Walk on By - part XII
Finally! Sorry for the delay...
WALK ON BY - XII
Author: Lottie Lenya
Type: RPS
Pairing: VM/OB
Rating: PG (R/NC-17 in later chapters)
Category: AU
Disclaimer: This is fiction, not based in reality - to the best of my knowledge Viggo Mortensen has never lived rough and Orlando Bloom was never part of the Constabulary.
Beta: Ana, who is not only a fabbie beta but also introduced me to a rather brilliant Portuguese band called Belle Chase Hotel!
A/N. This chapter is for Myr, ‘cos she’s lovely.
‘You can run, you fucking piece of shite but you can’t hide.’ As the blows began to fall on him, Viggo assumed the foetal position…
Sitting bolt upright, he woke up to find that Orlando was holding his hand and gently stroking his arm. Once he was sure Viggo was awake, Orlando turned the lamp on. Viggo was hot, sweating and nearly hyperventilating. Orlando passed him the basin and came and sat down next to him, rubbing his back.
“Calm down babe, it was only a dream…”
“But they were … they were…”
“I know what they were doing but you’re safe now…”
All the worries Viggo had been suppressing for the last few days came out in a rush.
“I’m here now, but for how long? It’s killing me. I’m getting used to being a person again, I don’t want to go back to being an animal. I’m nearly clean at last, I haven’t been this clean for years and it’s so good not to smell like shit…”
He was crying by now and trying to catch his breath. Orlando took him in his arms and just held him, letting him cry himself out. He gently laid Viggo down, covered him up, and was just about to return to the sofa where he had been half dozing and half watching TV when he felt a soft touch on his arm.
“Stay with me … please?”
Orlando blinked but got into bed. He looked at Viggo for a long moment before opening his arms and letting him snuggle up.
It was, he mused, going to be a very long night. Being very careful to keep his groin away from his bed partner, Orlando slept.
****
“Right mate, so you’re clear, you go to the dentist and you come straight back here yeah?”
Viggo rolled his eyes. “I leave the flat at 0800 hours, I walk to the surgery to arrive by 0830 and ring the bell three times…” He grinned. I know my feet were rotting away but my brain is still intact.”
“I sounded like your mum didn’t I?” Orlando grimaced.
“Yep, you did.”
“Tell you what, why don’t I just piss off to work and leave you to it eh?”
“Good idea and Orlando … have a good day.”
Still smiling, Orlando headed towards the tube. He’d had a few days off but he was itching to get back to work. From what the guv’nor had said, the Roxwell case had passed over to Vice, which suited Orlando just fine as it gave him a degree of detachment which, bearing in mind his domestic situation, was probably a very good thing.
He was greeted with a degree of enthusiasm that surprised him. Surmising that Bicknall was being a pain in the arse, he tentatively knocked his office door.
“Come on in, Orlando” he said when he saw who was poking their head round his door. “Mr Moreten doing okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine and dandy; so what’s been happening here?”
“Oh this and that, nothing very exciting, but you’ll find a pile of paperwork on your desk; get stuck in and don’t go AWOL this morning. Vice will want to see you…”
“See me, what about? D’you know?”
“The feeling seems to be that they’ve got the monkey but not the organ grinder.”
“Come again.”
“The guy Roxwell ‘allegedly’ eliminated was a small but essential cog in some rival set-up. Everyone is agreed, we don’t want a fucking nasty little turf war going on in our backyard.”
Orlando shuddered. “Fuck, no!”
“So, Vice reckon that they need to collar the brains behind the operation, get the pond life put away before arma-fucking-geddon kicks off.”
“So how am I supposed to stop it, ’guv?”
“Don’t be a plonker, D S Bloom. You’re not supposed to stop fuck nothing, they just want to pick your brains a little, I did warn them, your brain’s up your arse at the moment.” Orlando grinned; the guv’nor was on a roll this morning. “Now fuck off out of here and try and get that mess on your desk to a more manageable state.”
Orlando left the office with a broad smile on his face, much to the surprise of the rest of the team. Bicknall’s bad mood had been driving everyone up the wall yet it didn’t seem to have a noticeable effect on the Bloom-meister, as he was often referred to.
Sitting down at his desk, Orlando pulled a sheaf of papers in front of him and begun to peruse them. Having had George blow a gasket at him more times than he cared to remember, Bicknall’s griping had barely registered on the bad tempered Senior Officer scale. He wondered how Viggo was getting on with the tooth fairy…
****
“What the fuck have you been doing to let your teeth get into such a state?” Gary spoke without really thinking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such an unhealthy mouth.
