ext_12430 (
roxann-ireland.livejournal.com) wrote in
fellowshippers2004-11-21 07:06 pm
Chicagoland, part 2
Title: Chicagoland (part 2)
Author: roxann_ireland
Rating: PG-13 for potty-mouth
Pairing: VM/OB
Summary: Viggo is stuck in a Chicago hotel, sick and sidelined in the middle of a film shoot. Orlando shows up to take care of him.
Disclaimers and such: Of course none of this is real, silly. I know the difference between reportage and fiction and trust you do as well.
_cee continues to provide both guidance and quarters for the jukebox. Part 1 here, more parts coming, I promise, if only because
_cee will be very disappointed in me if I don't finish it.
Oh, dear God, someone call the National Guard, the fire department, and the Office of Homeland Security: Orlando is bored. Viggo didn't roll his eyes, didn't sigh or drop his shoulders or let his head fall back in resignation, all warranted reactions as far as he was concerned, but still, somehow there was something in his face that made Orli tuck up his bottom lip and turn away.
"Do you want to watch TV?" Viggo asked after a moment, holding out the remote.
"No. There's nothing on," replied Orlando, taking the remote and turning it on anyway. He flipped morosely through the channels for about ten minutes, watching two old movies, some cartoons, an infomercial, and some sort of auto race all at the same time in 20-second intervals, while Viggo closed his eyes and tried to ignore the undifferentiated idiot squawk blaring from the box. These pills, good God, what were they? Elephant tranks? He drifted into a weird doze in which he could feel the sound from the television and the itch under his skin trying to work their way through the thick layer of felt in which he seemed to be wrapped, but he couldn't quite tell which was which. Then there was a thunk, and it seemed like maybe he should open his eyes for that.
The TV was off and the remote was laying on the floor off to the side, its back popped open and the batteries on the rug, as though it had been dropped. Or thrown. Orlando sat hunched on the edge of the bed. "Fucking shit, all of it. How can they have so much on and all of it complete fucking shit?"
Viggo squinted and blinked. How long had he been out? "That's why I never watch it."
"Yeah, 'cos you're so fucking brilliant,″ muttered Orlando, ″you just sit and watch your own brilliant thoughts float through your head."
"What?″
"Nothing."
"What the hell--?" Viggo sat up and reached for Orlando's arm, but the younger man pulled away. "I'm so fucking brilliant? What the hell was that?" He was trying to keep his voice level, but this petulant crap was like sand in his teeth. He looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes. He'd been asleep (sort of) for fifteen minutes. What the hell had happened in fifteen minutes?
"I came all the way out here to see you and you don't even care!"
Great. So much for I've come to take care of you. That had lasted all of—what? a half hour? Because everyone knew who took care of who in this relationship, didn't they? And they knew whose job it was to patch it all up. Being with Orlando had felt so strange at first, but sometimes now it felt so damn familiar, so deja-fucking-vu. He promised himself if this thing wound up in the shitcan along with all his other relationships, the next time around, he was going to get to be the high maintenance one. But right now, he had his role and this was his cue. "Of course I care. You know I do."
"Yeah, that's why I get here and get totally ignored, eh? You can't even be bothered to stay awake, for fuck's sake. I had no idea I was so boring."
Viggo threw up his red, cracked hands. "I'm sick! Remember the part about me being sick?" You self-centered little shit.
Orlando looked at Viggo's hands and his frown shifted from sour to concerned. "You really are sick, aren't you?"
Viggo could only stare at him, incredulous. "Yes! Why else would I be here? You said yourself I looked like shit—did you not notice, or was that just a general observation?"
"I though it was a sunburn or something. So you really are sick." Orlando crawled back over the bed to sit at Viggo's side. "I wasn't sure. In L.A. they're saying you got in a fight with the director and quit. The gossip columns are going completely apeshit. Ted Casablancas is about ready to come in his pants."
"They think I'm sulking?" Christ, what did he pay that damn publicist for if not to control this sort of bullshit. Stay inside, she'd told him, don't leave the hotel until your skin clears. The last thing you want is for the tabloids to get pictures of you like this. Yeah, much better to have them think he was some spoiled diva monkeywrenching the production for the satisfaction of his own inflated ego. All these years in the business, he'd made a point of being a professional rather than a "star". When he got back to Los Angeles, she had better have a damn good explanation or her tailor was going to have to let out all her pants to accommodate the new asshole he was going to tear her.
