vigorli

Ficlets, to accompany this picspam of

hija_paloma.

~~Twelve~~ Eleven ficlets, Orlando-centric, rated G to R. Unbetaed, written over IM.

One

He presses his spine against the wall, bracing his heels against the concrete, broken glass crunching faintly. The sun is bright; he squints a little. Viggo's outline is fiery, his hair shot through with gold. He lifts his jaw in a unspoken challenge and his skull thumps gently against the wall. The t-shirt bunches above his biceps; Viggo's shadow swamps his eyes with darkness and his face feels blessedly cool. But the grip Viggo has on his charms pulls him closer to Viggo's face, to Viggo's mouth, and he knows he's flushing, knows that if he opens his eyes the light will blind him, knows he can brace his shoulders back and his heels down and lift his hips and it will all be simple. Beautiful.

Two

"Sea-longing," Orlando thinks, and faces the waves head-on. The dunegrass at his back is almost the color of the sand, and it rattles like teeth in a skull. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, still damp from his hasty, chilly shower in the dank little stall. The cool drops of water, dripping from his hair, roll down inside his shirt; he hunches his shoulders and squints out at the hazy horizon-line. "Sea-longing," he thinks, and takes a step away from the shoreline. The ocean is beautiful, but he wants more than what it can give him -- he wants the softness of skin as well as the roughness of salt, the warmth of breath more than the uncaring heat of noontime sand, the uneven chuckle of someone with eyes the color of the water he faces and hair the color of the dunegrass behind him more than the unearthly call of the wind, cold and shrill and constant.

Three

He drops to the ground, off-balance for only a moment. "C'mon, Sam!" he whispers. His sister pushes a branch out of her face. "Orlando," she starts. "Dare you," he says, and well -- Sam never could refuse a dare. Neither of them could. Sam had her share of broken bones; his are just more famous. She swings over and her trainers scrabble for purchase on the brick as she slides down. Her breathless, quickly-smothered giggle is just like it always was; he bows elaborately and holds back the drooping frond of leaves.

"You climb first," she whispers, glancing upward. "There, that looks good." He nods, and the bark scrapes his palms a bit as he balances from branch to branch; the orchard still smells the same: rotting fruit on the ground and the green silence of the deserted apple trees. He tosses down three rosy, heavy bells of fruit and then jumps off.

"Your turn," he says. Sam doesn't go as high as he did, but her find is just as good; their pockets bulge as they clamber back over the wall and head home, mouths sticky, hands raw, souls sated.

Four

"Skull and crossbones," the message on his voicemail says, and he can almost identify the voice through the bad reproduction quality. American, he knows. "Arrrr, mateys. Avast, all hands to the deck. Drop canvas, yar. Hard a larboard and weigh anchor! That you, coxswain? Steady there, you landlubber. Love you," and he knows who it is who called him. It's a stupid unbirthday present, but as he buckles Dom's stolen cuff on and rubs the still-unfamiliar goatee, he dials Elijah's number. "Doodle, you cunt. It's not even my size!"

He wears it anyway.

Five

The wind is the color of death. Orlando's hair whips into his eyes, and tears freeze on his lashes. He digs his hands into his pockets and tries to breathe, but the air burns, it's so cold. It sometimes seems he has been standing here, waiting, leaning against the flimsy wickerwork, since forever, since never, that he is a corpse and his peacoat covers bones. He'll wait as long as he has to. He'll wait, because he's waiting for something worth it.

Six

"It's black," he says.

"Yes it is. Yes, indeed. It is black. Black as sin. Black as your soul, darlin'."

"I'm not that bad a person!" he protests, looking up, distracted.

"You're good enough for me," and he's further distracted by the scrape of three-day stubble against his lips.

"Drinks aren't supposed to be black," he'll say, over the phone, days later, across an ocean and seven timezones.

"You didn't drink it," Viggo will point out.

"You didn't need to get me drunk," Orlando will promise, "You never will."

"You're good enough for me. Sober, drunk, good, bad -- tied-up, begging, whatever. You're good enough for me. For forever."

Orlando popularizes a dark rum concoction when he explains how to make it, in great detail, very seductively, in the climactic scene of Icarus.

