NaNoWriMo - The Story So Far, Parts 33-36
33. Goodbye Pisces
With a smile, with a smile to the customer.
Viggo/Orlando, PG, 500 words
Orlando has been having an affair with one Viggo Mortensen since the day that the older man checked out On the Road from his library on a rainy Thursday afternoon.
Of course, the affair was only in Orlando's head. He was fairly certain that Viggo didn't even know his name, or wouldn't know it if he wasn't forced to wear a stupid nametag. He'd been through University, for crying out loud, he shouldn't be working anywhere that required a nametag. But such was the life of a librarian-- work your way through school, study your heart out, learn everything you can about your field, and end up working behind a desk for half of the day directing small children toward the Harry Potter books, and buried in the stacks for the other half, re-shelving the same damn Harry Potter books. And as if the nametag wasn't bad enough, there was the little ribbon that clipped to it. It said, "Ask me about the latest Harry Potter."
So when the American started bi-weekly visits to his library, it was a breath of fresh air. He never said anything to Orlando beyond a comment on the weather or the number of people in the library, but Orlando listened to every word, trying to place his accent, which was distinctly American but not regional. Viggo came in every Monday and Thursday and only ever checked out one book at a time.
He was apparently making his way through the modern classics, something of an oxymoron, Orlando had always thought when he was in university. But something about Viggo's eyes, the way he smiled when he walked in the door, the quirky little thing he did that actually involved sniffing the books intrigued Orlando. He read every book that Viggo returned, starting with the Kerouac and moving on to Salinger, Woolf, and Huxley.
Viggo worked through Hemingway, and Orlando read A Farewell to Arms, imagining himself in Italy during the first World War, Viggo's Henry his American hero. Viggo read Lord of the Rings and Orlando was the faithful Legolas to Viggo's Aragorn. Together, they waded through the best novels that Orlando had ever read. Every time that Viggo checked out a book, the world in which Orlando belonged to him expanded and the possibilities grew.
And then Viggo moved on to nonfiction. He checked out books on English roses, and Orlando became a gardener. He waded through thick tomes on modern magic, and Orlando learned about the power of ritual. Viggo explored American history, and Orlando became John Laurens to Viggo's Alexander Hamilton.
One Thursday afternoon, as Viggo was checking out a how-to book on home repair, he asked Orlando to dinner. He said that they might have a few things in common. Orlando looked down at Viggo's book on the counter, imagined building a house with him, and politely declined. He'd rather build the house in his mind and fill it with all of the people he and Viggo could have been.
*****
34. Happy Phantom
If I die today, I'll be the happy phantom.
Viggo/Orlando, PG, 500 words
The first night that Viggo slept in his new flat, he woke up at around 2:30 in the morning convinced that there was someone else in the room with him. He couldn't see anyone, but there was a slight chill in the air despite the warm English summer. Viggo even called out, certain that he wasn't alone. But no one answered, and Viggo eventually fell back to sleep. In the morning, he wrote it off as a dream.
The fifth night, Viggo woke up suddenly, again at 2:30, to see a figure standing directly over him. Startled, he yelled and moved quickly to turn on the lamp on his bedside table. When the room filled with light, the figure was gone, and the only sound in the room was that of Viggo's own rapid breathing. Again, he called out, but no one answered. He was alone.
He stayed awake on the sixth night. At 2:30, the figure actually appeared to him, soundless, hovering by the window, and Viggo shivered a little in the suddenly cool room. Viggo called out to the ghost, asked why it was there, what its name was, but the figure didn't answer and soon disappeared.
It happened like that again and again, Viggo waking up in the middle of the night to that presence in his room. It happened so often that Viggo eventually got used to his phantom, grew so accustomed to its appearances that soon he didn't even wake up for them anymore. That was when the ghost started appearing in the daylight.
At first, it was only when Viggo was painting. He'd settle in front of a canvas with a brush tucked into the corner of his mouth, and he'd catch the flicker of a shadow out of the corner of his eye. Viggo always ignored it, and the ghost started to linger, always watching him from a distance.