"It could be worse," Orlando pointed out, "they could be saying you're in rehab."
Well, thank God for the bright side, then.
Orlando took one of Viggo's hands in his, running his fingertips over the angry, flaking skin and deep, painful cracks. "So what happened to you?"
"Some sort of spontaneous allergic response to the special effects make-up."
"Does it hurt?" Orlando asked. Some of the cracks, like the ones between his fingers, were deep enough to bleed.
"Yeah," Viggo turned his arms up to show where he'd scratched open the insides of his elbows and heard the hiss of Orlando's in-drawn breath, "but it's not half as bad as the itch."
"What are they doing for it?"
"Creams, pills, an inhaler..."
Now the younger man looked alarmed. "Inhaler?"
"Yeah, I had some asthma-type symptoms the first couple of days."
"But you're all right now?"
"Not really, but I'm getting there. Hard to believe, but it's not have as bad as it was." He looked down at his hands, remembering when he'd barely been able to open a door. "Which is good, because the pills are almost worse than the allergy."
"Pills? What have they got you on?"
"I don't know, some sort of antihistamine." Viggo picked the bottle up off the nightstand and squinted at it. "Either that or whatever they but in the blow-darts on those nature shows. That's what it feels like, at least."
Orlando took it and laughed in recognition. "I remember when I was about 11, this kid I knew told us you could get high off of cold medicine. What he meant of course was cough syrup, but he didn't know and neither did we, so we bought a bottle of cold tablets and split it up between us. We got so totally trashed, man, but not, like, high you know? Just like fucked up, all staring and dry mouth and dizzy and shit--"
"Yep, that sounds about right." Eleven years old? God, he really hoped Henry had never done anything that stupid when he was a kid. He probably had. Not a subject that really bore thinking about just now. Might explain a few things about Orli though.
"A couple weeks later, the same kid comes up to us with a fistful of permanent markers and we told him to piss off."
"Probably a good idea."
"Yeah,″ said Orlando, repeatedly opening and closing the lid of the bottle, "I wonder what happened to him. Stupid git. Kid couldn't even manage to get a proper high. I bet he's sitting in his flat pouring rubbing alcohol into Orangina and calling it a screwdriver."
Viggo chuckled, suddenly feeling better, realizing just how long he'd been stuck in this room by himself.
Orlando switched to twisting the cap on the bottle round and round, listening to the clicking of the child-proof lid. "But don't they have those non-drowsy allergy pills or something?"
"I tried them but the first one made me feel like my heart was going to jump out of my chest--" that had been a grand evening, all right, pacing back and forth in his room, climbing the walls, he'd nearly jumped through the ceiling every time the phone rang, "--and the other, well, I could have dabbed it behind my ears for all the good it did me."
"Hmm, that sucks."
"Yep."
Clickclickclickclick, went the bottle, until Viggo finally took it away.
"Vig?"
"Mmm?"
"I'm still bored."
"Yeah, me too."
So, what the hell. Get dressed. He had a shower and the pills on board already, and if he and Orli stayed shut up in this room together, the night was going to end up like something out of Sartre. Hell is other people. Or sometimes just one other person and cable TV.
Viggo heaved himself up off the bed to go and stare blankly into the closet. His brain was running like a shitty car, dying at every intersection. ″Get dressed," he said to himself, repeating it over and over as though the words were a scrapyard starter motor, "get dressed, get dressed, get dressed." Somehow, he managed to pick out shirt and pants, both linen which he hoped wouldn't be too unbearable against his raw skin in the thick, muggy heat, and actually get into them before his brain stalled out again. "What...what was I doing?" he mumbled. "What next, what...?"
"Shoes, maybe?" suggested an increasingly amused Orlando.
"Um, yeah...shoes. And wallet. Where did I put my wallet?" He patted and fumbled through the pockets of a couple pairs of pants thrown over a chair. No luck.
Back to the closet to go through his jackets until Orlando relented and called to him, "Your wallet's on the dresser."
"Dresser? Where?"
"Other end, by the lamp."
