Orlando never had regrets. That's what he told himself when something didn't turn out as planned or he made a mistake that could have been avoided. What's done was done. He couldn't go back and change it.
It made things easier to accept. Like now, when he realized he should have gone home last night instead of staying the night. He hovered on the edge of sleep, absently listening to the sounds of another body moving through the room. Breakfast was cooking or had already been cooked. He heard the sound of the shower running, bureau drawers opening and closing. They were the sounds and smells of blissful domesticity. They made him want to bury his head beneath the covers and never come out.
Unwilling to face his present reality, his mind wandered lazily, ending up in another time, another place. As so often happened, he found himself back in pre-production, back when his infatuation with Sean Bean was in full force.
It was another would-be regret--The Great Humiliation, as he later referred to it jokingly. It had been public and it had been shameful. He remembered at the time hearing someone laughing. With his face turned to the wall of Sean's trailer he hadn't known who it was.
A hand had slid over his shoulder. He had welcomed it, needing an embrace of support, no matter who supplied it. But the contact had not been sympathic, only coaxing.
"He's a fucking fool," Dominic had said to him, taking him by the arm and leading him to Dom's trailer. "Not all of us are that stupid."
Instead of providing Orlando with the comfort he desperately wanted, Dominic had guided him down to the bed and taken from him what Sean would not. Dom had been gentle with him, but not loving. Orlando would come to realize that this was what the other man wanted from him. And Orlando, who had learned in the space of a day that you did not offer your heart twice, had decided to adjust his needs accordingly.
He could have altered the tenor of their relationship right then, demanded love instead of lust. Instead, he'd learned to cope and be what Dom wanted him to be. In time, it became what *he* wanted, too.
Sometimes, Orlando wondered if he should have turned Dom away that day. If everything would be better now if he had. But he told himself that constituted regret.
He didn't believe in regret.
"If you don't get up soon, people are going to talk."
The last gauzy remnants of sleep gradually burned away. Orlando groaned, burying his face into the pillow. "Let them talk. See if I care."
"They'll say Orlando sleeps around too much. That he probably doesn't know who's bed he's occupying or even what town he's ended up in."
"They can kiss my arse," he muttered.
A weight settled on the bed by his hip. The voice continued, softer. "They'll say all Orlando cares about is a good shag. That he'll compromise anything--his job, his friends--just to get laid."
Orlando opened his eyes. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked quietly.
Dom's face was unreadable. "Nothing, just making up things to force you to get up."
It was a lie and they both knew it. They'd had a variation on this conversation before. Several times, in fact. But seven in the morning was not the time to revisit it. "Don't start," Orlando murmured.
Dom seemed to gather himself before a relaxed smile spread across his face. "I'm not. Will you get up now?"
With a theatrical wince, Orlando sat up, the sheets pooling in his lap. "Fine, I'm up. Happy?"
A warm hand trailed down his chest, making him shiver. "Mmm. Not quite, but I'm getting there."
The urge was strong to lay back and let the wandering hand have its way with him. But just as he closed his eyes and was about to fall back into the pillows, the hand disappeared. "Get up. Peter'll have our arses if we're late. You're meeting Viggo today, remember?"
Viggo. That was enough to bring Orlando to complete consciousness. He blinked to find Dom standing beside the bed, a knowing smirk on his face. "I knew that'd reach you. Any excuse to meet a new bed mate, huh?" His voice was teasing, but only just.
"Sod off," Orlando grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face. Dom's opinion of him was justified, but that didn't mean Orlando had to like hearing it. "This is another day, remember? It means everything starts over. Fresh. From scratch."
"Nothing ever starts over," Dom replied, his eyes darkening. "No matter how much we might wish it to, the past can't be changed."
Orlando looked away. He hated when Dom got like this. It had been happening more and more often. He dreaded where it was heading. "Don't go all melancholy on me, Sblomie. You're no Heathcliff." He looked up from beneath his lashes. "Now give me a kiss. Please."
