vigorli

Title: The Travelling Lemon
Author: Artemis Allen
Rating: R for innuendo & swearing
Pairing: Orlando/Viggo
Beta: The ever patient

silvan_lady.
Disclaimer: This is a work of complete fiction.
Dedication: This is for

gattodoro because we love her.
Word Count:1,500
Author’s Note: With apologies to the amazing John Finnemore and the awesome crew of MJN Air – I give you the antics of the lesser known but equally crazy crew of BJ Air.

The objective of ‘The Travelling Lemon’ is to hide a lemon in plain sight among the passengers on a flight, so that another player can find it and hide it again.

Orlando carefully closed the cabin door behind him before turning to the man currently occupying the pilot’s seat in their small charter jet.

“You really are a stupid bastard, Viggo,” he declared with venom.

“Captain,” Viggo admonished, with just the hint of a smug smile.

“Captain?”

“Yes, Orlando. When we’re on this aircraft you should always address me as Captain, or Sir,” Viggo said sternly. “How many times must I tell you?”

Orlando rolled his eyes as he slid into the co-pilot’s seat. “Once more, as always. But okay. You really are a stupid bastard, Captain, Sir.”

Viggo grinned. “That’s better, sunshine.”

“Shouldn’t you have to address me as First Officer?” Orlando said. “If I have to call you Captain?”

Viggo turned his head, grin still in place. “I think, since I’m in charge of this aircraft, that I can address you however I want.” Then he winked. “But if it affects my chances of getting laid tonight while we’re in Zurich, then sure. That’s better, First Officer Bloom.”

Orlando rolled his eyes again. “Your chances of getting laid are diminishing by the minute. This time you’ve really outdone yourself. It is impossible to retrieve the lemon. I’ve tried. How the fuck are we going to explain it when she finds it.”

“Language, First Officer Bloom,” Viggo admonished. Then after a pause. “We’ll say it slipped off Cate’s tray.”

Orlando snorted loudly. “Nothing ever slips off Cate’s tray. I’m convinced she sticks everything down with glue. The same glue she uses to keep her hair in place probably.”

Viggo laughed. “Well, it certainly works on the hair.”

“I know, right? Sometimes, on a long flight when I’m bored, I think about how Cate might look if we had to ditch in the sea and she got wet.”

Viggo regarded his co-pilot with amusement. “You, fantasise about how Cate looks when she’s wet? Should I be worried?”

“Not like that,” Orlando said indignantly, “just, soggy and bedraggled, as opposed to her usual immaculate appearance.”

“But you did see her wet,” Viggo said, “when we all had to do a length of the swimming pool in our uniforms at our last safety review.”

Orlando tilted his head and considered this. “Yes, but if you remember, while the rest of us clambered out of the pool looking like drowned rats, Cate somehow still managed to look perfectly presentable.”

“That is true,” Viggo said. “I think the water just rolled right off. She’s an enchantress.”

There was a sharp rap on the door but before either of them could respond, the door opened and the object of their discussion stepped gracefully into the cabin.

“See?” Viggo turned to Orlando again with a grin. “Say her name three times and she appears.”

“Viggo,” Cate said, “you are a stupid bastard.”

“Captain!” Viggo and Orlando said in unison.

“Captain?” Cate queried, raising an elegantly chiselled eyebrow.

Orlando shrugged. “He’s in one of those moods where we have to acknowledge his rank and address him appropriately.”

“Oh Good Lord,” Cate rolled her eyes. “ Please tell me I haven’t walked in on one of your bizzare sex games.”

“We don’t play sex games during flights,” Viggo said smoothly, as Orlando spluttered in horror. “Not when we have you on board anyway, sometimes during cargo flights maybe.”

Cate turned to Orlando. “I’ve often wondered. Does he make you call him Captain when you’re in bed together? Or just Sir?”

“Nnnnngggg!” Orlando failed to spit out a coherent response and a faint blush spread across his cheeks.

Viggo smiled fondly at his lover, the man looked so very shaggable when he blushed. “Nah, I don’t make him, he does it voluntarily.”

Orlando’s blush deepened to fuschia and Cate smiled at him sympathetically. “That’s so sweet,” she said. “But, circling back then, why this current demand for formality?”

“Because we have royalty on board,” Viggo said.

“Royalty!” Cate snorted. “She’s the third daughter of a minor Duke. You Americans are such suckers for a title.”