“There’s two abscesses which your antibiotics are sorting out nicely, both teeth will need root canal work. In the meantime you’ve got let’s see, three, four, five teeth that need filling. I’ll do three of them now and put temporary fillings in the other two. We’ll sort them out next week.”
Gary couldn’t help but be fascinated by this mystery man of Orlando’s; the teeth had clearly been well looked after once upon a time.
“The rest of your teeth are heavily stained but I imagine my hygienist can sort that out for you, oh and there’s one tooth that is beyond saving. I’ll extract that last. It’s dead as a dodo, but fuck it must have hurt like buggery when it was dying…..”
Inside Viggo was cringing and embarrassed. He didn’t know what to say and all his insecurities came flooding back. Not knowing how to reply he shut his eyes as the tears began to leak out. He wondered when the humiliation would stop.
“Chin up cherub! There’s no point in crying over spilt milk is there? It could be worse, I could be charging your boyfriend for all this and believe me I’m not cheap.” Not even his best friend could accuse Gary of being tactful. “I’ll have him, legs akimbo in front of a room full of drooling artists before you can say Lucien Freud when I’ve finished with you…”
Viggo couldn’t help smiling.
“Now open wide cherub and I’ll give you a fucking big dose of local so I can start putting this right.”
Turning the radio up so that the sound of the asinine breakfast show host’s inane chattering filled the room, Gary donned his mask and protective goggles and set to work.
****
“Come and sit down D S Bloom”
Sam Brockley sat down opposite him and opened a notepad, she had always had a bit of a thing for Orlando, who she had briefly worked with in Immigration when they were both beginning their careers. She was now one of the bright young things who had enjoyed a meteoric rise through the ranks.
Orlando grinned at her.
“Thanks Sammie, so how’s tricks then?”
“Fucking terrible, darling! We have the beginnings of a god awful turf war on our hands and no one seems to be able to spot the elusive cunt who has ordered their troops into battle.” She sighed and lit a cigarette despite the plethora of No Smoking signs that adorned the room. Offering Orlando one, who took it, she carried on.
“It’s starring me in the face ‘Lan, but I can’t quite grasp it, know what I mean. Some fucker ordered Moreten’s death and I wanna know how the order got through.”
The officers sat in silence, smoking and pondering the events. Orlando’s brow was furrowed when he finally realised what had been starring them in the face all along.
***
“Right you are Viggo. Don’t eat anything for a couple of hours and try and avoid anything that requires a lot of chewing. And don’t for the love of heaven even think about toffees for the next few weeks.”
Viggo rose gingerly from the chair, his legs stiff and mouth swollen to the size of a tennis ball.
“Go and see the receptionist and make another appointment on the way out and I’ll see you next week.”
Viggo shuffled out to see Laura, the receptionist, who looked at him sympathetically.
“We’ll get you booked in and then I’m gonna send you home in a cab, love. You’re in no fit state to walk.”
Opening his mouth to object, Laura didn’t give him a chance.
“’S’alright, Orlando gave me a call about an hour ago and arranged it. That boy is so lovely, don’t you mess him about, else there’ll be a long line of women who will wanna give you a right good slapping.”
Viggo attempted to smile but his poor mouth wouldn’t let him, so he winked at Laura instead. Reflecting that this latest acquisition of Orlando’s was something of a studmuffin himself, Laura opened the appointment diary.
***
Orlando was pacing about the room.
“When we arrested Roxwell, that girl, Lou I think her name was, she threw herself at Mike and said ‘I’ll wait for you Mikey, whatever happens, I’ll be here.’ But I’m sure they exchanged a few words. What if she is the brains behind the operation.”
Sam looked thoughtful. “I do believe you’re on to something ‘Lan. I’ll send a couple of uniforms round to pick her up. Fuck. This could be the break we’ve been waiting for.”
“You want me in on it, or what?”
“Sorry, mate, I know it was your brainwave and all but this has got more to do with human traffic than drugs; your being there will only complicate matters. I’ll make sure Bicknall is aware of your role but that’s as far as it can go.”
Orlando rolled his eyes; when he had first joined the Force he had been first amused then annoyed at all the petty bureaucracies that went on. Now he was immured to them, what once would have wound him up, now just flew over his head.
“Good to see you Sammie, I’ll get back then, reports to type, papers to file, you know what I’m saying.”