Eventually, the ghost would approach Viggo and stand silently behind him as he painted. The air was colder around the phantom, and Viggo started to wear sweaters when he painted. Once, Viggo even thought he heard the phantom hum in approval when he splashed a particularly bright orange stripe across the canvas. But Viggo just continued to paint.
And then, one day, the ghost walked through Viggo and stood, facing him, between Viggo and his canvas. It was the first time that Viggo could actually see the figures physical features, and he wasn't surprised to discover that it was a beautiful man with wildly curly brown hair and perfect teeth.
"Don't I frighten you?" the ghost asked.
Viggo considered that. "Why would you?"
"I'm a ghost. Most people are scared of ghosts," he answered.
"I figured that if you'd wanted to hurt me, you would have done it already," Viggo answered. "Who are you?"
"I died here," the phantom offered. "Fell off the roof, hit a pipe, broke my neck. My name is Orlando," he finished.
"I'm Viggo," he answered. "Nice to meet you."
*****
35. Hey Jupiter
Found your writing on my wall.
Billy/Dom, PG, 500 words
When they lived together in New Zealand, Dom was always fond of writing things on the wall in permanent marker. Don't forget to pick up milk, he'd write, or 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy. It annoyed Billy, mainly because Billy wasn't a big fan of defacing another person's property, but Dom always insisted that they'd just paint over it before they leased it again. Eventually, Billy just gave up fighting. By the time they moved out, the walls were covered in a rainbow of ink. It was the perfect document of their lives in New Zealand, and Billy actually found himself regretting having to leave the place behind.
Dom, meanwhile, kept up his strange obsession, although he did switch to pencil after Billy insisted that Dom couldn't go around writing on hotel walls with his Sharpie like some kind of strangely literate rock star. So Dom carried a blunt number two in his back pocket, and he'd write on any wall he could. He wrote Man U on the wall of a bathroom stall in The Ivy, God Save the Queen in a bar on Sunset Strip, and Nevermind the Bollocks next to the nightstand in the house Orlando shared with Kate.
When Dom moved to Hawaii, he broke out the permanent marker again, claiming that he'd put down a deposit and he'd write wherever he damn well wanted to. Need laundry detergent was written by the front door, Paint it Black in the hall next to the bedroom, and Every time I see you falling on the ceiling of the kitchen. He'd actually had to drag a stepladder into the room to do that.
Walking into Dom's house was like walking into a written history of Dom's mind: At turns, frightening and reassuring. It was the one thing about Dom that Billy could always rely on, no matter how his hair changed or who he dated or what jobs he took. Dom wrote it all down, Suicide blond by the bathroom sink and lines of dialogue from his show over the nightstand.
Billy didn't expect Dom to leave the Sharpie behind in Hawaii when he visited him in Scotland, but he'd hoped that Dom would at least switch back to pencil. Bill's house was, after all, half Ali's, and he was certain that she wouldn't appreciate random notes from Dom written over the toilet or next to the refrigerator.
Dom stayed with Billy for a week. It was the longest amount of time that Billy had ever known Dom to go without writing on a wall somewhere, but Dom not only refrained from writing in pen, he refrained from writing at all. They went to the cinema, hung out a pubs, watched a football game or two, and Dom never once scribbled so much as a letter.
At least, that's what Billy thought, until two weeks after Dom left, when he found Dom loves Billy scribbled on the back wall of his closet, hidden behind the jumpers.
*****
36. Honey
He liked my shoes, I kept them on.
Dom/Elijah, NC-17, 500 words
Elijah can't remember ever being so nervous before. It's actually a little ridiculous. The whole fucking situation is a little ridiculous. He's Elijah fucking Wood, for god's sake. Women line up to meet him, shake his hand, take his picture. He could bed any one of them, and he knows it. He's certainly had his share of them.
