vigorli

Title: Breathing Room (5/?)
Author: Rainweaver13
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando
Summary: Costa Rica

Rating/Warnings: R. It's all fiction.
Disclaimer: Don't own them; wouldn't want to - they are their own. If I made any money from this, I could buy a bigger monitor.
A/N: The Heliconia Hotel exists in Monteverde, but I've never been there. I've also never been to Costa Rica, although after all this research I'd kinda like to go. My Spanish is so rusty it's almost corroded through, so if I've slaughtered anything too bad, please forgive me. Feedback is the chips in my cookie.
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2005
The flight from LAX to the San Jose airport was pleasantly short, which Viggo didn't mind at all. He didn't have any sort of phobias about flying, nothing like Bean's mortal fear, but he'd just never found it particularly enjoyable. Maybe if he could sleep, it'd be different, but while he had no problem being awake 30,000 feet in the air, something about being asleep way up there just seemed ... wrong. So he stayed awake, and hated long flights. The ones back and forth to New Zealand had been nightmares.

But this one was damn nice. Just enough time for one slow, lazy drink and a little writing, and then he was plunged into the cacophony of locating his baggage - all one big duffel of it, along with the stuffed backpack - and clearing customs. Picking up his rental car - a sweet Toyota Land Cruiser that he'd reserved two weeks earlier - went smoothly, and in an amazingly short time he was winding his way out of San Jose northwards, following the InterAmerican Highway out of the Central Valley and climbing gently into the highlands of the central plateaus.

Almost three hours later, after consulting a scrawled set of directions, he turned onto a gravel road and continued to ascend, this time into thickening vegetation and a series of spectacular views that had him pulling off the narrow road and hauling out his camera time and again. Sunset was nearing by the time he pulled up the final slope to his ultimate destination, the Heliconia Hotel, which glowed with golden wood and graceful lighting against the dense forest on the hillside behind it.

Yeah, this looked good. This could work.

He could relax here.

---------
Orlando had to work right up to the night before his flight. Well, if you could call it work. He had to be seen at a premiere for a movie starring a person he'd costarred with in a different movie but never really cared for, to be honest. He rang up one of the ongoing list of approved dates and got a skinny wannabe to hang on his arm down the red carpet, then sat in the dark theater and wondered what the bloody fuck he was doing with his life. Afterward, a reporter asked him what he thought of the film and he had a moment of absolute panic as he realized he had not the faintest idea what the film had even been about. But he pulled out the patented Orli smile - brilliant - and said it was remarkable - a completely unassailable word - then headed for the limos.

The girl - Sinna? Seana? Santa? - wanted to go to some after-party but he just wanted to sleep, so he slid her off like a dead skin and headed back to his hotel.

In a room that looked like a thousand other rooms, his two suitcases lay open on one bed, all neatly packed except for the last-minute things to go in tomorrow morning. His Rings friends would be amazed to see him traveling with only two suitcases these days; his masses of luggage used to be a running joke. That was before he really knew what it was like to live out of a suitcase. Now he was a well-oiled travel machine: A place for every thing and everything in its place. Someday maybe he'd get it down to one suitcase..

Hell, maybe someday he'd travel the world with a duffel bag and a backpack, the way Viggo used to do.

With a sigh, Orlando shucked off the premiere clothes and left them in the hotel laundry bag, with a note to have them sent back to his London address after cleaning. Standing before the too-bright bathroom mirror to brush his teeth, he studied his face, something he didn't do much any more.

Really looked at himself. Hard.

He looked bad. Puffy, with dark bags under his eyes and a yellow tinge to his skin. Felt like hell, too, although a checkup at his agent's insistence a couple months ago had turned up no medical problems. He reached for the bottle of painkillers and shook a couple out by habit, downing them with a sip of water, and headed for bed. He'd just sat down when his cell phone rang.

Orlando stared at it for the space of four rings. Whoever it was could just go to hell. He was on vacation as of now. There was nobody he wanted to talk to. Nobody who would call him who he cared about right now. Nobody...

On the ninth ring, he snatched the phone up.

"Hello."

"Orli! Robin here."

"Oh hell, Robin.' Orlando didn't even bother to conceal the disgust in his voice. "I'm on vacation. Does that concept have no meaning for you?"

"I know, sweetie. I understand completely. It's just that something's come up..."

"No."