Sam grimaced back at him and hurried off, leaving Orlando to slowly make his way back to work, his mind busy working over the ramifications of this new development
****
Viggo woke up in darkness. His whole face was in agony and for a moment he’d forgotten where he was. He heard the front door slam and sat up quickly. The sudden movement sent a fresh wave of pain shooting down his face and he moaned, thinking that it might be better to move slowly.
“Fuck it, mate.” The light flooded the room as Orlando switched the lamps on. “You look like you’ve been in the wars. What on earth did the tooth fairy do to you?”
Orlando was a bit shocked at the pale, wan face that met his concerned gaze. With his mouth still swollen and absolutely no colour in his face, Viggo looked like hell.
“Come on my old son, let’s get you to bed and I’ll bring you just the thing to make you feel better.”
“Can’t eat. Feel sick. Can’t chew. Gary said.”
“Don’t you worry about that babe. I had my wisdoms out a couple of years ago, I feel your pain. Come on, up with you and I’ll give it my best shot.”
Viggo couldn’t help the warm feeling that Orlando’s concerned face gave him; he enjoyed the feel of his hands when he helped him up and took him through to the bedroom. Felt a thrill when Orlando called him babe. He wondered.
Leaving him to get undressed, Orlando hurried out into the kitchen where Viggo heard much banging about and muffled swearing, followed by the ping of the microwave and a cry of triumph.
“Ha, knew I hadn’t thrown ‘em away”
When he came back he was carrying a bowl of cornflakes covered with hot milk and a straw.
“The hot milk makes the cornflakes go soggy so you can suck ‘em up through the straw. I put a shit load of sugar on but don’t tell the tooth fairy or I’ll never hear the last of it.”
Viggo grinned and took the proffered bowl, doing as he was told. To his surprise the cereal slipped down a treat. Beaming at him, Orlando took the bowl away and brought him back a cup of coffee, made just the way he liked with another straw.
“I’m gonna sit down here, Vig, and read the paper. Will I disturb you? I mean, would you rather I buggered off and left you alone to get some kip?”
Viggo took a sip of his coffee and adjusted his pillows. He couldn’t think of anything better than having Orlando on the bed with him.
“Please stay.”
Next time Orlando looked at him, Viggo was sleeping, the colour beginning to come back into his pale cheeks. He leant over and tucked a stray lock of hair out of the sleeping man’s eyes. Kissing his forehead very gently, he got up and looked back at the bed regretfully before he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
TBC
WALK ON BY - XII
Author: Lottie Lenya
Type: RPS
Pairing: VM/OB
Rating: PG (R/NC-17 in later chapters)
Category: AU
Disclaimer: This is fiction, not based in reality - to the best of my knowledge Viggo Mortensen has never lived rough and Orlando Bloom was never part of the Constabulary.
Beta: Ana, who is not only a fabbie beta but also introduced me to a rather brilliant Portuguese band called Belle Chase Hotel!
A/N. This chapter is for Myr, ‘cos she’s lovely.
‘You can run, you fucking piece of shite but you can’t hide.’ As the blows began to fall on him, Viggo assumed the foetal position…
Sitting bolt upright, he woke up to find that Orlando was holding his hand and gently stroking his arm. Once he was sure Viggo was awake, Orlando turned the lamp on. Viggo was hot, sweating and nearly hyperventilating. Orlando passed him the basin and came and sat down next to him, rubbing his back.
“Calm down babe, it was only a dream…”
“But they were … they were…”
“I know what they were doing but you’re safe now…”
All the worries Viggo had been suppressing for the last few days came out in a rush.
“I’m here now, but for how long? It’s killing me. I’m getting used to being a person again, I don’t want to go back to being an animal. I’m nearly clean at last, I haven’t been this clean for years and it’s so good not to smell like shit…”
He was crying by now and trying to catch his breath. Orlando took him in his arms and just held him, letting him cry himself out. He gently laid Viggo down, covered him up, and was just about to return to the sofa where he had been half dozing and half watching TV when he felt a soft touch on his arm.
“Stay with me … please?”
Orlando blinked but got into bed. He looked at Viggo for a long moment before opening his arms and letting him snuggle up.
It was, he mused, going to be a very long night. Being very careful to keep his groin away from his bed partner, Orlando slept.
****
“Right mate, so you’re clear, you go to the dentist and you come straight back here yeah?”
Viggo rolled his eyes. “I leave the flat at 0800 hours, I walk to the surgery to arrive by 0830 and ring the bell three times…” He grinned. I know my feet were rotting away but my brain is still intact.”
“I sounded like your mum didn’t I?” Orlando grimaced.
“Yep, you did.”
“Tell you what, why don’t I just piss off to work and leave you to it eh?”