So it's a little weird that he should find himself driving up and down Hollywood Boulevard at 3 am on a Wednesday night. He passes the same group of young men over and over, and the same one catches his eye every time.
He's a little bit older than the other ones, certainly older than Elijah. He's got a mop of shaggy blond hair and a strange nose that makes the rest of his face look a little smaller than it should. He's wearing a pair of ratty jeans and a white tank top without a coat, despite the fact that it's early winter. The man is also wearing a pair of black Converse high tops with flames on the sides and, Elijah thinks, some writing on the white toes.
The seventh time, Elijah finally brings himself to stop the car, idling in a parking space just a few yards from where the group of men is standing. He takes a deep breath and steels himself, preparing to get out of the car, but before he can, the blond man approaches his passenger window and leans down.
"See something you like, mate?" he asks in a British accent. Up close, his nose is pink from the cold.
"Your... Your shoes," Elijah stutters. "I like your shoes."
The man smiles and lets himself into the car, sitting down in the passenger seat and turning one of the heating vents toward himself. "My shoes, eh?" he says, smiling. "For a hundred bucks, I'll keep 'em on while you fuck me." Elijah blinks. "I'm Dom," he adds, holding his hand out to Elijah.
"Elijah," he says, reaching out to shake Dom's hand, but the older man shakes his head.
"Payment in advance," he explains.
For a moment, Elijah is torn, but Dom looks at him and nods his head reassuringly, and Elijah reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of twenties, handing five of them to Dom.
"I'll make it good for you, baby," Dom says absently, counting his money before shoving it into the pocket of his pants.
He doesn't give Elijah head, Cock sucking not included, Dom says, but he does a little striptease, everything but the high-tops, that gets Elijah just as hard as Dom's mouth would have. Dom also proves to have wildly talented hands. And when he's on top of Elijah, whose cock is buried in Dom's ass, he does a little thing with his hips that drives Elijah wild. It's better than any sex Elijah has had for free. Dom is definitely true to his word, and Elijah knows he'll be driving down Hollywood Boulevard more often.
With a smile, with a smile to the customer.
Viggo/Orlando, PG, 500 words
Orlando has been having an affair with one Viggo Mortensen since the day that the older man checked out On the Road from his library on a rainy Thursday afternoon.
Of course, the affair was only in Orlando's head. He was fairly certain that Viggo didn't even know his name, or wouldn't know it if he wasn't forced to wear a stupid nametag. He'd been through University, for crying out loud, he shouldn't be working anywhere that required a nametag. But such was the life of a librarian-- work your way through school, study your heart out, learn everything you can about your field, and end up working behind a desk for half of the day directing small children toward the Harry Potter books, and buried in the stacks for the other half, re-shelving the same damn Harry Potter books. And as if the nametag wasn't bad enough, there was the little ribbon that clipped to it. It said, "Ask me about the latest Harry Potter."
So when the American started bi-weekly visits to his library, it was a breath of fresh air. He never said anything to Orlando beyond a comment on the weather or the number of people in the library, but Orlando listened to every word, trying to place his accent, which was distinctly American but not regional. Viggo came in every Monday and Thursday and only ever checked out one book at a time.
He was apparently making his way through the modern classics, something of an oxymoron, Orlando had always thought when he was in university. But something about Viggo's eyes, the way he smiled when he walked in the door, the quirky little thing he did that actually involved sniffing the books intrigued Orlando. He read every book that Viggo returned, starting with the Kerouac and moving on to Salinger, Woolf, and Huxley.
Viggo worked through Hemingway, and Orlando read A Farewell to Arms, imagining himself in Italy during the first World War, Viggo's Henry his American hero. Viggo read Lord of the Rings and Orlando was the faithful Legolas to Viggo's Aragorn. Together, they waded through the best novels that Orlando had ever read. Every time that Viggo checked out a book, the world in which Orlando belonged to him expanded and the possibilities grew.