“Lady Arabella Montague-Harrington is a pretty impressive title,” Viggo protested. “And the hair is certainly an imposing edifice all on its own.”

The lady in question, was the middle aged, slightly horse-faced, very elaborately coiffured, unmarried daughter of the Duke of Doncaster. And they were flying her to join the rest of her family, who might only have a minor dukedom to their name but were indecently wealthy, in Switzerland. She was the only passenger on their twelve seater jet but she was making up for that by being four times as demanding as the average traveller. And Viggo had just, somewhat rashly, ‘hidden’ the lemon in her chignon.

“That hasn’t stopped you taking advantage of her though, has it?” Cate said. “What were you thinking? And what exactly are you going to do if she sees it? She will not be amused. She might sue.”

“He’s going to say it slipped off your tray,” Orlando chipped in quickly before Viggo could open his mouth.

“Is he now?” Cate said, in a tone that was only mildly menacing.

“Not exactly,” said Viggo defensively. He was just a little bit scared of Cate. “What I intend to do, should the need arise, is deploy my First Officer to offer a charming and wholly plausible explanation.”

“Whoa! What! Why me?”

“Because you are young and pretty and I noticed her eyeing you up and licking her lips when we boarded.”

“You’re pimping me out? I’m sure that’s not covered in the flight regulations handbook.”

“I’m pretty sure flight regulations say that the First Officer should obey all of the Captain’s commands.”

“Does he pull that one in the sack as well?” Cate asked wryly.

“All the fucking time.”

“Viggo, you need to recover the lemon,” Cate said firmly, hands on hips. “Right now!”

“No, I don’t,” Viggo said. “I played it, one of you two needs to recover it, otherwise I win.”

“I thought the object of this game was to achieve an extended rally,” Orlando said, “not to just lob it into the backcombed wilderness of Lady Arabella’s hair and declare it unplayable.”

“But it’s really hard to set up a rally when there is only one passenger,” Viggo pointed out, “and anyway, I’m the Captain, so we’re playing by my rules, and my word is final, and I win.”

“Seriously, Orlando, how do you put up with him?” Cate asked.

“I have the patience of a saint,” Orlando said, with a dramatic sigh.

“And the ass of an angel,” Viggo added, with a grin. “But you obviously lack courage and guile, which is not what I expect from my First Officer. Go and get the lemon.”

“I tried,” Orlando protested, “but it seems to be stuck, I think she must use the same glue as Cate.”

“Glue?” Cate queried wearily. She so enjoyed these little trips to the flightdeck, it was like conversing with petulant toddlers.

“He thinks you glue your hair in place,” Viggo informed her.

“Does he now,” Cate said, regarding Orlando through narrowed eyes.

Orlando’s eyes widened in alarm; he was even more frightened of Cate than Viggo was. “You are a bastard, Viggo,” he hissed.

“Captain!” Viggo and Cate chorused.

Before this new game of pilots throwing each other under the bus could progress any further an insistent buzzing interrupted them.

“Talk of the Devil,” Cate sighed. “Right, Gentlemen, I am off to service another of Madam’s endless requests, in the course of which I will attempt to detach the lemon, because you two are a pair of wusses.”

“That’s the spirit, Cate,” Viggo said.

“That’s Senior Flight Attendant Blanchett to you,” Cate retorted as she opened the door back to the main cabin and disappeared through it.

It was fifteen minutes later when the intercom between flight deck and galley pinged. Orlando pressed the talk button.

“What can we do for you Senior Flight Attendant Blanchett?” he asked, apprehension clear in his voice.

“Just for your information, Lady Arabella uses a lot more lacquer than I do, but, while serving her yet another gin and tonic and plumping up her cushions, I managed to separate her from the lemon by giving it a good yank. Unfortunately the chignon was a hairpiece and came away too.”

“Oh Shit!” Orlando gasped. “We are so dead.”

“Fortunately, she’s had so many gins she didn’t notice,” Cate continued. “So, I have relacquered and discreetly reaffixed it.”

“You are a goddess.”

“I know,” Cate agreed. “So you can tell the Captain of your heart that he won’t be getting laid tonight because he’s taking me out to dinner by way of recompense.”

“He says he’ll be only too delighted,” Orlando said without even looking over at Viggo. He still felt guilty for imagining her wet and bedraggled. Viggo squawked in protest, Cate was not a cheap date.

“Excellent,” Cate said brightly. “And finally boys, before I let you get back to your really arduous job of watching the horizon, the lemon is in play.”