(skipped, because Dove owes me this fic)

Seven

"Keep quiet, the boards creak," he whispers, but he can't hold back a gasp as fingernails scrape over the exposed skin just above his boxers. "They'll see," murmured low in the late-afternoon sunlight, but even as he speaks, he tips his head back to expose the tender skin under his chin. The necklace is heavy against his chest, and as he breathes, the scent of leather (his wristwatch? the jacket on the chair?) makes makes his head swim.

"They won't see," Viggo says. "Just don't move. Don't break the glass."

He is glass, he is fragile and more so all the time, the air in his throat will break him, he will shatter. "Please," he says.

"Please," Viggo agrees. "Please."

Eight

His eyes burn. His collar scratches and his underwear is the wrong goddam size. (Is it too much to fucking ask, that if Kate has to buy him underwear for this stupid fucking charade, that she at least get the fucking size right? Is it?) The flashbulbs are making his eyes burn and he resolves to throw out this shirt with its damned starched collar as soon as he leaves.

His eyes don't burn from the flashbulbs; his skin doesn't ache from the scrape of cotton against it; his balls aren't tight from new elastic. He leans into the body next to him; doesn't know who it is, doesn't care. The man's too tall, too bulky in the hands, nose the wrong shape, mouth the wrong color, but a kiss is a kiss and he can't get the kiss that would make his tears unnecessary, his skin warm and pliable, his groin itchy the way it should be.

This will have to be good enough.

Nine

He leans back and tries to breathe. His ring is cold and heavy on his finger; a small animal rustles nearby. Experimentally, he presses his wrist downward -- no one'll see, and if they do, they'll think he gets off on having his picture taken. He doesn't, but who cares. He doesn't get off, period, these days, and yep -- just soft flesh under the veins in his wrist. He hunches lower, rolling his shoulder, and tugs the cap further onto his forehead. "You all right there," Bast asks, but turns away before Orlando thinks to do anything but lie. His foot slips, and his ankle throbs, warm against the chill rock. Good to know his blood's still there, even if it doesn't do him much good these days. "Show me whatcha got," Bast says, and Orlando can't even laugh. He has nothing.

Ten

"I am the king of the mountain!" Dom shouts, balancing on the cement roadblock.

"You're a daft bugger!" Billy yells back, and pushes Dom off.

"Oi, what're you touchin' my arse for?" Dom yelps, in an undiginfied puddle on the tarmac.

"D'you object?" Billy Boyd, for such a sweet-faced man, has a truly world-class leer, up there with Viggo's.

"Notatall," Dom says. "Notatall, laddie."

"Those two young men," Ian sighs, not looking up from the map on his knee, "are going to make a lot of trouble for the publicity." Orlando twists in his seat, trying to catch a glimpse of the roughhousing common between the hobbits and ease his back.

"Why?" he asks. Ian does look up at that. "Orlando." The faded blue eyes have no mischief in them. "You're not as naive as Peter seems to think you are, for reasons passing understanding. Please don't insult my intelligence."

"You mean -- but that's stupid," Orlando says.

"Stupid, yes, but true. I'm trouble. You'll be trouble. They'll be trouble."

"I'm not --"

"You're young and beautiful," Ian drawls, folding up the map, "and no fool. Don't make me say it, love. Get in, gents, next stop Wellington!" Dom & Billy clamber in, flushed and laughing and filthy; Orlando doesn't say a word the rest of the ride back.

Eleven

"The world moves on," Viggo says in his ear.

"I think I forgot something," Orlando says. "I'm sure I did."

"Detritus," Viggo says, and yawns. "Wreckage. We lose everything, we die on the march. Ships sink and flotsam, jetsam washes up. Weeks, months later. It all gets found eventually."

"I dunno, man, what am I losing when I leave?"

"You only lose what you bring with you," Viggo says. "You only keep what you never had. I love you." And he hangs up. Orlando stretches, checks the corners again, tucks his mobile into his pocket. He's used to Viggos' poetical, nonsensical rambling, the abscence of greeting, the forgotten goodbyes. Wait -- did he say 'I love you'?

Feedback would be made into a pretty picture.