Dom looked down at him as though just noticing him. His temporary darkness lifted. "You know how much that turns me on, don't you?" He touched Orlando's face. "The way I like you all polite and soft-spoken. Shy."
Orlando laughed huskily as Dominic leaned over the bed, bracing his arms on either side of Orlando's body. "Maybe I do know," he murmured, lifting up to catch Dom's mouth in a quick kiss. "You like it when I'm good."
Dom laughed. "Because I know it's just an act. You'll be anything I ask you to be."
The words had been used against Orlando before, but this time they were meant in affection. They kissed tenderly, slowly, Dom's mouth moving over his with gentleness. "I'm sorry for last night," he whispered, pulling away far enough to meet Orlando's eyes. "I shouldn't have said those things about you. I was jealous and I acted stupidly. Forgive me."
Orlando wanted to tell him there was nothing to forgive because Dom could never truly hurt him. But that implied something deeper at the heart of their disagreements. Instead, he kissed Dom again, delicately licking at the other man's lower lip. "You're forgiven on the condition you make me happy for the next few minutes."
"Whore," Dom muttered, lowering his body over Orlando's. "We'll be late." But he was already kissing Orlando's neck, making the other man arch his head back in pleasure. "Why can't I ever stay angry with you?"
"Because I'm good in bed," Orlando replied breathlessly. He moaned as Dom found him beneath the sheets. His answer was truer than either of them cared to admit. At the moment, there was no reason to.
***************************
"You guys fuck like bunnies," Elijah complained as Orlando hurriedly dove into the make-up chair beside him. "Don't you get tired of each other?"
"Dom is very imaginative. That's all I'm going to say."
"What? Discretion from you?" Billy exclaimed from across the aisle. "I thought I'd never see the day. Our little cast whore is reformed."
"Bugger off," Orlando told him cheerfully.
"No, thanks. You two do enough of that for all of us."
Elijah studied him critically. Orlando began to smile under the scrutiny until the younger man spoke. "Do you think you're a nympho, Orli?"
Bloody hell. He felt his cheeks blaze with hot color. "Shut up, Lij. You're talking nonsense again. Just because I enjoy a good shag now and then--"
"Now and then?!"
"--doesn't mean I'm a nympho," Orlando concluded with forced patience.
Elijah's face said he didn't believe Orlando for a second. It made Orlando feel slightly ill. Maybe he shouldn't have had eggs for breakfast. Hoping for distraction, he looked around the trailer. "Have you seen Viggo yet?"
Elijah rolled his eyes, testing out his newly applied feet. "He was here, like, an hour ago, Orli. When *you* were supposed to be here."
"And?"
Elijah tried and failed to keep from grinning. "You're gonna like him. Sort of like a cross between that tall cameraman you had the fling with, and a more romantic version of Sean."
Orlando laughed uncomfortably. "That sounds absolutely horrid. Since when has that been my type? Dom hardly fits that description."
"You just sleep with Dom because he's there," Elijah said bluntly, missing Orlando's wince. "Besides, don't deny it. You *did* try to throw yourself at Sean that one time."
Orlando's grin faded a little. "That was a mistake better left forgotten, little Hobbit."
His tone held a warning that Elijah shrugged off. "If you don't want me to remember it, don't do it," he quipped and jumped from his chair to join Billy.
Orlando watched them leave, his good-humor withering. Tiredly, he watched the make-up artist begin Orlando's long transform into Legolas. An hour later, he felt Orlando, and all his accompanying weaknesses, fall away.
When he stepped from the trailer, his steps were different, lighter. Already the Elven grace had taken over his movements. He felt the stares following him. He understood the attention completely. Legolas was beautiful. Legolas was worth worshipping. But Legolas wasn't him. Not for the first time, he wondered why no one else realized that.
He joined the others on set. Dom was off getting coffee, for which Orlando was grateful. Just the sight of his lover would be enough to exhaust him after the past twenty-four hours they had spent together.
