Fic: Your Heart Is an Empty Room (lotrips, OB/IM)

[fox_confessor]

Title: Your Heart Is an Empty Room
Recipient: dancingbarefoot
Pairing: im/ob
Rating: R
Summary: Many different types of homecomings
Post-reveal Notes: Thank you to msilverstar and elouisa for the beta. The fic is based on Death Cab for Cutie’s "Your Heart Is an Empty Room." Pinch hit for 2009 slashababy.



i. how it ages when you’re away

Orlando stepped from his mother's London flat into the garden, softly pulling the door closed to and taking a deep breath at the sound of the lock clicking into place behind him. The air was cold but felt good after being closed up inside for so long, though he had to remind himself that it had only been two days so far. He tightened the scarf around his throat, tugging on its fringed end, and jammed his hands into his pockets, his fingers curling around his mobile. He wouldn’t be missed for a few hours, his mother busy entertaining old friends who had already had their fill of fussing over Orlando and his sister; though when Samantha had finally escaped to their mother’s bedroom, claiming a headache, and he’d slipped out the back door, he hadn’t been sure where to go.

Coming home for Christmas, sleeping in the same room as he had when he’d been in drama school, was strange, like some kind of weird regression. He couldn’t help but think it would have all been easier at the house in Canterbury that had always felt less than a home. At night, he stared at the same crack in the ceiling that had always been there, weighing the pro’s and con’s of having a wank before he drifted off. It held less appeal at nearly thirty-three than it did at twenty, along with the sound of his sister’s snores across the hall, the pair of tiny dogs his mother perpetually kept, and the dusting of antiques and china that he was in constant danger of breaking with his clumsiness. His mother’s frustrated chorus of be careful Orlando was the sound of his childhood and he thought that maybe he had avoided it, avoided her and all of what coming home meant, for longer than was probably healthy. Looking over his shoulder before he turned and walked away, Orlando thought that perhaps he shouldn’t have come even as he thought about how good it was to be home.

ii. you don't know what now to do

Orlando hated industry parties. Standing off to the side, pretending to be intensely interested in the pop art that littered the walls like graffiti, he felt like the gangly teenager he had once been and, after another three nights beneath his mother’s roof, he didn’t need much help in that department. Stepping outside onto the narrow balcony, he fumbled with a bummed cigarette held carelessly between his fingers and a borrowed light. He’d given smoking up months ago but it gave his hands something to do, his mouth. From where he stood, stamping his feet against the cold, he could watch as Samantha worked the room in a way he found shocking, surprised with himself that he could still be shocked at all.

She had been the one to suggest they come at all, promising that it would be a lark and he’d laughed at that, asking if she’d got lost in a Wodehouse novel. It was a going away party for the director who had passed over Orlando at his first audition but had given Samantha her first real acting job. He was also the first man Orlando had fucked after he’d graduated from kissing fellow actors, though Samantha hadn’t known that. It was long enough ago and he’d been drunk enough then that he had to squint now to see what the attraction had been. He didn’t remember people like he thought he might or should but pretended to anyways, and it was almost always enough, if for them rather than him.

Hours later, long after he’d watched his sister tumble into a cab, waggling a finger at him for staying behind, Orlando had pressed the guest of honor against the shiny stainless steel counter in the kitchen and kissed him hard. He had tasted like cloves and cheap American beer—like Elijah—and Orlando had pressed harder, seeking out with tongue and curious fingers something he knew or thought he could remember, if only vaguely. Something—some smell, or sound, or emotion—that would take him back to what Elijah had been for him. What his time with Elijah in New Zealand had been for him--sun and heat at Christmas, Dominic and Billy singing every Travis song they knew, loudly and at the top of their lungs, riding horses and playing like children. He pushed a little harder, his fingers curling into fists as he chased down what he knew he could never touch again. They only stopped at the sound of a throat clearing and a mild voice that sounded surprised then amused, punctuating his greeting with a laugh.

"Ian," Orlando said, dragging his hands away as if caught stealing from the cookie jar and jamming them deep into his pockets. For a moment the world seemed to tilt on its axis and he wondered if he’d conjured Ian out of thin air, a fulfillment of some genie’s wish. New Zealand had been about him, too. More often than he was ever able to admit, New Zealand had been about Ian.

"Please don’t stop on my account."

"How are you?"

"Fine, fine. Yourself?"

Ian was looking at him expectantly down his long nose and Orlando couldn’t think of anything to say or do, how to answer. He rose up and down on the heels of his shoes, his cheeks burning. “I’m good,” he finally squeaked out, feeling impossibly young and stumbling, as he had been when he’d first met Ian, when he’d first begged to hear about working with the RSC. When he’d had to choke back the words to beg for a kiss and more.

Orlando stumbled out of the house as soon as it didn’t seem churlish to do so and walked the streets again, cursing the cold and his restlessness and life in general, though he felt guilty about the last. It wasn’t as if he was struggling, or that he ever had really or ever really would; in fact, sometimes he felt cheated because fame had come so easy. There were other things, though, that he’d lost in exchange, tumbling into beds, jumping off buildings, falling in love. It’d been a trade off. Everything was a trade off.


iii. so many possibilities to not be alone

Orlando stood on the front step for nearly five minutes, his hand poised to knock, while he gathered his courage. He wasn’t sure he would be welcome despite the invitation to drop by any time. He’d learned long ago that those sort of easy invitations had only been true when he had been younger.

