting cards in your spare time."
Dom shoved at Orlando's shoulder. "Piss off, both of you," he groused, when Sean chuckled. "You both know I'm right."
"As rain," Sean affirmed, still chuckling.
Orlando jerked a thumb in Sean's direction. "Besides, he's with Karl, remember. I don't steal from my friends, bird or bloke."
"Speaking of, why is Karl slumming with you, again? I mean, the man's gorgeous and can cook and is clearly out of your league," Dom grinned. "What's he getting out of it, other than you grunting at him, all Northern-like?"
"We don't demand anything out of the other," Sean said. "Besides which, I'm a god with my tongue."
Coming from anyone else in the universe, that would have sounded ridiculous. From Sean, however, it simply sounded like a fact of life.
Sean drained his cup with a loud slurp, then set it down. He acted like he didn't notice that Orlando and Dom were both still staring at him, a little slack-jawed. "Now are we going to have breakfast or what?"
***
True to Craig's threat, he managed to set Orlando with some girls he knew. After a couple of weeks of going out on a few dates, Orlando came to the conclusion that his friends were total crap at figuring out what it was he was looking for, and there was no way on the planet he was letting them set him up, even if they did pout about it. He was better off on his own.
Susan was drop-dead stunning, but Orlando couldn't get past her teeth. Awful of him, considering, but really, he couldn't think about kissing a girl that had sharper teeth than a dog's. No telling what sort of damage they could do to his sensitive bits.
Lacey was a disaster from the very first. Orlando was still amazed he survived the evening with all of his body parts. The less said about her, the better.
Bridget had a mouth that clung to his like spun sugar and skin that tasted like peaches. Orlando felt horrid about using her; she was a nice girl and that's all he wanted, someone nice, but she didn't make him burn. The sex had been dream-like, blurry and slow, but he'd only vaguely remembered it after they were done. Not exactly the fire he wanted, the passion he craved.
Marigold...well, Orlando'd had half a mind to turn her loose in Viggo's direction as payback over this whole idea, but not even he was that cruel. Still, the way she'd sucked the marrow from the bones of her roasted pheasant haunted him for weeks.
And then there was Laurie...
"...So there we are, on her sofa, right, and things are getting a little friendly, if you follow..." Orlando murmured his thanks when Karl set his plate in front of him. Karl'd made his special homemade fettuccine alfredo and, already, Orlando's mouth was watering.
"I know exactly where this is going," Karl said, handing Sean his plate before sitting down beside him.
Orlando swallowed quickly, burning his tongue. "Look, I'm telling this."
"Go on, then," Sean said as he picked up his wine glass. Orlando thought Sean enjoyed all of Orlando's disastrous attempts at dating so much because it made his own mistakes with the fairer sex seem almost pedestrian.
"Anyway, so there I am, got her shirt unbuttoned and I was just going for the bra -"
Karl interrupted with a lusty sigh. "Don't blame you there. She's got a lovely set on her."
"Too right. And killer legs, can't forget. So, anyway, I get my fingers right on the clasp and she's all working to get me trousers off and there's this HUGE booming sound from the front door. Swear to Christ, I thought it was a bomb going off."
"Well, what was it?"
"Leonard," Orlando and Karl replied in unison. At Orlando's puzzled stare, Karl just shrugged. "Told you I'd gone out with her. Lovely girl, but her brother..."
"That was her brother?" Sean asked.
"Walking into her apartment, cool as you please, no knocking or anything," Orlando said. "At any rate, he was bellowing his massive fucking lungs out - the man makes the cave troll look small - so I grabbed my shoes and my shirt and jacket and I hightailed it the bloody fuck out of there. I was lucky to escape with my life and my bait and tackle intact," he finished, around a huge bite of fettuccine.
Karl managed to hold it together for about a minute before he started laughing. "I did warn you..."
"Yeah, yeah, you did," Orlando conceded. Sure, he could have a laugh about it now. "But, fuck, man, look at her. You blame me?"
"Well, you'd hardly be the first man to be taken in by a nice figure," Sean stated. "Sometime's a bloke's got to bollocks up the whole thing to figure out what works."
Orlando waved a finger between Sean and Karl. "And you two? What you have to fuck up to find what you've got?"
Sean's smile was part weary-and-wise, part-mischievous. "More than you know, lad."
"Besides," Karl shrugged, "what he and I've got is a great time for now, but it's not the rest of our lives."
Sean squeezed Karl's hand. "Even if I wanted to make an honest man of you, I couldn't."
"I don't think Mother Teresa could make Karl an honest man," Orlando joked.
"Careful there, or no dessert for you."
"Depends on what it is."
At Orlando's reply, Karl and Sean shared a private look before bursting into amused laughter. Which could only mean Orlando'd blundered into it again.