Elijah stared overly hard at him as he walked up. It was Lij's standard reaction whenever he saw Orlando as Legolas in the morning. "Don't turn around," Elijah whispered, staring meaningfully into his eyes.
"Why?"
"So I finally get to meet the Elf."
Orlando's breath caught in his throat. Viggo's voice was low-timbered, like the husk of a lover's voice after a night of passionate screaming. And it was slow, the words carefully forged as though Viggo wanted you to hear each word as a separate entity and savor it. Startled, Orlando turned around. His smile faded.
He had seen Viggo before. When he learned Stuart was to be replaced, Orlando had made it a point to look up Viggo's movies to learn more about his future co-star. But the Viggo he had seen in those movies wasn't this Viggo. This Viggo was...
"Aragorn," he said, awed.
Viggo stared at him a moment, as if he had been thinking the same thing about Orlando being Legolas. Then he smiled and it was a sexy, virile smile that tore Orlando's insides to shreds. "I'm attempting to be," he replied in that slow, husky voice. "What do you think?"
"I think--"
--I think you have made a movie in my mind, and it's not a porno, it's a romance--
"--you fit the bill quite perfectly," Orlando finished with a grin. "No one was ever cast better."
"You said that to Stuart," Elijah muttered at his elbow. Orlando jammed him hard in the ribs.
Viggo didn't seem to have heard. His eyes took a long leisurely course up and down Orlando. "I could say the same of you. I don't know how you look out of costume, but the transformation--"
"Is amazing," Orlando finished for him. He forced a bright smile. "You're right, of course, I don't look anything like this in real life. But it works, don't you think? I really am Legolas when I'm like this. Not me at all." Viggo looked at him a bit oddly, and Orlando felt the familiar panic bubbling up. He thrust out his hand. "We haven't been introduced yet. I'm Orlando. Everyone calls me Orli."
Viggo didn't take his hand so much as hug it. Orlando melted. "It's nice to meet you, Orlando." He couldn't even be disappointed that Viggo hadn't used his nickname. Not when the man continued to hold his hand after the obligatory shake had passed.
Looking into Viggo's steel blue eyes, Orlando decided he had never felt this way, this fascination. It was beyond butterflies in the stomach. It was beyond the swell of trumpets in the distance. This was--
"Hey, lover."
Viggo's hand retracted, leaving Orlando's to hang forlornly in the space between them. Orlando felt suddenly foolish. He let his hand drop as Dom slid an arm around his neck.
"I see you've met our new Aragorn."
Orlando did not miss the hint of tension in Dom's voice. It made him stumble with introductions. "Viggo, this is Sblom--Dominic. He's one of the Hobbits."
"We've already met," Dom said into his ear. Orlando shifted uncomfortably. He had never known Dom to be so clingy. "We filmed the Weathertop shots, remember?"
He didn't, actually, because Dom had never mentioned them. Now he was beginning to understand why. Orlando sensed a jealous confrontation coming up. Predicting them was a skill he had mastered long ago.
"I'd forgotten," he said smoothly. Worry and jealousy had dug small creases between Dominic's eyes. Wanting to forestall the inevitable blow-up for as long as possible, Orlando smiled at him in the boyish way he knew Dom could not resist. The arm around him relaxed. Dom returned the smile and might have kissed him then had Orlando not moved back a fraction.
Orlando returned his attention to Viggo and found the older man watching the two of them with curiosity. Orlando wondered what he saw. Viggo struck him as the type of person who gnawed on a problem until it was dead. The last thing Orlando needed was for Viggo to inspect his relationship with Dominic too closely.
"You're getting on with the rest of the cast all right?" Orlando asked politely.
Dom's fingers had begun to draw lazy circles against Orlando's neck in a deliberate attempt to remind Orlando of his presence. It worked, but it was also distracting Viggo. The man's eyes were glued to the movement of Dom's fingers against his skin.
"Met everyone else?" Orlando prompted.
Viggo met his eyes. He smiled slightly then, and Orlando felt suddenly stripped. He was right. Viggo had seen something that caught his interest and now he was hooked. Orlando didn't know whether to be thrilled or worried.