"Oh, there it is." Viggo tucked the wallet into his back pocket. "OK...Oh! Key! Now, where's the key?"
"On the dresser," said Orlando, licking his lips to cover a smile, "right next to the wallet."
"Don't you laugh at me," growled Viggo.
"I'm not laughing at you," Orlando assured him, suppressing a laugh.
"Well, don't not-laugh at me either."
"I'm not! I'm not not-laughing at you. Or not not—whatever, at any rate." Orlando squinted in mock-confusion. "Did that sentence make any sense to you?"
"Yes, but I'm on drugs, which is probably why." Viggo gave his pockets a light, confirming pat. "OK. Wallet. Keys. Am I forgetting anything?"
"Shoes?"
"Don't you--" he pointed at Orlando, who held up his hands to signify innocence.
"I'm not laughing at you! Or not-laughing at you! Or not-not-not-laughing at you, or not-not-not-not-not---"
And now Viggo was laughing. "All right!" He kicked a pair of sandals out of the closet, stepped into them, and started towards the door. "We have shoes. Now, am I forgetting anything else?"
"Don't think so," said Orlando, bouncing up off the bed. "Where are we going?"
Viggo stopped, blinking in owlish confusion. "I don't know."
Orli sat back down. "Oh." He stared at Viggo for a moment and declared, "Christ, man, you are really fucked up!"
Viggo, rubbing his eyes with both hands, merely nodded.
"You know, we don't have to go out if you aren't up to--"
"No! No." Viggo sighed. "No, really, I do need to get out of this room before I lose my mind. Really. Fresh air will do me good."
"OK, where are we going then?"
"I don't know." Viggo sat back back down on the bed and let Orlando throw one arm around his shoulders and lean his head against Viggo's cheek. They sat quietly for a few minutes, neither of them moving. This was what he'd needed, respite from his claustrophobic misery, this comfortable, steadying weight pushing the tension out of him, a moment of peace with this lovely young man who was sitting so perfectly relaxed and still at his side. Orlando, when he wanted to be, could be so wonderfully quiet--
"So, are we going somewhere or not?"
--for very, very short periods of time.
"Yes, we're going, I just don't know where. Where do you want to go?"
"Well," Orli looked hopeful, "there are a couple of really great clubs and we haven't gone out dancing in, like, forever. We--"
"We are not going dancing." Viggo spoke quickly to head off the oncoming pout. "Look, even if I didn't look and feel like reheated death, there aren't going to be any dance clubs open at 6:30 on a Sunday."
Orlando flopped backwards and lay on the bed, clearly resigning himself to an evening of pallid, Sabbath-suitable entertainments.
"And," Viggo continued, "you will not be doing any dancing, wherever we do end up going. No dancing."
"Oh, c'mon Vig!" Orlando protested. "It's not like I--"
"No. Dancing."
Viggo had learned the hard way that Orli did not regard lack of an actual dance floor as any impediment to him shaking his ass when the mood struck. They'd been driving through the winding back roads on the east side of Lake Tahoe and stumbled across Manny's, a locals-only burger shack that catered to the staff of the nearby ski resort. Plywood walls and five beer taps—Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Hamms. Viggo ordered a Coke. Orlando got a chocolate shake ("Real ice cream! Cool!") and a burger basket with onion rings and Viggo got a burger basket with fries. The fries, it turned out, weren't french fries, but actual potatoes, sliced and fried on the grill alongside the burger. They were surprisingly satisfying, and the two of them sat munching away out of one another's baskets in quiet contentment until someone put a couple quarters into the jukebox. Led Zepplin came screaming out of the speakers and, without warning, Orlando jumped up from the table and started dancing, wiggling around like someone had dropped an ice cube down his back. Needless to say, Viggo refused Orlando's request for quarters when the song finished.
Ever since then, No dancing.
And also, since then, much pouting—like now, for instance. Orlando's shirt rode up just a bit as he lay on the bed with one despairing arm thrown over his face. Viggo poked a finger into the exposed belly-button and earned himself an irritable swat to the hand.
"Hey." Viggo poked him again. "Hey, Orlando."
Swat. "What?"
"How about a jazz club? Would a jazz club be OK?"
Orlando peeked out from beneath his sleeve. "Jazz club?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"Yeah," Orlando sat up and pulled down his shirt. ″That'll be OK."