"Oh, bugger off, both of you, you're worse than teenagers," he said, with a shake of his head. "Besides, I still don't share or do blokes."
Karl was still chuckling when he replied. "Don't knock it 'til you tried it."
"I did, remember." Orlando nodded in Sean's direction. "Your man totally put the moves on me."
Sean waved a hand negligently. "That tiny peck weren't nothing. If I ever decide to truly kiss you, you'll know it."
"Long as you shave first," Orlando muttered, then turned bright red when he realized he'd said it out loud. One, day, man, he really would learn...
Over Karl's hoot of laughter, Sean just sat back and winked. "It's a date."
(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 best things about living in such close proximity to Sean was that he was better than an alarm clock for waking Orlando up and making sure that he left the house at a decent hour when they didn't have a fuck-off early wakeup call. Kept him from sitting around in his boxers all day, watching bad telly and eating cereal from the box.
Besides which, Sean always bought breakfast.
Sometimes Karl joined them (when he did, Orlando and Karl would gang up on Sean for being so British that he wouldn't drink coffee, only tea), but most times it was either just Orlando and Sean, or they walked up the road to Dom's to drag him into daylight and saw to it that Dom ate something that wasn't stale Twisties.
Besides which, rousing Dom for food when he had a hangover was the best amusement this side of free porn.
"So, how was she?" Orlando asked as he strolled in through Dom’s back door like he owned the place. Which was about right, as often as he was over. Then again, Dom used Orlando's place as a B&B and stole all of his beer, so it all evened out.
"Not telling." Dom didn't bother to get up from the kitchen table. His eyes looked cloudy as he peered at Orlando over his mug. His face was still creased with sleep. His t-shirt was screaming pink with yellow polka-dots, proudly proclaiming 'My Other T-Shirt Is An Apron', even though Dom couldn't cook to save his life. "Where's Sean?"
"On the porch finishing a call to the girls - said he'd be just a minute." Orlando flipped his chair around and straddled it. He'd already helped himself to a cup of coffee. Good coffee was Dom's one indulgence, bless him, and the only reason he was still speaking to the bastard. Refusing to give details, indeed. "’Sides, what do you mean, you're not telling? You disappeared from the club with that absolutely gorgeous bird and I’m not even getting what she was like in the sack?"
"No."
Which totally meant that it was either rubbish sex or Dom had either not been able to get it up or had blown his wad too soon. Orlando was willing to be a considerable sum on it being the latter.
"You’re telling Orlando no? World must be ending." Both Dom and Orlando looked up when Sean strolled in and started to pour himself water for tea from the kettle on the stove. Early morning sunlight burst in through the window, haloing Sean in a prism of gold. Downright blinding this early in the morning, Orlando thought.
"Think that's more your job, mate," Dom said.
Sean moved and snagged a tea bag, breaking the spell, and sat across from the two of them. "What, telling Orlando no?"
"Not telling Orlando no," Dom corrected. "You're like his sexy sugar daddy or something."
Orlando had a weird image of Sean as a gangster from 1920s Chicago and himself as a torch singer, complete with the fringed dress. Karl's bizarre dreams were totally rubbing off on him. "Sean tells me no," he said, just so it was clear (and to get the image out of his head - no way he had the legs for fishnets, anyway.)
"When?"
"When I feel like it," Sean added.
Dom shook his head, winced. Poncy bastard, served him right for drinking fruit-flavored shots. Whoever heard of mango and vodka, anyway, it just wasn't natural. "You two should really just shag and get it over with."
Orlando rolled his eyes. If he had a quid for every time Dom told him to shag someone on set (last week, he'd been on and on about how amazing Sala and Orlando would look together and before that, it was Cate), he'd be able to afford his own harem, and wouldn't have to worry about going after Sean's. "Besides the fact that he's a bloke, and I don't go for blokes, not everything is about sex, you know."
"Says who?" Dom and Sean replied in unison, with twin traumatized expressions. Orlando wished he had Viggo's camera on him.
"Alright, mostly not everything, then," he amended.
"Besides, bloke, bird, it's all plumbing, innit?" Dom said. "It's the person, not the package."
"That's beautiful, Dom." Orlando held a hand to his heart. "I had no idea you wrote greeting cards in your spare time."
Dom shoved at Orlando's shoulder. "Piss off, both of you," he groused, when Sean chuckled. "You both know I'm right."
"As rain," Sean affirmed, still chuckling.
Orlando jerked a thumb in Sean's direction. "Besides, he's with Karl, remember. I don't steal from my friends, bird or bloke."
"Speaking of, why is Karl slumming with you, again? I mean, the man's gorgeous and can cook and is clearly out of your league," Dom grinned. "What's he getting out of it, other than you grunting at him, all Northern-like?"
"We don't demand anything out of the other," Sean said. "Besides which, I'm a god with my tongue."