"You're the last one I've had the pleasure to meet," Viggo told him, nodding to include Dominic. "I'm looking forward to the months ahead. Peter has a good crew assembled."
"I rather like it," Dom said easily. To Orlando's exasperation, Dom nuzzled against his ear, murmuring loud enough for Viggo to hear, "Come away with me, Orli. I need to show you something."
He didn't, of course. It was a blatant attempt to show Viggo who owned whom. To his dismay, Orlando saw that it served only to amuse the older man. Viggo raised a hand to his forehead in a salute Aragorn would make. "Gentlemen, I shall see you later this afternoon, I'm sure."
"See you around," Dom said carelessly.
Orlando held Viggo's gaze. "'bye, Viggo."
He imagined he saw the barest glint of interest in Viggo's eye before the man strode away. But as Dominic no doubt intended, all thoughts of Viggo vanished as Dom pulled his face around and began to kiss him.
****************************
"Come on, Orli. You're blocking Lij's light, *again*. That's the third time in this shot."
Orlando stepped to the side, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. He let his eyes touch on Dom's irritated face then resignedly swung them away.
"For all your supposed "elven senses", you have the awareness of a bull," Dom complained.
Orlando said nothing. There would be another fight tonight. Orlando had seen it brewing all afternoon. When Dom was angry with him he became snippy and short. Just like now.
Orlando hated when Dom was this way. It made his stomach hurt. It didn't help his nerves either, when he glanced to the side and saw Viggo watching and listening to it all. Stressed, he rubbed at his eyes, then was forced to stand still as a make-up assistant repaired the damage he had done. "Sorry," he muttered.
"Aw, you were fine, Orli," Lij assured him. Sympathy was in his blue eyes. "Dom just thinks he's a future director, that's all."
"If I were," Dominic shot back, "half of you wouldn't be here, I can assure you that." His eyes fell meaningfully to Orlando.
Orlando just sighed. By the end of the day, he knew he'd be too exhausted to care about what an arse Dom was being in front of everyone. He pasted a pleasant, empty smile on his face and stumbled through the remainder of his scenes. By the time the light was fading, Dom had given up trying to pierce Orlando's oblivious exterior with his insults and was simply ignoring Orlando.
In the make-up trailer later that night, a shoulder rudely spun Orlando about. "Come over,"
Dominic muttered. "I'll make us dinner."
It wasn't an invitation to dine so much as a demand for confrontation. Still, Orlando had learned from experience that it was best to meet these things head-on, rather than delay the inevitable explosion.
When he came over to Dom's place, he was surprised to see that the dining room table was covered with linen. A full complement of silverware bracketed the napkins. Orlando turned in delight as Dom entered the room, carrying two steaming plates of food. But his smile faded when Dom said brusquely, "Sit down and let's eat this."
This was not a seduction or even meant to be a pleasant meal. It was all Orlando could do to force down his vegetables with Dom glaring across the table at him. Unable to take the silence any longer, Orlando pushed his plate aside.
"Enough of this, Sblomie. Say what you have to say."
"You want him," Dom said.
Orlando took a calming breath. "What makes you so sure of that?"
"I'm not fucking stupid," Dom retorted, shoving his own plate away. "If I hadn't come along you probably would have invited him into your trailer and blown him."
Orlando forced himself to keep his voice even. "Is that what you think?"
Dom's mouth twisted. "You've done it before, haven't you?"
He was referring to Sean, of course, the biggest mistake Orlando hadn't actually died from. Choosing his words very carefully, Orlando said, "What is it that you want from me, Sblomie?"
Immediately, he knew it was a question he shouldn't have asked. If truth be told, he didn't actually *want* an answer. But it was too late. The response he received made him cringe inside. Dom's face softened with a vulnerability Orlando could not take.