And then Viggo moved on to nonfiction. He checked out books on English roses, and Orlando became a gardener. He waded through thick tomes on modern magic, and Orlando learned about the power of ritual. Viggo explored American history, and Orlando became John Laurens to Viggo's Alexander Hamilton.
One Thursday afternoon, as Viggo was checking out a how-to book on home repair, he asked Orlando to dinner. He said that they might have a few things in common. Orlando looked down at Viggo's book on the counter, imagined building a house with him, and politely declined. He'd rather build the house in his mind and fill it with all of the people he and Viggo could have been.
*****
34. Happy Phantom
If I die today, I'll be the happy phantom.
Viggo/Orlando, PG, 500 words
The first night that Viggo slept in his new flat, he woke up at around 2:30 in the morning convinced that there was someone else in the room with him. He couldn't see anyone, but there was a slight chill in the air despite the warm English summer. Viggo even called out, certain that he wasn't alone. But no one answered, and Viggo eventually fell back to sleep. In the morning, he wrote it off as a dream.
The fifth night, Viggo woke up suddenly, again at 2:30, to see a figure standing directly over him. Startled, he yelled and moved quickly to turn on the lamp on his bedside table. When the room filled with light, the figure was gone, and the only sound in the room was that of Viggo's own rapid breathing. Again, he called out, but no one answered. He was alone.
He stayed awake on the sixth night. At 2:30, the figure actually appeared to him, soundless, hovering by the window, and Viggo shivered a little in the suddenly cool room. Viggo called out to the ghost, asked why it was there, what its name was, but the figure didn't answer and soon disappeared.
It happened like that again and again, Viggo waking up in the middle of the night to that presence in his room. It happened so often that Viggo eventually got used to his phantom, grew so accustomed to its appearances that soon he didn't even wake up for them anymore. That was when the ghost started appearing in the daylight.
At first, it was only when Viggo was painting. He'd settle in front of a canvas with a brush tucked into the corner of his mouth, and he'd catch the flicker of a shadow out of the corner of his eye. Viggo always ignored it, and the ghost started to linger, always watching him from a distance.
Eventually, the ghost would approach Viggo and stand silently behind him as he painted. The air was colder around the phantom, and Viggo started to wear sweaters when he painted. Once, Viggo even thought he heard the phantom hum in approval when he splashed a particularly bright orange stripe across the canvas. But Viggo just continued to paint.
And then, one day, the ghost walked through Viggo and stood, facing him, between Viggo and his canvas. It was the first time that Viggo could actually see the figures physical features, and he wasn't surprised to discover that it was a beautiful man with wildly curly brown hair and perfect teeth.
"Don't I frighten you?" the ghost asked.
Viggo considered that. "Why would you?"
"I'm a ghost. Most people are scared of ghosts," he answered.
"I figured that if you'd wanted to hurt me, you would have done it already," Viggo answered. "Who are you?"
"I died here," the phantom offered. "Fell off the roof, hit a pipe, broke my neck. My name is Orlando," he finished.
"I'm Viggo," he answered. "Nice to meet you."
*****
35. Hey Jupiter
Found your writing on my wall.
Billy/Dom, PG, 500 words
When they lived together in New Zealand, Dom was always fond of writing things on the wall in permanent marker. Don't forget to pick up milk, he'd write, or 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy. It annoyed Billy, mainly because Billy wasn't a big fan of defacing another person's property, but Dom always insisted that they'd just paint over it before they leased it again. Eventually, Billy just gave up fighting. By the time they moved out, the walls were covered in a rainbow of ink. It was the perfect document of their lives in New Zealand, and Billy actually found himself regretting having to leave the place behind.
Dom, meanwhile, kept up his strange obsession, although he did switch to pencil after Billy insisted that Dom couldn't go around writing on hotel walls with his Sharpie like some kind of strangely literate rock star. So Dom carried a blunt number two in his back pocket, and he'd write on any wall he could. He wrote Man U on the wall of a bathroom stall in The Ivy, God Save the Queen in a bar on Sunset Strip, and Nevermind the Bollocks next to the nightstand in the house Orlando shared with Kate.