“Good idea and Orlando … have a good day.”
Still smiling, Orlando headed towards the tube. He’d had a few days off but he was itching to get back to work. From what the guv’nor had said, the Roxwell case had passed over to Vice, which suited Orlando just fine as it gave him a degree of detachment which, bearing in mind his domestic situation, was probably a very good thing.
He was greeted with a degree of enthusiasm that surprised him. Surmising that Bicknall was being a pain in the arse, he tentatively knocked his office door.
“Come on in, Orlando” he said when he saw who was poking their head round his door. “Mr Moreten doing okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine and dandy; so what’s been happening here?”
“Oh this and that, nothing very exciting, but you’ll find a pile of paperwork on your desk; get stuck in and don’t go AWOL this morning. Vice will want to see you…”
“See me, what about? D’you know?”
“The feeling seems to be that they’ve got the monkey but not the organ grinder.”
“Come again.”
“The guy Roxwell ‘allegedly’ eliminated was a small but essential cog in some rival set-up. Everyone is agreed, we don’t want a fucking nasty little turf war going on in our backyard.”
Orlando shuddered. “Fuck, no!”
“So, Vice reckon that they need to collar the brains behind the operation, get the pond life put away before arma-fucking-geddon kicks off.”
“So how am I supposed to stop it, ’guv?”
“Don’t be a plonker, D S Bloom. You’re not supposed to stop fuck nothing, they just want to pick your brains a little, I did warn them, your brain’s up your arse at the moment.” Orlando grinned; the guv’nor was on a roll this morning. “Now fuck off out of here and try and get that mess on your desk to a more manageable state.”
Orlando left the office with a broad smile on his face, much to the surprise of the rest of the team. Bicknall’s bad mood had been driving everyone up the wall yet it didn’t seem to have a noticeable effect on the Bloom-meister, as he was often referred to.
Sitting down at his desk, Orlando pulled a sheaf of papers in front of him and begun to peruse them. Having had George blow a gasket at him more times than he cared to remember, Bicknall’s griping had barely registered on the bad tempered Senior Officer scale. He wondered how Viggo was getting on with the tooth fairy…
****
“What the fuck have you been doing to let your teeth get into such a state?” Gary spoke without really thinking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such an unhealthy mouth.
“There’s two abscesses which your antibiotics are sorting out nicely, both teeth will need root canal work. In the meantime you’ve got let’s see, three, four, five teeth that need filling. I’ll do three of them now and put temporary fillings in the other two. We’ll sort them out next week.”
Gary couldn’t help but be fascinated by this mystery man of Orlando’s; the teeth had clearly been well looked after once upon a time.
“The rest of your teeth are heavily stained but I imagine my hygienist can sort that out for you, oh and there’s one tooth that is beyond saving. I’ll extract that last. It’s dead as a dodo, but fuck it must have hurt like buggery when it was dying…..”
Inside Viggo was cringing and embarrassed. He didn’t know what to say and all his insecurities came flooding back. Not knowing how to reply he shut his eyes as the tears began to leak out. He wondered when the humiliation would stop.
“Chin up cherub! There’s no point in crying over spilt milk is there? It could be worse, I could be charging your boyfriend for all this and believe me I’m not cheap.” Not even his best friend could accuse Gary of being tactful. “I’ll have him, legs akimbo in front of a room full of drooling artists before you can say Lucien Freud when I’ve finished with you…”
Viggo couldn’t help smiling.
“Now open wide cherub and I’ll give you a fucking big dose of local so I can start putting this right.”
Turning the radio up so that the sound of the asinine breakfast show host’s inane chattering filled the room, Gary donned his mask and protective goggles and set to work.
****
“Come and sit down D S Bloom”
Sam Brockley sat down opposite him and opened a notepad, she had always had a bit of a thing for Orlando, who she had briefly worked with in Immigration when they were both beginning their careers. She was now one of the bright young things who had enjoyed a meteoric rise through the ranks.
Orlando grinned at her.
“Thanks Sammie, so how’s tricks then?”
“Fucking terrible, darling! We have the beginnings of a god awful turf war on our hands and no one seems to be able to spot the elusive cunt who has ordered their troops into battle.” She sighed and lit a cigarette despite the plethora of No Smoking signs that adorned the room. Offering Orlando one, who took it, she carried on.
“It’s starring me in the face ‘Lan, but I can’t quite grasp it, know what I mean. Some fucker ordered Moreten’s death and I wanna know how the order got through.”