It made him shove back his chair and move to the other man's side. Before Dom could speak, before he could voice what Orlando was afraid to hear, he grabbed Dom by the shirt and pushed him across the table, scattering dishes and silverware. Glassware rolled off the table and broke. The bottle of wine they'd been sharing tilted over, spilling dark liquid like a shattered heart.
"Don't," Dom protestead as Orlando pushed him back and unzipped his jeans. When he spilled into Orlando's waiting hands, he moaned in frustration. "Why? Why do you always do this?"
Orlando did not have an answer for him. Wordless, he bent and took the heat of Dom into his mouth, setting a pace he knew would drive the other man senseless. Aided by familiarity and skill, Orlando brought his lover to the brink of orgasm, then pulled away. When Dominic began to calm, Orlando attacked him again, pulling fresh moans from his lover's throat. Over and over Orlando brought Dominic to the brink until he knew for certain that he had wiped conscious thought from Dominic's mind.
He drew back, avoiding the hands that reached for him, and stripped off his clothes. He smeared his fingers in the butter dish and slicked up Dom's straining flesh.
"Fuck me," he whispered, bending over the table. "Do it, Sblomie. Please."
Dominc groaned, too aroused to do anything but comply. He slid off the table and moved behind Orlando, bracing the slender hips with hands that shook. "This is really fucked up," he said hoarsely.
For a black moment, Orlando was afraid Dom would deny him. Then he felt the pressure of Dom's cock pushing into him and he knew everything would be all right. Orlando clenched his eyes shut and whimpered as Dom's swollen flesh stretched tissue that was still sore and tender from the previous night.
"I'm hurting you, aren't I?"
"Don't stop!" Orlando gasped, throwing a desperate look over his shoulder. To Dom's worried face, he pleaded, "Please don't stop now, you'll kill me."
"Ah, damn," the other man murmured, easing himself into Orlando until he was completely encased, "I can't deny you anything. Even hurting you."
Orlando didn't want to hear this. Didn't want any words at all. He pushed back with his hips, forcing Dominic deeper. As he'd hoped, Dom forgot about words and responded with his body. With an inarticulate curse, he began to piston into Orlando, striking Orlando's prostate with every thrust.
"Oh, Jesus--" Orlando moaned, pressing his face to the table cloth. Dom's thrusts slid him back and forth across the table, Orlando's erection rubbing beneath him. Fire burned his insides, but the pleasure was quickly overcoming it. He shuddered, felt the rippling waves of pleasure begin to overlap as his body reached its peak. Dom's fingers tightened on his hips, his strokes harder, faster. Orlando cried out against the cloth as pleasure wracked him. When Dom's hand pushed beneath him to grasp his erection, Orlando exploded instantly.
As he shivered in his release, the hard flesh moving inside him suddenly stiffened and pulsed. Warmth coated his insides. As it always did, the sensation of his lover orgasming made Orlando smile with relief. It would be all right now...
He waited until Dom withdrew, then he twisted around, scooting back so that he was lying full length upon the table. He pulled Dom up next to him.
Orlando curled himself around his exhausted lover, gently stroking his chest. Dominic clasped him lightly, his breathing harsh and unsteady. "Better now?" Orlando whispered.
What could have been laughter but sounded more like pain, rumbled up from Dom's chest. "Better?" he repeated. "You must be joking."
Orlando shut his eyes. He was glad he couldn't see Dom's face. He hugged Dom tighter, letting the warmth of the other man's body lull him into relaxation. "Don't spoil it, Sblomie. Please."
Dom did not say anything for a long time. As his breathing eased, Orlando began to fall asleep against him. A warm hand cupped the back of his head as darkness closed around him.
"Someday," Dominic whispered against his hair, "someone's going to show you how wrong all of this is, Orli. I hope, love, you'll be able to handle it."
Orlando wanted to reply, but found he didn't have the energy. It didn't matter. Dominic's words meant nothing to him. Orlando knew he would forget them in the morning. Smiling faintly, he allowed himself to fall freely into dreaming. *His* dreams, where nobody expected anything of him, and regret was steadfastly forbidden.
