vigorli

Title: All the King's Horses 3/?: James Orlando Kennedy
Author: Rainweaver13
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando
Summary: Being gay is not easy for two men in the small-town South of the late '80s.

Rating/Warnings: The story begins PG but is likely to go just about anywhere. AU. Some het content, not explicit. Real-life angst.
Disclaimer: This is complete fiction. The characters in this story are being "played" by certain real actors, but that's the only connection with reality. None of the characters is meant to be a real person.

A/N: Viggo as V. Michael Delany, aka Dr. D, middle school principal and sometime junior college English teacher; Sean Bean as Sean Baker, car salesman and horseman; Orlando as James Orlando Kennedy, newspaper reporter. Feedback would really be appreciated on this one, since it's a far cry from Breathing Room and Growing Room.

Jamie

Jamie Kennedy had learned to expect, within five minutes of meeting anyone - anyone, that they'd say one or both of two things: "Aren't you British? What on earth are you doing here?" or "God, you should be in movies or on television."

The first one was a legitimate observation and he didn't mind answering. The second drove him stark bloody ravers. He knew what sparked the second one: He'd been blessed by a fortunate gene combination with clean bone structure, warm brown eyes and lethally curly dark brown hair - which he'd shave off in a heartbeat for a chance at straight hair, but there you go. All his life, he'd been, god help him, pretty. Pretty was not a good thing for a boy to be, not in school, not even in university, really. Pretty had haunted him from birth through his first year of university, when fortune laid a hand on his life.

His Aunt Margaret, his American father's much-older oldest sister, lost her beloved Orlando to a boating accident. He'd been 86 and in the prime of life, according to Aunt Margaret, and the long and short of it was that she didn't want to move out of the ancestral manse but neither did she want to live alone. She wondered if her sweet nephew Jamie, Orlando's namesake, would be interested in coming to America to live with her rent-free. She would, of course, pay for him to go to university in the city nearby.

Jamie nearly gave himself scorch marks escaping Kent. Aunt Margaret was a dotty old bat, but an amusing and a well-heeled one, and he could start over in an American university without all the "pretty boy" baggage hanging all over him. So James Orlando Kennedy, with a red crewcut and thick black-rimmed glasses, started as a sophomore at the University of Mississippi and found that he enjoyed becoming Americanized.

He found that his decent grades and so-so study habits in Britain shoved him right to the head of the class in America. Not bad. He ended up studying journalism because it was easy and left him a lot of time to party. Ole Miss was very good at partying. And he learned some not surprising but very interesting and useful things about himself in the second-floor men's restroom in the library. Aunt Margaret was a doll to live with, and when he graduated and was suddenly faced with the need to get an actual job, Aunt Mag pulled some little-known strings to get him an interview and ultimately a job at a newspaper within easy driving distance of her home.

Which is where he'd been ever since. He even had a little name plate, James Orlando Kennedy - fake, of course - sitting atop his monitor right next to the little blue wizard Smurf. The red hair had long since grown back in brown and curly and he'd given up the glasses because they gave him headaches, so he still got the "You should be in movies" crap, but he'd learned to just deflect it with a smile and go on with the interview. What he did, and did reasonably well, was cover crime.

He settled back in his chair and swung his feet up onto the desk, doing a quick scan around the room to make sure the news editor wasn't in sight. Dude had a bug up his butt about feet on desks.

"Yeah, hey, Jamie Kennedy. Is Carl in?...... When are you expecting him back? .... Could I leave a message? .... Yeah, just tell him I need to doublecheck those occupancy figures for the jail story. Don't want to get that wrong." Jamie listened, then laughed. "No shit. I don't want to be there, either. Thanks, Jan."

Clicking the phone off, he sat and studied the notepad in his lap, making a notation beside one line. Then he keyed in another number and waited through the ringing, absently watching the girls in the Lifestyle department have some sort of wrangle over a pumpkin. Little early for Halloween, he thought, which reminded him to dig out last October's clips for end-of-the-month comparisons. He'd just started idly rifling through the staggering pile of papers on his desk when a familiar voice answered the phone and he swung back into relaxation mode.

"Hey, Dennis.... Jamie Kennedy from the Leader. I heard a rumor you guys are going hunting this weekend..... I can't really tell you, you know that. .....Any chance of me doing a ridealong? .... Why not? Is something special going on?.... C'mon, Dennis, you've been promising me a ridealong for months. I'm starting to think you're just a flirt." Orlando laughed, doodling a cock on the notepad. "Before Christmas. Promise, or I'll write an expose on the Park Service. ... Okay, I'm holding you to that. Later, man."

"Kennedy, get your feet off the desk!"

Jamie slammed the phone down, his feet to the floor and turned his notebook upside down in one smooth move, wheeling to face the dreaded Bob Brown, news editor. It was rumored that Bad Bob had the sense of humor of a pinecone, but that the pinecone wanted it back. Jamie believed that with all his heart. "Hey, Bob," Jamie flashed him a winning smile. "How they hangin'?"

Brown simply stared at him. "Work on your decorum. This is a workplace, not your bachelor pad."

"Ah... right. I was confused. Sorry."

Brown would really like to fire him, Jamie knew, but the powers above Brown liked Jamie, so he was fairly well protected. Still, it wasn't a good idea to antagonize him for no reason.

"Whacha need, Bob?"

"You'll be covering the Taft county schools next week, city and county. Joanne has to have unexpected surgery. Get with her for a list of planned meetings you'll need to cover."

"But... who'll cover my beat?"

"You will." Brown's eyes flashed hard. "You're damned good, after all."

Jamie opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again as Brown just gave him a long stare, then turned and walked away.

Well bloody fucking hell. Wouldn't that just make for a dandy week next week?