Vanessa
Copyright October10, 2004 by Matthew Haldeman-Time
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Elijah Wood/Orlando Bloom
Disclaimer: Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom are their own people. The author has not met anyone here described, nor does the author mean to suggest that these people act this way in real life. This writing is a work of fiction. I make no money from this venture.
Notice: When I wrote “Leben,” I received some Orlando Bloom site banners. They’re great, of course, and I wanted to put them up right away, but I felt unworthy. I only had one Orlando story, and I felt like putting him up on the home page would be false advertising.
Finally, a few days ago, I decided to get serious about writing another Orlando story. I have a few little stories started already (Orlando/Nick Carter, because everyone must be with Nick as a rite of passage; and Orlando Fucks the Fellowship) but I wanted to try something else.
I asked Diamond which hobbit she wanted me to put Orlando with. She chose Elijah. No one was really that shocked. So I spent a day or two vaguely pondering Orlando/Elijah at various moments.
Then, I said that Vanessa was chock full of “Controlled Perfection” banners, and Dom started talking, and the story flowed from there.
So thank you to Alla and Diamond, for their banners; and to Diamond again for picking Orlando’s sex partner; and to Vanessa for providing the right inspiration at the right time, however unwittingly.
When Billy had asked him to come out with them tonight, he’d said no.
When Dom had asked him, he’d said no.
When Orlando had asked him, he’d taken one look at Orlando’s glowing smile and felt himself smiling, felt himself turning red. “Yeah, sure,” he’d said, and there had been a few minutes of conversation after that, but mostly he remembered that smile.
He’d made Sean come along, too, for protection. Sean was so normal and so careful, having Sean around kept him grounded; which he needed, because alcohol, Dom, and Orlando were a dangerous combination.
He was past the loud, excited part of being drunk and into the quiet, meditative part of being drunk. He’d started listening to the sound of Orlando’s voice. Not the words, just the sound of it. In normal, friendly conversation, Orlando’s voice was distractingly lyrical. Or did he mean musical? “Do I mean musical?”
Dom was snickering. “Yeah, buddy,” Sean said. “I’m sure you do.”
Maybe he did.
When Orlando was excited and active, he got louder. And his smiles, his smiles would get all big and wide, and he’d have all of those gleaming white teeth on display. Orlando looked happy all of the time, and healthy all of the time, and distractingly gorgeous all of the time.
Orlando was girl-pretty. Or maybe just beautiful.
Things didn’t stay quiet-quiet long around Orlando. He had too much energy, too much bounce. He was like, like… Tigger, or something. But even during regular conversation, Orlando carried so much glow around with him, just sitting and talking he still sparkled. He was animated, he was gesturing and laughing and dizzyingly alive. His teeth flashed white, his skin shone, his smiles sparkled, his eyes, oh, his eyes…
Orlando’s eyes were bright, and alive, and glisteny…glimmery…shimmery… Something. Shiny-bright.
Just being in the same room with Orlando… He was dazzling. Energizing. Enthusiastic. That was it, that was it. Orlando was enthusiastic. About everything! About life, about people, about projects and ideas and nonsense.
And kind of skinny, too. But he looked great naked. Really great. As good naked as he did in clothes. Maybe even better.
Elijah kept wanting to pet his mohawk. He wondered what Orlando would look like with actual hair. It would probably be all thick and glossy. He did pet it, sometimes. Orlando never minded being touched.
It was be easy to sit and think about Orlando, watch him, take him in, for hours, for days. Elijah had been doing it for a while now, and his brain was crammed full of Orlando thoughts. Questions and interest and curiosities and awe. And memories, not enough memories but a lot, because he filed away every second of awareness of this magical, engaging creature.
There was an annoying sound trying to interrupt Elijah’s contemplation. He tore his gaze from Orlando’s perfectly rounded ear to find out what was irritating him and make it stop.
“Chock. Chock. Chock,” Dom was saying, staring at his beer bottle. “Chock.”
“What are you going on about now?” Billy asked.
“Chock,” Dom said, raising his head to look at them. “What’s chock? You’re never just chock, are you? You’re always chock full. Chock full of this, chock full of that. What’s that about?”
“Well, Dom, I don’t know,” Billy said.
“Chock,” Dom said. “I’m chock full of beer,” he said. “What are you chock full of?” he asked Billy.
“Chock full of beer, myself,” Billy said. “What about you, Sean?”
“Mm, gotta go with chock full of beer on this one, guys,” Sean said. “What about you, Elijah?”