Author: roxann_ireland
Rating: PG-13 for potty-mouth
Pairing: VM/OB
Summary: Viggo is stuck in a Chicago hotel, sick and sidelined in the middle of a film shoot. Orlando shows up to take care of him.
Disclaimers and such: Of course none of this is real, silly. I know the difference between reportage and fiction and trust you do as well.
Oh, dear God, someone call the National Guard, the fire department, and the Office of Homeland Security: Orlando is bored. Viggo didn't roll his eyes, didn't sigh or drop his shoulders or let his head fall back in resignation, all warranted reactions as far as he was concerned, but still, somehow there was something in his face that made Orli tuck up his bottom lip and turn away.
"Do you want to watch TV?" Viggo asked after a moment, holding out the remote.
"No. There's nothing on," replied Orlando, taking the remote and turning it on anyway. He flipped morosely through the channels for about ten minutes, watching two old movies, some cartoons, an infomercial, and some sort of auto race all at the same time in 20-second intervals, while Viggo closed his eyes and tried to ignore the undifferentiated idiot squawk blaring from the box. These pills, good God, what were they? Elephant tranks? He drifted into a weird doze in which he could feel the sound from the television and the itch under his skin trying to work their way through the thick layer of felt in which he seemed to be wrapped, but he couldn't quite tell which was which. Then there was a thunk, and it seemed like maybe he should open his eyes for that.
The TV was off and the remote was laying on the floor off to the side, its back popped open and the batteries on the rug, as though it had been dropped. Or thrown. Orlando sat hunched on the edge of the bed. "Fucking shit, all of it. How can they have so much on and all of it complete fucking shit?"
Viggo squinted and blinked. How long had he been out? "That's why I never watch it."
"Yeah, 'cos you're so fucking brilliant,″ muttered Orlando, ″you just sit and watch your own brilliant thoughts float through your head."
"What?″
"Nothing."
"What the hell--?" Viggo sat up and reached for Orlando's arm, but the younger man pulled away. "I'm so fucking brilliant? What the hell was that?" He was trying to keep his voice level, but this petulant crap was like sand in his teeth. He looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes. He'd been asleep (sort of) for fifteen minutes. What the hell had happened in fifteen minutes?
"I came all the way out here to see you and you don't even care!"
Great. So much for I've come to take care of you. That had lasted all of—what? a half hour? Because everyone knew who took care of who in this relationship, didn't they? And they knew whose job it was to patch it all up. Being with Orlando had felt so strange at first, but sometimes now it felt so damn familiar, so deja-fucking-vu. He promised himself if this thing wound up in the shitcan along with all his other relationships, the next time around, he was going to get to be the high maintenance one. But right now, he had his role and this was his cue. "Of course I care. You know I do."
"Yeah, that's why I get here and get totally ignored, eh? You can't even be bothered to stay awake, for fuck's sake. I had no idea I was so boring."
Viggo threw up his red, cracked hands. "I'm sick! Remember the part about me being sick?" You self-centered little shit.
Orlando looked at Viggo's hands and his frown shifted from sour to concerned. "You really are sick, aren't you?"
Viggo could only stare at him, incredulous. "Yes! Why else would I be here? You said yourself I looked like shit—did you not notice, or was that just a general observation?"
"I though it was a sunburn or something. So you really are sick." Orlando crawled back over the bed to sit at Viggo's side. "I wasn't sure. In L.A. they're saying you got in a fight with the director and quit. The gossip columns are going completely apeshit. Ted Casablancas is about ready to come in his pants."
"They think I'm sulking?" Christ, what did he pay that damn publicist for if not to control this sort of bullshit. Stay inside, she'd told him, don't leave the hotel until your skin clears. The last thing you want is for the tabloids to get pictures of you like this. Yeah, much better to have them think he was some spoiled diva monkeywrenching the production for the satisfaction of his own inflated ego. All these years in the business, he'd made a point of being a professional rather than a "star". When he got back to Los Angeles, she had better have a damn good explanation or her tailor was going to have to let out all her pants to accommodate the new asshole he was going to tear her.
"It could be worse," Orlando pointed out, "they could be saying you're in rehab."
Well, thank God for the bright side, then.