The officers sat in silence, smoking and pondering the events. Orlando’s brow was furrowed when he finally realised what had been starring them in the face all along.
***
“Right you are Viggo. Don’t eat anything for a couple of hours and try and avoid anything that requires a lot of chewing. And don’t for the love of heaven even think about toffees for the next few weeks.”
Viggo rose gingerly from the chair, his legs stiff and mouth swollen to the size of a tennis ball.
“Go and see the receptionist and make another appointment on the way out and I’ll see you next week.”
Viggo shuffled out to see Laura, the receptionist, who looked at him sympathetically.
“We’ll get you booked in and then I’m gonna send you home in a cab, love. You’re in no fit state to walk.”
Opening his mouth to object, Laura didn’t give him a chance.
“’S’alright, Orlando gave me a call about an hour ago and arranged it. That boy is so lovely, don’t you mess him about, else there’ll be a long line of women who will wanna give you a right good slapping.”
Viggo attempted to smile but his poor mouth wouldn’t let him, so he winked at Laura instead. Reflecting that this latest acquisition of Orlando’s was something of a studmuffin himself, Laura opened the appointment diary.
***
Orlando was pacing about the room.
“When we arrested Roxwell, that girl, Lou I think her name was, she threw herself at Mike and said ‘I’ll wait for you Mikey, whatever happens, I’ll be here.’ But I’m sure they exchanged a few words. What if she is the brains behind the operation.”
Sam looked thoughtful. “I do believe you’re on to something ‘Lan. I’ll send a couple of uniforms round to pick her up. Fuck. This could be the break we’ve been waiting for.”
“You want me in on it, or what?”
“Sorry, mate, I know it was your brainwave and all but this has got more to do with human traffic than drugs; your being there will only complicate matters. I’ll make sure Bicknall is aware of your role but that’s as far as it can go.”
Orlando rolled his eyes; when he had first joined the Force he had been first amused then annoyed at all the petty bureaucracies that went on. Now he was immured to them, what once would have wound him up, now just flew over his head.
“Good to see you Sammie, I’ll get back then, reports to type, papers to file, you know what I’m saying.”
Sam grimaced back at him and hurried off, leaving Orlando to slowly make his way back to work, his mind busy working over the ramifications of this new development
****
Viggo woke up in darkness. His whole face was in agony and for a moment he’d forgotten where he was. He heard the front door slam and sat up quickly. The sudden movement sent a fresh wave of pain shooting down his face and he moaned, thinking that it might be better to move slowly.
“Fuck it, mate.” The light flooded the room as Orlando switched the lamps on. “You look like you’ve been in the wars. What on earth did the tooth fairy do to you?”
Orlando was a bit shocked at the pale, wan face that met his concerned gaze. With his mouth still swollen and absolutely no colour in his face, Viggo looked like hell.
“Come on my old son, let’s get you to bed and I’ll bring you just the thing to make you feel better.”
“Can’t eat. Feel sick. Can’t chew. Gary said.”
“Don’t you worry about that babe. I had my wisdoms out a couple of years ago, I feel your pain. Come on, up with you and I’ll give it my best shot.”
Viggo couldn’t help the warm feeling that Orlando’s concerned face gave him; he enjoyed the feel of his hands when he helped him up and took him through to the bedroom. Felt a thrill when Orlando called him babe. He wondered.
Leaving him to get undressed, Orlando hurried out into the kitchen where Viggo heard much banging about and muffled swearing, followed by the ping of the microwave and a cry of triumph.
“Ha, knew I hadn’t thrown ‘em away”
When he came back he was carrying a bowl of cornflakes covered with hot milk and a straw.
“The hot milk makes the cornflakes go soggy so you can suck ‘em up through the straw. I put a shit load of sugar on but don’t tell the tooth fairy or I’ll never hear the last of it.”
Viggo grinned and took the proffered bowl, doing as he was told. To his surprise the cereal slipped down a treat. Beaming at him, Orlando took the bowl away and brought him back a cup of coffee, made just the way he liked with another straw.
“I’m gonna sit down here, Vig, and read the paper. Will I disturb you? I mean, would you rather I buggered off and left you alone to get some kip?”
Viggo took a sip of his coffee and adjusted his pillows. He couldn’t think of anything better than having Orlando on the bed with him.
“Please stay.”
Next time Orlando looked at him, Viggo was sleeping, the colour beginning to come back into his pale cheeks. He leant over and tucked a stray lock of hair out of the sleeping man’s eyes. Kissing his forehead very gently, he got up and looked back at the bed regretfully before he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
TBC