“Yeah, what about you, Elijah?” Dom asked, throwing a coaster at him across the table. “What are you chock full of?”
Elijah let his eyes wander back to beautiful and glowing and warm. “Orlando,” he said, feeling filled with all of that dazzling enthusiasm, all the way inside.
There was a brief moment of silence, and then Dom started laughing, and then Billy started shushing Dom, and then Sean said, “I think that means you’ve had enough.”
“No, no, give him another,” Dom said. “This could get interesting.”
“I think when you start outing yourself in public, you’ve had enough,” Sean said. “Come on, Elijah, I’m taking you home.”
Elijah had stopped listening and was only hearing some of that conversation. Mostly, he was watching the oddest little smile quirk up Orlando’s lips, those soft red lips. There was light in Orlando’s eyes, too, a smiling light just for him.
Sean was pushing him out of the booth, but he wanted to stay where Orlando was. “I don’t want to go,” he insisted, discovering that he was standing now.
“We have feet in the morning,” Sean reminded him. “Come on, say bye to everybody.”
“Bye, Elijah,” Dom said, wiggling his fingers.
“Bye, Elijah,” Billy said, looking like he wanted to laugh.
Orlando gave him that private,
warm smile. “Bye, Elijah.”
Maybe Orlando would think that last night had been a joke, or drunken confusion, instead of a hot confession of infatuation. Elijah still wasn’t ready to face him. He shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have said anything. Why had he been that stupid? Why had he given himself away? He’d been too drunk, on beer and on Orlando, and he’d gotten stupid, and he’d fucked up. Was it too late to take it back? It had been a joke, harmless, meaningless, a drunken muttering, a misunderstanding.
He didn’t go out that night. He stayed home, and Sean stayed with him. After a while of hanging around doing nothing, Elijah decided to try out his “I was just drunk; you didn’t think I actually meant that, did you” explanation on Sean. “Can you believe Dom’s acting like there’s something going on?” he asked. “With all of the shit that comes out of his mouth when he’s sober, you’d think he’d know people say confused things when they’re drunk.”
Sean gave him a look that was nine parts understanding and one part offended. “You think I don’t know you by now?”
Elijah didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. He tried for innocence, complete with his disarming “I’m really just a charming teenager” smile. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re in love with him,” Sean said, like it was the most obvious, ordinary thing in the world.
Elijah stared at Sean.
Sean raised his eyebrows. “I hope you’re not thinking of a way to tell me I’m wrong, because I know I’m right, and so do you.”
Well… “Damn,” Elijah said. “I wasn’t really ready to go there yet. I was going to hang out with infatuation for a while, maybe work my way up to a healthy obsession. You went straight to love?”
“You’re in love with him,” Sean said. “You passed obsession when you memorized the number of teeth he shows when he laughs.”
“Four on his right and five on his left,” Elijah said. “He laughs a lot. I was just…” Okay, so maybe it was a little weird, but…
“How did you even count them?” Sean asked. “It’s not like he’d hold still and let you.”
“He laughs a lot,” Elijah said again. “I didn’t count them all at once, I had to try it a couple of times to make sure I got it right.”
“A couple of times,” Sean repeated.
“It was a two-week study,” Elijah said. “So I’m interested in the guy. That doesn’t mean I’m in love with him.”
Sean leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I asked him to come over tonight.”
“You what?” Elijah demanded, hearing his voice warp into a shocked squeak.
“I didn’t want the two of you to have to talk about this in front of everybody else. So I asked him to come over here tonight. I think you should talk to him.”
“About what?” There was that squeak again. “About how, I can’t, I don’t want to - - did you tell him I’m in love with him?!”
“Of course not,” Sean said, as though it were a ridiculous question. He looked right at Elijah. “You’re going to.”
Elijah jerked back. “The fuck I am!”
“He’ll be here in about ten minutes,” Sean said, getting up. “You might want to comb your hair or something.” Sean got his keys and headed for the door. “See you in the morning.”
He was, Sean had, he wasn’t, Jesus Christ! Elijah didn’t know whether to start thinking of ways to plot Sean’s death, or run and hide. Ten minutes! What had Sean been thinking?! Orlando was going to come over here and, what, let him down gently? Great! Just what he’d always wanted! Yeah, Sean was a great friend, no doubt about that. Damn it!