Orlando took one of Viggo's hands in his, running his fingertips over the angry, flaking skin and deep, painful cracks. "So what happened to you?"
"Some sort of spontaneous allergic response to the special effects make-up."
"Does it hurt?" Orlando asked. Some of the cracks, like the ones between his fingers, were deep enough to bleed.
"Yeah," Viggo turned his arms up to show where he'd scratched open the insides of his elbows and heard the hiss of Orlando's in-drawn breath, "but it's not half as bad as the itch."
"What are they doing for it?"
"Creams, pills, an inhaler..."
Now the younger man looked alarmed. "Inhaler?"
"Yeah, I had some asthma-type symptoms the first couple of days."
"But you're all right now?"
"Not really, but I'm getting there. Hard to believe, but it's not have as bad as it was." He looked down at his hands, remembering when he'd barely been able to open a door. "Which is good, because the pills are almost worse than the allergy."
"Pills? What have they got you on?"
"I don't know, some sort of antihistamine." Viggo picked the bottle up off the nightstand and squinted at it. "Either that or whatever they but in the blow-darts on those nature shows. That's what it feels like, at least."
Orlando took it and laughed in recognition. "I remember when I was about 11, this kid I knew told us you could get high off of cold medicine. What he meant of course was cough syrup, but he didn't know and neither did we, so we bought a bottle of cold tablets and split it up between us. We got so totally trashed, man, but not, like, high you know? Just like fucked up, all staring and dry mouth and dizzy and shit--"
"Yep, that sounds about right." Eleven years old? God, he really hoped Henry had never done anything that stupid when he was a kid. He probably had. Not a subject that really bore thinking about just now. Might explain a few things about Orli though.
"A couple weeks later, the same kid comes up to us with a fistful of permanent markers and we told him to piss off."
"Probably a good idea."
"Yeah,″ said Orlando, repeatedly opening and closing the lid of the bottle, "I wonder what happened to him. Stupid git. Kid couldn't even manage to get a proper high. I bet he's sitting in his flat pouring rubbing alcohol into Orangina and calling it a screwdriver."
Viggo chuckled, suddenly feeling better, realizing just how long he'd been stuck in this room by himself.
Orlando switched to twisting the cap on the bottle round and round, listening to the clicking of the child-proof lid. "But don't they have those non-drowsy allergy pills or something?"
"I tried them but the first one made me feel like my heart was going to jump out of my chest--" that had been a grand evening, all right, pacing back and forth in his room, climbing the walls, he'd nearly jumped through the ceiling every time the phone rang, "--and the other, well, I could have dabbed it behind my ears for all the good it did me."
"Hmm, that sucks."
"Yep."
Clickclickclickclick, went the bottle, until Viggo finally took it away.
"Vig?"
"Mmm?"
"I'm still bored."
"Yeah, me too."
So, what the hell. Get dressed. He had a shower and the pills on board already, and if he and Orli stayed shut up in this room together, the night was going to end up like something out of Sartre. Hell is other people. Or sometimes just one other person and cable TV.
Viggo heaved himself up off the bed to go and stare blankly into the closet. His brain was running like a shitty car, dying at every intersection. ″Get dressed," he said to himself, repeating it over and over as though the words were a scrapyard starter motor, "get dressed, get dressed, get dressed." Somehow, he managed to pick out shirt and pants, both linen which he hoped wouldn't be too unbearable against his raw skin in the thick, muggy heat, and actually get into them before his brain stalled out again. "What...what was I doing?" he mumbled. "What next, what...?"
"Shoes, maybe?" suggested an increasingly amused Orlando.
"Um, yeah...shoes. And wallet. Where did I put my wallet?" He patted and fumbled through the pockets of a couple pairs of pants thrown over a chair. No luck.
Back to the closet to go through his jackets until Orlando relented and called to him, "Your wallet's on the dresser."
"Dresser? Where?"
"Other end, by the lamp."
"Oh, there it is." Viggo tucked the wallet into his back pocket. "OK...Oh! Key! Now, where's the key?"
"On the dresser," said Orlando, licking his lips to cover a smile, "right next to the wallet."
"Don't you laugh at me," growled Viggo.
"I'm not laughing at you," Orlando assured him, suppressing a laugh.
"Well, don't not-laugh at me either."