"It's a little thing. You could do it on your way from here to your vacation, I'll bet."

Orlando had determinedly refused to tell his agent where he was going for three weeks, which was driving her crazy.

"No."

"It's just one short interview in L.A. I know you have friends there you like to visit."

God, he hated it when she whined.

"No, Robin. What is it that you don't understand? No. No. No. Fucking no! I am hereby null and void to you for the next three weeks. I'll call you when I'm back at your beck and call. Understand?"

"But Orli-"

"No. Goodbye."

He threw the phone on the bed, stared at it for a long moment, then picked it up and did something he hadn't had the nerve to do in years.

He turned it off.

_____
Three days of doing nothing much more than lazing on a balcony overlooking astonishingly green forest and a distant sapphire bay while drinking the local beer had gone a long way toward chilling Viggo out. He ate whenever he got hungry, dressed in more than a pair of ratty old OP shorts only when he had to, and otherwise just took it easy.

He intentionally forced himself to do no sketching, no writing, no nothing but lazing and reading for those three days. He considered it creative detox. He wanted to be able to look at this new place with fresh eyes, hear it with clear ears.

Besides, all that laying around doing nothing gave him time to recover his sense of humor. Viggo had always liked his sense of humor, and found it amusing that he spent so much time laughing at things nobody else seemed to think funny. So he was a little squirrelly. Better than being dull. And once having recovered his sense of humor, he began to have the beginnings of an idea. Like the Grinch. A wonderful, terrible idea.

So he had a little chat with Hilario, the concierge at the Heliconia, and together they began to put together a suitable costume.

For his part, Viggo just let his hair and beard grow and grow, something it had already been doing since before Christmas, anyway, just because he was tired of shaving. He lazed on the balcony, drank beer and let his beard grow, and became a very, very mellow Viggo. He figured if he was this relaxed after three days, after three weeks, they'd have to sweep him into a bowl to ship him home.

Groovy.

_____
Orlando wasn't particularly sleepy when he arrived at the San Jose airport. He'd always had a knack for sleeping on airplanes, but it was never comfortable, so even though he wasn't sleepy, he was still tired. No one was waiting for him at the gate, so he resigned himself to arranging transportation to this Monteverde place after he rounded up his luggage.

But when he finally snagged both suitcases off the carousel and turned wearily toward the rental desks, there was a person holding a hand-lettered sign saying GREENLEAF. Orlando snorted to himself, conceding that it was probably smarter than Bloom for remaining anonymous. The man holding the sign wore what might have been a chauffeur's outfit, but it was at least a size too big and hadn't been anywhere near a cleaner for quite a while. A shabby fisherman's hat rode low on a head of tangled, gray-streaked hair, and his eyes were hidden behind dark shades. A thick grizzled beard completed the look, which didn't exactly scream of reliability.

As Orlando stepped closed, the man spoke in a thick Spanish accent. "Senor Greenleaf?"

"Yes, that's me."

The man nodded. "Bueno." He reached for the suitcases and started for the doors. Orlando didn't have much choice but to follow, sniffing slightly at the backdraft of "too long since shower" that wafted from his driver. He hoped they didn't have far to go.

Half an hour later, Orlando was comfortably ensconced in the back seat of a four-wheel-drive vehicle, his luggage in the back, considering the contents of a small cardboard box on the seat next to him, clearly put there for his comfort. Two bottles of water. Two bananas. Two oranges. A packet of peanuts. A chocolate bar.

Food of champions.

He settled down and leaned his head back, looking out the window as they passed through the northern part of San Jose. Up front, the driver tapped his fingers on the wheel to quiet Latin music from the radio.

"How long is the drive?" Orlando asked.

"Que?" The driver glanced in the rearview mirror.

"How long?" Orlando tapped his watch.

The driver pondered, then pulled up his left sleeve a bit to indicate the absence of a watch. "No se." A shrug.

Great. The guy thought he wanted to know what time it was. Although why he'd ask that when he clearly had on a watch----

Orlando thought for a bit, then tried a bit of pantomime. "How long from here -San Jose..." pointing out the window "... to Monteverde?" Tapping the watch again. "How long?" Twirling a finger slowly around the watch face.

The driver's head was tilted toward the rearview mirror, so he was clearly watching Orlando's show, trying to work it out. He frowned, or maybe he did. It was hard to tell with the beard. Then he brightened. "Tres horas." He held up three grubby fingers. "Tres horas, mas o menos."