He’d been trying to avoid Orlando all day - - he’d been grateful to Sean for helping him to avoid Orlando all day - - and now Orlando was going to show up and they were going to be alone and Orlando was going to be looking right at him. He was going to be the focus of all of Orlando’s attention, and there was no more intense spotlight in the world.
There was a knock at the door.
Elijah froze.
Orlando was out there.
Maybe if he held very, very still and didn’t breathe, Orlando would give up and go away.
Orlando wasn’t the giving up type.
Elijah got up from the couch slowly, studying the door. He wasn’t home. He was out, somewhere, doing something, and he wouldn’t be home for hours, so Orlando should leave. Just leave and go away.
Sean was right; Elijah didn’t want to talk about it in front of the others. He didn’t want to talk about it alone with Orlando, either. He didn’t want to address it, period.
Okay, so maybe he was in love with Orlando. There was no reason to tell Orlando that.
Another knock.
Fuck it. He’d play innocent. He’d feign confusion. He’d deny everything. Elijah walked over and pulled open the door. “Hey.”
Orlando put one hand on the doorframe. “Hey,” he said, with a warm, lazy smile. “Invite me in?”
Oh, wow. Man, had this been a mistake. Those eyes, that smile, Elijah could feel his blood growing hot, his stomach melting, his dick hardening. If he let Orlando get inside, he’d end up revealing everything. That would be bad. Really bad. “I know Sean asked you to come over here, but he just left, and I was about to go to bed, so…” Okay, lame, really sad, but all he could come up with off of the top of his head. Orlando looked too good; it was distracting.
“Come on, let me in, five minutes,” Orlando said with his most charming grin. “I just want to talk to you.”
It was impossible to say no to Orlando. He knew it, too, and he abused it mercilessly. Elijah loved that about him. “Okay. Five minutes,” Elijah said with nothing like firmness, and let Orlando in.
Orlando took one corner of the sofa in an elegant sprawl, his back to the sofa arm. Elijah sat on the other end of the sofa, aware that Orlando was watching him with curiosity. “I know Sean invited you over here, but I don’t really know why,” he said, trying to push through with Plan Innocent Confused Denial.
“Oh, I know why,” Orlando said. “He’s trying to put us together.”
Elijah stared at him. “What?”
“Yeah, he wants us to be together, right? He’s talked to me about it a time or two, feeling me out about it. He loves you, he feels like you’re a brother to him, he wants you to be happy but he’d never let you be with anybody who’s not perfect.” Orlando laughed, a warm musical chuckle. “He thinks I’m perfect, he says it’s maddening really, he can’t stand it. But he thinks I’d make you happy, so, there you have it.”
Elijah was going to kill Sean. A tragic on-set accident. They’d have to recast the role, they’d have to reshoot scenes, filming would be set back by months. But it would be worth it. It would absolutely be worth it.
“It’s not all a hook-up,” Orlando said. “I’ve been falling for you since I got introduced to you. You don’t mind me saying that?”
“What?” Elijah asked. Too much input, too many startling discoveries, with Orlando sitting too close with too-gorgeous brown eyes.
“I’ve been falling for you from the day we met,” Orlando said. “You’re fantastic, you’re super talented, and you’re good, you’re a really good person, do you know what I mean? You have everybody eating out of the palm of your hand, I love watching it. And you’re not at all hard to look at, are you?”
That wicked, amused smile made heat creep into Elijah’s cheeks. “I didn’t, I didn’t know. I mean, I had no idea. Are you…” He didn’t know what he wanted to ask. It wasn’t possible, was it? Orlando was attracted to him?
“I thought I was hiding it pretty well, keeping it all to myself, but Sean started asking me questions. He figured it out before I even realized it, myself. And then, after he brought you home last night, he came to talk to me. I was a little drunk, and I guess I was feeling good about what you’d said, so when he asked me if I was in love with you, I told him yes.” Orlando gave him a dazzling yet shy smile, while Elijah struggled to comprehend the magnitude of what was being confessed. “I don’t know if that’s what you want to hear, and I could kick myself for saying it to you, but I don’t think it’s fair for Sean to know it if you don’t. Wouldn’t be quite right, would it?”
Elijah didn’t know what to say. Orlando was… He’d never expected that, of all things. He’d had no idea, about any of it, that any of what Orlando was saying… “He set us up,” he said, unable to believe that Sean had known his secret and Orlando’s secret and - - he’d never have guessed that Orlando even had a secret! Not this one!
“Do you want me to go?” Orlando asked, glancing back towards the door.