When Dom moved to Hawaii, he broke out the permanent marker again, claiming that he'd put down a deposit and he'd write wherever he damn well wanted to. Need laundry detergent was written by the front door, Paint it Black in the hall next to the bedroom, and Every time I see you falling on the ceiling of the kitchen. He'd actually had to drag a stepladder into the room to do that.
Walking into Dom's house was like walking into a written history of Dom's mind: At turns, frightening and reassuring. It was the one thing about Dom that Billy could always rely on, no matter how his hair changed or who he dated or what jobs he took. Dom wrote it all down, Suicide blond by the bathroom sink and lines of dialogue from his show over the nightstand.
Billy didn't expect Dom to leave the Sharpie behind in Hawaii when he visited him in Scotland, but he'd hoped that Dom would at least switch back to pencil. Bill's house was, after all, half Ali's, and he was certain that she wouldn't appreciate random notes from Dom written over the toilet or next to the refrigerator.
Dom stayed with Billy for a week. It was the longest amount of time that Billy had ever known Dom to go without writing on a wall somewhere, but Dom not only refrained from writing in pen, he refrained from writing at all. They went to the cinema, hung out a pubs, watched a football game or two, and Dom never once scribbled so much as a letter.
At least, that's what Billy thought, until two weeks after Dom left, when he found Dom loves Billy scribbled on the back wall of his closet, hidden behind the jumpers.
*****
36. Honey
He liked my shoes, I kept them on.
Dom/Elijah, NC-17, 500 words
Elijah can't remember ever being so nervous before. It's actually a little ridiculous. The whole fucking situation is a little ridiculous. He's Elijah fucking Wood, for god's sake. Women line up to meet him, shake his hand, take his picture. He could bed any one of them, and he knows it. He's certainly had his share of them.
So it's a little weird that he should find himself driving up and down Hollywood Boulevard at 3 am on a Wednesday night. He passes the same group of young men over and over, and the same one catches his eye every time.
He's a little bit older than the other ones, certainly older than Elijah. He's got a mop of shaggy blond hair and a strange nose that makes the rest of his face look a little smaller than it should. He's wearing a pair of ratty jeans and a white tank top without a coat, despite the fact that it's early winter. The man is also wearing a pair of black Converse high tops with flames on the sides and, Elijah thinks, some writing on the white toes.
The seventh time, Elijah finally brings himself to stop the car, idling in a parking space just a few yards from where the group of men is standing. He takes a deep breath and steels himself, preparing to get out of the car, but before he can, the blond man approaches his passenger window and leans down.
"See something you like, mate?" he asks in a British accent. Up close, his nose is pink from the cold.
"Your... Your shoes," Elijah stutters. "I like your shoes."
The man smiles and lets himself into the car, sitting down in the passenger seat and turning one of the heating vents toward himself. "My shoes, eh?" he says, smiling. "For a hundred bucks, I'll keep 'em on while you fuck me." Elijah blinks. "I'm Dom," he adds, holding his hand out to Elijah.
"Elijah," he says, reaching out to shake Dom's hand, but the older man shakes his head.
"Payment in advance," he explains.
For a moment, Elijah is torn, but Dom looks at him and nods his head reassuringly, and Elijah reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of twenties, handing five of them to Dom.
"I'll make it good for you, baby," Dom says absently, counting his money before shoving it into the pocket of his pants.
He doesn't give Elijah head, Cock sucking not included, Dom says, but he does a little striptease, everything but the high-tops, that gets Elijah just as hard as Dom's mouth would have. Dom also proves to have wildly talented hands. And when he's on top of Elijah, whose cock is buried in Dom's ass, he does a little thing with his hips that drives Elijah wild. It's better than any sex Elijah has had for free. Dom is definitely true to his word, and Elijah knows he'll be driving down Hollywood Boulevard more often.