"Hi," he said when the door had swung open, grinning and blushing at the same time to have caught Ian barefoot and ruffled. He fished for something else to say but came up empty-handed, and was left tapping the toe of first one foot and then the other against the concrete step, feeling a bit like a boy scout offering chocolate bars for sale.

"This is certainly unexpected." Orlando took a step back before Ian beckoned him forward, his eyes crinkling in the corners, bright with mischief. "Come in, my boy."

"I don’t want to impose."

"Nonsense. I was just...." Ian let his voice trail off. He turned to disappear back inside his house, leaving Orlando to follow. Orlando looked up and down the quiet street before he carefully wiped the soles of his shoes onto the mat and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He’d been here only once before, some years ago, after everything that had happened in New Zealand. He’d been seeking advice that time, on moving to Los Angeles and chasing roles. This time he couldn’t begin to say what had led him to Ian’s doorstep, other than he felt it was time, in some sense. It was due.

Stepping down the narrow hallway, Orlando unwound the scarf from his neck and unzipped his coat. From deep inside his pocket came the strange vibrating sound of his phone and he pulled it out, shutting it off without trying to see who was calling though he couldn’t help but to recognize the number of his publicist. He had a moment of panic about where or how he’d been photographed—or should be photographed--and with whom before with some effort he pushed the thought aside, mumbling an apology that Ian couldn’t possibly hear for the distraction, before he stepped across the threshold and into the small sitting room.

Ian waved his hand toward his couch and the discarded newspapers and magazines that lay crumpled on the floor. Stained teacups and plates with the remains of some small meals littered the low table in front it, along with a book, its spine broke and the margins covered with Ian’s spiky handwriting. Orlando had to resist picking it up to read what had so inspired Ian to desecrate its pages.

"I’ve been having a bit of a holiday," Ian said, sounding rather pleased with himself.

"I should have phoned first."

"I said this was unexpected, Orlando, but certainly not unwelcome."

There some note in Ian’s voice--warm in its smugness, inviting in its warmth--that made Orlando nervous, unsettled. He took a circuit around the room, his long fingers dancing over picture frames and curios, his eyes lingering on the artwork that Ian must have been collecting for years, some of which Orlando even recognized from trips to obscure museums with his father when he’d been but a boy, and then another go 'round before Ian caught his hand and held onto him for a moment.

"You didn’t come just to wish me happy holidays, I think."

"I don’t know."

"Things are going well for you. Or so I’ve been told."

"Viggo?"

"Yes, and Dominic as well."

Orlando pulled his hand away gently and dragged his fingers through his hair. He found he couldn’t look at Ian, found himself looking instead for a way out. "I haven’t spoken to him in ages."

"And so it goes. He keeps up with you, certainly, if only to indulge me."

"I liked it better, I think, when we kind of lived in each others’ back pockets, you know?"

"We change, as someone famous once said, whether we like it or not." Ian looked over his shoulder, his smile warm but his eyes distant, his mind tripping down paths that Orlando knew he could never follow. "Change is a part of life, Orlando," he finally said, his voice so reminiscent of Gandalf’s that Orlando longed for the ridiculous wig and poncy costume of Legolas, for surfing with Billy and playing cops and robbers in the woods with Elijah and Dominic. "Of course, you know that, or at least you’re learning it. People do come and go."

Orlando moved close to Ian, put his hands on Ian’s waist and rested his forehead against the nape of Ian’s neck. The house was quiet and Orlando counted off the seconds with the heavy pendulum of the large clock in the entry before he found anything he wanted to say to that. "I don’t like that I’ve become one of them, someone who comes and goes."

"It’s the price for moving forward, I’m afraid." Ian turned in Orlando’s arms, cupped his hand over Orlando’s cheek and Orlando leaned into him, closing his eyes. "Of course, there’s a price for standing still as well."

"Which is worse?"

"Are you asking?"

Orlando shook his head, his eyes still closed, afraid now, rather than hesitant, to look at Ian, afraid that he’d find disappointment he felt reflected back to him, or something worse. When the first press of a kiss came, it surprised him into opening his eyes. Ian’s face was blurry, Orlando’s eyes unfocused, before he snapped them shut and pressed his lips tight against Ian’s. Ian’s hands found Orlando’s waist, his arms, his back, before he took Orlando’s head between his hands and tipped him closer, licked across Orlando’s lower lip and kissed him harder.

"You have to take what you can, Orlando," Ian muttered against Orlando’s throat and Orlando gave a noise that was somewhere between a whimper and a moan. "Give everything you have while you can."


iv. you knew you were finally free

On the plane headed back to Los Angeles, Orlando leaned his head against the thick glass of the window and watched the changing patterns of the land fifty thousand feet beneath them. In his hand, his thumb holding his place, was a copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, its margins littered with Ian’s thoughts and now his own. His iPod had long ago lost power but he kept his head phones on, discouraging conversation or requests for autographs.

He was glad to be heading home, he thought somewhere above Kansas, and sad to be leaving. He already missed his mother and Samantha. He couldn’t wait to sleep in his own bed. He was ready for whatever would come, the taste of Ian buoying him up, his words giving him courage.