“No!” Jesus, no, no. “No, stay, I just… I wasn’t prepared for all of this. I didn’t think this was how this was going to go.” Elijah wanted to jump him, but was that okay? Christ, Orlando had just said he was in love with him. Or, no, he’d just said that he’d told Sean that, while drunk. Maybe he wasn’t actually in love. Maybe that was why he’d just offered to leave, because drunken ramblings didn’t really mean anything, because this wasn’t what it actually sounded like.
But love was a lot, anyway. Love was too much, too big. Forget love. Orlando was attracted to him. That, Elijah could work with.
Except, how was he supposed to start this? What did he say, “Do you want to make out?” Or was he supposed to say nothing and just go for it? Orlando was a go for it kind of guy.
“How do you want it to go?” Orlando asked, all curiosity.
He was already halfway hard, and he’d been wanting Orlando for what felt like an unbearably long time, and this night was already too surreal to get much worse. So Elijah went for it. “Like this,” he said, and moved forward.
Orlando’s mouth was as soft as it looked, and as dangerously sexual. He moaned, both hands encouraging Elijah’s body closer, and at the rich, hot sound of it Elijah moaned back, obeying the urging of Orlando’s hands. Orlando was halfway reclined against the arm of the sofa, and Elijah knew he was crawling all over Orlando, but he couldn’t help himself. Every press of his hands made Orlando give off an aroused, aching moan, and every time Orlando moaned it sounded so good Elijah groaned, and they were getting kind of noisy but it felt too good to stop.
He was pushing up Orlando’s shirt, and Orlando was pulling on his, and the feel of those firm, long-fingered hands sliding up his naked back made his skin hot. Elijah sat up just long enough to peel off his shirt and fling it aside, going right back to Orlando’s body, kisses drawing hungrily on Orlando’s tongue, Orlando’s hands burning desire through his naked flesh.
He’d wanted this before he’d even realized why it was he couldn’t look away whenever Orlando was in the room. He’d wanted it so badly, now that it was here, he had to have it, had to, now. He was grinding his hips down with feverish need, rocking tightly against the thick bulge of Orlando’s erection, and the faster he did it, the harder Orlando kissed him, Orlando’s hand on his ass rubbing and squeezing and massaging and making him groan, making him run his hands up Orlando’s chest to Orlando’s shoulders for something to hold onto while he Jesus, “Oh, oh, ah, Or, Or, Orlando, I, I’m, oh god,” and Orlando groaned right in his ear, a gorgeous aching orgasmic sound, and Elijah came.
Oh, god.
That had been…
Cataclysmic.
In a good way.
Elijah slowly drew his hands out from under Orlando’s shirt, and regained enough balance to raise himself up a little, looking into Orlando’s face.
Orlando was beautiful. He smiled, relaxed, his eyes warm, and stroked a slow, affectionate hand back through Elijah’s hair. “I can stay here tonight, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Elijah said, smiling back, because it was impossible not to smile when Orlando smiled. He leaned in, closing his eyes, kissing Orlando again. Slowly, softly at first, then more deeply, exploring again, tasting again. Orlando moaned into him, quietly, a sound of mounting pleasure that made Elijah’s entire body warm.
“Lijah,” Orlando whispered, something sweet and breathless in his tone.
“Lando,” Elijah whispered back, smiling, opening his eyes.
Another kiss, capturing his mouth, licking him with delicate heat. “When Sean asks you about this,” Orlando’s fingertips circled around Elijah’s ear, “you’ll tell him I lasted more than thirty seconds?”
Elijah laughed. “Yeah, if you do the same for me.”
Sweet, hot kisses. Slow, wet kisses. “You’ll tell him,” another kiss, a breathless whisper of his name, “I was good to you?”
“You are,” Elijah murmured, hands creeping under Orlando’s shirt again. “Tell him I was good at this.”
Soft laughter, gentle kisses, Orlando’s mouth taking his in a new angle. “Tell him,” whispered against his mouth, “you’re in love with me.”
Elijah lost himself in another kiss, in the silk of Orlando’s skin warm against his hands, in the caress of Orlando’s hand on his back. “I’ll tell him I’m in love with you,” he whispered back, and sucked lightly on Orlando’s lower lip, “if you’ll tell him,” slow kiss, tender, hot, “that you’re in love with me.”
The soft breath against his
lips, the slow slide of Orlando’s hands on his body, the slow mating of
Orlando’s mouth to his, that was all the answer Elijah needed.