Coming from anyone else in the universe, that would have sounded ridiculous. From Sean, however, it simply sounded like a fact of life.
Sean drained his cup with a loud slurp, then set it down. He acted like he didn't notice that Orlando and Dom were both still staring at him, a little slack-jawed. "Now are we going to have breakfast or what?"
***
True to Craig's threat, he managed to set Orlando with some girls he knew. After a couple of weeks of going out on a few dates, Orlando came to the conclusion that his friends were total crap at figuring out what it was he was looking for, and there was no way on the planet he was letting them set him up, even if they did pout about it. He was better off on his own.
Susan was drop-dead stunning, but Orlando couldn't get past her teeth. Awful of him, considering, but really, he couldn't think about kissing a girl that had sharper teeth than a dog's. No telling what sort of damage they could do to his sensitive bits.
Lacey was a disaster from the very first. Orlando was still amazed he survived the evening with all of his body parts. The less said about her, the better.
Bridget had a mouth that clung to his like spun sugar and skin that tasted like peaches. Orlando felt horrid about using her; she was a nice girl and that's all he wanted, someone nice, but she didn't make him burn. The sex had been dream-like, blurry and slow, but he'd only vaguely remembered it after they were done. Not exactly the fire he wanted, the passion he craved.
Marigold...well, Orlando'd had half a mind to turn her loose in Viggo's direction as payback over this whole idea, but not even he was that cruel. Still, the way she'd sucked the marrow from the bones of her roasted pheasant haunted him for weeks.
And then there was Laurie...
"...So there we are, on her sofa, right, and things are getting a little friendly, if you follow..." Orlando murmured his thanks when Karl set his plate in front of him. Karl'd made his special homemade fettuccine alfredo and, already, Orlando's mouth was watering.
"I know exactly where this is going," Karl said, handing Sean his plate before sitting down beside him.
Orlando swallowed quickly, burning his tongue. "Look, I'm telling this."
"Go on, then," Sean said as he picked up his wine glass. Orlando thought Sean enjoyed all of Orlando's disastrous attempts at dating so much because it made his own mistakes with the fairer sex seem almost pedestrian.
"Anyway, so there I am, got her shirt unbuttoned and I was just going for the bra -"
Karl interrupted with a lusty sigh. "Don't blame you there. She's got a lovely set on her."
"Too right. And killer legs, can't forget. So, anyway, I get my fingers right on the clasp and she's all working to get me trousers off and there's this HUGE booming sound from the front door. Swear to Christ, I thought it was a bomb going off."
"Well, what was it?"
"Leonard," Orlando and Karl replied in unison. At Orlando's puzzled stare, Karl just shrugged. "Told you I'd gone out with her. Lovely girl, but her brother..."
"That was her brother?" Sean asked.
"Walking into her apartment, cool as you please, no knocking or anything," Orlando said. "At any rate, he was bellowing his massive fucking lungs out - the man makes the cave troll look small - so I grabbed my shoes and my shirt and jacket and I hightailed it the bloody fuck out of there. I was lucky to escape with my life and my bait and tackle intact," he finished, around a huge bite of fettuccine.
Karl managed to hold it together for about a minute before he started laughing. "I did warn you..."
"Yeah, yeah, you did," Orlando conceded. Sure, he could have a laugh about it now. "But, fuck, man, look at her. You blame me?"
"Well, you'd hardly be the first man to be taken in by a nice figure," Sean stated. "Sometime's a bloke's got to bollocks up the whole thing to figure out what works."
Orlando waved a finger between Sean and Karl. "And you two? What you have to fuck up to find what you've got?"
Sean's smile was part weary-and-wise, part-mischievous. "More than you know, lad."
"Besides," Karl shrugged, "what he and I've got is a great time for now, but it's not the rest of our lives."
Sean squeezed Karl's hand. "Even if I wanted to make an honest man of you, I couldn't."
"I don't think Mother Teresa could make Karl an honest man," Orlando joked.
"Careful there, or no dessert for you."
"Depends on what it is."
At Orlando's reply, Karl and Sean shared a private look before bursting into amused laughter. Which could only mean Orlando'd blundered into it again.
"Oh, bugger off, both of you, you're worse than teenagers," he said, with a shake of his head. "Besides, I still don't share or do blokes."
Karl was still chuckling when he replied. "Don't knock it 'til you tried it."
"I did, remember." Orlando nodded in Sean's direction. "Your man totally put the moves on me."
Sean waved a hand negligently. "That tiny peck weren't nothing. If I ever decide to truly kiss you, you'll know it."
"Long as you shave first," Orlando muttered, then turned bright red when he realized he'd said it out loud. One, day, man, he really would learn...
Over Karl's hoot of laughter, Sean just sat back and winked. "It's a date."
(To Be Continued)