Three hours?

Good god. Orlando leaned forward as if to adjust his position and took a tentative sniff. Yep, the front seat was already pretty ripe. It was going to be a long trip. He rolled down the window beside him a few inches and set back to watch the distant mountains grow nearer.

When the driver had a coughing fit, he just hoped it wasn't consumption or something catching, like plague.

------
That delicate sniff nearly cracked Viggo up. He had to develop a sudden coughing fit to cover the laughter. This was too good. He'd never realized just how invisible service people could be. He was going to have to try this again sometime.

____

At first, the scenery was distracting enough, but after a while Orlando dug out his copy of 2004 Best American Nonrequired Reading and read for a while, drinking water and eating a banana. Before long he realized he should have made a pit stop back at the airport. Setting the book aside, he reached up to tap the driver's shoulder.

"Senor." There. I speak some Spanish. Ha.

"Si?"

"I need to... um..." Damn, how did you state this so it would be understood? "Rest stop? Restroom?"

The sunglasses just stared at him blankly in the rearview mirror.

"Lavatory?"

Still not getting through. Okay, go for the basics.

"I need to take a piss."

"Oh! Si!" A quick nod of the head, and within five minutes the vehicle was pulled off the side of the road and the driver had hustled around to his side and opened the door for him. Orlando, startled, looked around at rolling grass-covered hills uninterrupted by such things as houses, gas stations or restaurants. Uninterrupted by anything at all, in fact, except for some bushes.

The driver was clearly waiting for him to make a move.

Orlando stepped out slowly, looking around. Other than the occasional car on the highway and some cows in the distance, he couldn't see a soul. "Just...um... anywhere?" he asked, waving a hand vaguely.

"Si. El mundo es su tocador." A firm nod and a wave toward the wide open spaces.

Orlando drew in a deep breath. "When in Rome," he murmured.

_____
When the car turned off the increasingly battered highway and onto a gravel road, Orlando started to get alarmed. For one thing, it was approaching sunset and there had been nothing resembling a streetlight for miles. Now they were driving uphill into what seemed to be some Amazon jungle, in the growing darkness. For another thing, he was tired. And hungry. And sick of that music on the radio.

While there was still a little light left, he dug out his Discman and wrapped himself in a cocoon of his own music, closing his eyes tightly and leaning against the window, trying to get comfortable enough to doze. He never noticed the driver pull down his shades, or the startling blue eyes that peered out over them, filled with a gentle wistfulness.

_____
All journeys must end, and eventually Orlando was awakened by bright lights and a cheerful man named Hilario welcoming him to the Heliconia Inn. The driver took his bags up to his suite and Hilario escorted Orlando to the door, making sure he had his key before leaving him there.

Orlando entered the suite and, even as exhausted as he was, paused to appreciate its beauty. All exotic woods and native stone, the rooms were furnished in a comfortable rustic style with fabrics in a variety of Central American motifs. Massive windows covered one wall. Dark now, Orlando could hardly wait to see the view tomorrow.

He turned toward the doors for the two bedroom suites and was surprised to see one of them pull open.

In the doorway, in the shabby driver's outfit with a banana but without the hat, shoes and sunglasses stood Viggo, smiling a little at him and looking like somebody who just drove eight hours in one day.

"You look like shit, Orlando," he said.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" was all Orlando could think of to respond.

"It's my room." Viggo said, taking a bite of banana and mumbling around it. "Welcome to Costa Rica."

-------------------------

Viggo has a squirrelly sense of humor. Those who know him know this. Those who know him have also, for the most part, given up on trying to understand it.

Sometimes his jokes are perfectly normal, and everybody laughs along.

Sometimes his jokes aren't funny to anybody except him. Sometimes they can even hurt other people, and somehow he never quite seems to grasp that. He goes into the whole thing with a pureness of heart that can't understand how another person's spin can turn even an innocent statement toxic.

Or... he understands, but sometimes he doesn't think.

Sometimes his jokes don't make sense even after he tries to explain them. They just get worse. But somehow, for him, that makes them even funnier. So that you end up with one person red-faced and sniggering madly while everyone else involved just stares and attempts to inch a little farther away.

The best joke of all is that Viggo thinks *that* is the best joke of all.