"I'm not! I'm not not-laughing at you. Or not not—whatever, at any rate." Orlando squinted in mock-confusion. "Did that sentence make any sense to you?"
"Yes, but I'm on drugs, which is probably why." Viggo gave his pockets a light, confirming pat. "OK. Wallet. Keys. Am I forgetting anything?"
"Shoes?"
"Don't you--" he pointed at Orlando, who held up his hands to signify innocence.
"I'm not laughing at you! Or not-laughing at you! Or not-not-not-laughing at you, or not-not-not-not-not---"
And now Viggo was laughing. "All right!" He kicked a pair of sandals out of the closet, stepped into them, and started towards the door. "We have shoes. Now, am I forgetting anything else?"
"Don't think so," said Orlando, bouncing up off the bed. "Where are we going?"
Viggo stopped, blinking in owlish confusion. "I don't know."
Orli sat back down. "Oh." He stared at Viggo for a moment and declared, "Christ, man, you are really fucked up!"
Viggo, rubbing his eyes with both hands, merely nodded.
"You know, we don't have to go out if you aren't up to--"
"No! No." Viggo sighed. "No, really, I do need to get out of this room before I lose my mind. Really. Fresh air will do me good."
"OK, where are we going then?"
"I don't know." Viggo sat back back down on the bed and let Orlando throw one arm around his shoulders and lean his head against Viggo's cheek. They sat quietly for a few minutes, neither of them moving. This was what he'd needed, respite from his claustrophobic misery, this comfortable, steadying weight pushing the tension out of him, a moment of peace with this lovely young man who was sitting so perfectly relaxed and still at his side. Orlando, when he wanted to be, could be so wonderfully quiet--
"So, are we going somewhere or not?"
--for very, very short periods of time.
"Yes, we're going, I just don't know where. Where do you want to go?"
"Well," Orli looked hopeful, "there are a couple of really great clubs and we haven't gone out dancing in, like, forever. We--"
"We are not going dancing." Viggo spoke quickly to head off the oncoming pout. "Look, even if I didn't look and feel like reheated death, there aren't going to be any dance clubs open at 6:30 on a Sunday."
Orlando flopped backwards and lay on the bed, clearly resigning himself to an evening of pallid, Sabbath-suitable entertainments.
"And," Viggo continued, "you will not be doing any dancing, wherever we do end up going. No dancing."
"Oh, c'mon Vig!" Orlando protested. "It's not like I--"
"No. Dancing."
Viggo had learned the hard way that Orli did not regard lack of an actual dance floor as any impediment to him shaking his ass when the mood struck. They'd been driving through the winding back roads on the east side of Lake Tahoe and stumbled across Manny's, a locals-only burger shack that catered to the staff of the nearby ski resort. Plywood walls and five beer taps—Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Hamms. Viggo ordered a Coke. Orlando got a chocolate shake ("Real ice cream! Cool!") and a burger basket with onion rings and Viggo got a burger basket with fries. The fries, it turned out, weren't french fries, but actual potatoes, sliced and fried on the grill alongside the burger. They were surprisingly satisfying, and the two of them sat munching away out of one another's baskets in quiet contentment until someone put a couple quarters into the jukebox. Led Zepplin came screaming out of the speakers and, without warning, Orlando jumped up from the table and started dancing, wiggling around like someone had dropped an ice cube down his back. Needless to say, Viggo refused Orlando's request for quarters when the song finished.
Ever since then, No dancing.
And also, since then, much pouting—like now, for instance. Orlando's shirt rode up just a bit as he lay on the bed with one despairing arm thrown over his face. Viggo poked a finger into the exposed belly-button and earned himself an irritable swat to the hand.
"Hey." Viggo poked him again. "Hey, Orlando."
Swat. "What?"
"How about a jazz club? Would a jazz club be OK?"
Orlando peeked out from beneath his sleeve. "Jazz club?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"Yeah," Orlando sat up and pulled down his shirt. ″That'll be OK."

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Though I don't know how Viggo can stand large doses of it!
His cry of "I'm bored" reminds me alot of my teenage daughter, who wants ME to entertain HER! lol
Hope you continue on with this story!
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Really love this - the inner voice had me reaching for the tissues I was giggling so much....
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